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Mumbai attack: Pakistan role under scrutiny

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While initial reports suggested that Mumbai carnage was a localised attack by militant malcontents in India because of the "Deccan Mujaheddin" decoy that was used to claim responsibility, evidence cited by Indian army & security experts based on phone intercepts, nature of weaponry, mode of entry by sea etc., has quickly focused the attention on Pakistan.

The statement by India's normally cautious & restrained prime minister, Manmohan Singh, that groups based across the border, a thinly-disguised reference to Pakistan, has also galvanized the strategic and security community into examining Islamabad's role in the region that has already been subjected to scrutiny in the past.

Intelligence experts have zeroed in on Pakistan's role in the terrorist activities in Indian Sub-Continent. "There have been reports from credible sources for years that Pakistani intelligence has used terrorist groups to conduct war-by-proxy against traditional rival India. With the latest horrific attacks throughout Mumbai, evidence continues to accumulate that may add new substance to such reports," the website Washington Examiner noted.

What has added potency to the latest charges against Islamabad is the Bush administration's own assessment - leaked to the US media - that Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI was linked to the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul some weeks back that killed nearly 60 people including a much-admired Indian diplomat and a respected senior defense official.

ATS Guys in front of the Taj intercontinental

ATS Guys in front of the Taj intercontinental

This time, the US scrutiny is more intense because American, Israeli & other western nationals appear to have been singled out during the carnage. 100's of Indians have died in dozens of terrorist attacks in India in the past two decades without Washington losing too much sleep over it. In fact, Indian officials have often complained in private that successive US administrations have been incredibly indulgent about Pakistan's brazen involvement in fomenting terror in India, believing it would not touch the US.

Part of the coddling goes back to US patronage of the ISI during the Afghan war. As a result, Washington has done little to bring to book Dawood Ibrahim, a terrorist charged with masterminding the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai in 1993 that took 258 lives, although Indian intelligence agencies have identified him as living in Karachi under ISI protection.

Mumbai Blasts

While all major terror attacks in India are typically accompanied by knee-jerk charges from India & shrill denials by Pakistan, analysts point to mounting evidence Pakistan, especially under its military, has done little to combat the scourge of terrorism. Several terrorist and extremist leaders such as Masood Azhar & "Prof" Hafeez Mohammed Saeed, continue to thrive in Pakistan, often under official patronage. Extremists openly preach terrorism in jihadi gatherings overseen by ISI.

Mumbai Blasts

The Pakistani establishment has also dragged its feet on prosecuting Omar Saeed Sheikh, an accused in the Daniel Pearl murder because of his influential connections in the higher echelons of the ISI. Another terrorist Rashid Rauf, also known as the shoe-bomber, was killed last week in a US predator strike, months after he 'escaped' from Pakistani police custody while being escorted for a hearing. Western & Indian intelligence communities believe men like Sheikh and Rauf are protected by the ISI or rogue elements in the ISI.

Mumbai Blasts

The Pakistani military, which controls the ISI, has resisted any attempt to make it subservient to the civilian government because the army uses it both as a fighting arm for its proxy war against India & also to spy on its own civilian government.

Among the several question that security experts are grappling is the motive behind the latest attack & who stands to gain by it. The terrorists have notably not even raised the Kashmir issue for their action to be linked to the separatist cause. Nor did they attempt to extract any specific concession in exchange for hostages, other than to demand the release of "all mujaheddin".

commando insertion Nariman Bldg

They seemed intent on causing mayhem & dying in the same suicidal jihadi manner that was evident in the attack on India’s parliament & on the Akshardham temple earlier in this decade. Their victims, besides the scores of people who died, included India’s booming economy and tourism, both of which was the envy of a troubled neighbourhood.

Taj Burning