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It's almost a year since I stayed in the Omoroi hotel during my visit there.

Threw up in the bathroom after a New Year's party.

God help the poor victims there.

Indeed. Have they made a better determination on who did it yet? Are we edging towards war between India and Pakistan at this point?

India is certainly claiming (well, according to the BBC Breakfast News) that it is likely the Gunmen came through Pakistan, and appear to have training superior to your average Terrorist.....

Whether this actually holds any water or is just paranoia/wishful thinking I don't know.

Pakistan denies their government is involved but Indian media reports some of the gunmen were Pakistani.

The Pakistani foreign minister is in India and has condemned the attack. Their head of intelligence is on his way to help with the investigation.

So short answer is it seems not.

Pakistan is the kind of nation where various state power groups -- the military and intelligence -- are not under the full control of the government.

Therefore it is possible that the gunmen were helped by state resources without any official involvement.

I read an article the other day that says while Pakistan condemns the US air strikes over the border from Afghanistan, or significantly improving accuracy and intelligence on the targets is unlikely without the cooperation of their government. I can't say for sure it's true, but I would believe that guy knows what he's talking about more than I do.

Oh, and don't forget, the US government formally condemns torture.

I am pretty sure I read somewhere that a Pakastani Terrorist Group was taking the credit for this one. They might not have even been Pakastani.

But my understanding is that Hindus and Muslims have a really tense relationship in that country and that sometimes things explode into violence. Not this bad, small skirmishes really. But this seems to be a coordinated military operation.

The news here last night said they came in by largish (what appeared to be) inflatable boats, then showed the aforementioned boats.

But from where?
If they were already in India why not just drive several cars in?
The boats were no way big enough to have come from Pakistan, was a larger boat off shore?

Dreadwinter wrote:I am pretty sure I read somewhere that a Pakastani Terrorist Group was taking the credit for this one. They might not have even been Pakastani.

But my understanding is that Hindus and Muslims have a really tense relationship in that country and that sometimes things explode into violence. Not this bad, small skirmishes really. But this seems to be a coordinated military operation.

They weren't likely sponsored by Pakistan, at least not in the short term. They may have been trained by Pakistani intelligence groups, but holding them responsible for the strike would be like holding the US responsible for...well...just about every militant operation in the ME.

As for Hindus and Muslims having a tense relationship: its a bit more complicated than that. Hinduism is not a religion in the sense which most Westerners nominally think of it. There isn't really a centralized dogma, or primary holy text. Different sects are free to pick and choose from the tradition as they see fit. It is religion a la carte. This means that there isn't the same kind of 'Imperial Struggle' that exists between Islam and Christendom; especially considering that Hinduism has never really served to push back any of the ancient Muslim empires.

As such, I expect that the motivation for this attack may have been more about the increasing ties between India, and the apostate West than any inherent tension between Hindus and Muslims.

Initially they seemed to be after Westerners but is soon devolved into a shoot everyone farce.

There will be alot of Indan severely pissed off at hardline Muslims in India (and elsewhere), even the 'regular' muslims because there are sure to be attacks back against the muslim community (likely just what the terrorists wanted).

From what I heard they were specifically after Americans and British. If true, that seems to tie it to Islamic fundamentalist anger over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I'm not sure that was necessarily the motivation of the attack, so much as it was a hedge on future demands. The idea being that holding Americans or Brits would tie the hands of the Indian government. Of course, when the commandos breached that was proven to be a sore miscalculation.

It's really interesting that this happened at the same time as the troubles in Thailand and the increase in Somali pirate activity. Not that I think they are linked, but the timing seems engineered to create a critical mass of press coverage with one message: Stay away westerners!"

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:The news here last night said they came in by largish (what appeared to be) inflatable boats, then showed the aforementioned boats.

But from where?
If they were already in India why not just drive several cars in?
The boats were no way big enough to have come from Pakistan, was a larger boat off shore?

There was very brief report about a Pakistanti freigher being held off the coast of Mumbai but I never heard another word about it. Did they let it go? Hush it up? I dunno.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Initially they seemed to be after Westerners but is soon devolved into a shoot everyone farce.

There will be alot of Indan severely pissed off at hardline Muslims in India (and elsewhere), even the 'regular' muslims because there are sure to be attacks back against the muslim community (likely just what the terrorists wanted).

Of the 155 dead (as of now) only like 10 were foreigners. So yeah. Even the most hard line 'death to the great Satan' extremists will have a hard time justifying this attack. I've read that Al Qaida has lost a lot of support in the Islamic world because for all their talk about opposing the US, Europe and Israel they've killed a LOT more Muslims.

warpcrafter wrote:It's really interesting that this happened at the same time as the troubles in Thailand and the increase in Somali pirate activity. Not that I think they are linked, but the timing seems engineered to create a critical mass of press coverage with one message: Stay away westerners!"

But the Thai protestors are peaceful. Apparently they're occupying the airport, listening to pop songs and not doing any damage. Not the same thing at all.

But yeah, for a lot of westerners the message they're getting is foreign places=bad.

The Thai protestors want their party in power.

The Somalis want money.

Incidents like Mumbai (if it is not Al Qaeda) are about local disputes boiling over, and tourists getting targetted for the publicity and to damage the economy.

In 10 years we may hear about Chinese tourists being hit because there are going to be a lot more of them.

UPDATE: BBC now says they came ashore from an Indian freighter they hijacked. they killed the crew.

News I'm getting says that the terrorists killed approx. 6 Americans out of 195 dead and 295 wounded. If they were going after Americans, they cocked it up big style. They should have gone after all the hippies down in Goa. It appears from the news (take it for what it's worth) that the fighting centered, initially, around some kind of Jewish Center. Prehaps they were after Jews?

Frazzled wrote:Indeed. Have they made a better determination on who did it yet? Are we edging towards war between India and Pakistan at this point?

No. It is clear this is not an action by Pakistan, but terrorists from Pakistan. It as been claimed some of the terrorists may be British passport holders, yet likewise the Uk is not involved.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:UPDATE: BBC now says they came ashore from an Indian freighter they hijacked. they killed the crew.

Interesting, that opens up a whole new layer of possibilities, including: Indonesia, Somalia, and the Philippines.

Though I'm still leaning towards Kashmiri separatists; they have a long history of attacking Mumbai. There's also the Naxalites, but they haven't been particularly active for some time. SIMI could also be a culprit, but I don't see why they would need a ship to launch the attack.

NY Times has a great op-ed "What they Hate About Mumbai". With it's film industry, easy money, legions of migrants, foreigners and laid-back ways Mumbai basically has everything religious extremists hate. New York, New Orleans and Hollywood all rolled into one.

It's a good read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/opinion/29mehta.html?_r=1

BBC has been talking about Kashmiri seperatists training them, apparently one of the prisoners has already talked.

I bet he's already talked. One thing about a pissed-off Indian, they cease ALL feth ing-about. When it's game time, it's A-game time. Unfortunately for anyone trying to get anything done that involve them; you damn nar have to get them to a killing frenzy to get them to do a dman thing at all.

grizgrin wrote:I bet he's already talked. One thing about a pissed-off Indian, they cease ALL feth ing-about. When it's game time, it's A-game time. Unfortunately for anyone trying to get anything done that involve them; you damn nar have to get them to a killing frenzy to get them to do a dman thing at all.

There is an unfortunate, and unintended, irony in this statement.

glad I could entertain, dogma.