Terror Attacks in Mumbai - IV

[Raja Ram]

In another thread I had mentioned what a common citizen would have expected the government to do, they were:

1. The PM and his colleagues should first aplogise to the nation for their derelection - Chidambaram did that as soon as he took charge and the PM did that in the Lok Sabha today. Belated surely, but they did it.

2. Wanted them to tell the nation what they intend to do to prevent such incidents and if it does happen how will they respond better - They have come up with some initial measures and sought bipartisan support - there is a lot that needs to be clarified but there is a start and they are sharing it with the nation - For a change the opposition is at least playing a constuctive part.

3. The next demand was for a clear articulation of how we are going to make Pakistan dismantle the terror machine and pay for what it has done - Here the response has been to bring international pressure on pakistan, and also give a demand list to pakistan and a time frame to comply. What we will do to Pakistan if they do not comply has not been said clearly. What has been said is that we will not go to war that easily but time is running out.

It is here that the GOI has scored the least marks. They need to do a lot better than expecting others to see our point of view and pressurise pakistan to do what is required. That is not going to work and some indications are there that the GOI knows this and is using it purely to give pakistan a long rope to hang itself.

4 Accountability - those who failed have to be held accountable - The HM, Maharashtra CM and Depy CM have lost their jobs, the NSA has not lost his, he offered to resign as did the PM in the CWC meet we are told. Not done fully, there is a lot of explaining to do by other chiefs of intelligence services, navy, coast guard and Mumbai Police. So far the politicians have paid a small price, the beaurocracy and the security services none.

Now this is what the much maligned politicians who deserve every bit of the deep revulsion and resentment felt by the population have collectively done as a class. Compare and contrast this with the approach, attitude and behaviour of the national media and their star personalities. I tell you this much, I can any day trust and respect the political class of this country far more than I can of the media.

It is very clear that the political class has recognised the deep sense of anger amongst Indians and the need to keep the focus on pakistan. That is far better than the media who are now chasing the story of how the political class is the real villain. The real villain here are the pakistan terrorists and the terrorist islamic state of pakistan.

Just the usual ramble, take it for what it is worth.

[NRao]

Ajmal’s statement, according to police

[RajeshA]

I wondered where the turds were. Seems they are making their way out of the woodwork.

CPM links Mumbai attacks to Indo-US nuke deal
"What brought the terrorist outfits to our shores? With the Indo-US nuclear deal you are seen as an ally of the US, a strategic partner. There seems to be a total lack of appreciation of this thought from the government's side

Prakash Karat is a man who has been beaten like a dog this year on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. His failure on this front, will keep troubling him even beyond his grave. He will keep on thinking in circles, whether he could have done something differently, may be pulled back his support to the UPA a bit earlier, may be kept a more cautious eye on Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh, may be not have underestimated MMS. He will be plagued by his idiocy for a very long time.

When Brinda one day doesn't talk to him, he will say it is because he lost face during the Indo-US Nuke Deal. So it is natural for him put all the blame for everything on that accursed deal.

[svinayak]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... AD950IQV00

[Arun_S]

NYT: Indian Police Name 2 More Men as Trainers and Supervisors of Mumbai Attackers

By ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: December 10, 2008

MUMBAI, India — The Indian police identified two additional men on Wednesday who they said had trained and supervised the 10 gunmen in the Mumbai attacks last month, adding detail to their contentions about the plot’s Pakistani origins.

The police here have already identified Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi as a major planner and coordinator of the plot, based on their interrogations of the one surviving gunman. Pakistan said Tuesday that it had arrested Mr. Lakhvi, the operational commander of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, during a raid on Sunday on a camp outside Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani-controlled region of Kashmir.

On Wednesday, the Mumbai police said two more trainers’ names had emerged from their interrogations of the surviving gunman: Abu Hamza and a man known only as Khafa.

All three are leading members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based militant group suspected of conducting the Mumbai attacks, said Rakesh Maria, the joint commissioner of the Mumbai police.

Mr. Maria said Abu Hamza gave the 10 gunmen maritime training and advanced lessons in explosives and weapons. Abu Hamza was the gunman in a 2005 attack on the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore in which a mathematician was killed, Mr. Maria said.

Abu Hamza escaped after that attack and apparently returned to Pakistan.

The other trainer, Khafa, was a mentor who worked closely with the gunmen and helped familiarize them with their targets in the last three months of their training, in Azizabad, Pakistan, Mr. Maria said.

The gunmen’s training included a motivational talk from Hafiz Muhammed Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Mr. Maria said, and more than three people were involved in training them. But Mr. Lakhvi appears to have been the main figure throughout preparations for the assault. Mr. Lakhvi was present throughout the training, traveled with the gunmen to the Pakistani coast before they left for Mumbai, and “bid farewell to them as they left Karachi,” Mr. Maria said.

The police have already said that Mr. Lakhvi spoke to the gunmen by phone as the assault played out.

“Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi is the man who planned out this whole thing,” Mr. Maria said.

Pakistan, which arrested 20 militants in recent days, has been under pressure to do more. On Tuesday, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations told the Security Council that the police were investigating Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the charity that is Lashkar’s parent, and might impose punitive measures, including a freeze on its finances, The Associated Press reported.

At the United Nations on Wednesday, the Security Council committee dealing with the sanctions list for people or groups linked to terrorism announced seven additions stemming from Mumbai carnage. They are four Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders; Jamaat-ud-Dawa and two banks that handled money for it, Al-Rashid Trust and Al-Akhtar Trust International.

The leaders are Mr. Saeed; Mr. Lakhvi; Muhammad Ashraf, the group’s top financial officer; and Mahmoud Mohamed Ahmed Bahaziq, called the leader of the group in Saudi Arabia and one of its financiers.

NYT: India Wants Broad Crackdown Against Militants in Pakistan

By SOMINI SENGUPTA AND ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: December 11, 2008

NEW DELHI — Calling Pakistan the epicenter of terror attacks against India, the Indian foreign minister urged the government in Islamabad on Thursday to do more than detain leaders of extremist groups, even as he hinted that India does not “intend to be provoked” into a military conflict.

In Pakistan, the government signaled limited moves against a charity widely believed to act as a front for the militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, that Indian and American intelligence say was behind the Mumbai attacks.

The Indian foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, speaking to Parliament in its first session since the three-day siege of Mumbai last month, reiterated India’s demand for Pakistan to hand over about 40 fugitives and suspected terror suspects whom it says are taking shelter in Pakistan. His comments seemed designed to avoid directly criticizing the president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, with whose democratically elected government he said he had “no quarrel.”

At the same time, he pressed the Zardari administration to close down the “infrastructure” that enables terror strikes against India.

Shortly after the Mumbai attacks, Mr. Zardari had described the terror suspects as “nonstate actors” over whom the Pakistani government had no control. On Thursday, that statement met with a stinging retort from Mr. Mukherjee.

“Are they nonstate actors coming from heaven, or they are coming from a different planet?” Mr. Mukherjee asked. “Nonstate actors are operating from a particular country. What we are most respectfully submitting, suggesting to the government of Pakistan: Please act. Mere expression of intention is not adequate.”

It was India’s first response to Pakistan’s crackdown on camps and leaders of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based group accused in the Mumbai attacks that killed 163 people, along with 9 gunmen. Officials in Islamabad announced the arrests earlier this week.

In Islamabad, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said Pakistan “has taken note” of the United Nations Security Council declaration late Wednesday that a charity based in Pakistan, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, was a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba and subject to United Nations sanctions including the freezing of its assets and a travel ban on four of its leaders. One was Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi, whom the Pakistani government said it arrested Sunday.

The Security Council committee also added Hafiz Saeed, founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, and his Jamaat-ud-Dawa to a list of people and organizations linked to Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

A statement from Mr. Gilani’s office said he told Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte that Pakistan “would fulfill its international obligations,” Reuters reported. The Interior Ministry issued a statement saying Jamaat-ud-Dawa would be put under monitoring and its offices sealed if necessary, Reuters said.

In Lahore on Thursday, the founder of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Hafiz Saeed, criticized the United Nations decision, saying that his charity was a legitimate organization with no links to terrorism, Agence France-Presse reported. Mr. Saeed had publicly disowned Lashkar-e-Taiba after it was outlawed by Pakistan in 2002.

“The Security Council took this decision without giving any us any opportunity to respond,” Mr. Saeed said, according to A.F.P. “We are not prepared to accept this decision, which was taken in haste. We do not accept terrorism, killing innocent people, or carrying out suicide attacks. This has always been our stand.”

On Wednesday, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, praised the actions taken by the Pakistani authorities, but noted that the United States viewed the actions only as initial measures to deal with the crisis.

“These are first steps, and so there are more steps to follow,” Admiral Mullen told reporters in Washington. “But they’ve moved pretty quickly with respect to these arrests, with respect to shutting down some of the camps. And all of that, I think, is very positive.”

Mr. Mukherjee on Thursday also delivered a message to allies and rivals abroad: India would not be dragged into discussions about disputed Kashmir Province, which the minister described as a domestic problem for its government to negotiate.

“This is not an India-Pakistan issue,” he said. “This is not an issue related to Jammu and Kashmir. This is a part of global terrorism.”

The home minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, in announcing an overhaul of the nation’s intelligence network, said “the finger of suspicion” points at “our neighbor,” clearly meaning Pakistan. Mr. Chidambaram succeeded Shivraj Patil, who resigned after the attacks.

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party also pledged Thursday to stand by the government. “We should not be fooled by this kind of operation,” Lal Krishna Advani, the opposition leader, said of Pakistan’s response so far.

Mr. Chidambaram, the country’s principal law enforcement official, had previously acknowledged lapses in the security forces’ preparedness for the attacks. He revealed the intelligence overhaul in a speech to Parliament, fulfilling a pledge from the government in the immediate aftermath of the siege.

The Indian security forces’ slow response to the attack “exposed their lack of intelligence and lax approach to law and order,” said Farhana Ali, a South Asia terrorism expert and former analyst for RAND Corp., which researches policy and security issues.

The restructuring announced will bolster the coast guard and maritime forces, strengthen intelligence agencies with new personnel, establish a national investigative center and set up training courses for antiterrorism officers, police units and commando squads.

The attacks began on the night of Nov. 26 and ended more than 60 hours later when the last of the gunmen were killed in a shootout with elite Indian commandos. The assault was apparently staged, the Indian police have said, by a squad of 10 gunmen who used boats to approach Mumbai.

Nine militants were killed and one was captured.

Since the attacks, there has been an outpouring of anger across India.

Last week, tens of thousands of citizens stormed the Gateway of India, a famed waterfront monument near the Taj Mahal Hotel, venting anger at their elected leaders. There were similar protests in New Delhi and the southern technology hubs of Bangalore and Hyderabad. All were organized spontaneously, with word spread through text messages and Facebook pages.

Indian citizens and police officials alike have expressed concern about follow-on attacks by terrorists who might have escaped during the mayhem of the assault.

The Indian police had said they foiled an attempt to destroy landmarks and wreak havoc in Mumbai early this year, breaking up a cell of Pakistani and Indian men.

The foiled plot also involved Lashkar-e-Taiba, which suggested that the militant group conceived its plan long in advance and has deeper contacts with radical Indian Muslims than investigators have been willing to concede.

It also pointed up another significant security lapse by Indian intelligence and police forces, who months ago had glimpses of a blueprint for the Mumbai attacks and even a strong indication of the intended targets.

Somini Sengupta reported from New Delhi and Robert F. Worth from Mumbai, India. Mark McDonald contributed reporting from Hong Kong and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

[Sumeet]

Group blamed for Mumbai attack also operating in Mideast

By Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy Newspapers Jonathan S. Landay, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Wed Dec 10, 9:14 pm ET


WASHINGTON — A United Nations Security Council committee put three Pakistani leaders of the group Lashkar-e- Taiba and a Saudi operative on a terrorist watch list Wednesday as new evidence surfaced that the group blamed for the Mumbai attacks has expanded its activities and its fundraising well beyond South Asia .

A U.N. document obtained by McClatchy said that LeT has sent operatives to attack U.S. troops in Iraq , established a branch in Saudi Arabia and been raising funds in Europe . The group may also have received money from al Qaida , suggesting that it has close ties with Osama bin Laden's terrorist network based along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan , the document said.

Although Pakistan's government outlawed LeT in May 2002 , it "continues to operate and engage in or support terrorist activities abroad," the document said.

"Is there real concern about Lashkar trying to expand its footprint? The answer is yes," said a U.S. counterterrorism official in response to questions about the document, which the U.N. committee reviewed before voting to add the four to the watch list. He requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.

U.S. intelligence officials worry that as the U.S.-led campaign against al Qaida has taken a toll on its leaders, restricted the movement of its members and curbed its financial support, bin Laden and his second-in-command, Ayman al Zawahiri , have cultivated ties with other militant Islamist groups, especially non-Arab ones such as LeT.

The U.N. document, which describes some of LeT's activities and fundraising, names LeT founder Muhammad Saeed as the group's "overall leader and chief," and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged military coordinator who was arrested by security forces on Sunday on the Pakistan -held side of the divided Kashmir region.

The U.N. Security Council al Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee also added Haji Muhammad Ashraf, whom the U.N. document calls Lashkar's finance chief, and Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq, whom it describes as a key propagandist who once coordinated fund-raising activities in Saudi Arabia , to the watch list.

The committee said in a statement that three of the four reside in Pakistan : Saeed, who insists that he left LeT to run a charity that the U.S. considers a LeT front organization, Lakhvi and Ashraf. It said that Bahaziq is from Saudi Arabia .

Individuals and groups placed on the U.N. list are subject to international sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans. LeT was included on the list in May 2005 .

The U.S. and India sought to have the U.N. designate the four as part of an crackdown on LeT, which is accused of training and sending the 10 gunmen who attacked two luxury hotels, a Jewish center, a train station and other targets during a three-day rampage last month in Mumbai . More than 170 people died, including six Americans.

India also sought to have the U.N. committee include on the list Hamid Gul , a retired Pakistani Army general who headed the country's main intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate , in the late 1980s. However, China , a close ally of Pakistan that has veto power on the Security Council , apparently blocked Gul's inclusion.

Gul, a harsh critic of the U.S., insists that he has no connections to any extremist groups.

The U.N. document said that Saeed plays "a key role" in LeT's operational and fundraising activities.

"In 2005, (LeT founder) Saeed determined where graduates of an LeT camp in Pakistan should be sent to fight, and personally organized the infiltration of LeT militants into Iraq during a trip to Saudi Arabia ," the document said. "Saeed also arranged for an LeT operative to be sent to Europe as LeT's European fundraising coordinator."

Lakhvi, the group's alleged military coordinator, "has directed LeT operations, including in Chechnya, Bosnia , Iraq and Southeast Asia . In 2006, Lakhvi instructed LeT associates to train operatives for suicide bombings," the document said. "In 2004, Lakhvi sent operatives and funds to attack U.S. forces in Iraq , having directed an LeT operative to travel to Iraq in 2003 to assess the situation there."

The document alleged that Lakhvi has also been involved in fundraising activities, "reportedly receiving al Qaida -affiliated donations on behalf of LeT."

Ashraf has overseen Lashkar's finances since 2003, the document said. It alleged that he traveled to the Middle East to collect money and help the " Saudi Arabia -based LeT leadership with expanding its organization and increasing fundraising activities."

Bahaziq was "credited with being the main financier behind the establishment of the LeT," which was founded in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, said the document. He then went on to become the group's leader in Saudi Arabia and coordinated fundraising with Saudi non-governmental groups and businessmen, it said.

"As of mid-2005, Bahaziq played a key role in LeT's propaganda and media operations," it continued.

The Mumbai attacks have fueled serious tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan .

The Bush administration has been pressing Islamabad to crack down on Lashkar and other extremist groups in an effort to dissuade India from launching retaliatory military strikes against Pakistan .

Washington fears that Indian retaliation could spark a fourth Indo-Pakistan war that would free al Qaida and other Islamic militant groups to intensify their insurgency in Afghanistan.

[CRamS]

Is TSP going to pull another fast one on India? I just saw a Paki on TimesNow. He is Mushahid Hussein part of the opposition. Talking about the ban on JUD, the mofo had the gall to suggest that he is 'glad' India supports UNSC resolutions, and he would hope that India would honor UNSC resilutions on Kashmir. Thus, in the end, the pigs are obliquely admitting that this whole Mumbai slaughter engineered by them is to get India ti talk about kashmir.

[Arun_S]

Evidence? It's with Pakistan

G Parthsarathy in the Pioneer. Says nothing new but ruthlessly and systematically lays bare Baki modus operandi.

Liked Shourie's RS speech a lot. Lotsa right notes and emphasis. Needs wider dissemination.

LKA also makes some good points in his LS address. The distinction between 'spiritual islam' and 'political islam' is a first by a top desi neta, IIRC. Mst extend badhaais to Sudheendra Kulkarni, LKA's speechwriter.

Worth quoting in full

Evidence? It's with Pakistan

G Parthasarathy

As temperatures drop below zero in Washington, DC, there are two domestic subjects that dominate the discourse in America's national capital -- the economic meltdown and the transition to the Obama Administration.

Externally, however, the predominant focus of attention remains on the terrorist carnage in Mumbai, whose horrors reached every American home courtesy non-stop television coverage. A 'lame duck' Bush Administration is infuriated by the behaviour of its 'major non-Nato ally' Pakistan and Islamabad's attempts to obfuscate, confuse and divert attention away from its culpability in what is described as India's 9/11.

This outrage is tempered by the realisation that 70 per cent of supplies for Nato troops in Afghanistan come through Pakistan, where in the last few days the Taliban have struck even in Peshawar, destroying over 200 trucks carrying supplies, including American troop carriers. Thus, while Indian fury at Pakistani culpability is understood and acknowledged, the Americans never tire of counselling 'restraint'.

The Indian effort in Washington to spell out the implications of the international community failing to close down the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan has been sophisticated and measured. But a few facts need constant repetition so that the international community is not entirely led away by Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari's pleas for understanding actions by "non-state actors" based in Pakistan -- a euphemism for groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed. The most important of these considerations is that despite protestations to the contrary and demands for evidence, the Pakistan Government already has enough evidence about the terrorist attacks carried out by these groups in India.

The proposal for a 'Joint Investigative Mechanism' by Pakistan is laughable, as it will stall or deny culpability, as it has done on the presence of Dawood Ibrahim in Karachi, whose mansion I have, incidentally, personally driven past in 1999. India will have to bring out a White Paper detailing the evidence the world has from writings in the Pakistani media and by prominent Pakistanis like Ahmed Rashid, Amir Mir and Shuja Nawaz, which give details of the ISI nexus with terrorist groups.

On December 13, 2001, well-armed terrorists stormed India's Parliament House and were gunned down by alert security personnel. Investigations revealed that the terrorists had come from Pakistan and worked together with local contacts. India provided details of evidence it had, including wireless intercepts, describing how the group, comprising members of the Jaish-e-Mohammed led by Maulana Masood Azhar, had been in touch with handlers across the border, to the international community. Pakistan, however, accused us of indulging in a 'blame game' and feigned injured innocence. But, on March 6, 2004, Lt Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi, a former Director-General of the ISI and then Minister for Railways, told Pakistan's Parliament: "We must not be afraid to admit that the Jaish-e-Mohammed was involved in the deaths of thousands of innocent Kashmiris, the bombing of the Indian Parliament, (American journalist) Daniel Pearl's murder and an attempt to assassinate President Musharraf".

Pakistani protestations of injured innocence are not new -- Interpol investigations established that the ISI gave hijackers of an Indian Airlines flight a pistol at Lahore airport in 1984. The world must be made aware of these facts when Pakistan demands 'evidence' to prosecute Maulana Masood Azhar, when Gen Qazi's assertion confirms that Pakistan itself has evidence on the role of the Jaish-e-Mohammed in the attack on the Indian Parliament.

On January 13, 2001, LeT terrorists attacked the Red Fort in New Delhi. Shortly thereafter, LeT chief Hafiz Mohammed Sayeed boasted to a gathering of leaders of religious parties in Pakistan that he had unfurled Pakistan's flag in the capital of the country's past Muslim rulers! Sayeed's territorial ambitions include constant claims to Jammu & Kashmir, Junagadh and Hyderabad. Moreover, Sayeed's credentials as a terrorist can be easily gleaned from his writings in the Lashkar mouthpiece the Dawa. The parent organisation of the LeT, known as Jamat-ud-Dawah, is very well-funded, runs Islamic educational institutions and has cadre in Arab Gulf countries. It receives donations from within Pakistan and also from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Hafiz Mohammed Sayeed has been close to the family of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He is a self-confessed terrorist. India does not have to provide 'evidence' to Pakistan for Sayeed to be prosecuted.

Probably, the best description of the Lashkar's activities has been written by Pakistan's present Ambassador in Washington, Mr Hussain Haqqani, who acknowledges that the LeT is "backed by Saudi money and protected by Pakistan's Intelligence Services". He confirms that the Lashkar proclaim "Muslims ruled Anadalusia (Spain) for 800 years but they were finished to the last man. Christians now rule Spain and we must wrest it back from them. All of India including Kashmir, Hyderabad, Assam, Nepal, Burma, Bihar and Junagadh, were part of the Muslim empire that was lost because Muslims gave up jihad".

On Israel, Sayeed asserts, "Palestine is occupied by the Jews. The holy Qibla-e-Awwal in Jerusalem is under Jewish control." He further proclaims, "Jews, Christians and Hindus are enemies of Islam." It is this blind religious bigotry and hatred for Israel, India, the United States and the United Kingdom that led to Indians, Israelis, Americans and British nationals being singled out for massacre by the Lashkar terrorists in Mumbai.

Over the past four years the Manmohan Singh Government has let the country down by failing to highlight the danger posed by Pakistanis jihadi groups both internationally and domestically. This policy has to be drastically changed. There has to be a clear focus of attention on establishing not only the motivations and ideologies of groups like the LeT, but also their affiliations with Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front.

One decision for which the Government has, however, to be commended was its quick realisation that there was no point in negotiating with the terrorists and that the only way out was through commando action. But, the time has now come to make it clear that if the international community does not succeed in closing down the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan, including the LeT, JeM and the Muzaffarabad-based United jihad Council, India will be constrained to act on its own to ensure that the Mumbai outrage is never repeated.

[Sumeet]

Rajesh A

thats yechury and not Karat. ToI perhaps didn't publish my comments because I called CPI-M traitor.

[Sumeet]

Guys in this official press release from UNSC, New York check out the number of aliases of LeT from a) to all the way to z).

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/sc9527.doc.htm

QE.L.118.05. Name: LASHKAR-E-TAYYIBA
A.k.a.: a) Lashkar-e-Toiba
b) Lashkar-i-Taiba
c) al Mansoorian
d) al Mansooreen
e) Army of the Pure
f) Army of the Righteous
g) Army of the Pure and Righteous
h) Paasban-e-Kashmir
i) Paasban-i-Ahle-Hadith
j) Pasban-e-Kashmir
k) Pasban-e-Ahle-Hadith
l) Paasban-e-Ahle-Hadis
m) Pashan-e-ahle Hadis
n) Lashkar e Tayyaba
o) LET
p) Jamaat-ud-Dawa
q) JUD
r) Jama,at al-Dawa
s) Jamaat ud-Daawa
t) Jamaat ul-Dawah
u) Jamaat-ul-Dawa
v) Jama,at-i-Dawat
w) Jamaiat-ud-Dawa
x) Jama,at-ud-Da,awah
y) Jama,at-ud-Da,awa
z) Jamaati-ud-Dawa


F.k.a.: na Address: na Listed on: 2 May 2005 (amended on 3 Nov. 2005, 10 Dec. 2008) Other information: na

[Vipul]

I wondered where the turds were. Seems they are making their way out of the woodwork.

Prakash Karat is a man who has been beaten like a dog this year on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. His failure on this front, will keep troubling him even beyond his grave. He will keep on thinking in circles, whether he could have done something differently, may be pulled back his support to the UPA a bit earlier, may be kept a more cautious eye on Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh, may be not have underestimated MMS. He will be plagued by his idiocy for a very long time.

When Brinda one day doesn't talk to him, he will say it is because he lost face during the Indo-US Nuke Deal. So it is natural for him put all the blame for everything on that accursed deal.

Let these desh-drohi's now fear for their pay master.

[SaiK]

its difficult to hit inner china.. there is no question about that. they are pretty safe in many sense. its a waste of time talking about china being the victim and diverting the core issue here.

[Pranay]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Rahu ... 824194.cms

Rahul Gandhi seems to be making the right noises...

[Vipul]

What the chinese cant take is loss of face, and when the shit really hits the fan it will be a sight to see them.

[enqyoob]

Terrorist Hafeez Saeed to enjoy Pak govt protection at his mansion

From Cnn.com

Hafiz Saeed will be under house arrest at his residence in Lahore, Pakistan for three months as Pakistani authorities investigate the attacks that killed 160 people in India's financial capital.

Saeed founded LeT and is the leader of JuD. He spoke to journalists in Lahore at a televised news conference -- although his face was shielded from the cameras -- to address accusations that the groups were involved in the attacks.

LeT has denied responsibility for the Mumbai attacks, a three-day siege that left more than 160 people dead.

Saeed said the decision Wednesday by a U.N. committee to identify Lashkar leaders as terrorists was in haste. He said any evidence linking JuD to the Mumbai attacks should be presented by the Indian authorities.

....
ISI stands for the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, Pakistan's spy agency. The United States has linked the ISI to involvement in previous terrorist attacks.

Saeed said the accusations against his group are propaganda and an attack on both Pakistan and Islam.

...

Saeed, who recently won the "Miss Pakistan Terrorist" Contest, but whose face was shielded by group of men who surrounded him during the news conference, also said he is certain the group will be cleared of any suspicion of involvement in the Mumbai attacks once evidence is submitted to the courts.

This of course means that Saeed is long since gone from Pakistan...

[NRao]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Rahu ... 824194.cms

Rahul Gandhi seems to be making the right noises...

Part of the US game plan of what people of the two nation want to hear.

I would expect all come back to where we are in about 6 months.

Then in 2-3 years another attack will renew the same speeches, etc.

[Anujan]

Prakash Karat is a man who has been beaten like a dog this year on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. His failure on this front, will keep troubling him even beyond his grave. He will keep on thinking in circles, whether he could have done something differently, may be pulled back his support to the UPA a bit earlier, may be kept a more cautious eye on Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh, may be not have underestimated MMS. He will be plagued by his idiocy for a very long time.

When Brinda one day doesn't talk to him, he will say it is because he lost face during the Indo-US Nuke Deal. So it is natural for him put all the blame for everything on that accursed deal.

I am amazed by his lahori logic. His prescription essentially is to listen to whoever is threatening us and abandon our self interest. Or in other words "Indo-US n-deal is a bad idea because terrorists hate it". Maybe he will recommend that we become an Islamic caliphate, give away JK to Bakistan and Arunachal to Chinis, WB to bangladesh and UP, Chattis, Orissa to Naxals, Assam to ULFA, Nagaland to the Nagas.

After all if we dont do that, it increases the possibility that one of the groups who threaten us on these issues will attack us. I thought that the commies were well educated.

[SaiK]

I am more laughing at the voters who vote for leftists (Kerala and WB)./sorry

[Anujan]

I am more laughing at the voters who vote for leftists (Kerala and WB)./sorry

OT please bear with me:
The voters may not be to blame.

I have followed commies for some time and they did have their merits. Their prescription for trade unionism, land rights, support of russie and chinis, education and public welfare was aligned with India's zeitgeist in the past decades. Recall our society's obsession with a "guvrmand job" (my parents came close to not marrying because my dad did not have a "guvrmand job" and thus was not assured a steady job and pension !), suspicion of the US, gratefulness to the russies.

Now the times have changed. There is a realization that guvrmand is wasteful, russies and chinis are manipulative, we have levers and are politically mature to deal with Unkil and we are confident and willing to take risks in a non-guvmand job in return for bigger rewards. So the core philosophy of the commies are being challenged.

Now to remedy the fact that they are fast becoming irrelevant, there seems to be two factions among the commies. People like Bhattacharya who want to position the commies as clean, educated and rational party of development and People like SY and PK who want to try their hand at votebank politics (remember the comment "Indo-US deal is bad because muslims would hate it"). I hope the former faction prevails and gives us a genuine alternative.

[Rangudu]

One of the newspaper sites had a new pic of Hafiz-e-pig and that keeda is fatter than Maulana Fazlur Rehman! I wish we could take out the fat ******** somehow. What a coward he is!

[Vinay_D]

Mumbai suspect 'trained Bosnia fighters'

A LEADER of Lashkar-e-Taiba, suspected in the Mumbai attacks, took part in the training of Islamic fighters and police in Bosnia in the 1990s, a terrorist expert said today.

"Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi participated in Bosnia's war," Dzevad Galijasevic, an independent expert, said, referring to the leader who has been detained by Pakistan.

"He was a commander of the Pakistani section of the (Bosnian army) El-Mujahed unit" notorious for criminal activities, Mr Galijasevic said, adding he had obtained the information from "various official sources".

"Lakhvi was in Bosnia in 1994 and immediately after the war in 1996 and 1997 when he took part in the training of police forces in central Bosnia.

"It was official training so evidence about it can be found in police archives," he said.

Police declined to immediately comment on Mr Galijasevic's allegations.

Pakistan confirmed yesterday it had arrested Lakhvi and another suspected leader of the group, Zarar Shah.

The two men have both been named by Indian media as key planners of the devastating attacks in Mumbai in which 172 people died.

Hundreds of fighters from Islamic countries joined the mainly Bosnian Muslim army during the 1992-1995 war.

Under a peace deal, they were ordered to leave, but some stayed on after obtaining Bosnian citizenship, mainly by marrying local women.

Mr Galijasevic could not say whether Lakhvi also obtained a Bosnian passport.

Bosnia came under the spotlight after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States due to the presence of ex-Islamic fighters, locally known as mujahedeens.

[svinayak]

Director General of NSG Jyoti Krishan Dutt, receives the tricolor bravery award from Chairman of the All-India Anti Terrorist Front, M.S. Bitta, for his successful leadership and operation during the Mumbai terror attack, in New Delhi on Thursday. Photo: PTI.

[skganji]

India has to deal with Pakistan carefully this time and not allowing them to waste time or get away with what has been done in Mumbai by the terrorists operating from Pakistan. If people of India forget this incident and take a chalta hai attitude these things will happen again. Hovever, if the GOI is serious about bringing the people behind these culprits to justice and punish the game is still not over yet.

[svinayak]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1211/p06s02-wosc.html

Using the US to pressure Pakistan

India is using a wide range of levers to force Pakistan to act – from the US to public opinion. On Tuesday, the chief police investigator in Mumbai revealed detailed evidence that all 10 Mumbai attackers were Pakistanis.

Yet perhaps most significantly, India has leveraged its relationship with the US to press its demands upon Pakistan. America's top diplomat, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and its top military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, both visited New Delhi and Islamabad last week. America's No. 2 diplomat, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, is expected to come through both capitals this week. US Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is expected to follow him next week.

The US has its own interests in intervening to prevent war. To succeed in Afghanistan, the US needs Pakistan to deny militants haven in its tribal areas. The Pakistan Army is currently fighting militants there. But if the feud with India escalates militarily, Pakistan will almost certainly redeploy troops from its Afghan front to the Indian front.

India, however, may be using America's interest to its own advantage, keeping military action off the table as long as the US is winning concessions from Pakistan.

"What India is doing is about the best it can," says D. Suba Chandran, an analyst at the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies in New Delhi.

India is trying to avoid a repeat of 2001. On Dec. 20 of that year, days after Pakistani militants attacked the Indian Parliament, India sent hundreds of thousands of troops to the Pakistani border. Pakistan responded similarly, and for the better part of six months, the two countries stood on the brink of war.

Under intense international pressure, then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf banned Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammed, the two militant outfits linked to the attack, and promised that Pakistani soil would never again be used for attacks on India.

Within months, the detained militant leaders were freed, and the groups have since reestablished operations. Indians are likely now to demand that Pakistan go further than it did then.

Yet there are logistical hurdles. Pakistani citizens cannot legally be extradited to India – even if the Pakistani government wanted to go against Pakistani public opinion and do it. In addition, Pakistani authorities will need evidence to charge those detained in this week's raids – but there is no tested mechanism for India to provide such intelligence.

"India is not going to give Pakistan intelligence to be used in a court of law," says Christine Fair, a South Asia expert at RAND Corp., a security consultancy in Arlington, Va.

Still, this week has signaled some measure of progress. "The next few days will be crucial," Mohan adds.

[kshirin]

Good one folks:

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=11695
Terrorists Attacking Mumbai Have Global Agenda
Pakistan's LeT, not as well known as Al Qaeda, threatens India, the West and even PakistanAshley J. Tellis
YaleGlobal, 8 December 2008

WASHINGTON: Whenever New Delhi points a finger at Pakistan in the aftermath of a terrorist attack in India, a weary world seems to say, “Here we go again!” The old enmity between the two countries can tire spectators who often quickly dismiss Indian accusations of Pakistani malfeasance as little other than political recriminations. Yet, the latest terrorist assault in Bombay – involving 10 coordinated strikes that killed close to 200 and the capture of a Pakistani terrorist, Azam Amir Kasab, from Faridkot – leaves no doubt about the authenticity of the Indian charge. Whether or not the carnage in Bombay is India’s 9/11, the information now available abundantly confirms that it was not the act of domestic malcontents – another “Oklahoma City.”
The West would do well to take notice that this bloodbath was not the work of homegrown militants aggrieved by India’s failure to integrate its Muslim minority but of the most dangerous Pakistani terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), whose wider goals threaten not only secular India but also the West and even Pakistan itself.
The early conclusion that the attack in Bombay was the work of disaffected domestic protesters was arguably consoling because, if true, the threat to the international community would indeed be minimal. Moreover, the contention that New Delhi’s terrorism problem is largely domestic marginalizes the extent of foreign – primarily Pakistani – involvement in India’s “million mutinies” and accentuates the centrality of the unsettled dispute over Kashmir.
These inferences are false. As is now clear, the atrocity in Bombay was not masterminded by internal subversives – even if there were individual Indian participants. The meticulous planning, the enormous resources committed to a complex mission across great distances and long periods of time, and the burdens of a difficult sea-land operation, rule out virtually every indigenous terrorist group in India, Muslim or otherwise. The attacks involved months of training in Pakistan and extensive reconnaissance of targets in Bombay; after these were complete, the terrorists appear to have left Karachi by as yet unknown means, hijacked a fishing trawler on the high seas and, upon reaching India’s territorial waters, transferred to inflatable speedboats which landed at two different locations on the city shores from whence the assaults began. No domestic terrorist group has previously demonstrated the capacity to undertake anything as complicated and it would indeed be shocking if any did acquire such capacity unbeknownst to Indian or Western intelligence.
All evidence points to LeT as the perpetrators of the killings in Bombay conducted under the nom de guerre “Deccan Mujahideen” and reflecting its classic modus operandi: suicidal attacks, but not suicide, involving small squads of highly-armed individuals, intent on inflicting the largest numbers of casualties at symbolic sites. Such violence is emphatically not directed at remedying the grievances of India’s Muslims or resolving the dispute over Kashmir. Although LeT has long operated in the disputed state of Kashmir, it’s not a Kashmiri organization. Rather, it consists primarily of Pakistani Punjabis financed, trained, armed and abetted by the Pakistani intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – a product of the latter’s war against the Indian state dating back to the late 1980s.
LeT’s objectives from the beginning have had less to do with Kashmir and more to do with India and beyond. To begin with, India’s achievement in becoming a peaceful, prosperous, multi-ethnic and secular democracy remains an affront to LeT’s vision of a universal Islamist Caliphate begotten through tableegh, or preaching, and jihad. Further, India’s collaboration with the United States and the West in general against terrorism has marked it as a part of what LeT calls the detestable “American-Zionist-Hindu” axis that must be confronted by force. Finally, New Delhi’s emergence as a rising global power represents an impediment to LeT’s objective of, in the words of its leader, Hafiz Saeed, recovering “lost Muslim lands” that once spanned much of Asia and Europe.
Given this ideology, the LeT attack is an attempt to cripple India’s economic growth, destroy national confidence in its political system, attack its open society and provoke destabilizing communal rivalries, all while sending a message that India will remain an adversary because its successes make it a hindrance to LeT’s larger cause. In this context, the struggle over Kashmir is merely instrumental. To quote Saeed, Kashmir is merely a “gateway to capture India” en route to LeT’s other targets.
Such statements are not simply grandstanding. Outside of Al Qaeda, LeT today represents the most important South Asian terrorist group of “global reach.” With recruitment, fundraising and operations extending to Afghanistan, Iraq, Central Asia, Europe, Africa and Australia, LeT has rapidly become a formidable threat.
Washington’s concern with Al Qaeda, however justified, should not obscure the reality of other terrorist groups in South Asia that seek to promote obscurantist versions of Islam by attacking democratic societies. The US also ought not to be diverted by spurious analyses that link the carnage in Bombay to the complaints of India’s Muslims – however genuine those may be. Whatever their grievances, the Indian Muslim resentment against the Bombay attacks was most clearly exemplified by the refusal of every Muslim cemetery to accept the bodies of the slain terrorists for burial.
The incoming Obama administration should also not be distracted by calls to interject itself in resolving the Kashmir problem, because as Saeed had publicly declared in an interview in 2001, “Our struggle will continue even if Kashmir is liberated. We still have to take revenge for East Pakistan.” Obviously, this vendetta seems never ending. Saeed had given notice in 1999 that “jihad is not about Kashmir only. About fifteen years ago, people might have found it ridiculous if someone told them about the disintegration of the USSR. Today, I announce the break-up of India, Insha-Allah. We will not rest until the whole (of) India is dissolved into Pakistan.”
The barbarity in Bombay thus represents the ugly face of Islamist terrorism that threatens India, the US and its allies, and the larger international system, but fundamentally also Pakistan. Saeed has unequivocally declared that the Lashkar intends to “plant the flag of Islam in Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi.” However absurd it might sound, his words could launch thousands of zealots to commit horrible crimes worldwide. Consequently, the US cannot avoid the burden of confronting Islamabad to rid itself of this group and other menacing outfits that utilize its territory for loathsome ends. Arresting one or two of the alleged “masterminds,” as Pakistan has now done in the face of US pressure, simply will not do: rather, the entire organization must be targeted and put out of business permanently.
A good way to begin this process would be for the outgoing Bush administration to publicly declare what it already knows to be the case: that LeT planned and executed the deadly attacks in Bombay. In any event, it’s in Pakistan’s own interest– to confront LeT’s destructive ideology and subterranean links with the ISI. Such an affray ought not to be precipitated because the US or India demand it, but because it is essential to the success of the civilian government’s own objective of transforming Pakistan.
No matter what Pakistan does, the US has to be clear-sighted about the global nature of the LeT threat and together with India and other allies take resolute measures to defeat this newest challenge.
Ashley J. Tellis is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Rights:
© 2008 Yale Center for the Study of Globalization The British ended colonial rule in the subcontinent in 1947 by partitioning Pakistan and India, and the two have been antagonists ever since. Despite the tangled history of the two nations, the latest episode of a seaborne assault on 10 targets in Mumbai requires the world to take a fresh look at the nature of the terrorist threat, notes Carnegie Endowment scholar Ashley Tellis, who once served as adviser in the US embassy in New Delhi. He writes that all evidence points to the complex and coordinated attacks as the work of Pakistan’s most dangerous terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, or LeT. Tellis argues that the terrorist group is not merely a regional threat, but a global one, seeking to promote an Islamic Caliphate by breaking up India and destroying confidence in stable democracies, while isolating it from Western countries. No country can count itself safe from such threats, and Tellis urges Pakistan to press hard against ringleaders and supporters alike, and the US to expand its focus beyond Al Qaeda to other terrorist groups like LeT. All nations that support free and open societies must coordinate on swiftly blocking the global threat that emerges from the desolate regions of Pakistan and end any inspiration for disenchanted zealots elsewhere. – YaleGlobal

[cbelwal]

The brave staff of Taj Hotel who died saving guests. The youngest staff was 22, for many it was their first job.

http://www.tajhotels.com/ourpeople.htm

[kobe]

Prakash Karat is a man who has been beaten like a dog this year on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. His failure on this front, will keep troubling him even beyond his grave. ....

When Brinda one day doesn't talk to him, he will say it is because he lost face during the Indo-US Nuke Deal. So it is natural for him put all the blame for everything on that accursed deal.

....us and abandon our self interest. Or in other words "Indo-US n-deal is a bad idea because terrorists hate it". .....

wait a moment, if i remember it correctly; most of the BR jingoes were against the indo-US nuclear agreement.

commies had different reasons, they wanted all indians to have surgery to have small eyes like the chinese...

[Gerard]

Nobody dare attack us: Pranab

Expressing outrage over the Mumbai terror attack, Mukherjee said that India cannot be ignored and nobody dare attack us.

[Gerard]

India wants 40 suspects from Pakistan

He said the government was told that Lashkar-e-Tayyaba chief Hafiz Saeed had been arrested. “However, within 20 minutes, I heard from our Islamabad mission that the man was on television.”

[Amber G.]

UN bans Jamaat-ud-Dawa; declares it a terror outfit

Does this mean, the days of these kind of songs are over?
click here

Check out the lyrics ..
I*lam ka whatever.. talwar utha rhaha hai
Napak gandi lashon se, umda khad bana raha hai..

[Baljeet]

Rajesh A

thats yechury and not Karat. ToI perhaps didn't publish my comments because I called CPI-M traitor.

Yechury or Karat doesn't matter. This just proves Communists of India are nothing but the lowest form of organic life. They must be crushed before we launch counter strikes against pakistan. Atleast pakis have some dignity that they say they are out to destroy Bharat. These communist are nothing more than my excreta every day and twice on sunday.

[Rangudu]

Pakistan's DAWN paper confirms that Kasab is from TSP

Link

Crackdown hints at Faridkot-Mumbai link

Dawn Special Report

KARACHI, Dec 11: The targeting of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaatud Dawa and the rounding up of the activists belonging to the two jihadi organisations appear to have been triggered by information originating in India following the capture of one of the 10 men who attacked several targets in Mumbai towards the end of last month.

During the course of Dawn’s own investigations last week our reporters were able to locate a family who claimed to be the kin of the arrested young man in Mumbai.

The sole survivor among the 10 attackers was named as Ajmal Kasab and was supposed to belong to the village Faridkot in the Punjab. Media organisations such as the BBC and now the British newspaper Observer have done reports trying to ascertain the veracity of claims appearing in the media that the young man had a home there.

On Friday last, the BBC reported unusual activity in Faridkot near Deepalpur. A BBC correspondent located a house in the village, the then inhabitants of which carried the surname of Kasab (or Qasab as the word is often spelt here). But the residents denied any link with either Ajmal or with any Amir Kasab, the name of Ajmal’s father as reported by some of the media.

At the weekend, the Observer in England claimed that it had managed to locate the house everyone was looking for so desperately. Its correspondent said he had got hold of the voters’ roll which had the names of Amir Kasab and his wife, identified as Noor, as well as the numbers on the identity cards the couple carried.

Even though the news stories by both BBC and the Observer made a mention of the LeT, some television channels in Pakistan suggested that a connection between Mumbai and Faridkot could not be established beyond a shadow of doubt.

However, the man who said he was Amir Kasab confirmed to Dawn that the young man whose face had been beamed over the media was his son.

For the next few minutes, the fifty-something man of medium build agonized over the reality that took time sinking in, amid sobs complaining about the raw deal the fate had given him and his family.

“I was in denial for the first couple of days, saying to myself it could not have been my son,” he told Dawn in the courtyard of his house in Faridkot, a village of about 2,500 people just a few kilometres from Deepalpur on the way to Kasur. “Now I have accepted it.

“This is the truth. I have seen the picture in the newspaper. This is my son Ajmal.”

Variously addressed as Azam, Iman, Kamal and Kasav, the young man, apparently in his 20s, is being kept in custody at an undisclosed place in Mumbai.

Indian media reports ‘based on intelligence sources’ said the man was said to be a former Faridkot resident who left home a frustrated teenager about four years ago and went to Lahore.

After his brush with crime and criminals in Lahore, he is said to have run into and joined a religious group during a visit to Rawalpindi.

Along with others, claimed the Indian media, he was trained in fighting. And after a crash course in navigation, said Amir Kasab, a father of three sons and two daughters, Ajmal disappeared from home four years ago.

“He had asked me for new clothes on Eid that I couldn’t provide him. He got angry and left.”

While Amir was talking, Ajmal’s two “sisters and a younger brother” were lurking about. To Amir’s right, on a nearby charpoy, sat their mother, wrapped in a chador and in a world of her own. Her trance was broken as the small picture of Ajmal lying in a Mumbai hospital was shown around. They appeared to have identified their son. The mother shrunk back in her chador but the father said he had no problem in talking about the subject.

Amir Kasab said he had settled in Faridkot after arriving from the nearby Haveli Lakha many years ago. He owned the house and made his earnings by selling pakoras in the streets of the village.

He modestly pointed to a hand-cart in one corner of the courtyard. “This is all I have. I shifted back to the village after doing the same job in Lahore.

“My eldest son, Afzal, is also back after a stint in Lahore. He is out working in the fields.”

Faridkot is far from the urbanites’ idea of a remote village. It is located right off a busy road and bears all the characteristics of a lower-middle class locality in a big city.

It has two middle-level schools, one for girls and the other for boys which Ajmal attended as a young boy. For higher standards, the students have to enroll in schools in Deepalpur which is not as far off as the word remote tends to indicate.

It by no means qualifies as Punjab’s backwaters, which makes the young Ajmal’s graduation to an international “fearmonger” even more difficult to understand. The area can do with cleaner streets and a better sewage system but the brick houses towards the side of the Kasur-Deepalpur road have a more organised look to them than is the case with most Pakistani villages.

The Observer newspaper reports that some locals seeking anonymity say the area is a hunting ground for the recruiters of LeT and provides the organisation with rich pickings.

The approach to Faridkot also points to at least some opportunities for those looking for a job. There are some factories in the surroundings, rice mills et al, interspersed with fertile land. But for the gravity of the situation, with its mellowed and welcoming ambience, the picture could be serene.

It is not and Amir Kasab repeats how little role he has had in the scheme since the day his son walked out on him. He calls the people who snatched Ajmal from him his enemies but has no clue who these enemies are. Asked why he didn’t look for his son all this while, he counters: “What could I do with the few resources that I had?”

Otherwise quite forthcoming in his answers, Amir Kasab, a mild-mannered soul, is a bit agitated at the mention of the link between his son’s actions and money. Indian media has claimed that Ajmal’s handlers had promised him that his family will be compensated with Rs150,000 (one and a half lakh) after the completion of the Mumbai mission.

“I don’t sell my sons,” he retorts.

Journalists visiting Faridkot since Dawn reporters were at the village say the family has moved from their home and some relatives now live in the house. Perhaps fearing a media invasion, nobody is willing to say where the family has gone.

[Singha]

masood azhar is the bulkiest of them all. he was known as baby elephant by the police.
caught by a army major when trying to run away on foot after his autorickshaw was
spotted in anantnag. being fat and knock kneed he was caught easily.
the guy must devour around 4 chickens, 10 lassi and 20 parathas a day.

[Anujan]

However, the man who said he was Amir Kasab confirmed to Dawn that the young man whose face had been beamed over the media was his son.

For the next few minutes, the fifty-something man of medium build agonized over the reality that took time sinking in, amid sobs complaining about the raw deal the fate had given him and his family.

“I was in denial for the first couple of days, saying to myself it could not have been my son,” he told Dawn in the courtyard of his house in Faridkot, a village of about 2,500 people just a few kilometres from Deepalpur on the way to Kasur. “Now I have accepted it.

“This is the truth. I have seen the picture in the newspaper. This is my son Ajmal.”

I fully expect the baki FM to release a statement that more proof is required since seven people in the world look alike.

[samuel.chandra]

Completely agree. I made everyone in my extended family listen to his interview.

lessons we learned from the latest paki-state sponsored terrorist attack

FINALLY
14) SONU NIGAM SHOULD BE THE NEXT PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA !!! (we did not know that)

[ramana]

The best part of both Sonu nigam clips was the way he referred to beautiful India. Just showed his words came from the heart. So these attacks have thrown in 3 positive surprises Arnab Goswami, Suhel Seth and Sonu Nigam. Who else?

And Mumbai Police aka pandus. Never forget all the pressure on TSP is due to the Mumbai Policeman who captured the pig alive.

You should make alist of all those who failed too.

Raj Thackeray

RR Patil
Shivarj Patil
Deshmukh
His son
RG Varma: Guy is good at gangster movies. Will die rather than see his moveis again.
Javed Jaffery

[amit]

Good one folks:

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=11695
Terrorists Attacking Mumbai Have Global Agenda
Pakistan's LeT, not as well known as Al Qaeda, threatens India, the West and even PakistanAshley J. Tellis
YaleGlobal, 8 December 2008

Ashley Tellis writing something like this in an influential journal like YaleGlobal seems to indicate that this time it's different.

I'm really interested in this bit:

All evidence points to LeT as the perpetrators of the killings in Bombay conducted under the nom de guerre “Deccan Mujahideen” and reflecting its classic modus operandi: suicidal attacks, but not suicide, involving small squads of highly-armed individuals, intent on inflicting the largest numbers of casualties at symbolic sites. Such violence is emphatically not directed at remedying the grievances of India’s Muslims or resolving the dispute over Kashmir. Although LeT has long operated in the disputed state of Kashmir, it’s not a Kashmiri organization. Rather, it consists primarily of Pakistani Punjabis financed, trained, armed and abetted by the Pakistani intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – a product of the latter’s war against the Indian state dating back to the late 1980s.

LeT’s objectives from the beginning have had less to do with Kashmir and more to do with India and beyond. To begin with, India’s achievement in becoming a peaceful, prosperous, multi-ethnic and secular democracy remains an affront to LeT’s vision of a universal Islamist Caliphate begotten through tableegh, or preaching, and jihad. Further, India’s collaboration with the United States and the West in general against terrorism has marked it as a part of what LeT calls the detestable “American-Zionist-Hindu” axis that must be confronted by force. Finally, New Delhi’s emergence as a rising global power represents an impediment to LeT’s objective of, in the words of its leader, Hafiz Saeed, recovering “lost Muslim lands” that once spanned much of Asia and Europe.

I don't think any jingo here could have written this more forcefully. We've been talking about the Paki SOBs' redlines. Have these SOBs crossed some redlines of their own with this operation?

Rangudu, boss I'd be interested in you take on this?

[archan]

masood azhar is the bulkiest of them all. he was known as baby elephant by the police.
caught by a army major when trying to run away on foot after his autorickshaw was
spotted in anantnag. being fat and knock kneed he was caught easily.
the guy must devour around 4 chickens, 10 lassi and 20 parathas a day.

Masoor Azhar is a lesson for GoI. When you catch pigs like these, get as much info as you can, then put them on fast track to sentence-e-death. Hang them and get rid of some scum of this earth. Hang a few hundred and see how long their so-called "faith" holds up.

[JE Menon]

While the piece by Tellis is useful, we should be careful about how much credit and credibility we - especially governmental and semi-governmental agencies - give to these people. It may come back to bite us at a later point, when they might not be quite so friendly in their analysis... It is not inconceivable that Tellis may, at a later stage, advocate a "land for peace" sort of arrangement with Pakistan. We need to be wary.

But certainly, there is reason for optimism in that his comments indicate a certain degree of institutional mind-shift in the case of our friendly neighbour that is occurring as a result of Mumbai. It is probably a cumulative thing, where the last few stragglers from the Cold War era in the American strategic enclave are being corralled towards a rather different view, made easier by the stupidity of the ISI, which certainly had a conceptual, guidance and facilitation role.

A non-response - i.e. just the extraction of apologies, and a few arrests and organisational name changes - is not going to cut it. There are other violent and calibrated responses possible, once all the evidence is collated to OUR satisfaction, and once Pakistan confirms that it will not hand over the required terrorists to India.

Who says, for instance, that the Pakistani Navy - which facilitated this strike on Mumbai - cannot be severely degraded overnight?

[sum]

Could some timeline have been given by the GoI to the US/Pak about covert strikes if no action(though doesnt seem so by initial looks)?

The kangress spokeperson yesterday(on CNN-IBN) was mentioning that a calibrated approach was necessary and we will gradually up the pressure starting with diplomatic and economic pressure and then look at the next course based on the response. Atleast, the words sounded convincing(unlike Pranabda's no war possible speech).