AJC SPECIAL BRIEFING: The Mumbai Terrorist Attack One Year On
By Jim Busis
Director, AJC Asia-Pacific Institute
One year after the terrorist assault on the Indian city of Mumbai, we should take the opportunity to remember it, and to reflect on its meaning.
The attack lasted three days. News of it broke, for Americans, on the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving. I was driving home when I first heard from AJC’s India Representative, Priya Tandon, that something was happening and that it was big. Priya and I would spend the next three days virtually nonstop on the phone and the Internet keeping in touch with the Indian, Israeli and U.S. governments; Chabad, JDC and the Jewish community of Mumbai; and the rest of AJC.
Despite everyone’s best efforts, the grim aftermath was all too familiar. Horrific scenes of carnage and destruction. Hostages and assaults to free them. At least 174 people killed and more than 300 wounded. An attack on the Chabad House in which six Jews were taken hostage and killed. Two-year-old Moshe Holtzberg rescued by his Indian nanny as his parents perished.
As we look back at the event and its direct consequences over the past year, how should we view it? And what are the lessons learned? Here are a few suggestions.
This event was not solely a Jewish tragedy. There were another nine coordinated attacks that resulted in hundreds of casualties among Indians and foreigners of many religions. Yes, the attackers did deliberately target the Chabad House. They did so as part of an Islamist terrorist organization based in Pakistan; their motive was to promote radical Islam and to disrupt India. Attacking Chabad House was a way to attack Jews and Israel, in keeping with their radical Islamic agenda, which included disrupting India’s growing ties with Israel and hurting both countries.
By attacking Mumbai, the New York of India, the attackers hoped to hit at India to exert pressure on the issue of Kashmir, to disrupt its economy including foreign investment, and to disrupt Indian-Pakistani negotiations on Kashmir and normalization of relations. In the terrorists’ view, the Kashmir conflict, dating from the end of British rule and partition in 1947, emerged because the territory is Muslim land illegally occupied by non-Muslim India. This attack was merely one, albeit a spectacular one, in a series of terrorist attacks against India in Kashmir itself and throughout much of India.
This particular attack was planned in Pakistan by an Islamist terrorist group known as Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of several similar organizations harbored by Pakistan and enjoying at least some degree of unofficial support from the Pakistani government through its intelligence service (ISI) and military. From a Pakistani viewpoint, Pakistan is unable to attack India over Kashmir directly with conventional military forces, but can do so indirectly through its terrorist proxies or allies. It is in this context that we should view the Mumbai attack.
If this all sounds familiar in terms of the Israeli-Arab conflict, that’s because it is. There are significant differences to be sure, but this strategic dimension, along with the natural friendship of democracies, helps explain the tremendous growth in Israeli-Indian ties in recent years.
It is often said that Israel is in the front line in the global struggle against radical Islam and terrorism. That is true, but the Mumbai attack reminds us that Israel is not alone. After 9/11, and now Mumbai, Israel is together with the U.S. and India in this struggle. We should all encourage and support the growing triangular set of relationships among the U.S., India and Israel.
Mumbai reminds us that no place and no time can ever be completely safe. While some have criticized aspects of Indian security, we all know that a city the size of Mumbai, and especially public venues like major hotels, can never be completely made secure. We look across the border at the terrorist training camps in Pakistan, operating in some cases as “charities” with the connivance of the Pakistani government, recruiting people and funds with appeals based on a local grievance (Kashmir) linked to radical Islam. It is here that security ultimately lies, in dismantling the infrastructure of terrorism and refuting its theology.
Mumbai also reminds us that promoting “good” radicalism and terrorism is dangerous for the sponsor, not just the intended victim. Practically every day now one reads of another suicide bombing in Pakistan. The country is virtually in the midst of a civil war between the modern civil sector and the more traditional and radical tribal sector. The stories of modern Pakistan, India and Afghanistan are indeed complicated. However, there is no question that Pakistan’s long-standing strategy of using radical terrorist groups to support its uncompromising position on Kashmir has contributed to the radicalization of society and deterioration of security. Whatever the origins of Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, or Lashkar-e-Taiba, these groups tend to converge and reinforce each other. As a result, we – the U.S., India and Israel – face a common nightmare: that the Pakistani state as we know it could collapse and leave the people who brought you the Mumbai attack in control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
Despite the very real risks and dangers, we can end on this Thanksgiving with some positive thoughts and hope for the future. Like Israel after the second intifada and the U.S. after 9/11, India did not collapse in fear and today has largely recovered from the attack. Foreign investors have stayed and Mumabi’s people have rebuilt their lives and their city. The Jewish community of Mumbai continues on, and a Chabad House has re-opened. While the complicated issues of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Pakistan are far from resolved, there are modest and tentative signs of progress. Finally, as a symbol, there is little Moshe celebrating his third birthday in Israel.
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