Wednesday 17 February 2010


PUNE BLAST: ONE OF MANY TO COME?

Indrajit Basu

Asia Times, February 17, 2010

KOLKATA - Ever since the devastating terror attack on Mumbai by a group of militants in November 2008, India has been living in fear of more. Few thought it would take until February 2010 for the next strike - on Saturday a bomb ripped through a German bakery in the western Indian city of Pune, killing 10 people and injuring more than 60.

Experts fear the attack signals the beginning of a new wave. "I am more astonished by the fact that we did not have an attack in 2009. Given that India remains as vulnerable today as it was on 26/11, we were expecting a serious attack in 2009 as well," said Ajai Sahni, the founder-director of the Delhi-based Institute of Conflict Management, a noted internal security think-tank.

"It was an attack on a soft target and there will be many more to come and the amazing thing is not that a local eatery was attacked; the amazing thing is that there are a dozen other soft targets that have not been attacked yet."

Sahni added that the state of Indian internal security is "deplorable". He said that while the blast in Pune had some of the tell-tale signs of a terror attack - targeting foreigners as well as Indians - that it was different. For one, he said, it was directed solely at a soft target, and it did not have a suicide element - a bomb was left in a backpack.

(...) [artículo aquí]

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