Mumbai terror: the bigger picture?

The recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, have done more than just expose the difficulty in containing and responding to global terrorism. They have also exposed a fair amount of limp and shallow journalism, dished up in large swathes by local and international press.

Upon hearing about the attacks, my first reaction was to try and understand why they were happening, how it was technically possible for a major world city in a country at peace to have running gun battles for three days and what the strategic significance of these attacks could be. I picked up a local weekend newspaper and got a list of personal snippets from people who had lived through it, executive’s wives in South Africa getting SMS’s, cabin crew relieved to be home and copious amounts of unconnected, emotional outpourings from relieved South Africans falling over their feet to get out of Mumbai. No analysis. No context. No sense of what the whole damn thing was all about.

Don’t get me wrong; there is certainly a space for personal accounts. It is important to get a sense of what it was like to be there for it must have been terrifying. I get that. It is, however, largely useless information without a decent understanding of the context and the possible motives of the attackers and their greater strategy. Large groups of highly trained people do not arm themselves and give up their lives in a massacre unless they have good reason to do so. What was this reason? It certainly wasn’t to scare the cabin crew of SAA.

Not getting much joy locally, I went in search of a more global perspective. Much the same stuff was circulating. This article in the Guardian was like a UK version of the article in the Star. Instead of reading about relieved South Africans, this was all about relieved Brits.

These articles from the BBC and Times in London go a few steps further but also stop short of giving any real depth.

There is more information about the nature of the attacks, history of previous attacks, details about the escalating tensions between India and Pakistan and finally, a tiny jewel; a Pakistani threat to withdraw over 100 000 troops from the Afghan border should India respond in any way. Pakistan is involved with the US in its biggest attack on insurgents during the current Afghan campaign. The article does not go on to give a bigger picture that would help us to make total sense of the situation but have at least left us with enough information to try and make those links by ourselves.

Why did these men go to their deaths in Mumbai and take 200 people with them? Based on the geopolitics of the region and the war going on in Afghanistan, I think the most likely scenario goes something like this:

Tensions have been rising between India and Pakistan by the day since the attacks. Following a similar attack on the Indian parliament in 2001, India moved its army into Kashmir, amassed troops on the border and started shelling Pakistan. India did this because the attacks emanated from their old foe Pakistan and because the ruling party needed an outlet for Indian public anger, again a serious issue in the current crisis. As a test case, it showed what response India was likely to make following a Pakistani-based terror attack in India. Whoever planned the recent attacks almost certainly knew this.

The softness of the targets (hotel guests, tourists), the location of the attacks (central Mumbai) and the fact that armed militants were involved instead of a bomb tells a story all on its own; these attacks were designed for major impact on a global scale and to draw the attention of the world media for a prolonged period. Would the world be this focused on the attack if it had been a bomb blast? I doubt it. Bombs go off in Iraq virtually daily and the global audience has grown immune to hearing about yet another one in a place far from their own.

Running battles in the streets of Mumbai for three days with foreigners being targeted, however, gets major attention. The attack was orchestrated to be large, to ensure numerous casualties of foreign nationals and most importantly, to create an outrage both domestically and internationally that India would have to respond to. These attacks were almost certainly designed to make a huge statement and to provoke a certain response from India.

We know that in 2001, a similar, but smaller attack led to troops massing on the Indian and Pakistani borders with two nuclear powers skirmishing, fingers hovering above big red buttons. With a similar attack in 2008, the terrorist brains behind Mumbai would have assumed a similar response. They had to know that India would blame Pakistan. They ensured that part of the strike force came quite obviously from Karachi by boat and landed D-Day style in Mumbai’s harbour. They knew that the attack had to involve foreign nationals so that there would be massive international pressure on India to take action. This admittedly excellent article from the BBC notes this and then stops rather abruptly, way short of looking into why that might be the case.

The attacks also had to involve Indian nationals so that there would be huge domestic pressure for the Indian government to act against Pakistan. Indian resignations and public outcry have both been reported.

So far the plans of the militants behind the attacks seem to be on track.

India has openly insinuated that Pakistan may be involved at governmental level. They have made demands of Pakistani intelligence, such as full transparency and handing over of crucial information; demands that that are unlikely to be met judging by the traditionally hostile attitudes the two nations have towards each other. India is also calling for the extradition of known militants hiding in Pakistan.

It is not a small coincidence that in the middle of this, the US has sent Condoleezza Rice to India. Why? It is certainly not simply a social visit to express solidarity and offer condolences. That hand will certainly be proffered, but the true reason for her visit lies hidden in the key snippet from the Times article regarding troop movements in Pakistan. She is there to mastermind the Indian response to suit key US objectives … if she can.

The US has put Pakistan under enormous pressure to combat Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in the border regions near Afghanistan. In response to this, Pakistan has over 100 000 troops in this region engaging with militants. The US troops are concentrating on the Afghan side of the border. Obama has pledged to resolve the war in Iraq and move resources to Afghanistan during his term. Militants in this region are therefore facing attacks from both sides and the prospect of a US surge next year. They know that there are few places left to run and that a similar surge has resulted in big US gains in Iraq.

In addition, the US is now regularly flaunting Pakistani sovereignty with drone attacks on positions well inside the Pakistani border. One starts to wonder exactly how desperate Islamic militants holed up in this region might be right now.

A group by the name of Lashkar-e-Toiba has since claimed responsibility for the Mumbai attacks. The group was founded in Afghanistan, is based near Lahore in Pakistan and aims to free Kashmir from Indian rule. It is possible that they acted alone but the timing and implications of the attacks as well as the weaponry, sophistication and training of the militants in the border regions of Pakistan would seem to point to a more coordinated agenda. Coupled to the geopolitical significance of the attacks, it would seem impossible to believe that this is simply a lucky stroke for Taliban and Al Qaeda militants holed up in northern Pakistan.

It seems likely then that the Mumbai attacks were, at least in part, orchestrated by the Taliban and Al Qaeda or those sympathetic to their current strategic conundrum. In order to relieve the pressure on their position, they needed a distraction. They needed to drive a wedge between US and Pakistani cooperation. By raising tensions between India and Pakistan, Pakistan would be forced to allocate resources to its Indian border region, a region that just so happens to be on the opposite side of the country to Afghanistan. Removal of its troops from the Afghan border would relieve pressure on Islamic militants engaging the US and allow them to move more freely on the Pakistani side as the US presence mounts in Afghanistan.

In addition, even the threat of an attack by India would add to the instability in Pakistan, which also just so happens to be deeply mired in a financial crisis. This crisis makes it unlikely that Pakistan could stretch to funding long-term military action on both of its borders. The more likely outcome is the financial and political breakdown of Pakistan leading to an ever-conducive environment for militants to ply their trade.

If this indeed was an unrelated action by Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Taliban and Al Qaeda had nothing to do with it, the benefits of having the Pakistani army removed from their backs at this juncture will certainly be appreciated. In fact they will probably kick themselves for not thinking of it first. It just seems too convenient.

Condoleezza Rice is probably in India trying to figure out how India can respond to calm the populace but without engaging Pakistan militarily, which would leave the US to fight the war alone and without a key pincer on the battlefield. Expect to see a muted Indian response under enormous US pressure if she succeeds. Expect to see an increased crisis on the India/Pakistan border and possible large-scale incursions into northern Pakistan by the US if she does not.

Either way the global significance of the attacks goes far beyond the relieved tourists returning to their home countries. It is a small and human piece of a much bigger story and it is a pity that the bigger picture is not receiving more page space. That bigger picture is shaping our world.