Leading article: A terrorist atrocity with tangled regional roots

The implications of the Mumbai massacre stretch beyond India

Friday, 28 November 2008

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The ghastly terror attacks in Mumbai, which have so far left more than 110 people dead and at least 300 wounded, echo previous atrocities by al-Qa'ida. The strikes on India's financial capital were multiple and synchronised, symbolic targets were chosen and witness accounts suggest the terrorists had a specific aim of killing foreigners.

But there are differences too. This does not appear to have been a suicide attack. Small bombs went off, but no spectacular blasts. This attack could just as easily have been "inspired" by al-Qa'ida, rather than directly organised by it.

Whatever the truth, it is impossible for the Indian authorities to draw any comfort. The episode has demonstrated, once again, how vulnerable India is to this kind of assault. In a televised address yesterday, the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, said the perpetrators were based "outside the country". He also promised that India would not tolerate "neighbours" that provided a haven for those who plan such attacks.

It takes no great powers of deduction to grasp that this is a reference to Pakistan. This pattern is clear. It was alleged that Pakistani militants had a role in the multiple train bombings in Mumbai in 2006, which killed more than 180 people. US intelligence agents pointed the finger at their Pakistani counterparts for facilitating the bombing of the Indian embassy in the Afghan capital, Kabul, earlier this year.

It is impossible to be sure who is responsible at this stage but, if there does turn out to be a Pakistani connection, it will underline the imperative for the international community to prevent that state exporting militant violence. President Asif Zardari's administration in Islamabad seems sincere in its determination to crush the militants in its lawless western territories. But a big question mark hangs over whether his government has the ability to purge the powerful Pakistani intelligence service of its extremist elements.

It has been suggested that this attack might have been designed as an early test by Islamist militants for the incoming US president, Barack Obama. Whether this was the case or not, the killings in Mumbai certainly emphasise the scale of the challenge facing the new American administration of restoring stability in southern Asia. The President-elect has promised to make Afghanistan his new foreign policy priority. But without stability in neighbouring Pakistan, where the Taliban finds support and shelter, it is hard to see how progress can be made.

There is another challenge laid down by this attack. Trading on the Indian stock market was suspended yesterday. That is not the kind of shock the global financial markets need in their present traumatised state. Indian investors are likely to weather the storm. Mumbai has been through terror attacks before. But there is a danger that outside investors will be scared off, particularly as foreigners seem to have been a specific target of Wednesday's terror attack.

Much will depend, in the immediate term, on the success of the Indian government in restoring order and disrupting cells of militants. The Congress Party, already criticised for failing to get a grip on the insurgent threat, will be desperate to show it is making progress by next year's general election. But in the larger scheme of things, the lesson of this atrocity would seem to be that the world cannot expect to eliminate the scourge of terrorism until it gets to the roots of the problem – and that means helping to pull Pakistan back from the brink of extremism.