What India Needs

You know what India needs most right now?

Not this.



Some of the Mumbai attackers came on a boat from Karachi, Pakistan. It's definitely going to strain the relationship, whether the attack was about Kashmir or not - and there's going to be some reasonable speculation about that.

To me, it doesn't look like it's really about Kashmir, but it's also very hard to tell. Citing Al-Qaeda-like tactics doesn't really hold because that's how these cells operate; that's what decentralization is. They can trade skills and very likely they did, but where they go and how they wage their jihad after that is entirely up to the cell or the individual terrorist, who could direct their efforts to the Balkans, or against Russia in Afghanistan, or in Indonesia. It's been that way since these camps came up, especially with terrorists being trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan in the early to mid 1990s, and the same is probably true of camps in Pakistan's FATA right now. It's pretty likely that these attackers learned their skills in a Pakistani camp.

That said, Pakistan wouldn't benefit from an infuriating attack on India just when things were starting to calm down between the two nations. The way to resolving the question of Kashmir isn't by turning loose a handful of loonies, so it's clear to me that this wasn't an underboard government effort. That said, Islamic terrorists have a habit of both excusing any fatality that they might cause, and aggressively pursuing terror campaigns when they feel that Muslim lands are threatened - and these guys probably felt that way about Kashmir.

It doesn't really matter where these guys came from. They may have trained in Pakistan, but it's very possible that they were Indian muslims before they went off to the camps - the claims that the attacks were done by the Dekan Mujihadeen would seem to support this. Or they may be of Pakistani origin entirely, and chosen India as the front for their individual jihad. Either way it doesn't matter, because it tells us nothing really new about the way terrorists operate. We know Pakistan is a safe haven, we know that terrorist groups - if they are actually operating - are transnational. It's pointless to renew a scuffle with Pakistan over old information.

It does, however, lend the US and India some traction in pursuing the camps in the Pakistani FATA. If Pakistan is supplying trouble for more than one country, it's possible to justify more aggressive action against the camps, which would be very helpful to everyone involved.