Did a Criminal Mastermind Stage the Mumbai Nightmare?

By Yoichi Shimatsu, New America Media. Posted November 28, 2008.

As in the case of America's Afghan war protégé Osama bin Laden, the blowback to U.S. covert policy came suddenly, this time with spectacular effects in Mumbai. The assault on the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel will probably go down as the first lethal blow to the incoming Obama administration. The assailants, who spoke Punjabi and not the Deccan dialect, went to a lot of trouble to torch the prestigious hotel, which is owned by the Tata Group. This industrial giant is the largest business supporter of the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation agreement, and Tata is now planning to become a nuclear power supplier. The Clintons, as emissaries of Enron, were the first to suggest the nuclear deal with New Delhi, so Obama inherits the Mumbai catastrophe even before he takes office.

Dawood, ranks fourth on Forbes' list of the world's 10 most wanted fugitives from the law. After the new round of attacks that killed more than 100 people and laid waste top five-star hotels, Dawood can now contend for the No.1 spot in the coming months and years. In contrast to the fanatic and often ineffective bin Laden, Dawood is professional on all counts and therefore a far more formidable adversary. Yet some in Pakistan's military intelligence agency say that Dawood is dead, killed in July. This version of events is much the same as a variation of the bin Laden story. If true, then his underlings are carrying on the mission of an outlaw transfigured into a legend.

Yoichi Shimatsu. Former editor of The Japan Times in Tokyo and journalism lecturer at Tsinghua University in Beijing,, Shimatsu has covered the Kashmir crisis and Afghan War.

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Mumbai Terrorists Wear Uniform of Young India

by Sandip Roy

SAN FRANCISCO -- His was one of the first faces to emerge out of the scenes of burning hotels, shattered glass and uniformed police in Mumbai.

"Is he one of the victims?" asked my roommate as I looked at the fuzzy image of a young man in a dark t-shirt, the word VERSACE written across it in white. My roommate obviously hadn't noticed the AK-47 he was holding. But in a way he was right.

That man whose image was beamed across the world could have easily been one of the victims. "They were very young, like boys really, wearing jeans and T-shirts," a British tourist told The Times.

In short they were wearing the uniform of a young India. A uniform that allowed them access into the sanctum santorum of Indian high society which they then proceeded to blow up.

Little is known about the Deccan Mujaheddin who claimed responsibility for the attacks. The media are looking for the geo-political cracks that might emerge.

Does it have the finger prints of al Qaeda?

Is it a signal to the conciliatory noises towards India that Pakistan's new President Zardari has been making?

But the face of that gun-toting, VERSACE t-shirt-wearing assailant is haunting in its ordinariness.

Who is he?

Is he Indian?

Is he part of India's 9 percent growing GDP?

Was it ideology or was it promise of cash that sent him into the Taj hotel where Bombay's elite gather for cocktails and coffee?

"If you ever need to pee in South Bombay just go to the Taj" a Bombayite friend told me. "They won't stop you. You look like you are English-speaking."

The assailants, even as they demanded American and British passports, apparently were not English-speaking. They spoke in Urdu and Hindi.

In a country where every car entering one of the grand new shopping malls has its trunk inspected by uniformed security, how did they know they could walk into the five star hotel with AK-47s and grenades?

In the hushed glamor of the Taj with its 24-hour coffee shops and golden luggage carts, did they walk in through the front door, past the liveried doorman like they belonged? Did they stride into the dining room of the five-star Oberoi where diamond merchants make deals and Bollywood starlets wait to be spotted by gossip columnists like they wanted a table – dinner for three, we have no reservations.

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