Mumbai terror attacks: Transnational terrorists see India as an easy target

It is not a mere coincidence that Mumbai, India's commercial hub, has repeatedly been struck by terrorists since 1993. Mumbai has become the favoured target because the aim of terrorists is to undermine India's booming economy and its status as a rising power by rattling foreign investors and driving away tourists.

India's economic rise has intersected with Pakistan's descent into chaos. Each terror strike on Mumbai raises fresh international concerns about security in India and prompts a sizable number of foreign tourists to abandon or delay travel plans.

Undercutting India's strength by repeatedly targeting its economic capital is a geopolitical objective that only a state sponsor of terrorism can seek to pursue, not street gangs, underworld figures, or local fundamentalists. And that sponsor — which made the mistake of leaving its marks on the three-day Mumbai terrorist siege in November 2008 — is Pakistan's notorious ISI agency.

The latest explosions may have had an additional objective behind them — to blunt international pressure to bring the Pakistanbased planners of 26/11 to justice. With India now saddled with another terrorist attack to investigate, the international profile of 26/11 is bound to decline.

At a time when the US has ratcheted up pressure on the Pakistani army and ISI, including by putting the release of further military aid on hold, those behind the latest bombings may have had yet another motive — to shift the focus from the deteriorating US-Pakistan relations to the Indo-Pakistan context so as to raise concerns in Washington about potential subcontinental hostilities and to persuade the US not to lean too heavily on the Pakistani military establishment.

But unlike the 26/11 siege by heavily armed commandos from Pakistan on a suicide mission, the bombs in the latest attack were planted and detonated stealthily. This marks a return to an earlier pattern witnessed, for example, in the 1993 and 2006 serial blasts.

This pattern not only obviates the need for a high level of training and logistical sophistication, but also precludes telltale signs of external involvement by permitting a terrorist undertaking to be outsourced to proxy figures in the criminal or fundamentalist world in Mumbai.

The latest bombings raise wrenching questions about India's Pakistan and counterterrorism policies. The unparalleled 26/11 siege was supposed to be India's 9/11 and served as a tipping point in India's forbearance with Pakistani-fomented terrorism. This week's explosions are a reminder that little has changed.

Official Indian sources, seeking to insulate the government from public criticism of its Pakistan policy, rushed to prematurely blame the Indian Mujahideen and the underworld for the bombings. It is improbable that the ISIlinked Indian Mujahideen or underworld figures would have carried out the bombings without instructions from their patrons.

It is more likely that the Lashkari- Taiba — a front organisation for the ISI — paid criminal or extremist gangs in Mumbai to do the ISI's dirty work. For New Delhi, the chickens have actually come home to roost. Its decision to resume dialogue with Pakistan at all levels and on all subjects was made without having secured any anti-terror commitment.

Even though the Pakistan- based masterminds of 26/ 11 remain untouched and the Pakistani terrorist-training camps near the border with India continue to operate with impunity, New Delhi returned to square one by resuming political dialogue. After 26/11, an array of options was available to India.

Between the two extremes — empty talk and war — New Delhi could have invoked measures commonly available to nations to step up political pressure, such as recalling its high commissioner from Islamabad and invoking trade sanctions. Yet a feckless leadership did not take the smallest of small steps even as a symbolic expression of India's outrage over Pakistan's role as the staging ground for 26/11.

Whereas the culpability of the Pakistani state agencies in scripting 26/11 is clear, the culpability of Indian decision-makers in letting Pakistan off the hook over that siege has received little public attention. New Delhi actually responded to 26/11 by fashioning a new and unique tool — dossier bombing.

The weighty dossiers, delivered at regular intervals, only persuaded Pakistan to stay its ground, with India eventually climbing down. The now-familiar Indian cycle of empty rhetoric is today repeating itself — ritual condemnation of the latest bombings and a worn out promise to defeat terror.

Yet the bombers have driven home a clear message: India, despite its rising international stature, is powerless to stop terror attacks. The bombings also have the potential to further undercut the flagging credibility of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Singh is the latest in a succession of weak, aging prime ministers whose absence of decisive leadership over the past 22 years has resulted in the failure to formulate a prudent counter-terror strategy backed by firm resolve. The fundamental mistake Singh's government has made — for which the country is paying a price — is to separate its Pakistan policy and counterterrorism strategy and put them on separate tracks.

The two are simply not separable. Increasingly, terrorism has been treated as a law and- order issue requiring more policing. To regard terrorism as a law-and-order problem is to do what the terrorists want — to sap your strength. No amount of security can stop terrorism if the nation is reluctant to go after terrorist cells and networks and those that harbour extremists.

The ugly truth is that transnational terrorists see India as an easy target because it imposes no costs on them and their sponsors. What India needs is a concerted, sustained campaign against the forces of terror. But what a succession of leaders have offered are only words to comfort the nation.

If India does not break out of this straitjacket, it will only be a matter of time before the terrorists strike yet again.
(The author is a professor of Strategic Studies at the Centre for Policy Research)