Mumbai attacks follow Al-Qaeda blueprint

WASHINGTON/LONDON: The audacious attacks by terrorists in Mumbai have all the hallmarks of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, intelligence agencies of world's major powers and terrorism experts say.
       
The terrorists who came from sea followed a "blueprint" created by al-Qaeda "where the underlying theme is to cause as much havoc as possible and this is exactly what has happened in India," said London-based terrorism expert George Kassimeris.
        
"Al Qaeda set the blueprint for terrorist operations and now we see different people, different groups in different parts of the world, copying it," said Kassimeris, a senior research fellow at the University of Wolverhampton.
        
He said the Islamic extremist group created the "modus operandi" of attacking vulnerable civilian targets with no warning, long-term plans or demands.
       
Witness accounts from Mumbai that gunmen were looking for US and British nationals suggest they want to grab international attention.
       
"There is no specific operational or logistical plan, they just want to inflict as much damage and injury as possible," he said.
       
Bruce Riedel, a veteran CIA officer and former senior director for South Asia and the Middle East on the White House National Security Council, said the attacks had the "hallmarks of an al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic group such as Lashkar-e Taiba" (LeT), which is based in Pakistan and has links to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
       
"India has been a major target of terrorism for the last several years, Mumbai in particular," Riedel, one of the top advisers to US President-elect Barack Obama, has been quoted as saying in The Washington Times.
       
"The vast bulk of these attacks have been carried out by Islamic extremist groups such as LeT, which has close links to al-Qaeda," said Riedel, who is expected to figure in the next US administration fashion.
       
In Moscow, a senior official at one of Russia's spy agencies, directly blamed the al-Qaeda linked group for the Mumbai attacks saying: "The Russian secret services have information that certain groups that have carried out attacks in Mumbai have contacts with Al-Qaeda."
       
"In particular, the terrorist group LeT. This group's militants undergo special training in al-Qaeda camps, located on the border between Pakistan and India," the official said.
       
Westerners in India's financial centre were targeted in the spectacular attack comprised of multiple, simultaneous assaults a signature of past al-Qaeda actions including the September 11 attacks.
       
Professor Richard Bonney, another expert, compared the Mumbai attacks to the deadly bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan's capital Islamabad on September 20.
      
Bonney, the author of Jihad: From Qu'ran To Bin Laden, said the difference was that in Mumbai there were co-ordinated attacks and Westerners were singled out as hostages.
      
Among the dead were nine foreigners, 14 police personnel, a home guard jawan and 104 members of the public.
      
"This attack looks more dangerous and better planned, though not directed against possible government targets but economic ones and of course the 'Western allies,'" he said.
       
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who has just wound up a visit to Afghanistan feels the Mumbai attacks bear some hallmarks of al-Qaeda network.
       
"It is very premature to start talking about links to al-Qaeda. Some of the names of groups that are being circulated at the moment are not al-Qaeda affiliates, but that cannot be taken as a definite view," he said.

Top South Asia and counter terrorism experts generally agree that while the finer details about those responsible for the Mumbai terror carnage is yet to be known there is little doubt that the terrorists had some "outside connection" by way training and equipment.
 
"No indigenous Indian group has this level of capability. The goal is to damage the symbol of India's economic  renaissance, undermine investor confidence and provoke an India-Pakistani crisis," Riedel said.
 
"This is a new, horrific milestone in the global jihad," the former CIA official told The Washington Post.
 
Meanwhile, an unnamed US counter terrorism official has told The Post that persons of authority have started to look at the LeT and the Jaish-e-Muhammad as possible groups that could have been behind the Mumbai attacks.
 
"... But I can't caution enough to treat it as a theory, a working assumption. It's still too early for hard and fast conclusions," the official said.
 
He expected the Indians to work their way back "reasonably quickly" to clear the air on the origin of the terror attacks.
 
"What the Indians have in their favor is that they've got some of these guys. It seems logical that they can expect to work their way back reasonably quickly," the official added.
 
Roger W Cressey, a former White House counter terrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations, underlined the "fair amount of planning" that go into such terror attacks.
 
"What is striking about this is a fair amount of planning had to go into this type of attack," Cressey said.
 
"This is not a seat-of-the-pants operation. This group had to receive some training or support from professionals in the terrorism business," he stressed.
 
Meanwhile, Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani has emphatically denied any involvement of his country in the Mumbai carnage, stressing that terrorism is a threat to both India and Pakistan.
 
"It is unfair to blame Pakistan or Pakistanis for these acts of terrorism even before an investigation is undertaken," he said.
 
"Instead of scoring political points at the expense of a neighboring country that is itself a victim of terrorism, it is time for India's leaders to work together with Pakistan's elected leaders in putting up a joint front against terrorism," Haqani told The Washington Times.