“Indian Mujahedeen” strike New Delhi

CounterVortex

Synchronized explosions hit five crowded markets and thoroughfares in New Delhi Sept. 13—including Connaught Place, a tourist destination in the heart of the city. The blasts left 23 dead and over 100 injured. A group called Indian Mujahedeen sent an e-mail message to TV stations minutes before the attacks. “Eye for an eye,” said the document, with the image of victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots. “The dust will never settle down.”

“Our intense, accurate and successive attacks like the one you will see exactly five minutes from now, Inshallah, will continue to punish you even before your earlier wounds have healed,” said the e-mail. Terrorist attacks loom large over politics in India as national elections approach. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party criticizes the Congress Party-led coalition government for its failure to prevent bombings. (NYT, Hindustan Times, Sept. 14)

See our last posts on India and the jihad in India.

  1. Mumbai manhunt for Muj mastermind
    From the Times of India, Sept. 16:

    Is terror mastermind Tauqir in Mumbai?
    A massive manhunt has been launched in Mumbai for Abdul Subhan alias Tauqir, the mastermind behind the Delhi, Ahmedabad and Bangalore serial blasts. In fact, the Interpol has been alerted by Indian intelligence agencies to keep a lookout for Subhan.

    In a joint operation that involves Mumbai, Gujarat, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh police, investigators are now hoping to net Abdul Subhan soon.

    As investigations continue to throw up new information on Subhan, officials now believe he is the man who set up the Indian Mujahideen (IM) group, which has claimed responsibility for the serial blasts in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi.

    Thirty two-year-old techie Abdul Subhan Qureshi alias Tauqeer alias Tauqir Bilal, the mastermind behind the Indian Mujahideen (IM) terror module, and the man most wanted after Saturday’s blasts, is still at large despite an alert to nab him.

    Mumbai and Gujarat police, who are now working with Delhi police, said Subhan is suspected to be the man behind the emails, which were sent after the blasts in Faizabad, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Delhi.

    Subhan, a resident of Masjid Bandar in Mumbai, is not just a computer wizard but also an explosives expert, who trained terror operatives and helped them make all the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) used in the Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Surat blasts.

    Subhan, a software wizard, has been trained in Pakistan by the Lashkar-e-Toiba and till 2001 worked simultaneously at three software companies in Mumbai. More surprisingly, Subhan was not known to the Indian investigative agencies till as late as March 2008.

  2. Muj moghul dispatched in Delhi donnybrook
    From AFP, Sept. 19:

    Indian police kill ‘top Islamic militant’ in Delhi shoot-out
    Indian police shot dead two alleged Islamic militants during a fierce gun battle in a Muslim area of New Delhi Friday, including a leader of a shadowy group behind a spate of deadly bombings.

    The fighting erupted around a house in Jamia Nagar, in the south of the capital, when police acting on a tip-off discovered a group of around five armed men holed up in a building in a maze of narrow streets.

    The ensuing hour-long battle came less than a week after the city was hit by coordinated bomb attacks claimed by the group of one of the slain men.

    “In this operation, Atif alias Bashir, who was one of main leaders of the Indian Mujahideen, was killed. He is linked with the blasts all over the country,” New Delhi police commissioner Y.S. Dadhwal told reporters.