Spinning Facts

Frontal attack tactics that terrorized India over the last three days are very similar to the type of warfare first seen in Kashmir in the mid 1990s. The large majority of these were perpetrated by the Lashkar-e-Toiba, an organization founded and led by religious radicals in Pakistan. Those attacks in Kashmir have pretty much died down since 2004 when India-Pakistan relations improved.

Previous attacks in India have been impacted the poor. Bombs on trains and in markets target the middle and working class. This latest tactic brings Indian urban terrorism to a new level as the elite have been singled out with the targeting of popular cafes and luxury hotels. Wealthy Westerners and India’s elite class seem to have made this attack one to attract and hold media attention of a global scope, as reports that the gunmen specifically looked for American and British passport holders to be taken as hostages.

Timing of this latest attack comes as the first democratic government of Pakistan since 1999 is trying to improve relationships with India despite opposition by the majority of the Pakistani army and intelligence service, the ISI.

Although the ISI has been known in the past to encourage terror attacks in India to circumvent improved relations, it is possible that these attacks, if carried out by a group from Pakistan, did so without the Pakistani government or military’s knowledge.

Allied with foreign fighters from al-Qaeda, the Pakistani Taleban in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province could have the political incentive and control financing to carry out such an attack.

Current state elections in India that could determine the timing of the next general election are an added incentive to intensely scrutinize Prime Minister Manmohan Singh actions to this crisis.

Pakistan continues to deny involvement.