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New Delhi: India has
scrupulously avoided pointing a finger at Pakistan for the serial
blasts in Mumbai Wednesday evening, but the terror attack which
occurred barely a fortnight before the meeting of foreign
ministers of the two countries here has raised suspicions about
whether some right-wing elements were trying to derail the revived
peace process.
After cold-shouldering Pakistan's overtures for talks for over two
years following the 26/11 Mumbai terror spree, India decided to
revive the peace process with its estranged neighbour in February.
Since then, the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan held
talks in Islamabad last month and agreed on some cross-Kashmir and
nuclear confidence-building measures to bridge the post-26/11
trust deficit.
The Islamabad meeting set the stage for the talks between the
foreign ministers of India and Pakistan July 26-27. As the blasts
took place barely a fortnight before Pakistan's foreign minister
comes here for talks, some analysts, speaking on condition of
anonymity, speculated whether it was a handiwork of those trying
to derail the peace process between the two neighbnours.
In his condemnation of the attacks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
scrupulously avoided even the vaguest insinuation about the
involvement of Pakistan-based elements in the attacks. When
contacted, officials of the external affairs ministry also
declined to speculate.
Pakistan's president and prime minister were quick to condemn the
attacks. Early this week, Pakistan's foreign office said Minister
of State for External Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar, who is widely
tipped to be the next foreign minister, will be coming to New
Delhi for the talks.
Although the motive of the Wednesday attack is not known, its
timing has raised suspicions in informed strategic circles whether
the serial blasts were engineered by those unhappy with the latest
stab at rapprochement between the two neighbours.
The blasts also took place a few days before US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton comes to India Monday for the second India-US
strategic dialogue July 19-20.
According to Stratfor Global Intelligence, a US strategic affairs
think tank, the Mumbai serial blasts mark the first major attack
in India since the November 2008 Mumbai attack.
"Though the magnitude of these explosions has yet to be
determined, this attack does not appear to be as sophisticated as
the 2008 attacks, which involved an assault team consisting of a
number of militants that coordinated 10 shooting and bombing
attacks across the city," Stratfor said in a report.
"The July 13 attack, by contrast,
appears to have not involved suicide attackers but consisted of
explosives placed in a taxi, a meter box and locations where they
could be remotely detonated. This tactic is much more in line with
those used by more amateurish groups, such the Indian Mujahideen,
who have targeted crowded urban areas before," it said.
However, the think tank placed the attacks against the backdrop of
the fragile security dynamics in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
"Nonetheless, the attack comes at a
critical juncture in US-Pakistani relations as the United States
is trying to accelerate a withdrawal of its military forces in
Afghanistan," it said.
"The 2008 Mumbai attacks revealed the extent to which traditional
Pakistan-based Islamist militant groups, such as elements from the
defunct Lashkar-e-Taiba, had collaborated with transnational
jihadist elements like al Qaeda in trying to instigate a crisis
between Islamabad and New Delhi," the think tank said.
"Such a crisis would complicate US-Pakistani dealings on
Afghanistan, potentially serving the interests of al Qaeda as well
as factions within Pakistan trying to derail a negotiation between
the United States and Pakistan," it added.
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