India Says U.S. Has Given O.K. To Strikes Into Pakistan if Islamabad fails To Assist With Mumbai

The United States has set the stage for punitive internationally-backed strikes by India against terrorist camps in Pakistan, if Islamabad does not act first to dismantle them, by rejecting President Zardari’s alibi that non-state actors were responsible for the last week’s carnage in Mumbai.

The Times of India 

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Related:
 Banned Pakistani Militant Leaders Believed Orchestrated Mumbai

U.S. Messge to Pakistan: Battle Terror, Not India

Zardari Says Pakistan “In No Way” Responsible for Mumbai Attacks

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari denied his nation was involved in last week’s deadly attacks on Mumbai, India, and told CNN on Tuesday he’s seen no evidence that a suspect in custody is a Pakistani national as Indian officials claim.

CNN
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“I think these are stateless actors who have been operating all throughout the region,” Zardari said on CNN’s “Larry King Live” in an interview set to air Tuesday night. “The gunmen plus the planners, whoever they are, [are] stateless actors who have been holding hostage the whole world.”

At least 179 people were killed when a band of gunmen attacked 10 targets in Mumbai on Wednesday night, triggering three days of battles with police and Indian troops in the heart of the city — the hub of India’s financial and entertainment industries. Most of the deaths occurred at the city’s top two hotels: the Oberoi and the Taj Mahal.

Above: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari says he believes the Mumbai attackers were “stateless actors.”

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http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/12/02/pa
kistan.zardari.lkl/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Muslims — India’s new ‘untouchables’

The condition of the country’s Muslims has deteriorated, and the world has overlooked the nation’s problems.

By Asra Q. Nomani
The Los Angeles Times
December 1, 2008

The news of the attacks in Mumbai eerily took me back to a quiet morning two years ago when I sat in Room 721 of the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel, reading the morning newspaper, fearing just the kind of violence that has now exploded in the city of my birth. The headlines recounted how the socioeconomic condition of the people of my ancestry, Muslims in India, had fallen below that of the Hindu caste traditionally called “untouchables,” according to a government report.

“Muslims are India’s new untouchables,” I said sadly to my mother, in the room with me. “India is going to explode if it doesn’t take care of them.” Now, indeed, alas it has. And shattered in the process is the myth of India’s thriving secular democracy.

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entary/la-oe-nomani1-2008dec01,0,4752.story

NATO Tells Pakistan “We Need Your Army In Tribal Areas”

Pakistan must continue military operations against militants in its tribal regions despite rising tensions with India following the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Nato officials said on Monday.

“We hope Pakistan’s efforts (against the insurgents) are not diminished as a result of what happened” in Mumbai, Nato spokesman James Appathurai told reporters.

He made the comments as reports indicated that both Pakistan and India might send troops to their common border.

Nato which is fighting a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is concerned that a redeployment of Pakistani troops in the east of the country could mean reduced Pakistani military action against militants in the frontier region with Afghanistan.

Speaking ahead of a meeting of the alliance’s 26 foreign ministers in Brussels, Mr Appathurai said the new Pakistani government had shown it was determined to fight insurgents in the northern part of the country.

“This government is embracing responsibility for fighting extremism,” the spokesman said, adding: “It is Nato’s assessment that these operations are robust.”

“Nato believes that the success of Pakistan in increasing pressure on the militants over the last few months has been very valuable,” he said.

Mr Appathurai repeated that Nato soldiers were not deployed within Pakistan. “The Nato mandate ends at the border. We are not participating in any ground or air operations in Pakistan,” he said.

The alliance has deployed over 50,000 troops in Afghanistan and has said that stabilising the country is Nato’s key priority.

The war is, however, increasingly unpopular with European public opinion and in Canada.

Mr Appathurai said Nato was convinced that there was no military solution in Afghanistan and that issues of governance, development and reconstruction were part of the alliance’s “comprehensive approach” towards the country.

Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is expected to visit Pakistan later this monthin a bid to reinforce political contacts with the new government. Military contacts between Nato and Pakistan are improving.

The Nato spokesman said that Mr Scheffer had been heartened by his recent meeting with President Hamid Karzai in which the Afghan leader said that his relations with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari were “good and trusting”.

Fighting extremism was a “shared challenge” for Afghanistan and Pakistan and both countries were part of the solution, the spokesman said.

By Shadaba Islam
Dawn Newspaper

India Tells Pakistan To Hand Over Terrorists

India demanded that Pakistan hand over suspected terrorists believed living in the country — including its most-wanted man — as diplomatic wrangling between the nuclear rivals intensified Tuesday following the deadly Mumbai attacks.

A list of about 20 names was given to Pakistan‘s high commissioner to India during a meeting Monday night, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters.

By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM, Associated Press Writer

India has already demanded Pakistan take “strong action” against those responsible for the attacks, and the U.S. has pressured Islamabad to cooperate.

The moves come as the government faces widespread accusations of security and intelligence failures after suspected Muslim militants carried out a three-day attack across India’s financial capital, killing 172 people and wounding 239.

The 10 gunmen had trained for months in camps operated by a banned Pakistani militant group before slipping into Mumbai from the sea, the only known surviving attacker told police.

India’s foreign intelligence agency received information as recently as September that Pakistan-based terrorists were plotting attacks against Mumbai targets, according to a government intelligence official familiar with the matter.

The information was then relayed to domestic security officials, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to talk publicly about the details.

 
India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the all-party meeting in New Delhi November 30, 2008. India warned Monday that the Mumbai attacks were a major setback to relations with Pakistan and promised a “stern” response, as Washington urged Islamabad to cooperate fully with investigations(AFP/Raveendran)

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Mumbai: Jews Tortured Before Execution

Israeli hostages killed by Islamic terrorists during the attacks on Mumbai (formerly Bombay) were tortured by their captors before they were bound together and killed, according to officials in both countries.

By Damien McElroy in Bombay
The Telegraph (UK)
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Jewish victims made up a disproportionate number of the foreigners killed after 10 Muslim fanatics stormed a series of sites in the Indian financial capital.

Members of the beleaguered Jewish community in Mumbai gathered at a crumbling synagogue for a memorial for Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, who ran the cultural centre targeted by the Deccan Mujahideen.

The couple’s son, Moshe survived after his nanny, Sandra Samuel escaped with him in her arms 10 hours after the hostage incident started. The child cried “Ima” and “Dada,” or mummy and daddy, as the service began.

Moshe’s grandparents have arrived from Israel to take the orphaned boy home and there is intense pressure to grant Miss Samuel a visa by declaring her righteous among the gentiles.

Two countries have posted officials at the JJ Hospital morgue but there are at least twice as many Israeli disaster specialists as British consuls representing the former colonial power.

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mbai-attacks-Jews-tortured-before-executed-during-hostage-crisis.html

Pakistan: Near Economic Collapse and Besieged By Terrorists Now Must Deal With U.S., India

Indian accusations of a Pakistani hand in last week’s Mumbai massacre couldn’t have come at a worse time for the government in Islamabad: As a Taliban insurgency continues to simmer in the tribal areas along the Afghan border, clashes on Sunday between rival political groups in the southern metropolis of Karachi killed 13 people and wounded 70.

The country is on the verge of economic collapse, its desperate pleas for financial assistance from China and Saudi Arabia last month having been rebuffed, forcing Pakistan to accept loans from the International Monetary Fund – but those loans come with stern conditions limiting government spending, the implementation of which will risk inflaming further unrest. A suspected U.S. predator drone attack in the tribal areas on Saturday – one of dozens in recent months – has further alienated a population already suspicious of U.S. interference. Hardly surprising, then, that Pakistani leaders have reacted with alarm to politicians and the media in India pointing a finger at Pakistan-based terror groups over the Mumbai attack. Some foreign investigators have made similar claims, although not in any official capacity.

Most Pakistanis reacted with horror to news of the Mumbai killing spree starting Wednesday, having lived through equally devastating attacks on their own soil. But that initial sympathy quickly gave way to hostility as the focus of blame landed on Pakistan – a knee-jerk first reaction, rather than one based on any solid evidence. “It is a tragic incident, and we also felt bad about it as Pakistan is going through the same problem,” says Abdur Rashid, a 67-year-old retired government servant in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. “But it was really unfortunate to see that even before the operation [to clear out the attackers] was finished, the Indian government stated that Pakistan is involved. It sounds that the entire incident was concocted to punish Pakistan.” See images of Mumbai after the siege….

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India demands Pakistan act decisively on Mumbai attack

India demanded Pakistan take decisive action over deadly attacks in Mumbai it said were carried out by militants from its nuclear-armed rival, while the West urged cooperation to ease tension.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa both were due in New Delhi, with the militant attacks that killed 183 people in India’s financial capital threatening to reverse improving ties with Pakistan.

India’s foreign ministry said on Monday it called in Pakistan’s envoy to New Delhi and told him attackers, who investigators said had months of commando training in Pakistan, had come from there.

“It was conveyed to the Pakistan high commissioner that Pakistan’s actions needed to match the sentiments expressed by its leadership that it wishes to have a qualitatively new relationship with India,” a foreign ministry statement said.

Pakistan, in a report by its official Associated Press of Pakistan, said its high commissioner had gone to the Indian foreign ministry “as per routine” and had not been summoned for a meeting or been issued with any official demarche.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081201/ts_nm/us_india_mumbai_15

Indian Investigators Say They Are “Certain” Mumbai Terrorists Trained in Pakistan

Two senior Indian investigators told reporters on condition of anonymity that evidence from the interrogation of Azam Amir Kasav, the only gunmen of the 10 not killed by commandos, clearly showed that Pakistani militants had a hand in the [Mumbai] attack.

 
An Indian army soldier holds position outside The Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai on November 29. There was mounting evidence that a Kashmiri-based Pakistani militant group, most likely Lashkar-e-Taiba, was responsible for the deadly attacks in Mumbai, The New York Times reported on its website late Friday.(AFP/Sajjad Hussain)

The clean-shaven, 21-year-old with fluent English was photographed during the attack wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with the Versace logo. He has said his team took orders from “their command in Pakistan,” police officials said.

The training was organized by the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, and conducted by a former member of the Pakistani army, a police officer close to the interrogation told Reuters on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak.

From Reuters

 
This image taken from NDTV shows an man carrying an automatic rifle as he enters a train station in Mumbai late November 26. He has the logo of “Versace” on his shirt.  Indian police investigating who was behind the massive militant assault on Mumbai interrogated Sunday and Monday the only gunman who survived, saying he was trained in Pakistan.  Pakistan insisted it was not involved.(AFP/NDTV/Ho)

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Mumbai attacks pose test for India

Sixty hours of mayhem sown reportedly by 10 highly trained terrorists in Mumbai (Bombay) has India asking uncomfortable questions not only of its rival, Pakistan, but also of itself.

Evidence suggests that the militants who swept through India’s financial capital Wednesday, then fought off Indian commandos in two of Mumbai’s poshest hotels until Saturday morning, received training from Lashkar-i-Tayyaba, an anti-India militant group in Pakistan.

If Indian-Pakistani tensions escalate, it could unravel improving ties between the nuclear-armed nations and imperil Pakistan’s progress in fighting militants on its Afghan border – a US priority.

Yet the Mumbai attack has also focused Indians on the failures of its own government. It was the sixth major terrorist attack since May. For a nation eager to be seen as one of the world’s next superpowers, it marks a test of leadership – at home and in the region.

By Mark Sappenfield
Christian Sciences Monitor

With national elections coming next spring, Indian politicians must resist the temptation to politicize the issue, says Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism analyst at the Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore.

“India’s leaders must understand that this is a national challenge and it must not be driven by electoral or political compulsions,” he says.

India sits at a nexus of terrorist attacks – amid a ring of violent states and home to a Muslim minority that feels increasingly alienated from the country’s economic ascent. Between 2004 and 2007, only Iraq saw more terrorism-related deaths than India, according to the US National Counterterrorism Center in Washington.

Indeed, the threats to India are so varied and mutating that it was not clear who was responsible for the attacks even two days after they began. The largest bombings of recent months have been carried out predominantly by Indian Muslims who called themselves the Indian Mujahideen.

But evidence has led Indian officials and terrorism analysts to point the finger for this attack – which killed at least 174 and wounded 239 – at Lashkar-i-Tayyaba.

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India’s intelligence services ‘failed to act’; Response ‘amateurish’

India’s intelligence service failed to act on intercepted phone conversations that an attack on Mumbai was imminent and the subsequent response to the terrorist strikes was “amateur”, security experts have claimed.

By Rahul Bedi in Mumbai
The Telegraph (UK)

Details emerged yesterday of intelligence failures and delays in deploying National Security Guard (NSG) military commandos to confront the Mumbai attackers.

The 10 terrorists, who Indian officials have said are from Islamist militants from Pakistan, snuck into the western port city of Mumbai by boat on Wednesday night and then besieged two hotels and a Jewish centre, killing 183 people, including 22 foreigners.

Official sources said the gunmen, armed with assault rifles and grenades, began their co-ordinated killing spree around 9.30pm on Wednesday, but Mumbai police initially passed it off as a “gang war” between city crime syndicates.

By the time the seriousness of the attack became clear, and the home affairs minister Shivraj Patil – who has since resigned – ordered the NSG, which is based at Manesar, outside New Delhi, to deploy, it was around 11pm.

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india/3537279/Indias-intelligence-services-fail
ed-to-act-on-warnings-of-attacks.html