They Were After Westerners?  

LONDON (AP) -- The attack on India's financial capital bears all the trademarks of al-Qaida - simultaneous assaults meant to kill scores of Westerners in iconic buildings - but clues so far point to homegrown Indian terrorists, global intelligence officials said Thursday.

Meant to kill scores of Westerners? Well, as of today, there are six Americans dead and a few from England, and some from other countries, but as of this writing, the death toll in the Mumbai incident is 174.

One hundred seventy four and only six Americans? If they were trying to kill americans then six out of 174 is a piss poor ratio if you ask me.

Now when I arrived home and heard the news of the attacks, a quick Google search showed that the Deccan Mujahideen were claiming responsibility. One more search of "Deccan Mujahideen" revealed this article dated Sept 15, 2008:

Next Mumbai: Indian Mujahideen



The Indian Mujahideen, which has claimed responsibility for the Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Jaipur blasts killing at least 130 people in a span of four months, has now threatened to carry out attacks in Mumbai, report Agencies.


Accusing Mumbai Police’s ATS of harassing Muslims, Indian Mujahideen said in its email that it was closely watching the ATS.

“You should know that your acts are not at all left unnoticed; rather we are closely keeping an eye on you and just waiting for the right time to execute your bloodshed. We are aware of your recent raids at Ansarnagar, Mograpada in Andheri and the harassment and trouble you created there for the Muslims,” the group said in the email they sent to various media houses on Saturday evening.

“You threatened to murder them and your mischief went to such an extent that you even dared to abuse and insult Maulana Mahmood-ul-Hasan Qasmi and even misbehaved with the Muslim women and children there,” the email said.

“If this is the degree your arrogance has reached, and if you think that by these stunts you can scare us, then let the Indian Mujahideen warn all the people of Mumbai that whatever deadly attacks Mumbaikars will face in future, their responsibility would lie with the Mumbai ATS and their guardians – Vilasrao Deshmukh and R R Patil,” the email said. “You are already on our hit-list and this time very very seriously.”


The terror outfit also threatened to target a senior Rajasthan police official. “All the Mujahideen who shook Jaipur are absolutely safe and secure, and are preparing for our next targets, one of which is A K Jain – the DIG of Rajasthan,” claimed Indian Mujahideen.

Jain has been instrumental in arresting several SIMI members in Rajasthan in connection with the May 13 serial blasts in Jaipur. The mail bears two signatures at the end – Guru Alhindi and al-Arbi.

It took about four or five minutes of reading and two very simple google searches to find this out. I would have hoped that a journalist would have had better sources, or at least the wherewithal to do at least what I did in five minutes. Of course, maybe I should give them a break. I did have to go to about the third page of search results to find something not related to the news that day.