By Melanie Phillips:

Around the world, people have reacted with horror to the vile atrocities in Mumbai.

For three days, our TV screens transmitted images of carnage and chaos as the toll of murder victims climbed to upwards of 190 people, with many hundreds more injured.

Despite the fact that British citizens were caught up in the attacks, there is nevertheless a sense in Britain that this was nothing to do with us  -  a horrible event happening in a faraway place.

The Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai: ‘We don’t understand what we are up against… if it were to happen here, we would be unable to cope’

Among commentators, moreover, there has been no small amount of confusion.

Were these terrorists motivated by the grievance between Muslims and Hindus over Kashmir, or was this a broader attack by Al Qaeda?

If British and American tourists were singled out over Iraq  -  which many assume is the motive for such attacks  -  why were Indians targeted in the Victoria railway station?

And why was an obscure Jewish outreach centre marked for slaughter?

Such perceptions and questions suggest that, even now, Western commentators still don’t grasp what the free world is facing. This was not merely a distant horror.

We should pay the closest possible attention to what happened in Mumbai because something on this scale could well happen here.

Fanatics

But because we don’t understand what we are actually up against, we are not doing nearly enough to prevent this  -  or something even worse  -  occurring on British soil; and if it were to happen here, we would be unable to cope.

The Mumbai atrocities show very clearly what too many in Britain obdurately deny  -  that a war is being waged against civilisation.

It is both global and local. It is not ‘our’ fault; it has nothing to do with Muslim poverty, oppression or discrimination.

The Islamic fundamentalist fanatics use specific grievances  -  Kashmir, Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya  -  merely as recruiting sergeants for their worldwide holy war against all ‘unbelievers’.

The only militant to survive the attack, he is said to be from Karachi, Pakistan

The Mumbai attackers targeted British, American and Indian citizens simply because they wanted to kill as many British, American and Indian ‘unbelievers’ as possible.

Where they found Muslims, they spared them.

They also singled out for slaughter the occupants of the Chabad House, a pious Jewish outreach organisation with no Israeli or political agenda  -  underscoring the point that at the core of the Islamists’ hatred of Israel festers their hatred of the Jews.

This was not, as is so often described, ‘mindless violence’.

On the contrary, the terrorists precisely calibrated both their choice of targets and the way in which they attacked them. This tells us many things.

India was chosen in order to further two aims. First was to foment greater tension between India and Pakistan.

No less important was the wish to destroy the ever more vital strategic alliance between India and the West in common defence against the Islamist onslaught.

That was why British and American visitors in those two grand hotels were singled out.

And that was why Mumbai itself was chosen  -  as the symbol of India’s burgeoning commerce and prosperity and its links with the West.

The manner of these attacks also carried a message.

Many hostages were taken, but no attempt was made to use them to demand redress of any grievances. They were simply killed.

That made a statement that the terrorists’ agenda is non-negotiable.

The attacks demonstrated, above all, the reach of the perpetrators and the impotence of their designated victims.

Those who believe that Islamist terror can be halted by addressing grievances around the world are profoundly mistaken.

With these atrocities, moreover, Islamist attacks have moved much closer to war than conventional terrorism.

The Iranian-born foreign affairs specialist Amir Taheri has pointed out that the Mumbai attacks embody the plan outlined by a senior Al Qaeda strategist after the U.S. decided to fight back following 9/11  -  a decision that the Islamists had not expected.

This new strategy entails targeting countries with a substantial Muslim presence for ‘low-intensity warfare’ comprising bombings, kidnappings, the taking of hostages, the use of women and children as human shields, beheadings and other attacks that make normal life impossible.

Onslaught

Such a simultaneous, multi-faceted onslaught quickly reduces a city and a country to chaos. It can be repeated anywhere  -  and British cities must be among the most vulnerable.

This is because  -  astoundingly  -  Britain now harbours the most developed infrastructure of Islamist terrorism and extremism in the Western world.

The security service has warned that it is monitoring at least 2,000 known terrorists, and has said repeatedly that although many outrages have been averted a major attack may not be preventable.

Indeed, British security officials have sleepless nights about the various ways in which the Islamists are trying to cause mass casualties in Britain  -  and the fact that even now this threat is not taken seriously.

This point was made yesterday by the former head of Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command, Peter Clarke.

As an example, he noted that Kazi Nurur Rahman, a convicted terrorist who was arrested shortly after 7/7 with a machine-gun and 3,000 rounds of ammunition, had been trying to buy machine-guns, rocket-propelled grenades and missiles  -  undoubtedly for use against British targets.

Far from the popular caricatures of bumbling, impressionable and socially alienated misfits, he said, there was a capable and motivated enemy spanning the globe which would try to replicate the Mumbai atrocities in Britain.

By Bill Roggio

The only member of the jihadi assault team captured during the Mumbai attacks has fingered several Pakistani organizations as providing support to the group, according to reports in the Indian press.

Ajmal Amir Kasab (or Azam Amir Kasav) was captured by police after a shootout near the docks in southern Mumbai. He was wounded and feigned being dead, but was picked out by police after he was seen breathing.

The siege in Mumbai lasted 62 hours and claimed more than 195 lives. Terror assault teams held the city hostage as they fanned out through the city and attacked policemen, five-star hotels, a train station, a cinema, a cafe, and a residential complex.

Kasab has provided details on how his team of 16 terror commandos departed Karachi, linked up with a freighter carrying arms, hijacked an Indian fishing boat, and infiltrated into Mumbai via inflatable rafts. [See Indian commandos end 62-hour siege of Mumbai]

Kasab has implicated the Pakistani Navy and the Dawood Ibrahim criminal network based in Karachi for providing assistance and training for the Mumbai assault team, police sources told India Today. The plot to attack Mumbai was hatched more than a year ago, Kasab told police.

According to the police sources, Kasab said 20 Pakistanis began training in terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir more than one year ago. The group trained in the Kashmiri camps "almost five-and-half months, during which the terrorist were taught the use of sophisticated arms and ammunition."

After the training at the Kashmiri camps, the group was "given a months leave and were ordered to gather in Karachi after the break for training in boating, rowing and swimming by the Pakistan Navy."

The terrorists were then given maps and other information on their targets in Mumbai and trained in attacking the targets, India Today reported. Earlier, Kasab said several members of the assault team visited Mumbai to scout the targets and familiarize themselves with the city.

Kasab also claimed members from Dawood Ibrahim’s criminal network provided logistical support for the Mumbai assault team while they were in Karachi.

Ibrahim runs a vast criminal network throughout South Asia. He has been implicated in the 1993 Mumbai bombings and is known to receive backing by Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency. Indian intelligence believes Ibrahim is based out of Karachi.

The US government branded Ibrahim as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2003. Ibrahim "has found common cause with Al Qaeda, sharing his smuggling routes with the terror syndicate and funding attacks by Islamic extremists aimed at destabilizing the Indian government," the US Treasury stated in a press release. Ibrahim "is known to have financed the activities of Lashkar-e-Taiba," the group thought to be behind this week’s terror attacks in Mumbai.

Kasab also claimed local resident in Mumbai provided logistical support for the terror assault team, The Times of India reported. The locals provided "help like, providing shelter, taking them around and showing places, passing information on police stations," the news agency said. The operatives also received fake identification cards.

Some of the terrorists had stayed in Nariman House, the complex that houses Orthodox Jews, Kasab said. The Israelis were targeted "to avenge atrocities on Palestinians," the paper reported.

Indian intelligence has identified additional links to Pakistan and the Lashkar-e-Taiba. An "intercepted conversation between Muzammil, Muzaffarabad chief of LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) operations, and a certain Yahya in Bangladesh," showed a direct link in the Mumbai attacks, The Times of India reported. "Yahya arranged SIM cards, fake ID-cards primarily from western countries like Mauritius, UK, US, Australia."

Phone numbers on the satellite phone found the hijacked Indian fishing boat show calls were made to Zakir Ur Rehman, a Lashkar-e-Taiba training chief based in Karachi.

Indian intelligence officials also told The Times of India that 25 terrorists were "training in the Pakistan village of Durbari Mitho, and that an ISI agent was also involved in the training." It is unclear if these were members of the Mumbai assault team.

US intelligence strongly suspects the Lashkar-e-Taiba was behind the Mumbai attacks, working in conjunction with the Students Islamic Movement of India and the Harkat ul Jihad al Islami, through a front group called the Indian Mujahideen, several senior US intelligence officials told The Long War Journal.

Lashkar-e-Taiba has an extensive network in southern and Southeast Asia. The group has vast resources, an extensive network, and is able to carry out complex attacks throughout its area of operations.

Lashkar-e-Taiba forces fight alongside al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan. It conducts operations in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and central Asia and in Chechnya. Like al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba seeks to establish a Muslim caliphate in southern and central Asia. The group essentially runs a state within a state of Pakistan.

By Bill Roggio

The US military has begun to directly identify the Iranian-backed "Special Groups" Shia terror groups with Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army in press information issued in Baghdad.

The direct association between the Mahdi Army and the Special Groups is a change in how the US military has treated Sadr’s militia for more than the past 18 months.

Previously, the US military would make distinctions between the two groups. This was part of an effort to sow divisions within the Mahdi Army and split off the moderate elements willing to reconcile with the Iraqi government.

Evidence of the change first appeared at the US military’s DVIDS (Digital Video and Imagery Distribution System) website on Nov. 26. The Joint Combat Camera Center Iraq published five photos of Iraqi Army raids in Diwaniyah in southern Iraq.

The caption on all five photos noted the Iraqi Army was conducting a search for "Jaysh Al Mahdi forces," the Iraqi name of the Mahdi Army, which is often referred to as JAM.

"JAM is a militia insurgency group in Iraq" was written under each photo.

A second set of seven photos, released on Nov. 28, were captioned in the same manner. The Iraqi Army was described as searching for Mahdi Army forces in Diwaniyah, while the Mahdi Army was again described as "a militia insurgency group in Iraq."

The next day, Multinational Forces Iraq issued a press release noting the Iraqi Army captured a "suspected JAM-SG [Mahdi Army Special Groups] criminal" in the city of Khalis in Diyala province.

The US military’s terms for the Mahdi Army have evolved over the past 18 months. In the spring of 2007, the military began calling the Mahdi Army the "Secret Cells" and said they were armed, trained, and funded by Iran. In the early summer of 2007, the name changed to Special Groups.

In the summer of 2007, the US military began to associate the Special Groups with the Mahdi Army, but claimed there was a split between the two groups. The Mahdi Army leaders and fighters killed or captured in August were identified as "rogue" and associated with the Special Groups.

Over the next six months, the US heaped praise on Sadr for initiating a cease fire after his forces were defeated in Karbala in August of 2007, while referring to those who still attacked Iraqi and US forces as "criminals." US and Iraqi forces ruthlessly attacked these "criminals."

The tone changed again in February 2008, when Sadr’s ceasefire was set to expire. In press releases identifying the capture or death of "criminals" or Special Groups fighters, the US military began implicitly linking the targeted operatives with Sadr.

The US military began referring to Sadr with the religious honorific of al-Sayyid, while saying those who continued to fight the Iraqi government and Coalition forces were dishonoring the ceasefire and the Mahdi Army.

In late March, when the Mahdi Army attempted to rise up in Baghdad’s Sadr City and Basrah, the al-Sayyid honorific was dropped and the US reverted to simply calling the Shia terrorists the Special Groups. The military has essentially stuck with this description, avoiding any association between the Mahdi Army and the Special groups until the past several days.

The US military has been working to divide and conquer the Mahdi Army and weaken Sadr for the past two years. To do this, the military has used a carrot and stick approach with the Mahdi Army.

The US would claim those fighting the Mahdi Army were rogue or splinter groups in order to avoid labeling the militia as an insurgent group and provide those willing to reconcile with the government an out. During this time period, Sadr was stuck between choosing to fight and risk having his militia dismantled by US and Iraqi forces, and halting the attacks and risk losing the hard-line factions in the Mahdi Army who often were the most capable.

The strategy worked. Sadr was conflicted between fighting and sitting on the sidelines as Iraqi forces launched an offensive in Basrah at the end of March 2008. The hardliners in the Mahdi Army demanded they fight back, and they did.

US and Iraqi forces then savaged the Mahdi Army during heavy fighting in Baghdad, Basrah, and central and southern Iraq. Over the course of six weeks, more than 2,000 Mahdi Army fighters were killed, thousands more were wounded, and an estimated 3,000 more fighters and leaders fled to Iran. Sadr agreed to a ceasefire while the Iraqi government said it would issue warrants to detain Mahdi fighters.

But US and Iraqi forces continued to press the Mahdi Army, using the "Special Groups" and "rogue elements" narrative to methodically pursue the Mahdi Army in southern and central Iraq during the late spring and summer of 2008. Iraqi forces obtained the warrants and thousands of Mahdi Army fighters were captured.

The US military and Iraqi government succeeded in fracturing the Mahdi Army. Sadr effectively lost control of his militia as he remained in Iran, far from the fighting. Several offshoot groups, such as the Army of the Righteous, the Imam Ali Brigades, and the Hezbollah Brigades were formed by Mahdi Army commanders.

Sadr’s political power also began to wane. He ordered the disbanding of the Mahdi Army over the summer, and withdrawal of the Sadrist political bloc from the upcoming provincial elections.

The Sadrist strongly opposed the US-Iraq status of forces agreement, but failed to rally opposition against it in either the parliament or with the public. His weekly protests drew thousands of Sadrists but had no effect n the general public. Of the 199 votes cast, 149 voted for the agreement, 35 voted against, and 15 abstained. Thirty-two of the votes against the agreement came from the Sadrist bloc.

By identifying the Mahdi Army as "a militia insurgency group," the US military may be signaling it no longer views the group as a serious threat. And labeling the group part of the insurgency will drop the pretence the Mahdi Army is a legitimate entity in Iraqi society.