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The Attack in Mumbai
Somewhat weird.
This seems to be a botched attack on a target we yet do not know.
There have been shootings at a police station, a main railway station, a multiplex cinema, a hospital, a bar and two luxury hotels. Only the last three have some concentration of foreigners. Additionally two taxis blew up in different locations. Over a hundred people are dead and many more wounded.
Which of these diverse places were real targets?
The attackers are said to have come by boat. My first hunch is that they separated into several groups on their way to some place. Some of these smaller groups were then challenged by security forces and then went on a rampage. The locations and high number of random victims do not make any sense. If so many attackers were involved, a real operation with one or two targets would be much more likely to lead to some ‘success’.
So what was the real target?
As for who they are. They could be from any group. As Debs is Dead remarks:
Funny the papers here which have been reporting it since about 8.00pm Wednesday GMT initially put the attacks down to Assamese separatists, but it could just as easily have been Gorkhaland separatists, Sikh separatists or any of the myriad other nationalist movements within India known to have used violence against citizens and tourist spots.
The phone call from a previously unknown ‘muslim terror group’ is as convenient as it is unlikely to be genuine.
Additional possible groups are Kashmiris, Thais in revenge of the Indian attack on a Thai trawler near Somalia (though I think that is unlikely) or Hindu rightwingers near to the BJP party in a false flag operation. I would not exclude any Muslim group with official, unofficial or no Pakistani support, but it is just one of many possibilities.
Other example, tangential but not really OT:
After some minor attacks on the TGV in France, the Police Judiciaire showed up – masked, like terrorists, heavily armed – in the tiny village of Tarnac, F, arrested and imprisoned various ppl. (Incl. one girl who is a Swiss TV star as she has held some minor roles in series soaps!)
Basically, some crypto-anarchists, back-to-the land, goat-raisers, cheese-makers, informal sharers, thus primitive ‘communists’ etc. are targeted.
reuters
indymedia
That this group *is guilty* of the minor, clumsy, but potentially extremely dangerous sabotage is most likely so (imho.)
So the local state apparatus, the media, the PO-lice, goes batshit and makes a big show! The enemy within! Masked men pounding around, screeching tires, strong arm arrests, surrounding farms with 100s of state agents, etc. etc.
The over reaction can be understood, be seen as legitimate.
If ppl try to blow up trains (which this group did not, they tried to avoid killing afaik), it cuts to the heart of territorial integrity, the freedom to move about, and cannot be countenanced.
The riots in the ‘territories,’ that is the French Banlieues (depressed outer burbs) where yelling crowds gather, cars are torched, insults yelled, rocks thrown, ppl refuse to obey the police or other authorities, and an uneasy stand off is the best one can hope for, seems mild in comparison on the dangerosity level with attacking the rails of the TGV. Presumably, that was the point, on both sides of the equation.
The leader of the Tarnac group, Julien Coupat (google), is well known as he is a published author and used to run a magazine that was of interest. (still does, perhaps.)
And here is the NY Post, claiming he tried to bomb Times Square and that it was the US who alerted the French Authorities!
NY post
Posted by: Tangerine | Nov 27 2008 20:28 utc | 33
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