from the mothership

Eyewitnesses have provided accounts of how the gunmen involved in yesterday's Mumbai massacre landed undetected in the heart of the port city's bustling downtown area.

At least some of the terrorists, said to be in their early twenties and armed with AK-47 assault rifles and hand grenades, landed on the coast of Mumbai's commercial and entertainment neighbourhood in light and fast Gemini boats, powered by small outboard motors.

These inflatable dinghies, according to Indian navy sources quoted by the Headlines Today TV news channel, were launched from a larger vessel, the MV Alfa, which arrived near Mumbai sometime yesterday and anchored offshore a distance from India's financial capital.

Al Qaeda’s either grown itself a navy or something else is going on. According to this short piece the Deccan Mujahideen are a false face for Lashkar e Toiba, the vehicle used by Pakistan’s ISI to provide mujahideen fighters for Kashmir. A few days ago, Zardari shut down the political wing of ISI, apparently in an attempt to get the Pakistan armed forces out of politics and stop it sheltering various bad actors in FATA and the NWFP. It’s also been the constant position of the US and NATO countries that Pakistan should get on better terms with India and stop supporting Kashmiri secessionists in order to be able to transfer more troops to the war zones on the Afghan frontier. An attack on India would seem to be a logical countermove.

Nighwatch adds:

The Hindu published a chronological list of terror attacks in the past several years. In 2007, when Musharraf was still in office in Pakistan, India experienced two sensational terrorist attacks. Since the installation of a civilian government in Pakistan, India has experienced 11 sensational and deadly terror attacks, including todays. An unknown Indian Muslim terrorist group claimed responsibility for all of them.

If Indian investigators and interrogators determine that Pakistani intelligence is involved in today’s attacks, the risk of general war between India and Pakistan will be significant. When somewhat similar attacks against the Indian Parliament occurred in December 2001, only concerted and determined US and UK diplomatic intervention managed to prevent a general war. At that time, Indian forces reached full combat readiness in several weeks. That situation could occur again.

The attackers also demonstrated a lot of detailed local knowledge, which made me wonder if the D Company wasn’t involved somewhere down the line: Dawood Ibrahim is rumoured to live in Karachi, supposedly the MV Alfa’s starting point for the latest attacks. But that too would point to ISI involvement.

Comments

[James Schneider]

In short, we have no idea who it was right now and should be highly skeptical about who its initially pinned on. There are too many options and currently not enough info.