We were watching this on CNN for most of the day. Just thought this needed a thread. Any thoughts??

Here's the latest:

Clues point to domestic terrorists in India attack

      
By PAISLEY DODDS Paisley Dodds – Thu Nov 27, 9:40 pm ET
Firefighters try to douse flames at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, India, AP – Firefighters try to douse flames at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, India, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008. A …

    * Mumbai Terror Attacks Slideshow: Mumbai Terror Attacks
    * New Yorkers Keep Close Eye On Mumbai Terrorism Play Video Video: New Yorkers Keep Close Eye On Mumbai Terrorism CBS 2 New York
    * Flights From Mumbai Arrive In LAX After Attacks Play Video Video: Flights From Mumbai Arrive In LAX After Attacks CBS 2 / KCAL 9 Los Angeles

LONDON – The attack on India's financial capital bears all the trademarks of al-Qaida — simultaneous assaults meant to kill scores of Westerners in iconic buildings — but clues so far point to homegrown Indian terrorists, global intelligence officials said Thursday.

Spy agencies around the world were caught off guard by the deadly attack, in which gunmen sprayed crowds with bullets, torched landmark hotels and took dozens of hostages.

"We have been actively monitoring plots in Britain and abroad and there was nothing to indicate something like this was about to happen," a British security official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work.

Britain is the former colonial power in India and Pakistan and closely monitors terrorist suspects in those countries.

In some ways, the attack illustrated just how fluid terror tactics have become since Sept. 11 — and how the threat has become more global. Al-Qaida's leaders on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border still provide inspiration but groups are becoming increasingly local.

The group that claimed responsibility, Deccan Mujahideen, was unknown to global security officials. The name suggested the group was Indian.

One of the suspects reportedly called an Indian television station, speaking the main Pakistani language of Urdu, to demand the return of Muslim lands. That was a reference to Kashmir, territory claimed by both India and Pakistan.

But Ajai Sahni, head of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management who has close ties to India's police and intelligence, said the attack was a departure from past assaults waged over Kashmir. Other such attacks had targeted Indian legislators, not Westerners.

Security officials said it was too soon to make a connection to Pakistan.

"It would be premature ... to reach any hard-and-fast conclusions on who may be responsible for the attacks, but some of what we're seeing is reminiscent of past terrorist operations undertaken by groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed," a U.S. counterterrorism official said on condition of anonymity, referring to Pakistani militant groups linked to al-Qaida who have fought Indian troops in Kashmir.

Another British security official told the AP on condition of anonymity that the attack doesn't look to have been directed by al-Qaida's core leadership, which has been weakened by the deaths of several leaders and key operatives in recent months.

Al-Qaida's core leadership is believed to be fewer than 100 people now, said Rohan Gunaratna, author of "Inside Al-Qaida" and a terrorism expert at the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore.

The British security official said it appeared the attack was inspired by Islamic extremist ideology and al-Qaida propaganda popular among radicalized youths. Many of the attackers in the Mumbai assault were young.

Gunaratna said he believed the group that carried out Wednesday's attack was the Indian Mujahideen, responsible for past attacks in Mumbai.

The word "Deccan" refers to a plateau in southern India. "Mujahideen" refers to holy warriors.

"The earlier generation of terrorist groups in India were mostly linked to Pakistan," Gunaratna told the AP. "But today we are seeing a dramatic change. They are almost all homegrown groups. ... They are very angry and firmly believe that India is killing Muslims and attacking Islam."

British-based Jane's Information Group said it thought the attackers could be Indian but that taking hostages suggested a wider anti-Western agenda.

"Until now, terrorist attacks in India have targeted civilians, often in busy market or commercial areas, and in communally sensitive areas with the intention to foment unrest between Hindu and Muslim communities," said Urmila Venugopalan, Jane's South Asia analyst.

"This stands in contrast to the national issues that appeared to motivate Indian Mujahideen," Venugopalan said.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed "external forces" but stopped short of blaming Pakistan. Both are nuclear-armed countries.

In September, a massive suicide truck bomb devastated the Marriott Hotel in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, killing at least 54 people, including three Americans and the Czech ambassador.

"This type of terrorism is spreading, through Pakistan and now India, but we were all surprised by such a large-scale attack like this," said Wajid Hassan, Pakistan's High Commissioner in London. "This is no coincidence that this type of attack happened so soon after the bombing of the Marriott Hotel. People from all countries are being paid to fight this al-Qaida war. This is a war that goes beyond any nationality."

Sahni, however, said "very preliminary investigations and intelligence information would suggest that some groups based in Pakistan are the most likely.

"If there is Indian participation, it's most likely to be Students' Islamic Movement of India," he said, referring to a radical student group banned in India in 2001.

Indian intelligence officials were also investigating whether Mumbai's criminal underworld could be involved.

"It's a possibility," Sahni said. "When we say Mumbai underworld we're talking of Dawood Ibrahim."

Ibrahim is one of India's most wanted men and also the alleged mastermind behind bombings in Mumbai in 1993 that killed 257 people. He has reportedly fled Mumbai, and police now believe he lives in Pakistan. Pakistani officials have denied this.

I have been watching the events on BBC quite a bit over the last few days. Seems there were about 10 co-ordinated attacks. Mumbai being India's Beacon of multi-cultural harmony and the future of India being a world power. It's a place for both business and tourism and the attacks are thought to have been very well planned.

Surreal seeing footage of crowds watching people in their hotel room windows, unable to get out. I think the Taj Mahal hotel is nigh on cleared now by indian commandos. I did see a miltitary general refer to the attacks to be potentially from Pakistan. Obviously a lot of dis-array at the moment.

Quoted Text

They are very angry and firmly believe that India is killing Muslims and attacking Islam.

The familiar chant of Muslim fundamentalists everywhere: you can hear it in Asia, northern Africa, southern Europe and anywhere else a Muslim population has to co-exist with the infidel.

And all this will continue until these young men in their twenties believe that they have other better options than martyrdom. Right now the "foot soldiers" are joining these packs because they have nothing else to do - often illiterate and ignorant of almost everything but religious instruction, and with no skills except being violent. They are like the inhabitants of Jim Jones' collective, but worse - they want to take people with them.

It's the leaders that I really blame ... those who know what hell they are unleashing. It's in their best interest to keep these young men without education, and with no economic hope of a lifestyle that provides for a family - the natural tendency for humans since time immemorial.

It just ain't right. Just my 2cents.

There is some speculation in the UK press , that some of the terrorists could be British .

He's onto something here: what the Muslim terrorists object to is modernity, self-determination, sex, money, and anything else that runs against the pathetic small-mindedness and ignorant bigotry of fundamentalist religion.


What They Hate About Mumbai
By SUKETU MEHTA
Published: November 28, 2008 / New York Times

MY bleeding city. My poor great bleeding heart of a city. Why do they go after Mumbai? There’s something about this island-state that appalls religious extremists, Hindus and Muslims alike. Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness.

Mumbai is all about dhandha, or transaction. From the street food vendor squatting on a sidewalk, fiercely guarding his little business, to the tycoons and their dreams of acquiring Hollywood, this city understands money and has no guilt about the getting and spending of it. I once asked a Muslim man living in a shack without indoor plumbing what kept him in the city. “Mumbai is a golden songbird,” he said. It flies quick and sly, and you’ll have to work hard to catch it, but if you do, a fabulous fortune will open up for you. The executives who congregated in the Taj Mahal hotel were chasing this golden songbird. The terrorists want to kill the songbird.

Just as cinema is a mass dream of the audience, Mumbai is a mass dream of the peoples of South Asia. Bollywood movies are the most popular form of entertainment across the subcontinent. Through them, every Pakistani and Bangladeshi is familiar with the wedding-cake architecture of the Taj and the arc of the Gateway of India, symbols of the city that gives the industry its name. It is no wonder that one of the first things the Taliban did upon entering Kabul was to shut down the Bollywood video rental stores. The Taliban also banned, wouldn’t you know it, the keeping of songbirds.

Bollywood dream-makers are shaken. “I am ashamed to say this,” Amitabh Bachchan, superstar of a hundred action movies, wrote on his blog. “As the events of the terror attack unfolded in front of me, I did something for the first time and one that I had hoped never ever to be in a situation to do. Before retiring for the night, I pulled out my licensed .32 revolver, loaded it and put it under my pillow.”

Mumbai is a “soft target,” the terrorism analysts say. Anybody can walk into the hotels, the hospitals, the train stations, and start spraying with a machine gun. Where are the metal detectors, the random bag checks? In Mumbai, it’s impossible to control the crowd. In other cities, if there’s an explosion, people run away from it. In Mumbai, people run toward it — to help. Greater Mumbai takes in a million new residents a year. This is the problem, say the nativists. The city is just too hospitable. You let them in, and they break your heart.

In the Bombay I grew up in, your religion was a personal eccentricity, like a hairstyle. In my school, you were denominated by which cricketer or Bollywood star you worshiped, not which prophet. In today’s Mumbai, things have changed. Hindu and Muslim demagogues want the mobs to come out again in the streets, and slaughter one another in the name of God. They want India and Pakistan to go to war. They want Indian Muslims to be expelled. They want India to get out of Kashmir. They want mosques torn down. They want temples bombed.

And now it looks as if the latest terrorists were our neighbors, young men dressed not in Afghan tunics but in blue jeans and designer T-shirts. Being South Asian, they would have grown up watching the painted lady that is Mumbai in the movies: a city of flashy cars and flashier women. A pleasure-loving city, a sensual city. Everything that preachers of every religion thunder against. It is, as a monk of the pacifist Jain religion explained to me, “paap-ni-bhoomi”: the sinful land.

In 1993, Hindu mobs burned people alive in the streets — for the crime of being Muslim in Mumbai. Now these young Muslim men murdered people in front of their families — for the crime of visiting Mumbai. They attacked the luxury businessmen’s hotels. They attacked the open-air Cafe Leopold, where backpackers of the world refresh themselves with cheap beer out of three-foot-high towers before heading out into India. Their drunken revelry, their shameless flirting, must have offended the righteous believers in the jihad. They attacked the train station everyone calls V.T., the terminus for runaways and dreamers from all across India. And in the attack on the Chabad house, for the first time ever, it became dangerous to be Jewish in India.

The terrorists’ message was clear: Stay away from Mumbai or you will get killed. Cricket matches with visiting English and Australian teams have been shelved. Japanese and Western companies have closed their Mumbai offices and prohibited their employees from visiting the city. Tour groups are canceling long-planned trips.

But the best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever. Dream of making a good home for all Mumbaikars, not just the denizens of $500-a-night hotel rooms. Dream not just of Bollywood stars like Aishwarya Rai or Shah Rukh Khan, but of clean running water, humane mass transit, better toilets, a responsive government. Make a killing not in God’s name but in the stock market, and then turn up the forbidden music and dance; work hard and party harder.

If the rest of the world wants to help, it should run toward the explosion. It should fly to Mumbai, and spend money. Where else are you going to be safe? New York? London? Madrid?

So I’m booking flights to Mumbai. I’m going to go get a beer at the Leopold, stroll over to the Taj for samosas at the Sea Lounge, and watch a Bollywood movie at the Metro. Stimulus doesn’t have to be just economic.

Suketu Mehta, a professor of journalism at New York University, is the author of “Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found.”

I seem to remember the same advice being given in America after our 9/11 attacks-- go out and spend! I didn't find that an appropriate or respectful attitude regarding the tragedy then, and I don't find Mehta's "work hard and party harder" invocation at all compelling either.

Yes, we cannot give in to the hateful close-mindedness of terrorists, but for crying out loud, there are other responses than to spend money. We can all adopt the attitude of working for a better world so extremists have something to live for, rather than dying for the fairy tales of their faith. Get involved in your community locally, teach kids to read (or teach anyone any other skills), give a loan to someone starting a small business, and on and on. When you make the world better for everyone, not just those jetting off to Mumbai to spend their accumulated dough, we will see an end to terrorism.

Quoted from harihead

I seem to remember the same advice being given in America after our 9/11 attacks-- go out and spend! I didn't find that an appropriate or respectful attitude regarding the tragedy then, and I don't find Mehta's "work hard and party harder" invocation at all compelling either.

He's being slightly ironic: he's thumbing his nose at the religious puritans and telling people to go right on doing what their doing, and in fact to do more of precisely what pisses the godly off because all of it's more life affirming and fully human than anything a vicious fool with a god dredged out of the worst part of the dark ages stuck in his head can imagine. Anyway, he makes your point, too:

But the best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever. Dream of making a good home for all Mumbaikars, not just the denizens of $500-a-night hotel rooms. Dream not just of Bollywood stars like Aishwarya Rai or Shah Rukh Khan, but of clean running water, humane mass transit, better toilets, a responsive government. Make a killing not in God’s name but in the stock market, and then turn up the forbidden music and dance; work hard and party harder.

I suppose. He focuses far too much on money for me-- "Make a killing not in God’s name but in the stock market" seems but a shift from fanaticism to greed, which is not an improvement in my mind. These terrorists are hideous human beings-- I like my friend's suggestion of putting all their family and friends on an island for 5 years, to generate some social pressure to nip these abominations in the bud.

But think of the potential billions of people who were wounded and will be wounded more by the unbridled greed on Wall Street-- and there's not even the pretense of making any of these people pay for their crimes. It's robbery on a grand scale, but because the robbers are in places of power, the government shrugs its shoulders. Any mugger goes to prison for $50; these muggers get scolded and remain in place to rob some more.

Sorry. Mammon is a dirty word in my book these days.

Quoted from harihead

I seem to remember the same advice being given in America after our 9/11 attacks-- go out and spend! I didn't find that an appropriate or respectful attitude regarding the tragedy then, and I don't find Mehta's "work hard and party harder" invocation at all compelling either.

Yes, we cannot give in to the hateful close-mindedness of terrorists, but for crying out loud, there are other responses than to spend money. We can all adopt the attitude of working for a better world so extremists have something to live for, rather than dying for the fairy tales of their faith. Get involved in your community locally, teach kids to read (or teach anyone any other skills), give a loan to someone starting a small business, and on and on. When you make the world better for everyone, not just those jetting off to Mumbai to spend their accumulated dough, we will see an end to terrorism.

harihead the 7/7 London suicide bombers were involved in the community one was a teaching assistant and another helped run a Fish and Chip shop business .
These guy's were respected in my community , i know this as i live very close to where they lived and worked.
The people of Leeds were shocked that two of there own could do such a thing .
We live completly seperate to Muslim's now any sense of community spirt as gone , it's difficult to do what you say when trust as gone .
In my city thats now the case , we don't get along anymore , suppose in that respect terrorism as won ?

Quoted from harihead

Sorry. Mammon is a dirty word in my book these days.

Mine, too: facetiousness about money, whatever the original intent, is in poor taste these days. The only thing mammon has going for it is that at least it is not Muhammad.

Thanks for understanding, Geoff. I'm genuinely distressed over what I see as a return to feudal lordship in what are supposed to be democratic-based societies. And these pinheads really think they're better than me-- who died and made you lord?

DaveRam, that's such a sad situation. Although my friend wasn't serious, it really does sound for a case of putting all the instigators or supporters on an island. You certainly experienced a betrayal of trust by people who should have known better. They were in your community and knew you as people. What makes a person so whacked they want to go out and commit mass murder? So yes, I can see that taking a long time to rebuild, and they will have to earn it. As long as you have whackjobs trying to impose their world view on others, we'll have this unrest. Why can't everyone just agree to get along? (slaps around the whackjob leaders who are the only ones who gain from it)

Quoted from harihead

And these pinheads really think they're better than me-- who died and made you lord?

Einstein, in an entirely different context, said something about God being subtle and not malicious. Religious fundamentalists, Muslim and otherwise, believe precisely the reverse: that God is about as subtle as a TV evangelist's pitch for money, and as malicious as a suicide bombing. Maybe fundamentalism is really a form of anti-religion?

I don't pretend to understand the religious mind. God supposedly is love, yet he smites believer and infidel alike and consigns most people to everlasting torture. In all honesty, I see no difference at all between the Judeo-Christian god and Zeus, god of thunderbolts. It's all some wacky deity myth that just sounds ridiculous.

Einstein, as I suspect you know, did not believe in a personal god either. His use of "god" refers to the spirit of Nature. Religious people have hijacked his words, even after he tried to set them straight. A couple of quotes from here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einprayr.htm

Quoted Text

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

...

I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science.

    My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance-but for us, not for God.

He expresses himself so well. Yes, morality is of the utmost importance. I cannot conceive of a god worthy of the name who commands his followers to butcher unarmed innocent people. I can conceive of a world where the rest of us get together and say, "This is always unacceptable" and do what we can to make sure it doesn't happen again, and that the vicious perpetrators of this deplorable act are punished.  

Reading Einstein's quotes, I get the impression that he did believe in a higher power. He doesn't come off atheist, just anti-organized religion. He uses the phrase, "personal god", which I think shows that he's saying he doesn't support the belief of this sort of judging entity that sits on his throne controlling his creations. Anyway, that's what I get out of this quote:

"My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance-but for us, not for God."

He knows that our awareness is so small that it's impossible to say with one hundred percent conviction that a higher power doesn't exist. I think people of his great intellect AND enlightenment often feel this way. They remain open. At least that's what I'm getting out of it. Of course, I'm probably completely wrong!

I think John Lennon expressed a similar belief. From what I've read. Just an openness to possibility I guess. Naive or not. Who knows.

"I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong."

and

"I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?"

Anyway, it's people who pervert religion anyway. As they do so many things. They kill in God's name and use it as an excuse for their hatred. Doesn't mean God or the concept of God is bad. A lot of people get something very good out of it. And I'm betting there's a hell of a lot more who get something positive out of it than negative. That's just not discussed. People will be people. If there were no concept of God, there would be something else to use as an excuse. It's all down to the individual and what they choose to do with it. I certainly wouldn't begrudge anyone their beliefs if that's what gets them through the day or compels them to do the right thing. Some people need to feel that they're being watched over and cared for. Some don't. Who's to say which is right and which is wrong? To confuse the issue because some radicals take the concept and use it to commit acts of violence based on their own narrow minded grasp of reality is just a waste of time. There's a deeper problem here. Which I think Alexis hit on a bit earlier.