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July 11, 2006

India: 150 Killed In Terror Train Blasts, Islamists Suspected

In this evening's rush hour, trains leaving the thriving commercial Mumbai in western India were hit by seven bombs. Currently the figure for those killed is 150. The news is reported in DNA India, Rediff.com, the Times, the BBC and Associated Press via SF Gate.com, and by Forbes.

Forbes states that in the immediate wake of the blasts, foreign stock values in Indian companies wavered, but India's stock market had already closed before the blasts. Mumbai, formerly Bombay, is the financial center of India.

The bombs hit mainly first class carriages, with the first striking at 18.30 local time, and almost simultaneously seven more blasts occurred. The blasts happened at Matunga, Khar, Mahim, Jogeshwari, Borivali and Bhayandar. Five of the blasts happened on moving carriages, and two blasts went off while rains were stationary by passenger platforms. A more detailed map of the train network can be found by clicking here.

Many of the estimated 300 hunderd injured have burn injuries. The multiple and simultaneous nature of the attacks meant that emergency resources were stretched beyond capacity.

Vikram Sood, former chief of India's Research and Analysis Wing, said: "What we are seeing on TV suggests that Mumbai city, and the State, was just not prepared for the tragedy. Dead bodies were being carried in a clumsy manner. Nowhere did we see an ambulance, at least there was no visual evidence to show the presence of the State. The State is not reacting fast enough. Even after one hour, the blast sites are not cordoned off....Terrorism will continue in India. It's a given. Now, we have to show that the State can react fast enough."

So many people in the confusion which followed were trying to use mobile phones to either contact relatives to find out if they were alive, or to tell friends or family that they themselves were alive, that several phone service providers became overloaded. People were advised to use SMS messaging, to reduce the drain on the phone companies.

258 buses were laid on by Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking to help people to return to their homes, and the train service is expected to return by midnight. Currently, overhead wires that were damaged by the blasts are being repaired. Western Railway, the line which leads out of Mumbai, is a lifeline for the city, essential for commuting and communications. At Mahim, commuters trying to get home wee advised to use the Western Expess Highway to ease the pressure.

US leaders condemned the attacks. US Ambassador to India David Mulford is currently in Washington, but he phoned New Delhi and Mmbai to assess the fate of US consulate employees in Mumbai, several of whom may have used the Western Railway. Pakistan also offered its condolences, and condemned the perpetrators of the attacks.

An eyewitness who was on a footbridge at Mahim station saw dead bodies flying out of the Borivali-bound fast train. Blood was flowing like a river all around. "People were screaming for help and many were jumping out from other compartments. No one knew what was happening," he recalls.

He described the scene when he reached a blasted carriage: "It was gruesome. I saw mutilated bodies. I don't think anyone in that compartment could have come out alive. The intensity of the blast was very high. Some people got sheets from their homes to take out the dead. Those who were breathing were immediately rushed to the nearest hospital."

It took police about an hour to arrive at Malim station. One commuter said: "We should not give these terrorists bail. They need to be hanged in public. There is no law and order. These were innocent people who had nothing to do with politics, but they lost their lives."

Police suspect the attack is similar to the explosions that had rocked Mumbai in 1993, 2002 and 2003. More than 250 died in the 1993 blasts, which were the work of Dawood Ibrahim and Abu Salem.

The exact culprits are not being named, but AN Roy, Mumbai Police Commissioner said: "Forensic experts have been called in and they will determine what kind of explosives were used in the blasts. Obviously a terrorist outfit is behind the blasts because a normal human being could not have done this."

So far, the main suspect, Lashkar-e-Tayba or Lashkar-i-Toiba (LeT), an Islamist group which uses terror to attempt to get India to cede Kashmir, has denied guilt in the attack. However, when LeT attacked New Delhi on October 29 in triple blasts, they initially refused to admit their participation, and even expressed their condolences to the relatives.

The last major bomb attack, at the Indian holy city of Varanasi, which involved multiple bombs on March 7 was initially suspected to be the work of LeT, but it transpired later that the Varanasi blasts were the handiwork of Harkatul Jihad, a Bangladesh based Islamic group. 18 people died in the Varanasi blasts, and 59 people died in New Delhi.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called an emergency Cabinet meeting and said that "terrorists" were behind the attacks.

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Update: The Times has now revised the figures for those killed in the seven Mumbai blasts to 163.

UPDATE: In a separate article, the Times states that Shivraj Patil, the Indian Home Minister, has said that Delhi authorites had been warned of an imminent terrorist attack, but the time and location of the threat was not specified.

The current finger of suspicion is pointing at Muslim Kahmiri separatists, in particular LeT ("soldiers of the pure") and Jaish-e-Mohammad ("army of Mohammed"). Gareth Price, head of the Asian Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs states: "In the past these attacks have sometimes provoked communal unrest between Muslims and Hindus and caused friction between Pakistan and India. That could be the purpose of these bombings today."

The Times state that in December 2001, following a gun attack by Muslim militants on the Delhi parliament building, India accused Pakistan of involvement, leading to a deterioration of relations, nearing war.

Since that time, the situation has improved with a crackdown on militant Islamic groups, and a thawing of Indo-Pakistani relations. But since the earthquake of October 8 last year, militants in Pakistan were allowed to provide aid and assist reconstruction, and since then there have been attacks in India, including Delhi and Varanasi. The Times states that hours before the Mumbai attacks today, attacks in Srinigar (Indian Kashmir) cost the lives of 8 tourists. India, states the Times, will be wanting concrete reassurances that Pakistan is cracking down on militancy.

However, as we observed on WR, Pakistan allowed the Islamist MMA, led by the pro-Al Qaeda and pro-Taliban head of the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, to negotiate a truce with the Taliban in Waziristan, North-West Frontier Province.

The Times states that Afghanistan is now accusing Pakistan of not doing enough to stop Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters from crossing into Afghanistan from these regions.

WR has noted that troops in North and South Waziristan have been scaled down, since MMA "negotiations". Qazi Hussain Ahmad is a supporter of terrorism and is a self-confessed insurrectionist. He may very well have deliberately sold down the river Pakistan's chances of appearing clean in the issue of the "War Aainst Terror". His main intention is to bring down Musharraf and introduce Sharia law in the country. Allowing a toad like him to negotiate with Taliban, who share his goals, is already costing British soldiers' lives in Helmand Province, in southern Afghanistan. The seriousness of the Taliban attacks in Helmand have led to the UK sending 900 extra troops to the region, to cope with the Taliban insurgency. This will bring troop numbers up from 3,600 to 4,500.

Donald Rumsfeld, currently in Kabul, has implicitly criticised Pakistan for not doing enough to stop infiltration across the border. WR notes that with troops scaled back on the Waziristan/Afghanistan border, and a "peace" arranged by a seditious Islamist such as Qazi Hussain Ahmed, no wonder the Taliban are now thriving and crossing to and from Pakistan with impunity.

However, WR notes that Pakistan is not the only threat to India's stability. The Varanasi blasts were carried out by Bangldeshi Islamists, and there is currently an attempt to "seal off" Bangladesh with a fence surrounding the entire border. Several Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) activists had been entering and leaving Pakistan into West Bengal state, India. Relations with Bangladesh are currently at an all-time low. The coalition government of Bangladesh includes two parties with Islamist ambitions. One of these is Jamaat-e-Islami, which was intimately linked with the terrorists of JMB and also with Qazi Hussain Ahmed's Jamaat-e-Islami party.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 11, 2006 2:43 PM

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