Islamists Suspected In Mumbai Blasts!

Today's NYTimes passes along more news on the "Islamic militants" that are suspected in the Bombay/Mumbai blast. Nice to see them using "Islamic" right up front -- paragraph two mentions al Qaeda, and the first reference to suspects says they're Islamic -- but "militants?" Please.

Anyway:

Late Thursday, The Associated Press reported that the police had released the names and photographs of two suspects, Sayyad Zabiuddin and Zulfeqar Fayyaz, in connection with the series of eight synchronized bombs during the evening rush along a commuter train line. On Friday, the third suspect, a man known as Rahil, was named, The A.P. said. Details about Rahil were not released.

All the early PC-speak about not drawing conclusions about the ethnicity or belief systems of the instigators evaporated like a morning mist in Kashmir ... as we all knew it would.

The authorities remained tight-lipped about which groups could have been responsible, except to say there was a possibility that a militant organization based in Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, was involved. The police said the group could have been aided by a banned Indian organization that calls itself the Students Islamic Movement of India. Both groups have denied involvement.

Mr. Zabiuddin is suspected to have been the leader of a group of 16 militants, some of them connected to the student organization, who were arrested in May with a large cache of explosives and AK-47’s in Maharashtra State, where Mumbai is.

There have been at least four crackdowns across Maharashtra on suspected Islamist militant groups, all linked to the Kashmir cause, in the last nine months, said Mr. Roy, the police chief. Among those arrested were several affiliated with Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The group is outlawed in Pakistan, but continues to function under other guises, including, most recently, as a charity called Jamat ud Dawa.

The Indian police apprear to have been all over these guys ... but not completely all over them enough. Our enemy is intelligent, resourceful and committed. We need vigorous and intense investigations and intelligence work to thwart them -- but in America, these tools are being taken away from us by Dems more intent on getting themselves back in power than protecting us.

Photo: NYTimes
Related Tags: Mumbai, Bombay, Terrorists, Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Islamofascists