Mumbai, Pakistan, India. Background info anyone?

[TayTay]

Food for thought on what is going on in Mumbai and what it means going forward.



Article from http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1121/p01s01-wosc.html">The Christian Science Monitor Dated Nov 21, 2008, 5 days before the terrorist attacks in Mumbai: Read me, btw, this is significant stuff.

Barack Obama says resolving the Indian-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir will be a goal of his presidency, ending eight years of silence on the issue.

By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
and Shahan Mufti | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

NEW DELHI; and ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN

As part of his push to find new solutions to the war in Afghanistan, President-elect Barack Obama is considering a new diplomatic push on Kashmir, reversing eight years of American silence on the issue.

Mr. Obama has argued that Pakistan will not fully commit to fighting the insurgency it shares with Afghanistan until it sheds historic insecurities toward India. Talks about Kashmir, the central point of contention between the two nuclear rivals, are among the "critical tasks for the next administration," Obama said in an interview last month with Time magazine.

It is a strategy that worries Indians, who suggest the Pakistani Army is blackmailing Obama to support its claims. Yet security analysts say the Afghan insurgency has roots in the power struggle between India and Pakistan and cannot be solved without a regional approach.

"It will be very hard to put Afghanistan on a long-term positive path without alleviating some of the Indo-Pakistan tensions," says Xenia Dormandy of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.

Frontline recently had a program on about the challenges the new President of the US faces in foreign policy. Chief among them is the Afghanistan/Pakistan/India situation. You can see this program and read some very interesting interviews with informed sources at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warbriefing/

And a http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=59794&Itemid=2">recent article from the APP in Pakistan on Sen. Kerry becoming Chair of the SFRC:

John Kerry to be chairman of influential foreign relations committee:

WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (APP): Democratic Senator John Kerry will be named chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, giving him enormous influence over the foreign policies of President‑elect Barack Obama, The Boston Globe reported Thursday citing congressional officials.

Kerry, who was elected to a fifth term from Massachusetts earlier this month, will be handed the gavel when the new Congress convenes in January. He will take over for Vice President‑elect Joseph Biden, officials said.

Aides to Kerry said he was already laying out a broad agenda for the committee, beginning with new legislation to strengthen the United States’ hand against terrorism in Afghanistan‑Pakistan border regions; provide oversight of efforts to end the war in Iraq; and seize what he sees as a new opportunity to curtail the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

President Asif Ali Zardari dicusssed bilateral cooperation with the seasoned Democratic leader last week during his visit to New York for a UN summit. John Kerry assured the Pakistani leader of his support for economic development of the country.

[Fabio]

1. From Stratfor

If the Nov. 26 attacks in Mumbai were carried out by Islamist militants as it appears, the Indian government will have little choice, politically speaking, but to blame them on Pakistan. That will in turn spark a crisis between the two nuclear rivals that will draw the United States into the fray.
Analysis
Related Special Topic Page

* Militant Attacks In Mumbai and Their Consequences

At this point the situation on the ground in Mumbai remains unclear following the militant attacks of Nov. 26. But in order to understand the geopolitical significance of what is going on, it is necessary to begin looking beyond this event at what will follow. Though the situation is still in motion, the likely consequences of the attack are less murky.

We will begin by assuming that the attackers are Islamist militant groups operating in India, possibly with some level of outside support from Pakistan. We can also see quite clearly that this was a carefully planned, well-executed attack.

Given this, the Indian government has two choices. First, it can simply say that the perpetrators are a domestic group. In that case, it will be held accountable for a failure of enormous proportions in security and law enforcement. It will be charged with being unable to protect the public. On the other hand, it can link the attack to an outside power: Pakistan. In that case it can hold a nation-state responsible for the attack, and can use the crisis atmosphere to strengthen the government’s internal position by invoking nationalism. Politically this is a much preferable outcome for the Indian government, and so it is the most likely course of action. This is not to say that there are no outside powers involved — simply that, regardless of the ground truth, the Indian government will claim there were.

That, in turn, will plunge India and Pakistan into the worst crisis they have had since 2002. If the Pakistanis are understood to be responsible for the attack, then the Indians must hold them responsible, and that means they will have to take action in retaliation — otherwise, the Indian government’s domestic credibility will plunge. The shape of the crisis, then, will consist of demands that the Pakistanis take immediate steps to suppress Islamist radicals across the board, but particularly in Kashmir. New Delhi will demand that this action be immediate and public. This demand will come parallel to U.S. demands for the same actions, and threats by incoming U.S. President Barack Obama to force greater cooperation from Pakistan.

If that happens, Pakistan will find itself in a nutcracker. On the one side, the Indians will be threatening action — deliberately vague but menacing — along with the Americans. This will be even more intense if it turns out, as currently seems likely, that Americans and Europeans were being held hostage (or worse) in the two hotels that were attacked. If the attacks are traced to Pakistan, American demands will escalate well in advance of inauguration day.

There is a precedent for this. In 2002 there was an attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi by Islamist militants linked to Pakistan. A near-nuclear confrontation took place between India and Pakistan, in which the United States brokered a stand-down in return for intensified Pakistani pressure on the Islamists. The crisis helped redefine the Pakistani position on Islamist radicals in Pakistan.

In the current iteration, the demands will be even more intense. The Indians and Americans will have a joint interest in forcing the Pakistani government to act decisively and immediately. The Pakistani government has warned that such pressure could destabilize Pakistan. The Indians will not be in a position to moderate their position, and the Americans will see the situation as an opportunity to extract major concessions. Thus the crisis will directly intersect U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan.

It is not clear the degree to which the Pakistani government can control the situation. But the Indians will have no choice but to be assertive, and the United States will move along the same line. Whether it is the current government in India that reacts, or one that succeeds doesn’t matter. Either way, India is under enormous pressure to respond. Therefore the events point to a serious crisis not simply between Pakistan and India, but within Pakistan as well, with the government caught between foreign powers and domestic realities. Given the circumstances, massive destabilization is possible — never a good thing with a nuclear power.

This is thinking far ahead of the curve, and is based on an assumption of the truth of something we don’t know for certain yet, which is that the attackers were Muslims and that the Pakistanis will not be able to demonstrate categorically that they weren’t involved. Since we suspect they were Muslims, and since we doubt the Pakistanis can be categorical and convincing enough to thwart Indian demands, we suspect that we will be deep into a crisis within the next few days, very shortly after the situation on the ground clarifies itself.

[TayTay]

4. This is just horrible.

It is hard to see how India does not blame Pakistan. The NYTimes has a story up on who is responsible:

U.S. Intelligence Focuses on Pakistani Group

By MARK MAZZETTI and SALMAN MASOOD
Published: November 28, 2008

WASHINGTON — American intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Friday that there was mounting evidence that a Pakistani militant group based in Kashmir, most likely Lashkar-e-Taiba, was responsible for this week’s deadly attacks in Mumbai.

The officials cautioned that they had reached no firm conclusions about who was responsible for the attacks, or how they were planned and carried out. Nevertheless, they said that evidence gathered in the past two days pointed to a role for Lashkar-e-Taiba or possibly another group based in Kashmir, Jaish-e-Muhammad, which also has a track record of attacks against India.

The officials requested anonymity in describing their current thinking and declined to discuss specifics of the intelligence that they said pointed to Kashmiri militants. In the past, the American and Indian intelligence services have used communications intercepts to tie Kashmiri militants to terrorist strikes. Indian officials may also be gleaning information from at least one captured gunman who participated in the Mumbai attacks.

The http://www.cfr.org/publication/11170/">Council on Foreign Relations has the following entry on the suspected terrorist group involved in these deadly attacks:

What groups are involved in terrorism in India?

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), whose name means "Army of the Pure," is a militant Islamist group operating in Pakistan as well as in Jammu and Kashmir. The group reportedly received funding from Pakistan's intelligence services until 2001, when the United States designated it an FTO and Pakistan froze its assets. LeT, which has ideological, but unconfirmed operational ties to al-Qaeda, aims to win sovereignty for Jammu and Kashmir and spread Islamic rule across India. The group is blamed for some of the most high-profile terrorist attacks in India, including the July 11, 2006 bombing of the Mumbai commuter rail.

There is also an http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112801718.html?hpid=topnews">article up at the Washington Post that is speculating that this attack was planned with "outside help" and points to Pakistan as a possible place where training could have been carried out. This was a very well planned attack, though it also appears that the Indian special forces in Mumbai were somewhat caught offguard. The response to this was less than stellar and the attacks went on for over 2 full days.

India is indeed in a domestic bind on this. And this is going to be a real test of US will and the ability of the old and new Administrations to work together to find a way to avoid more problems between Pakistan and India, in as far that can be done. (The US cannot solve every problem in the world either.) Pakistan PM Asif Ali Zardari is in a very tough spot. He is not a very strong leader and Pakistan was already on very shaky ground. This might destroy his government, which was already weak.

This is not good.

[MBS]

5. TPM update.. .headline says it all

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/246151.php

11.28.08 -- 8:37PM
By Josh Marshall

Pakistan is reportedly backing out of its plan to send its spy chief to India to aid in the Mumbai terror investigation. "A representative of the ISI will visit India, instead of its Director General Lt Gen Shuja Pasha, to help in investigating the Mumbai terrorism incident," the Times of India quotes a spokesman for the Pakisani Prime Minister as saying.

[TayTay]

6. I am not surprised by this.

It might be functionally better to send a representative instead of the head of that agency. What will matter most is what Pakistan allows into it's borders in this investigation. (If, indeed this is the work of a group from within Pakistan. That is not nailed down yet, btw.)

Very interesting analysis in a http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5254369.ece">Times UK article:

After seven years of painstaking rapprochement between India and Pakistan, relations between the two dominant, nuclear-armed states of South Asia are once again seriously at risk. This not only threatens to destabilise the entire region but could also set back the West’s fight against al-Qaeda, the Taleban and other Islamic militants operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Pentagon began to look afresh this year at the war in Afghanistan, where USled forces are struggling to contain a growing insurgency by the Taleban. One conclusion was that the war could not be viewed exclusively as an Afghan problem. It also involves the Pashto-speaking areas across the border in Pakistan’s lawless tribal territories, where various groups linked to al-Qaeda are operating under constant attack by US drones.

General David Petraeus, the former US commander in Iraq and now in overall charge of US forces in the region, is convinced that the best way to succeed in Pakistan lies through India. If the ruling establishment in Islamabad and the Pakistani people in general conclude that the main threat to their fragile country comes from militant Islam, rather than their traditional enemy India, then the war is close to being won.

Somebody else came to the same conclusion this week when they ordered the attack on Bombay. Plunge India and Pakistan back into a state of war and millions of young Muslims in the region could be mobilised in a new jihad. Kashmir could once again become a flashpoint. Pakistan might be forced to reduce or withdraw its forces fighting in the tribal areas and turn its attention to India.

There is still no evidence that the commandos in Bombay, also known as Mumbai, had this goal in mind. But it came as little surprise that the young men leading the attack had orders to capture and kill as many citizens of America and Britain as possible, the two countries at the forefront of the military mission in Afghanistan.

What is crucial now is the impact that the raid will have on India. Yesterday India’s leaders, officials and members of the security services increasingly blamed Pakistan for the carnage. They argued, with some justification, that an operation on this scale could have been executed only with the training, funding and support of an outside power. The Indians believe that the boat carrying the gunmen sailed from the Pakistani port city of Karachi and that at least one of the dead assailants was a Pakistani. Indian Intelligence also intercepted mobile telephone conversations between the gunmen and their supporters abroad, again linking them to Pakistan.

[beachmom]

11. Sigh. What a disaster.

This feels more personal than other regions, because I have many Indian friends -- Muslim and Hindu -- my children have Indian friends, one of my daughter's preschool teachers was Pakistani .... and on and on. Meanwhile, that region of the world is on the brink of the unimaginable. Is this Barack Obama's "test", happening even before he becomes POTUS?

[MBS]

2. JK seems well-poised to do a lot of good as chair of SFRC

May his chairmanship have lots of impact both here and abroad.

[Muttocracy]

3. The situation in India is one more reason to be glad the SFRC will be in Kerry's hands

I'm glad he (and Biden) went to India and Pakistan back in February.

[Inuca]

7. Very scary stuff

as bad as last few days were, the really scary and difficult part is only beginning. Thanks to all for the info. I just wish that jan. 20th was tomorrow (in spite of the underwhelming and frustrating likely choice for SoS). This limbo of power and significant decision making is not good. Though I guess Obama and those around him can do more on this front than on the economic one. Less actual and visible decision making and more diplomacy needed in the short run. Someone like Kerry for instance getting involved and talking with Indian and Pakistani officials would/should not be seen as two presidents at once.

[YvonneCa]

8. SOS...

...John Kerry? :7 Just kidding...but Obama needs to name his foreign policy team now. I agree with you that January 20th can't come soon enough.

[TayTay]

9. Those announcements are scheduled for Monday,

the last I heard. BUT, the Bush Administration is still in charge of foreign policy until Jan. 20th. The new team will be amassing information and getting ready for that transfer of power then. Until then, we have the team currently in place.

I should think that good and informed people who are knowledgeable of both the area and the people in charge in India and Pakistan will be consulted. Anything else would be foolish.

[YvonneCa]

10. Excellent. I agree that failing to consult...

...informed knowledgeable people would be extremely foolish. Not that the Bush Administration hasn't been foolish before. :scared: