We're all shocked by the overnight news from India, that terrorists have attacked a number of places in Bombay - the Taj Palace and Oberoi hotels and the famous VT railway station, hospitals and other busy places - with machine guns and grenades. As I write at lunchtime, two of the terrorists are said still to be in the Oberoi and Indian security forces still seem to be trying to take control of the Taj Palace, right by the Gate of India. Over a hundred have been killed, with blood on the platforms of VT station. A truly outrageous planned carnage, for which people calling themselves the Deccan Mujahideen have claimed responsibility.
To me, these attacks show several things. First, that politicians like Tony Blair were right to argue that Al Qaeda-inspired terrorist are a risk to every western country, regardless of its involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan. Yes, Islamists may have beefs with India over Kashmir, but whatever happens about things like that, Islamists will imagine grievances over homosexuality or especially about equality for women, if they have nothing else to complain about, because their entire world-view depends on anger and confrontation. The fact that they attacked a Jewish centre speaks voumes about them: Islamists hate Jews and if nothing else incurs their wrath they'll be hostile to places they see as "Jew-ridden", just as Hitler was. Second, I think it shows that terrorists like these will direct their attacks where they can, just as the IRA did in its last ten years when it seemed less able to target London than it had been in the seventies and eighties. I reckon international Islamism has more difficulties in recruitment than we sometimes fear and that it is significantly constrained by western intelligence and security. It now attacks where it can find the men and the opportunity. Finally, it may show, depending on how we can make sense of last night's events, that Islamism is no longer so dependent on suicide attackers for its attacks, but may adopt these guerilla tactics if it can: if that's right, the move may strengthen Islamist terrorism in some ways, but it will weaken it in others.
The aim was clearly not just to frighten the Indian public - which the attacks on stations and hospitals certainly will have done - but through the attacks on hotels to deter business travellers, tourists and non-resident Indians from going to Bombay. Let's hope that fails: if I weren't trying to scratch an impoversished living together I'd be tempted to book a flight so I could walk down green University Road again, and take a whisky and soda outside the Gaylord.
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