A Strike at the Heart of India’s Financial Capital

More than 100 people have been killed in India’s financial hub of Mumbai as a hitherto unknown Islamic militant group last night orchestrated a string of attacks against 10 different locations in the city in an assault seemingly targeting foreigners. A group by the name of Deccan Mujahedeen has claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they wanted to call attention to the ongoing persecution of Muslim Indians in the country. The assault commenced last night, as the groups targeted five-star hotels the Taj Mahal and the Oberoi Trident and eight other locations in the city, including the train station, a hospital and an upmarket restaurant. The terrorist group still remained in the luxury hotels until army commandos laid siege to them early this morning, freeing hostages from gunmen from the Deccan Mujahedeen. According to Maharashtra state's Director General of Police A N Roy cited by Agence France-Presse (AFP), some 100 people have been killed in the string of precisely executed assaults carried out by small groups of gunmen executing the attack with AK-47s and hand grenades. Witness reports indicate that the attackers specifically targeted U.S. and British nationals as hostages, with foreign tourists reportedly being among those killed in the attack. Mumbai's Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare was also gunned down in the attack. Estimates are that between 200 and 350 have been injured.

Outlook and Implications

A Change in Strategy

The latest attack to hit India has been deemed one of the worst in the country’s history, with a string of terrorist incidents engulfing the country in recent years. Mumbai was also in 2006 the target of an attack on the city’s rail system, which saw 180 people killed. However, yesterday’s attack by a terrorist group previously unheard of is the first to strike at the heart of the city’s business hotels and venues, thereby targeting the business community and high-end tourism as opposed to commuters and markets as had previously been the case. The targeting of foreign nationals also potentially marks a shift in motivations from indigenous historical communal tensions to the more globalised Islamist agenda espoused by groups linked with al-Qaida. Given the strategically important target hit in yesterday’s attack and the highly organised nature of it, concerns are now set to grow over the increasing threat of home-grown terrorism in India.

Terrorism on the Rise

While little is yet known of the Deccan Mujahedeen’s structure and objectives, the attacks targeting the country’s financial centre and foreigners are a grave concern. The Mumbai attack comes on the back of a series of co-ordinated terrorist incidents in recent months, which have raised concerns that home-grown terrorism is on the rise. Most recently, the little-known Islamic Security Force-Indian Mujahedeen took responsibility for a series of 12 bombings in the insurgency-plagued state of Assam in India’s Northeast that killed close to 80 people . Six weeks previously, India’s capital New Delhi was the scene of a series of blasts in crowded markets that left 20 dead . Those attacks have been attributed to a new home-grown Islamic extremist group calling itself the Indian Mujahedeen, which according to security services may share links with the proscribed Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and foreign terrorist groups such as the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Bangladesh-based HUJI. The group first appeared in November 2007 taking responsibility for a series of blasts in Uttar Pradesh. It subsequently claimed responsibility for bombings carried out in the city of Jaipur in May, declaring an “open war” against the Indian government for its support for the United States, with the group in this context issuing warnings that it would target tourist sites.

The Deepening Domestic Roots of India’s Terrorism Problem

The Mumbai attack will accentuate fears that India’s problems with terrorism are increasingly of a domestic nature, yet increasingly internationalised in its aims and identification. In the past, the majority of attacks in India have been blamed on groups with links to Pakistan. However, both Deccan Mujahedeen and Islamic Security Force-Indian Mujahedeen have stressed their Indian roots, with Deccan being the plateau covering most of southern India and symbolically the historical home of the Indo-Muslim Deccan kingdoms. The attack further comes in the context of an overtly conciliatory tone adopted by the Pakistani government to India. This may have emboldened radical Muslim elements within India with possible links to Pakistan’s intelligence service (NSI) to perpetrate the attack. The ISI cultivated militant extremist groups in its proxy war with India in Kashmir and in Afghanistan in the 1980s and early 1990s. The ISI's political wing was disbanded by Prime Minister Gilani's government over the weekend in a bid to rein in the power of the agency that has grown in influence as a power broker in domestic politics. The move is in response to allied pressure that views the ISI with its links to militant groups as a double-edged sword in the campaign against terrorist elements within Pakistan. Former large-scale terrorist incidents, with alleged if unproven, links to Pakistani agency involvement have placed significant strain on bilateral relations, although both governments have sought a pragmatic approach, maintaining the critical peace dialogue over Kashmir. The scale of this atrocity, however, may alter that paradigm if Pakistani involvement is suspected by popular perception. Meanwhile, the recent string of attacks will compound allegations that the Indian National Congress (INC)-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has been lax on security, which does not bode well for the Congress Party ahead of a string of state elections before a national-level parliamentary election by May 2009. The opposition BJP could seek to capitalise by accentuating its Hindu nationalist agenda with concommitant implications for communal relations already strained by widening income inequalities that will be accentuated as the economy heads for a slowdown.

IHS Global Insight has moved to lower its security risk rating for India by 0.25 to 3.50 to reflect the immediate deterioration in the localised security situation in Mumbai and the potential for coordinated attacks elsewhere. The adjustment also highlights the increased potential for communal tensions if the attacks are proven to be religious-extremist in nature.