This one is not just going away. A final death toll has not
emerged at this writing, but it has reached 200. Mumbai (Bombay), a city already
battered by terrorism, is slowly coming to grips with the enormity
of what happened. The horrific imagery of the blast rivals that of
9/11, and the comparisons have already begun:
"Gruesome scenes from Tuesday's attacks dominated Indian
television, which began referring to the day as 7/11. Images of a
middle-aged man, his body severed in two, crying for help as his
fellow passengers carried him away, were broadcast repeatedly."
If the "falling man" who jumped from the World Trade Center is
the signature image of that awful day, then the broken body of that
man may take on a similar grim importance in India. One suspects
the Indian media will not be so shy as ours is about showing such
an awful reminder as the hunt for the suspects begins.
There are two main suspects in Tuesday's train bombing. Either
way, one man will bear some responsibility for them. And it is
possible the country that has harbored him will pay as well.
Lashkar-e-Taiba is a radical Muslim terror group with ties to al
Qaeda. It has also received heavy funding from an Indian crime lord
named Dawood Ibrahim, another suspect in the bombings and a
terrorist in his own right. Ibrahim is regarded as the mastermind
behind Mumbai's 1993 bombing that killed 257. His gang, called
D-Company, planned the first attack and smuggled in the RDX
explosives from Pakistan. (I discussed his operations for The
American Spectator online here and
here.)
Both Lashkar-e-Taiba and D-Company are suspects
in the 7-11 bombing as well. Ibrahim also has close al Qaeda ties,
according to our Treasury Department, and it is likely no
coincidence that this serial attack took place on the 11th of the
month. I suspect that Osama bin Laden and the leadership levels of
al Qaeda were not involved in this attack, but that it was carried
out by home-grown terrorists (with Al Qaeda's advice and approval)
as occurred in London a year ago.
For the sake of peace in the region, however, it doesn't matter
which group was behind it -- both are supported by Dawood Ibrahim.
And Ibrahim (and possibly elements of L-e-T) are helped by
Pakistan's Intelligence Service, the ISI. Ibrahim is widely
reported to live like a king in Pakistan today, controlling his
criminal empire and immune from extradition to India. (Pakistan
denies that he is in the country.)
At one point the ISI were staunch American allies against the
Soviets. Since then, they have given us Kashmiri separatists,
Dawood Ibrahim, A.Q. Khan and his nuclear network, and their
attempt to create a pliable proxy state in Afghanistan: the
Taliban. Elements within Pakistani intelligence have relentlessly
advanced the cause of Islamic fundamentalism in the region and
imperiled the world with their support for terrorists and for the
distribution of nuclear technology. While they continue to assist
us in capturing terrorists now and then, it is becoming more and
more difficult to overlook these faults, and it will be even harder
to ignore their cozy relationship with the chief suspects in the
second Mumbai attacks.
That relationship hasn't escaped one senior Indian politician,
L.K. Advani, who in the wake of the bombings has called on Pakistan
to surrender Ibrahim to face justice in India, noting that Ibrahim is to 7/11 as Osama was to 9/11.
But Pakistan has been content to ignore such demands before.
This time India's demands may be more forceful. Saisuresh
Sivaswamy, a columnist for India's Rediff News, began to
look around the world to formulate an appropriate response:
India has been engaged in a peace process with the very
neighbour it knows is out to dismember it through any and every
means available to it.
Is it any surprise that terrorists continue to attack India with
impunity?
Contrast this with the way America has gone about its business
since September 11, 2001, and you will see why that nation has not
faced any attack in the last five years. Osama may fume and fret
from his mountain hole, but there's little more than that he and
his terrorist hordes have been able to achieve against the only
remaining superpower.
That is because America understands that war can only be won
through war, it cannot be won through peace, a belief India has
been labouring under for so long.
India, like the United States, has been at war with Islamist
terrorists for years now. And as with the United States after 9/11,
it has every right to hold nations responsible for harboring and
abetting the terrorists who attacked it. However, the risks of this
confrontation are potentially much more grave: one hopes that two
nuclear powers, and two allies of the United States, can be
deterred from an all-out confrontation over this issue.
If Pakistan is serious about avoiding a war -- possibly a
nuclear war -- with India, it should hand over Dawood Ibrahim to
face Indian justice. The United States, in its efforts to maintain
the peace between the two nations, should insist on no less from
Pakistan. And if Dawood Ibrahim's testimony brings down the
Islamist wing of the ISI, the world will be a better place for
it.
topics:
Trade, Television, Business, Islam, Pakistan
