Bombs don't blast India-Pakistan talks

By Fraser Bomford

Recent bombings in Mumbai were a clear attempt to derail talks this week to ease tensions between India and Pakistan ― whose intelligence services were almost certainly behind the spectacular Mumbai attacks and hotel sieges in 2008. Despite high sensitivities and historic hatreds on both sides, it might not work.

"Designs to derail the dialogue once again" will not deter Pakistan, its Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani said, reflecting India's confirmation of the July 26-27 foreign ministers' meetings and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's separate trip to India last week.

Three explosions hit India's largest city on the evening of July 13, killing 18 and injuring 131 in crowded areas at evening rush hour. One was at the side of a road, another on a motorbike and a third on the roof of a bus stop.

Compared to November 2008 these were fairly amateurish although well coordinated. Preliminary investigations found that seven home-made devices used were a far cry from the heavily-armed suicide attackers who hit Jewish and tourist centers, held the Taj Mahal hotel for three days and the Oberoi-Trident for two, killing 195.

This attack looks more like the work of one the many Kashmiri nationalist-Islamist groups responsible for scores of attacks throughout India over the last 10 years, fighting with Pakistani backing to get India out of the disputed Muslim-majority province. Police are looking at the Indian Mujahideen, the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami.

These groups’ peripheral aim is to exacerbate divisions between India's Hindu majority and its 140 million Muslims but even the Mumbai 2008 attacks had little visible effect on the running conflicts that Indians call "communitarianism."

Relations between India and Pakistan have not normalized (to simmering tension at best) since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, despite some rapprochement in 2011. "India looks at Pakistan and believes that their continuing support for elements of insurgency against India in Kashmir and across the border into India proper makes it very difficult for them to know what path to choose," Clinton told Congressmen in June.

Tension will not ease soon and Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) agency is likely to be accused of involvement in the latest attacks. Yet this does not mean a serious escalation of border skirmishes or even a major diplomatic row: India has shown considerable restraint.

Although the latest bombs appear to be aimed at the foreign ministers' talks in New Delhi, Pakistan has already rushed to condemn the blasts and India has declined to exploit a mid-July federal conviction in the U.S. of a businessman involved in contact between the ISI and the Lashkar-e-Taiba attackers of 2008.

Pakistan wants to look conciliatory to impress the U.S. after losing $800 million in military aid this month because of harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, killed there by U.S. forces in May. But the U.S. badly needs Pakistan in its fight against Afghan insurgents based on their common border.

India has good relations with the U.S. and wants more trade and a counterbalance to China's increasing influence in Pakistan (Prime Minister Gilani recently called China his country’s “best friend”). All would gain from peace but many politicians have much to gain from whipping up nationalist hysteria on both sides.

Moving away from geo-strategy and diplomatic talks, Mumbai in particular and India in general will suffer many more Islamist terror attacks, as well as the frequent Maoist Naxalite strikes, with hundreds or thousands of deaths a year as a matter of routine: India’s national counterterrorism capabilities since Mumbai 2008 have developed slowly, despite large sums being spent.

“This is yet another grim reminder to everyone in this region and our country that terror is a continuing threat to India,” External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said after the latest Mumbai blasts, while confirming his meetings with Pakistan's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar will go ahead.

Only a real settlement between India and Pakistan would even begin to erode these decades-old organizations and their support: there will be no sudden breakthrough this month but the talks are an essential small step on that long road.

Fraser Bomford is the Afghanistan and Pakistan analyst in London for the international risk analysis and security firm AKE Ltd. He can be reached at fraser.bomford@akegroup.com.