WASHINGTON/LONDON: The audacious attacks by terrorists in Mumbai have all the hallmarks of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, intelligence agencies of world's major powers and terrorism experts say. The terrorists who came from sea followed a "blueprint" created by al-Qaeda "where the underlying theme is to cause as much havoc as possible and this is exactly what has happened in India," said London-based terrorism expert George Kassimeris.
"Al Qaeda set the blueprint for terrorist operations and now we see different people, different groups in different parts of the world, copying it," said Kassimeris, a senior research fellow at the University of Wolverhampton. He said the Islamic extremist group created the "modus operandi" of attacking vulnerable civilian targets with no warning, long-term plans or demands. Witness accounts from Mumbai that gunmen were looking for US and British nationals suggest they want to grab international attention.
"There is no specific operational or logistical plan, they just want to inflict as much damage and injury as possible," he said. Bruce Riedel, a veteran CIA officer and former senior director for South Asia and the Middle East on the White House National Security Council, said the attacks had the "hallmarks of an al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic group such as Lashkar-e Toiba" (LeT), which is based in Pakistan and has links to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency. "India has been a major target of terrorism for the last several years, Mumbai in particular," Riedel, one of the top advisers to US President-elect Barack Obama, has been quoted as saying in The Washington Times.
"The vast bulk of these attacks have been carried out by Islamic extremist groups such as LeT, which has close links to al-Qaeda," said Riedel, who is expected to figure in the next US administration. In Moscow, a senior official at one of Russia's spy agencies, directly blamed the al-Qaeda linked group for the Mumbai attacks saying: "The Russian secret services have information that certain groups that have carried out attacks in Mumbai have contacts with Al-Qaeda."
"In particular, the terrorist group LeT. This group's militants undergo special training in al-Qaeda camps, located on the border between Pakistan and India," the official said. Professor Richard Bonney, another expert, compared the Mumbai attacks to the deadly bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan's capital Islamabad on September 20. Bonney, the author of Jihad: From Qu'ran To Bin Laden, said the difference was that in Mumbai there were co-ordinated attacks and Westerners were singled out as hostages.
Among the dead were nine foreigners, 14 police personnel, a home guard jawan and 104 members of the public. "This attack looks more dangerous and better planned, though not directed against possible government targets but economic ones and of course the 'Western allies,'" he said. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who has just wound up a visit to Afghanistan, feels the Mumbai attacks bear some hallmarks of al-Qaeda network. "It is very premature to start talking about links to al-Qaeda. Some of the names of groups that are being circulated at the moment are not al-Qaeda affiliates, but that cannot be taken as a definite view," he said.
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