Indian authorities have made the first arrests in the series of bombings in Mumbai that killed almost 200 people on July 11th. Described as lower-level operatives, the security forces hope that their new suspects will lead them to the masterminds of the plot:

Police in India have arrested three men in connection with a series of bombings that killed more than 180 people in the city of Mumbai (Bombay) last week. The police have detained more than 300 suspects but these are the first arrests in the case.

Two of the men were detained on Thursday in the northern state of Bihar and the third later in Mumbai. ...

The BBC's Zubair Ahmed in Mumbai says it is not clear how significant the arrests are. The three accused are suspected to have played minor roles in the blasts, but a senior police officer told the BBC that the arrests might lead them to the brains behind the operation.

These arrests put a different light on the plot, considered the most sophisticated and precise terrorist plot ever conducted in India. Originally, authorities thought that a well-known group with Pakistani ties had responsiblity for the attacks. Instead of Lashkar-e-Toiba, however, the men arrested belong to Students Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI. SIMI has ties to some of the most notorious Islamist terror groups in the world, including Hamas, and its leaders have sworn fealty to al-Qaeda in the past.

Interestingly, SIMI has not escaped American attention, either. The group's founder, Mohammad Ahmadullah Siddiqi, currently teaches at Western Illinois University at Macomb. Siddiqi has renounced the group's turn towards violence and stressed that he founded it strictly as an educational group to promote the study of Islam. Not everyone in Illinois feels the same, apparently. According to Jihad Watch, it has also received funding through the Chicago-based Committee of Indian Muslims.

If SIMI has a part in these blasts, it would have to had extensive assistance from another group. The current status of SIMI leadership is too degraded to have provided the precision and coordination seen in this attack. Given the range of SIMI's associations, that could point to a number of scenarios, including Pakistan's ISI or al-Qaeda itself.

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