More Terror on the Tracks

Investigators say twojihadist groups, including a homegrown terroristorganization, are behind the Mumbai bombings.
By By Sudip Mazumdar, Zahid Hussain and Ron Moreau | NEWSWEEK
Jul 24, 2006 Issue
Recommended (6) Mail Call: Free the Burmese
Mail Call: A Crisis of Faith
Back to Square One?
Perspectives
Opinion: A Cause for Comfort
Terror on The Tracks
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India
Al Qaeda
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They seem to have drawn little notice as they squeezed aboard the packed first-class carriages. Most passengers were concentrating on getting home from a long, rainy Tuesday at the office in India's financial center, Mumbai. The men placed their duffel bags and metal lunchboxes on the overhead luggage racks, and then, apparently, pushed their way off again, unnoticed--until 6:24 p.m., when the explosions began. Within 11 minutes, bombs had ripped through seven suburb-bound commuter trains on the same rail line. The blasts left 197 passengers and crew dead or dying and 800 others injured.

Police investigators are convinced they know who was behind the Madrid-style bombings. Only two terrorist organizations in the region have the skills and resources for such a massive, coordinated attack--and this, police believe, was a joint operation by both networks. One alleged partner is Lashkar-i-Taiba, a Kashmiri separatist group that has been outlawed since 2002 in Pakistan, the country where it began 16 years ago. The other group is the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), a homegrown jihadist outfit that is spreading rapidly among disaffected young Muslims across much of India. Both groups are denying any involvement, but police say evidence against them is piling up.

The authorities released photos of three bearded young men in connection with the attacks. Police said one of the men was the fugitive ringleader of a dozen alleged SIMI operatives who were arrested two months ago in Aurangabad, some 350 kilometers east of Mumbai. In the course of that sweep, police seized dozens of AK-47 automatic rifles, crates of ammunition and more than 45 kilograms of RDX, a military-grade explosive. The arrests had resulted from an investigation that began earlier this year after cops apprehended a pair of suspected Lashkar operatives getting off a train in downtown Mumbai. Police said the two men were found with one kilogram of RDX.

The two organizations are united by the same wild-eyed cause: bringing the entire Subcontinent back under Muslim rule for the first time since the 19th century. As followers of a harshly intolerant strain of Saudi-style Wahhabi Islam, they reject any notion of majority rule in a land where "polytheist infidel" Hindus outnumber Muslims. The Lashkar-SIMI partnership has been growing for several years, and in the past year or so Indian police believe that the two groups have collaborated on a series of attacks, including the bombing of a temple this March in Hinduism's holiest city, Varanasi, and the October bombing of two New Delhi markets, killing more than 60. After the Varanasi blast, Indian police arrested a rabid anti-Hindu mullah, named Waliullah, who led investigators to several other militants belonging to extremist groups linked to Lashkar and SIMI.

The Indian government banned SIMI in 2001, but it continues to operate and grow, according to investigators. Indian police think SIMI may have 500 hard-core members and as many as 20,000 sympathizers who can be relied on for assistance and shelter. The group is said to have a sizable following in Maharashtra state, where Mumbai is located, as well as in the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala, which have significant Muslim populations. With SIMI's support, Lashkar's fighters can now operate deep inside India without a lifeline to Pakistan's side of the border.

That development has raised new fears of international terrorism on Indian soil. B. Raman, a former senior Indian intelligence official, says analysts this year have detected a Qaeda interest in disaffected Indian Muslims. "Al Qaeda is now trying to take advantage of Muslim anger for its Pan-Islamic and anti-U.S. objectives," he warns. Lashkar has always denied any ties to Al Qaeda, but their common agenda of Islamic supremacy has brought them closer together. Both Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, have lambasted Hindu India for its growing ties with America. Last week a man purporting to be a spokesman for Al Qaeda expressed "gratitude" for the bombings and said the terrorist group had established a unit in India-controlled Kashmir. If true, that is an ominous portent.

© 2006