Mumbai attacks were horrific. The 1st time in India on such an unprecedented scale. All right-minded people should rightly condemn them. It was India's truly 9/11 just like America's 9/11.

But I have a word of caution. LET US NOT RUN INTO AN 'EMOTIONAL WALL' OF HATRED AS OUR RESPONSE. This is the time for introspection & cool analysis.

1. Why it happened?
2. Who stands to gain most?
3. Who stands to lose most if we get carried by our emotions?

My answer to the last question FIRST.

3 QA: All Indians stand to lose most - the classes & the masses barring the politicians. Indian politicians are also horrific.

Mumbai terror attacks of 26th November show that TERROR can touch the well-heeled also. It is not only the scourge of the poor. So, MUMBAI TERROR ATTACKS have brought the MASSES & the CLASSES TOGETHER.

1 QA: Maybe because India had cozied upto America & Israel too much. READ THE ACCOMPANYING ARTICLE. So, some analysts point out that these attacks could be the handiwork of CIA & ISRAELI MOSSAD.

2 QA: BJP& America would stand to gain the most. & therefore, more than the TERROR BJP IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ENTITY FOR ALL INDIANS - MASSES OR CLASSES. READ THE ACCOMPANYING ARTICLE.

Let us be level-headed & don't stoop to finger point & single out our other Indian bretherns - Indian 'muslims' if you will.

Terror is terror politics when religion is mixed with politics. BJP too has the OTHER FACE.

Mumbai Under Siege*

*Yoginder Sikand*



* "O ye who believe! stand out firmly for God, as witnesses to fair dealing,
and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart
from justice. Be just: that is next to piety: and fear God. For God is
well-acquainted with all that ye do."*

* *

*(The Quran, Surah Al-Maida: 8)*



Numerous theories are doing the rounds about the dastardly terrorist assault
on Mumbai. The dominant view, based on what is being suggested by the media,
is that this is the handiwork of the dreaded Pakistan-based self-styled
Islamist and terrorist outfit Lashkar-e Tayyeba, which, ever since it was
ostensibly proscribed by the Government of Pakistan some years ago, has
adopted the name of Jamaat ud-Dawah. This might well be the case, for the
Lashkar has been responsible for numerous such terrorist attacks in recent
years, particularly in Kashmir.



The Lashkar is the military wing of the Markaz Dawat wal Irshad, an outfit
floated by a section of the Pakistani Ahl-e Hadith, a group with close
affiliations to the Saudi Wahhabis. It has its headquarters at the town of
Muridke in the Gujranwala district in Pakistani Punjab. The Markaz was
established in 1986 by two Pakistani university professors, Hafiz Muhammad
Saeed and Zafar Iqbal. They were assisted by Abdullah Azam, a close aide of
Osama bin Laden, who was then associated with the International Islamic
University in Islamabad. Funds for setting up the organization are said to
have come from Pakistan's dreaded official secret services agency, the Inter
Services Intelligence (ISI). From its inception, it is thus clear, the
Lashkar had the support of the Pakistani establishment.



The Lashkar started out as a paramilitary organisation to train warriors to
fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Soon it spawned dozens of camps across
Pakistan and Afghanistan for this purpose. Militants produced at these
centres have played a major role in armed struggles, first in Afghanistan,
and then in Bosnia, Chechenya, Kosovo, the southern Philippines and Kashmir.



Like other radical Islamist groups, the Lashkar sees Islam as an
all-embracing system. It regards Islam as governing all aspects of personal
as well as collective life, in the form of the *shariah*. For the
establishing of an Islamic system, it insists, an 'Islamic state' is
necessary, which will impose the *shariah* as the law of the land. If, the
official website of the Lashkar announces, such a state were to be set up
and all Muslims were to live strictly according to 'the laws that Allah has
laid down', then, it is believed, 'they would be able to control the whole
world and exercise their supremacy'. And for this, as well as to respond to
the oppression that it claims that Muslims in large parts of the world are
suffering, it insists that all Muslims must take to armed jihad. Armed *
jihad* must continue, its website announces, 'until Islam, as a way of life,
dominates the whole world and until Allah's law is enforced everywhere in
the world'.