Mumbai Attacks Blamed On Al-Qaeda As Pretext For U.S. Military Response

Mumbai Attacks Blamed On Al-Qaeda As Pretext For U.S. Military Response
November 27, 2008 by Philip Dru
The majority of the corporate media has gleefully seized upon the terror attacks in Mumbai to claim that they are the work of “Al-Qaeda,” despite clear and contradictory evidence suggesting otherwise, as a pretext to increase bombing campaigns in Pakistan and beef support for the ailing war on terror in Afghanistan.

The swiftness with which the media blamed “Al-Qaeda” was staggering, especially considering the fact that the attacks had not even concluded before the boogeyman was whipped out of the closet once more to act as a poster child for the war on terror and allow the TV networks to show lots of blood, panic and authority figures pointing guns at people.

The only claim of responsibility for the attacks came from the “Deccan Mujahideen,” the Deccan Plateau being an area in southern India, but the press, usually breathless to take the first obscure claim of culpability and set it in stone, are now belittling this explanation as a likely hoax in an attempt to pin the blame on the all-mighty mythical Al-Qaeda.

“Earlier eyewitness reports from the hotels suggested the attackers were singling out British and American passport holders,” reports the BBC.

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“If the reports are true, our security correspondent Frank Gardner says it implies an Islamist motive - attacks inspired or co-ordinated by al-Qaeda.”

Really? Perhaps the BBC’s “security correspondent” should be worried about his job security, because the facts directly contradict previous alleged “Al-Qaeda” attacks.

Since when do Al-Qaeda take hostages? Since when do they hang around to be caught? Since when do Al-Qaeda use grenades rather than bombs or suicide bombs?

And if the attacks were targeted against British and American citizens then tell me why, out of at least 101 killed, was there only one British victim?

If the attacks were targeted against British and American citizens then why were the terrorists reported to be firing AK-47’s indiscriminately into crowds of (mainly Indian) people? Out of 101 victims, only six were foreigners, the rest were Indian. This was blatantly not a targeted attack against British and American citizens, but it is being spun that way by the media so as to justify a coordinated British and American military response, which will no doubt take the form of more bombing raids inside Pakistan and an increased presence in Afghanistan.

The London Times are already busy proclaiming that yesterday’s events were the work of Osama bin Goldstein, reporting, “Targeting Bombay’s most luxurious hotels and a crowded railway station had all the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda operation.”

But voices of skepticism have broken through the firewall of fearmongering and propaganda.

“Chrtistine Fair, senior political scientist and a South Asia expert at the RAND Corporation, was careful to say that the identity of the terrorists could not yet be known. But she insisted the style of the attacks and the targets in Mumbai suggested that the militants were likely to be Indian Muslims - and not linked to Al Qaeda or the violent South Asian terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba,” reports the International Herald Tribune.

“There’s absolutely nothing Al Qaeda-like about it,” she said of the attack. “Did you see any suicide bombers? And there are no fingerprints of Lashkar. They don’t do hostage taking, and they don’t do grenades.”

“Indians will have a strong incentive to link this to Al Qaeda. ‘Al Qaeda’s in your toilet!’ But this is a domestic issue. This is not India’s 9/11,” said Fair.

Terrorism expert Professor Bruce Hoffman agreed that the assault was “not exactly Al Qaeda’s modus operandi, which is suicide attacks.”

“The very name (Deccan Mujahideen) - if it is a real group - suggests a domestic agenda,” adds the report, highlighting a probable link to the riots in Gujarat State near Mumbai six years ago (alluded to in the claim of responsibility), which killed 2,000 Muslims.

But that’s not how the media are portraying the event, hyping the situation beyond all proportion with a crazed obsession and linking it to Barack Obama’s mandate to carry on the endless war on terror started by George W. Bush.

As Mike Rivero over at WhatReallyHappened.com points out, “FOX News and CNN are now both reporting that the “terrorists” who took hostages at the Oberoi hotel were specifically seeking people with US and British passports. So, regardless of whatever the “Deccan Muhajedeen” claims their objective may be, the real agenda is to provoke a British and US response.”

“The timing is suspect, occurring just when Bush needs an excuse to kick off one more war of Obama to have to deal with and certainly convenient timing for Israel, which sees Obama as far less likely to engage in more wars for Israel. And, for the last several; weeks Israel has been starving Gaza mercilessly, in advance of an obvious military action, and has kept reporters and even the Papel Envoy out of Gaza.”

How long before the terrorist group is linked with elements of the Pakistani government, giving Obama the perfect pretext to prolong and expand bombing raids inside the country?

Indeed, the London Guardian reports today, “What is likely is that the attacks will get blamed on Pakistan and its Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), as have previous Islamist atrocities. US counter-terrorism officials believe some ISI members played a role in an attack this year on the Indian embassy in Afghanistan.”

In our first report on the events yesterday, we predicted that a Pakistan link would eventually be claimed as a reason for Barack Obama to increase U.S. aggression inside the country as he promised to do during his election campaign.

Reports are now emerging claiming that the terrorists arrived on speedboats from Karachi in Pakistan. The claim of responsibility from the Deccan Mujahideen is being sidelined in favor of a more convenient culprit, the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba militant outfit.

“Hawkish elements in Pakistan stage-managed (the) terror attacks,” claims one report, citing intelligence sources.

India’s premier said those behind coordinated attacks against Mumbai were based “outside the country” and warned “neighbours” who provide a haven to anti-India militants. This is obviously a reference to Pakistan.

The Mossad media front outlet Debka File are already proclaiming that the “MV Alpha freighter (is) suspected of having sailed the terrorists to Mumbai’s shore from Karachi, Pakistan.”

The media is also exploiting the attacks to throw more weight behind the annual fearmongering about Al-Qaeda attacks on U.S. transport networks, a tediously regular piece of propaganda that crops up during every holiday season to remind Americans that they must submit to bag searches and other infringements on personal freedom while authority figures shove them around all in the name of keeping them safe from the terrorists.

Prison Planet | Paul Joseph Watson | Thursday, November 27, 2008