World leaders offer condolences to Mumbai victims

Updated November 28, 2008 12:29:12

One expert called the string of attacks on Mumbai as symbolic as the felling of the twin towers in New York. Emblems of India's western heritage - the iconic Taj Hotel and the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus - were hit, as well as other key locations at the heart of India's booming capitalist economy. World leaders and national security committees have been trying to learn something about the group claiming responsibility, the previously unknown Deccan Mujahideen. Indian security forces spent the night trying to end a multiple hostage crisis, and to secure an office-residential complex that also houses a Jewish centre, where an unknown number of Israelis were believed trapped.

Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speakers: Kevin Rudd, Australian Prime Minister; Malcolm Turnbull, opposition leader; Professor Robin Jeffrey, India specialist; Dr Clive Williams, terrorism expert

LINDA MOTTRAM: If the attackers had a message, the clues seemed to be in the targets .. the most prominent and oldest structures at Mumbai's heart, particularly the Taj Hotel and the train terminus that stand as reminders of India's long western orientation.
Professor Robin Jeffrey specialises in the modern history, politics and media of India.

ROBIN JEFFREY: The hotel was opened I think in 1903 and the railway station was Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897 so they've been these funny old Indo-Cyrecenic buildings that have been iconic in Mumbai, as much I guess as the twin towers would have been in New York, only older.

LINDA MOTTRAM: With its long history of links with India, Australia joined the world in emphatic condemnation of the events. Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in the Australian Parliament.

KEVIN RUDD: This cowardly attack on India's peace and democracy reminds us all that international terrorism is far from defeated and that we must all maintain our vigilance.

LINDA MOTTRAM: And the country's Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Let us spare a thought of admiration for India, that vast country of over a Billion people which maintains a rich and vibrant democracy and which is now facing these murderous cowards.

LINDA MOTTRAM: As Australia pledged all relevant assistance to India, particularly with forensics and counter-terrorism the national security cabinet met in Canberra, as did similar security bodies the world over. Evidence of a broadly anti-western attack, but perhaps focussed on those at war against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, came with news that British and American passport holders were singled out by some of the attackers. There were clues but no certain answers though to the questions of who and why. The group claiming responsibility for the series of co-ordinated and ongoing attacks using guns and handgrenades had never been heard of -- Deccan Mujahideen. But there are other groups that could have provided the manpower for the onslaught. One of Australia's pre-eminent terrorism experts, who's been speaking to other experts in South Asia is Professor Clive Williams.

CLIVE WILLIAMS: It probably includes people from the Students Islamic Movement of India and it may well include elements from Lashkar e Toiba in India as well.

LINDA MOTTRAM: Professor Williams says its possible Deccan Mujahideen may never be heard of again .. though there is another recent arrival among militant groups that appears more persistent.

CLIVE WILLIAMS: The Indian Mujahideen which has come on the field in the lsat 12 months is a more sustained group I think because it does include radical elements from the Students Islamic Movement of India and it also includes people who've come back from training in Pakistan so I think the Indian Mujahideen we'll certainly hear more about, I suspect we probably won't hear much more about this particular one but clearly I would think its a Muslim group and what its doing is probably related more to external events than necessarily events in India.

LINDA MOTTRAM: And there's another possible strand to the attacks .. the criminal thread. Professor Robin Jeffrey again.

ROBIN JEFFREY: The Mumbai underworld is almost certainly involved in some ways simply because its easy to I think rent a criminal in Mumbai if you need one or to cut into gangs who will do terrible things on your behalf if you pay them sufficiently so there's the fact that some of the leading policemen have been murdered in the course of this suggests at least that it could be payback for some of the Bombay underworld to get at some of the top coppers who have made life hard for them.

LINDA MOTTRAM: For 400 years, Mumbai's Gateway to India has stood as the country's western access from the Arabian Sea, testament to the city's cosmopolitan character. This violence, observers seem to agree, is broadly an attack on that identity, and probably also a strike against those fighting against Afghanistan's militant forces.