November 23, 2007

Uttar Pradesh In Coordinated Terror Attack

The largest state in India suffered a series of bombings that appeared coordinated and targeted at the legal system. Five attacks occurred within minutes of each other, a hallmark of al-Qaeda plots:

At least 10 people were killed and more than 50 injured today in as many as five nearly simultaneous bomb blasts outside court houses in three cities in northern India, the authorities said.

All were in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state. The first blast went off in the state capital, Lucknow, at 1:05 p.m., just outside the entrance to the city court house, near a bicycle stand used by lawyers to park their bikes. Noone was killed. Television stations broadcast images of lawyers, dressed in their formal legal uniform of black suits, high collars and white ties, fleeing from the area, which was devastated by the blast.

Two more explosions went off within five minutes. One was outside the courts in the holy city of Varanasi, killing seven and injuring more than 42. Another went off in Faizabad, again near the entrance to the courts, killing three and injuring at least 10, an official at the police control room in Lucknow confirmed by telephone. He stressed that that was a preliminary estimate and warned that the toll could rise. Both explosions were believed to have been preceded by smaller blasts.

Television reports suggested that at least some of the explosive devices were attached to motorcycles or bicycles.A junior home ministry official condemned the coordinated attacks as terrorism designed to stir up hatred between religious groups.

AQ likes to coordinate multiple attacks within a tight timeframe when possible. It heightens the impact of the attacks, and it creates a sense of vulnerability that sometimes outweighs the attacks themselves. In this case, using bicycles and motorcycles represents a clear comedown from their usual forms of transportation-based attacks (if this is indeed an AQ attack), and the death tolls appear far smaller as a result.

Why courthouses, though? Normally, AQ would go after more densely-populated targets, such as transportation systems (Madrid, London), business centers (9/11), or churches and mosques (Istanbul, Baghdad, Samarra). This may have been intended to send a different kind of message. Attorneys in Uttar Pradesh had announced that they would no longer defend terror suspects in trials, leaving them to their own devices. In this case, AQ or another terror organization may have sent their response by blowing up the courthouses altogether.

The bombings once again point out the necessity of finishing off AQ, not just in Iraq but in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. We cannot wait forever for Pervez Musharraf to decide to launch his proposed offensive against the militants in northwest Pakistan. We need to push hard for the ability to coordinate attacks on our own in the areas where AQ has taken refuge.

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