blog 8: terrorism

            Sources:

1)      “Comparative Politics” by: David J. Samuels. Pearson

2)      “The Unraveling: Pakistan in the Age of Jihad” by: John R. Schmidt. Picador

3)      “India Gives Pakistan Findings from Mumbai Probe, Urges Action against Suspects” by Rama Lakshmi. Washington Post

 

            Political action takes many forms and is very prevalent in our world today. Revolutions in the Arab Spring, genocide in Rwanda, civil war in Syria, and international conflict in Afghanistan are just a few of the many examples of political violence we see every day in the headlines. One other type of political violence is terrorism. Terrorism has become a key issue in world politics, especially after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in September of 2001. To further understand this complex and often controversial topic we will examine the definition given by David Samuels in his text book, Comparative Politics and compare the definition using the attacks in Mumbai, India in November 2008 as a case study.

            Dr. Samuels, in his book (1), classifies terrorism as, “…threatened or actual use of violence for political purposes by non‐state actors, directed particularly against civilian targets.” Some key aspects of the definition are that the groups are “non-state actors” and that they engage civilian targets. Because the actors are non-state, terrorism is different from inter-state conflict or civil war where states are fighting each other or groups within the state are warring for control of the state itself. In both these cases, the main targets are the opposition forces, or designated fighters. Terrorists engage civilians and militaries alike solely to undermine state strength and to promote terror for influence and to advance their cause.

            An incident of terrorism occurred on November 26, 2008 (3) when ten men, armed with AK-47 assault rifles and hand grenades, entered Mumbai, India via a small zodiac boat at sea (2). The group represented an Islamist terrorist organization called Lashkar-e-taiba (2), which was organized in the early 1990’s by Pakistani Intelligence (ISI) (2). The group was organized with the blessing of the Pakistani government (2) to infiltrate the Kashmir province in India and cause insurrection and insurgency war against India (2). Pakistan and India have been mortal enemies for centuries mainly because of the disputed area of the Kashmir (2). Pakistan has claims on the province because of its Muslim population and so it sponsors terrorist groups to fight proxy wars to gain control (2). After the Lashkar group landed ashore on November 26 they split up and proceeded to predetermined strike points. These points included central railroad terminals, a hospital, a popular café, two hotels, and a Jewish community center (3). With calm and casual demeanors they opened fire on and threw grenades into crowds of unarmed civilians (2). The death toll grew to 160 with 300 wounded (2). Within the 160 killed, six were Americans and a number of Jews were tortured and killed. After being held up in a hotel for 60 hours, Indian commandos assaulted the hotel and killed nine of the assailants and captured one (2).

            The Mumbai Massacre is a very accurate case study to explain the definition as described by Dr. Samuels. We see here that Lakshar-e-taiba is a non-state actor. Although the group was formed with help and direction from ISI, Lakshar-e-taiba isn’t an official wing of the Pakistani government. We also see that the motivation of the attack was to advance their political agenda which was to fight the “Jihad” battle taking place in the Kashmir and to instigate conflict between Pakistan and India (2). The most key aspect of the attack which classifies it as a terrorist attack was that the targets were civilians.