A Lengthening Chain

The recent attacks in Mumbai are already fading into the collective memory here in the United States, joining the list of organized terror attacks in places like Madrid and Bali. Much has become clear in the days since my first post on this matter: the attackers effected a seaborne insertion, seized locally available vehicles, and proceeded to conduct themselves with a professionalism approximating a special operations force. Maintaining radio silence, they split in to teams and executed a series of diversionary attacks to confuse first responders, and then moved into their target hotels and office buildings. They carried secure communications gear, were familiar with the floor plans, directed their movements with hand signals.

As Newsweek points out, at this point it is a fairly open secret that the Pakistani military had something to do with training these individuals. The article also does an excellent job of detailing the limitations of Pakistan's civilian government's efforts to confront a military establishment which has traditionally kept its own council with regard to suppressing Islamic extremists. Oh, and efforts to protest innocence by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Pakistani "charity" which seems to have been somehow involved, are undermined by this Times article, written by a reporter who interviewed one of their members the week before the attacks. I don't personally know anything about the organization, but the guy in this interview appears to have an agenda rather beyond clothing the poor and helping the needy.

None of this will strike any student of contemporary Southeast Asia as particularly surprising. India has shown admirable restraint with regard to Pakistan after the attacks, which is reassuring considering the weapons technology available to both parties. The solution, which would be for Pakistan to actually work to suppress violent extremist groups, may well prove beyond the reach of many of those in Pakistan who would like to see it happen. Which is truly unfortunate, in part because it means that Mumbai really is just another link in what will prove to be a lengthening chain of tragedies perpetrated by extremists, and in part because India is a democracy, and it's only a matter of time before people there start to demand a more aggressive foreign policy with regard to Pakistan. If they do, it will be hard to blame them. No doubt, this was in part precisely what those gunmen wanted when they came ashore in Mumbai, and I hate to see brutality rewarded.