What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Mumbai Murderers?

India is certainly no stranger to terrorist attacks, and has seen repeated attacks of disparate severity since 1993. Indeed, Indian experts on domestic terrorism have repeatedly warned that absent a solution that resolves "the Kashmir problem," Indians cannot expect this situation to improve anytime soon. Lashkar-e-Taiba is known to harbor close affiliations with Al Qaeda, and it did not escape the notice of Indian intelligence when on August 27, 2002, Osama bin Laden was quoted as saying, "Fighting Jihad against India is a duty of the entire Muslim world. Kashmir cannot be resolved by means other than Jihad."

Today, in the great city of Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), the financial capital and hub of much of India’s commerce, the city and the country’s security forces struggle to understand what has just happened to them. The only thing that is unequivocally clear is that evil did lurk in the hearts of the young men who stormed this beautiful city and wreaked havoc for three days.

In a series of coordinated attacks in at least nine locations across the center of Mumbai, teams of terrorists fanned out and targeted random victims, foreign and domestic, as they made their way to specific locations where they had planned larger scale attacks. Specifically, five targets of apparently great importance to them were the Oberoi Hotel, The old Victoria Terminus train station, the Cama and Albless Hospital, the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, and the Nariman House, also known as the Chabad House, run by orthodox Lubavich Rabbi Gavriel and his wife, Rivkah Holtzberg.

Shortly after the attacks, the Indian Coast Guard reported having believed to have discovered the mother ship, MV Alpha, whence the terrorists staged their raid and which apparently delivered them to the docks in Mumbai. Details remain sketchy on this aspect of the law enforcement response to the attacks.

The terrorists, initially claiming affiliation with an unknown domestic terror organization, apparently have now been identified as more likely being affiliated with Lashkar-e-Taiba, an organization long rumored to have ties to Pakistan’s intelligence services. Regardless of affiliation, it is clear that the terrorists had advanced training in weapons, tactics, and a considerable amount of help, quite possibly at the nation-state level.

What is of particular interest in this attack, is that like the events of 9/11, the terrorists may have claimed to be targeting specific types of individuals and ostensibly for a Muslim cause, yet the death toll is clear (and most recent reports from Mumbai now indicate) that the terrorists randomly shot anyone whom they encountered. True, the some of the killers at the hotels sought out British and American passport holders. But at the train station, the cinema and on the street itself, it mattered little whether the individual was a prominent Indian, a visiting businessman, local merchant, tourist, or, regrettably, a young Rabbi and his wife, dedicated to providing a home away from home for Jews, the terrorists made no distinction in their mayhem.

In his post-massacre New York Times Op-Ed contribution, Suketu Mehta, a professor of journalism at New York University, points out that radical demagogues on both sides of the Hindu-Muslim conflict in India would prefer that the masses take to the street in a fiery cauldron of religious warfare, which would then expand to a war between the nation-states of India and Pakistan.

Like New York, though, where commerce and culture, proximity and familiarity tend to bring people closer rather than separate them, Mumbai has long thrived as a melting pot of like-minded commercially focused individuals, regardless of their faith. It is against this tide of commonality that the radicals on both sides of the conflict are continuously trying to sow seeds of contradiction and discontent.

The terror attacks on 9/11 failed to make the fiber of American society collapse, and American Muslims, Jews, Catholics and Protestants did not take to the streets in a Jihad or Crusade against one another. Clearly Mumbai’s security forces will need to beef up their training and capacity to recognize and respond to such threats. But as we mourn the loss of nearly 200 people, and the injuries sustained by an estimated additional 300 innocent bystanders, we can rest assured that like New York, Mumbai shall not be intimidated nor ultimately shall its inclusive character be changed by this reckless act of disregard for human life and dignity. 

Kenneth Bobu writes for The Cutting Edge News and is a veteran of the U.S. Naval Security Group, and writes on national and international issues.