The slaughter of 132 schoolchildren and nine adults in an army school in Peshawar on Dec. 16 by the Pakistan Taliban marked a new low in terrorist depravity. The massacre of the innocents brings to a head several pathologies that need addressing and to that end could prove a catharsis for Pakistan.
The intertwining of religious terrorism, colonization of the state by the army, and obsession with India as the existential threat has mutated into a virulent toxin feeding parasitically on Pakistan. The shock and horror must be channeled into a determination to do whatever it takes to root out the poison.… Seguir leyendo »
Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri said this week he was opening a branch of the terror outfit focused on India, and in one sense that’s nothing new. The Egyptian doctor has dreamed for years of sparking a war between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, a conflict he thinks would drive Pakistanis into the arms of radical Islam and rally Muslims around the world to al-Qaeda’s banner.
Osama bin Laden, Zawahiri’s former boss, preferred to keep the organization’s focus on the U.S. “Great Satan.” If Zawahiri is to be believed, he started putting together his new India affiliate a little more than a year after bin Laden’s death.… Seguir leyendo »
The Saudi war in Iraq and lessons for Pakistan Irak parece estar desmoronándose a pedazos con el rápido avance del Estado Islámico de Irak y el Levante (ISIS, por sus siglas en inglés) que amenaza con llevar al país hacia una división entre chiíes, suníes y entidades kurdas, mientras que simultáneamente difumina la frontera con su turbulento vecino en el oeste. Por otra parte, la insurrección ahora amenaza con extenderse a otros dos países vecinos, Afganistán y Pakistán, que ya se enfrentan a innumerables desafíos internos. Para la India, el mensaje es claro: sus intereses de seguridad nacional están en riesgo.… Seguir leyendo »
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is fond of boasting that not one of India’s almost 180 million Muslims has been discovered to be a member of al-Qaeda.
He could underscore an even more remarkable fact: None of the foreign jihadists caught fighting alongside the Taliban has turned out to be from the country with the world’s third-largest Muslim population.
Indeed, Indian Muslims haven’t bothered to lend even moral support to the anti-Indian insurgency in Muslim-majority Kashmir that has claimed more than 50,000 lives in the past two decades.
According to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, this is because Indian Muslims “are the product of and feel empowered by a democratic and pluralistic society.”… Seguir leyendo »
Los horrores que se cometieron en Mumbai a finales de noviembre han causado un impacto duradero en todos los indios. Hoy, el país está recuperándose y anotando el coste en vidas humanas y daños materiales y, sobre todo, en la psique herida de una nación devastada.
Yo crecí en Bombay, como se llamaba entonces, por lo que sentí tremenda empatía al observar esos espantosos acontecimientos. Existe una ironía brutal en el hecho de que los ataques de Mumbai comenzaran con los terroristas atracando su nave junto a la Puerta de India. El grandioso arco, construido en 1911, ha sido siempre un símbolo de la apertura de la ciudad.… Seguir leyendo »
Tema: Tras los atentados de Bombay y la posible implicación en los mismos de grupos terroristas con base en Pakistán, las relaciones indo-paquistaníes han vuelto a la cuerda floja, poniendo en evidencia las graves diferencias existentes entre los dos países en un tema tan delicado como es el terrorismo.
Resumen: El análisis examina el clima de tensión surgido entre la India y Pakistán a raíz de la posible participación de grupos paquistaníes en los atentados de Bombay a finales de noviembre. Por un lado, se hace hincapié en que lo ocurrido en la capital financiera india es reflejo de una cierta vulnerabilidad del Estado indio y del poco consenso existente sobre el problema general del terrorismo en la región.… Seguir leyendo »
Las divisiones conforme a las que fue compartimentado el mundo durante la Guerra Fría se han venido finalmente abajo por culpa de los recientes atentados terroristas de Bombay. Desde ahora, no vamos a considerar nunca más el sur de Asia como una zona distinta de Oriente Próximo. En estos momentos hay un único y extenso continuum, que abarca desde el Mediterráneo a las junglas de Birmania, con todo un sinfín de crisis: desde el conflicto entre israelíes y palestinos hacia el oeste, hasta el conflicto entre hindúes y musulmanes hacia el este, cada uno de ellos enlazado íntimamente con el de al lado.… Seguir leyendo »
Bombay (que hubo de pasar a denominarse Mumbai a causa de las presiones de los fanáticos hinduistas) quedará grabado en la memoria de la humanidad. Tras los atentados allí ocurridos, hay que resaltar dos factores. Uno, el terrorismo de los fundamentalistas islámicos está a la ofensiva. Dos, no habrá solución al gigantesco arco de crisis que va desde el Mediterráneo oriental (Palestina) hasta el Mar de China, pasando por Afganistán, hasta que se produzca un acercamiento real entre India y Pakistán. Tal acercamiento no será del todo genuino mientras no se reduzcan de modo significativo las tensiones interestatales y la conflictividad generada por actores no estatales.… Seguir leyendo »
Hace apenas dos semanas, el destino y la costumbre personal de no cenar nunca en los hoteles en que me alojo me sacó del hotel Taj Mahal de Bombay minutos antes de que un grupo de terroristas asesinara a tiros a parte del personal de recepción al que acababa de saludar, iniciando así una orgía de violencia de cerca de 48 horas. Todos cuantos vivimos aquella noche, unos con peligro inminente y directo para sus vidas dentro de los hoteles, otros escuchando las explosiones desde nuestro refugio en lugares cercanos o en la misma calle, guardaremos en nuestro disco duro mental una serie de archivos de imagen y de sonido que tardarán tiempo en borrarse.… Seguir leyendo »
Wriggling under the illumination of media scrutiny after accusations of its involvement in the slaughter in Mumbai, Jamaat-ud- Dawa's response last week was a workmanlike PR counter-move. Journalists were taken on a guided tour of the organisation's headquarters, 30 miles from Lahore, where a civilised lunch of spiced chicken and rice accompanied declarations of innocence, condemnation of the terrorist attack and claims to be nothing more than a charity group involved in relief work.
Terrorists? Not us, guv. But in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, just three weeks before the Mumbai attacks, the advice of PR gurus was noticeably absent when I met a leading official from the group.… Seguir leyendo »
Tema: En este ARI se interpreta la serie coordinada de atentados ocurridos en Bombay: quién está detrás y cuáles son sus motivaciones, analizando lo que de innovador hay en los mismos y sus implicaciones en el devenir del terrorismo global.
Resumen: Lo innovador de la serie de atentados que se prolongaron desde la noche del miércoles 26 de noviembre hasta la mañana del sábado día 29 en Bombay, reside en la inusual combinación de modalidades y procedimientos terroristas con una magnitud e intensidad poco habitual en un único incidente, a fin de que sus consecuencias sean mayores. Una innovación que llevaría la impronta de al-Qaeda a través de alguna de sus organizaciones asociadas con base en Pakistán, como Lashkar-e-Toiba, de sus seguidores entre musulmanes indios radicalizados, o de una combinación de factores externos e internos.… Seguir leyendo »
Every brutal massacre of defenceless innocents must draw from us a kindred horror, whether it is Hiroshima 1945, Deir Yassin 1948, Sharpeville 1960, Halabja 1988, New York 2001, Gujarat 2002, or Haditha 2005. But each also bears the imprints of its place and time and we must commemorate them accordingly.
The now familiar refrain describing last week's attacks in Mumbai as "India's 9/11" diminishes both that carnage and the atrocity in New York seven years ago. The one is not a derivative of the other, though both events resonate with the evil of irrational killing, the spectacle of live televised violence, and painful national mourning.… Seguir leyendo »
India es, en efecto, un país democrático. De ahí que el ministro del Interior y responsable de la seguridad, Shivraj Patil, dimitiera con prontitud por los atentados de Bombay en los que un total de diez terroristas mataron a unas doscientas personas, hirieron a varios centenares y causaron notables estragos. En su declaración, Patil afirmó que asumía la "responsabilidad ministerial"; esto es, una responsabilidad en sentido formal, no sustantivo. Mejor que no hubiera abierto la boca: desde que accedió al cargo en el 2004, unas siete mil personas han sido asesinadas por terroristas en India, sin que tal circunstancia motivara respuesta alguna conocida por parte de su ministerio.… Seguir leyendo »
Like the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in America, the Mumbai terrorist assault last week began with a hijacking. Islamic militants seized a private fishing boat at sea rather than commercial jetliners, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials. But the attackers displayed the same deadly ability to coordinate a complex operation against multiple targets as did their predecessors on Sept. 11.
The terrorists were from a Pakistani group called Lashkar-i-Taiba, which has loose links with al-Qaeda, U.S officials believe. The attackers began by boarding the boat in the Arabian Sea and killing the captain. They then piloted the boat toward the Mumbai harbor.… Seguir leyendo »
Since the terrorist assaults began in Mumbai last week, the metaphor of the World Trade Center attacks has been repeatedly invoked. From New Delhi to New York, pundits and TV commentators have insisted that “this is India’s 9/11” and should be treated as such. Nearly every newspaper in India has put “9/11” into its post-massacre headlines. The secretary general of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the leading Hindu nationalist political faction, has not only likened the Mumbai attack to those on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but has insisted that “our response must be close to what the American response was.”… Seguir leyendo »
A perverse narcissism seized the British media last week, with several papers seemingly desperate to claim the Mumbai terrorists as British citizens. There was no evidence for this beyond a couple of unsourced stories in the Indian press, but it served to confirm the thesis that the whole operation was organised by al-Qaida and thus merely another manifestation of the cultural clash between Islam and its religious competitors.
The Mumbai attacks were not about global jihad. The attacks on foreign tourists at the Taj and the Oberoi, and on the Lubavitch centre, were designed to secure maximum publicity - a strategy that worked splendidly.… Seguir leyendo »
As I write, the world's security experts still have no idea which organization carried out this week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and I have no idea myself. The Indian government suspects Pakistani groups, but some eyewitnesses have said the gunmen spoke Hindi, which could mean that they were of Indian origin. The attacks, carried out on several targets simultaneously, reminded some of al-Qaeda, but the gunmen were not suicide bombers and they did not use standard al-Qaeda technology. A group calling itself the "Deccan Mujaheddin" has claimed responsibility, but no one has heard this name before. One anonymous "U.S. counterterrorism official" mentioned a few other groups -- Lashkar-i-Taiba, which means "Army of the Pious," and Jaish-i-Muhammad, or "Soldiers of Muhammad" -- but even off the record he refused to be drawn further.… Seguir leyendo »
My bleeding city. My poor great bleeding heart of a city. Why do they go after Mumbai? There’s something about this island-state that appalls religious extremists, Hindus and Muslims alike. Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness.
Mumbai is all about dhandha, or transaction. From the street food vendor squatting on a sidewalk, fiercely guarding his little business, to the tycoons and their dreams of acquiring Hollywood, this city understands money and has no guilt about the getting and spending of it. I once asked a Muslim man living in a shack without indoor plumbing what kept him in the city.… Seguir leyendo »
In the rush to blame Pakistan for the terrorist atrocity in Mumbai, a dangerous mistake is being made. The impulse to implicate Pakistan is of course understandable: the past is replete with examples of Pakistani and Indian intelligence agencies working to destabilise the historical enemy across the border.
But it is too soon to know who is behind the current attacks. Some or all of the attackers may indeed come from or have supporters in Pakistan. Equally, some or all may be Indian. The desire of some in India to ascribe guilt to Pakistan before the evidence is in is, therefore, an attempt to avoid introspection.… Seguir leyendo »
My first assignment as a journalist in Bombay was in 2003, when I visited the home of a man accused of planting a bomb that had killed several people a few days earlier at the Gateway of India, the city's most famous landmark. The suspected terrorist lived in a typical Bombay slum, congested, with packed houses that shared walls and windows, and I spent the day quizzing the neighbours, who said they had heard and seen nothing suspicious, even though the police were sure that the man had assembled the bomb at home.
I couldn't help thinking: If the police were right, and this man had built a bomb right here, with all these people noticing nothing, how safe was anyone in the city?… Seguir leyendo »
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