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Militants Planned Attack On Indian Software Firms
Alien54 writes "Militants killed in an encounter in New Delhi on Saturday night planned to attack leading software companies in Bangalore in addition to the Indian Military Academy in Dehra Dun, Delhi police said on Sunday Indian police claim the men were members of Lashkar-e-Toiba - a Wahabi militant group fighting for an independent Kashmir. Apart from maps of call centers police also recovered 100 kilos of dynamite, 10.5 kilos of RDX explosive, 450 detonators, three AK-56 rifles and a satellite phone."
Actually, why did the militants do this? Attacking companies that brings prosperity to the region hardly seems a way to inspire support from the locals or anybody else.
More proof that terrorism doesn't make sense.
For the same reason that Al Qaeda attacked the WTC and Pentagon - to make themselves heard.
Terrorism is not about sense or economic benefits.
I'd like to thank the New Delhi police for a job excellently done.
And why are software companies so important as opposed to centres of government to these terrorists?
Get a free iPod Nano 4GB!
That was the point. Those were Kashmere terrorists blowing up Indian call centers. Al Qaeda was not overly concerned that 911 might be harming NYC's prosperity either, on the contrary!
The motives of such acts of violence can have many forms. But just labeling it as mindless terrorism is ignoring the larger picture. Know your enemy, Know yourself.
Just do it. It's got to be cheaper than the fisticuffs.
Another brilliant post by Truth Quark! 60 years of conflict suddenly resolved! ...
Now, about Palestine
Al Qaeda attacked visible symbols of hatred for the fundamentalist Islamic world. These militants wanted to attack software companies that are visible signs of India's prosperity so I don't the parallel or the militants' logic.
I realize the logic must be very twisted but there had to be some reasoning involved, I mean why not attack BJP offices in Uttar Pradesh?
I'm not arguing, just curious.
11 of 25 posts so far have been about Call centres and outsourcing.
I know most of it is humour (of some sort), but don't you think this is being just a bit insensitive? Mod me down if you must, but there must be a limit to self-centredness, even for Americans.
</karma-suicide>
StrayByte.Net
You have to understand that Kashmiris don't associate themselves all that much with India. They side more with Pakistan, but prefer an independent state, like Nepal.
The money generated from Bangalore tends to go to other parts of the country, as Kashmir is quite rich on its own. That is why attacking Bangalore's software companies made little difference to the terrorists.
The point of terrorism is exactly that - terror !. Once people are afraid, they have essentially achieved their target. These people are not just "militants" - but terrorists.
Indian software industry is obsessed with Information security that it often does not expect an attack with a car bomb in the parking under ground. And Bangalore is a cosmopolitan city full of all kinds of people. You won't be watched by the entire crowd because you have a 3 inch beard.
Security is an illusion - but it is a precious illusion for those who keep it.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
> One of these days, we'll have intelligent reporting that doesn't treat
... wow. If you don't want to be treated as reactionary, then don't react after reading just a headline.
> the readers like scared, reactionary six year olds.
Maybe one of these days we'll have readers with an attention span that lets them read past the first line in the article. You can't expect us to believe you're a big fan of critical thinking if you don't read as far as the second sentence: Indian police claim the men were members of Lashkar-e-Toiba - a Wahabi militant group fighting for an independent Kashmir.
I knew attention spans were getting short, but
Would you prefer that we called them disaffected individuals with poor impulse control?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Yep, that along with a united Ireland and peace between Palestine and Israel. For some reason, some people don't see it that clearly.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
When work is outsourced to countries that are not very stable, or have terrorism problems, or civil wars, it makes portions of that country wealthy. Those wealthy portions become a target for the local Bad People, simply because it will hurt their enemies more than bombing the poor portions.
I second this. Kashmiris never wanted to be part of India and the intervention of the Indian army has caused atrocities there that only made their feelings worse. Let the people have their freedom and decide their own future.
You know, India has stolen a lot of US jobs. It seems that most of the call centers employ people who can't speak (or understand) English very well at all -- and yet they're perfectly willing to take a contact doing phone support for Americans! But despite that, I find I have two feelings about India:
I hope this kind of terrorism is caught each and every time, in every country.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
If you look into slight history, there were a series major bomb blasts occured in Bombay, the financial capital of india in 1993 in places like the Stock Exchange. These resulted into a lot of tension and communal riots between the people.
This one seems to be kindof similar to them, just targetting a little more high-tech organizations. These militants just cant see a country prosper and the people getting happy. If you cant do well, dont let anyone do well.
It is a pity that words like "Militant" are used for these groups. We really need a word that summarises "Organised criminal gangs that want to steal entire countries". Of course {flamebait} this word would be useful because we could apply it to the Bush/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Rice/Blair/Berlusconi gang as well as the insurgents in Iraq, the part of the IRA that is opposed to the peace process, and the Taliban.{/flamebait} But words like "militant", "terrorist" and "insurgent" conceal rather than illuminate reality.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Uh, I'm guessing you have no idea about the history behind the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir because, if you did, you'd know it's not that simple.
When India was struggling to achieve independence, it became clear that the religious unrest would likely drive the country apart. The solution to this was partition, which divided India into two countries, India and Pakistan (literally "land of the pure"). Kashmir, which was then a kingdom, decided that it didn't like either choice, and its ruler declared Kashmiri independence for itself.
Everyone accepted Kashmir's position but shortly after independence and partition took place, Pakistan unilaterally invaded Kashmir claiming it for itself. Kashmir, with no hope of surviving by itself, and with no other help coming from elsewhere, asked India for assistance. This call for help put India in a bind, because it didn't want to provoke Pakistan unnecessarily (partition itself had been a bloody affair) and so it presented Kashmir with the only viable option: become part of the sovereign state of India.
Kashmir chose India over Pakistan, and officially became part of India. Hence, legally at least, Kashmir is Indian territory. However, Pakistan didnt (and still doesnt) accept this, and refused to withdraw its claim on the region.
Whether or not Kashmir should become independent is a very stickly question. Personally, I'd like to see it happen but, frankly, there's too much at stake - not least of all national pride - for either India or Pakistan to seriously consider it. So the status quo, with part of still Kashmir occupied by Pakistan, remains and probably will continue to do so for some considerable time. Certainly, until Pakistan readopts democracy, its unlikely to change.
By the way, while the India-Pakistan division was based on religion, it's a fact that India now has a bigger Muslim population than Pakistan. And, apart from a few religious zealots on either side, most Hindus and Muslims (and Christians, Buddhists, etc) manage to co-exist peacefully in India.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
..., can I call you comrade, can't I? I mean, you show such ignorance about how open markets work that either you have been in cave for 50 years or are a Communist, comrade. Which one is it?
The Indians are not stealing your jobs. US people in particular, and Western people in general, are pricing themselves too high given the expensive lifestyles they lead.
Which expensive lifestyles? SUVs, overeating, rampant consumerism, irrational Imperial wars in the other side of the planet. All tha adds up until your economy, or parts of it, become uncompetitive.
Indians are "stealing" your jobs in the same sense that a more capable, cheaper worke in the US would be stelaing your job if he was hired to do it instead of yourslef, comrade.
As for the English capabilities of the Indians,, frankly, stop beating that horse. It has been fucking dead for ages.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
For heaven's sake, when did Slashdot become Politically Correct (TM)?
Call them what they are, terrorists. Or if "terrorists" is not acceptable, then how about "necromancers festering on people's grief and death"? That's pretty accurate.
Sigged!
...that I had mod points today to mod down these stupid annoying Funny posts.
I guess even an American can get sick of the typical American attitude sometimes...
Yeah...if the Islamic suicide bombers had reached their targets, killing large numbers of people, surely Kashmir would have become independent immediately!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
In muslim thought there are two main areas of the world, the land of unbelievers the dar-al-Harb which is a permament abode of war. Then there is the dar-al-Islam, the lands Islam conquered through war, the land of believers which are an abode of peace. Just be thankful if you live in a country that does not border a muslim state, because where muslim states border non-muslim states there is constant conflict orcheastrated by the muslim parties. In muslim thought jihad, a war to make the land of harb into the of Islam is one of the prime duties of every muslim, unlike stupid Western leftists whining about their imperialist past, most muslims are most proud of their imperial past, their times of former military prowess, which are now long gone. May the ground open up and swallow the entire muslim world, good riddance.
That's amazing that you didn't get modded down to -5.
;)
Last time I made an anti-American comment someone told me "You are, quite simply, not welcome here then" and I got modded Redundant. I guess most people don't see it once it goes below 0 so getting to -5 is hard.
I can tell you're not American simply because you can spell centre
Can your karma go above being Excellent?
How do you know he's an American? Sure you could have read his blog and inferred, but I'd bet you just couldn't resist a knee-jerk anti-American comment. Very original.
I had a quick look at his blog, and figured he was American, from that and the post of course. I'm not anti-American or Americans in general, I'm writing on an American website with an American designed (built in Asia) computer, it'd be a little hypocritical : )
I was annoyed by the post (and the host of others like it on this and previous stories about India) because it seems to me that xenophobia and ignorance about the world are valorised at the moment in the States, and that's a real shame.
Xenophobia exists everywhere, but that doesn't make it acceptable. If this failed attack had been in NYC, you can bet he (and many other readers of this site) would have a very different reaction, and all the talk would be of how to get those dirty Saudi^^^^^ Iraqi terrorists etc etc.
Bullshit. Being an Indian, I can tell you that Lashkar-e-Toiba is a Pakistani terrorist group, FUNDED by Pakistan and TRAINDED by ISI, the intelligence service of Pakistan. The terrorists are trying everything - from asking Kashmir to be a state of pakistan to making Kashmir an independent state. Once it becomes independent, the Kashmiri people will themselves "ask" to be merged with Pakistan and Pakistan will "reluctantly" "accept" the offer. Either that, or Kashmir will be an independent state only for name sake; in reality it will be in control of Pakistan. Just look at how Pakistan is controlling it right now. Don't believe everything General Musharraf says. In fact, don't believe ANYTHING he says. If you know the truth, you'll realise that every word Musharraf says is actually just blackmailing India (or extortion or threatening, if you want to be a language nazi).
And 9-11 was carried out by bankers who lost their jobs at the WTC? Get real . This is serious stuff . You shouldnt be joking abt it
**Life is too short to be serious**
Kashmir becomes independent...next day China walks in like they did with the part of kashmir pakistan had managed to capture a few decades back, uses the added military advantage to browbeat the three other nations into submission and/or nuke the hell out of them from up there,
...hello to World War IV!!
And the rest of the world just stands by and lets this happen? What happens to China's trade relations? Why would China risk alienating the world? It's simply not worth it.
build up their military might even more and proceed to beat the tar of USA (and this is one country that can actually try it thanks to sheer nuber of cannon fodder they have got... acceptable collateral damage and all) and all other countries over the world.
OMG RED CHINA IS COMING!!! Seriously, this scenario isn't even close to realistic. The chinese have about 20 nuclear weapons, give or take a few. The US has around 7000. It would take 164 to destroy US command and control, since China doesn't have that, it's an utterly unrealistic scenario for them to pursue. It would take about 400 nuclear missles to wipe out Chinese command and control. There isn't a realistic military option for the Chinese against the US.
Even if China woke up tommorow with Russia's nuclear capabilities (10,000 weapons) why would she attack the US? Her own trading partner? That is plain silly. If China wants to dominate the world all that is needed to to continue growing her economy and evolving while the US moves to a more service based/low tech economy and the dollar continues to drop.
Sounds unrealistic ?
A US/China conflict is even more unrealistic that a US/Russian one at this point.
And you have a president who starts attempting to capture a terrorist in Afghanistan and ends up bombing some dictator in Iraq... so let us leave unrealistic out of it...
If you don't understand the fact that he is trying to transform the region and not just 'capture Osama' then you are brain dead. I'm not saying it's going to work, because history says that nation building is usually a failue, but things are looking pretty good right now.
So goodbye to Indo-pak conflict
Unlikely, the only way you get World War IV is to drag the US and Russia into it on conflicting sides which is not going to happen.
You are so brilliant...
Before you go spouting off about nuclear war scenarios, why don't you go read a bit about what each country is capable of?
Any attack on our call centers is an attack on America. We should be clear on that.
Speaking on behalf of many people I'd like to say "Muh-wha???".
If overseas contractors that companies use so they don't have to pay Americans a living wage are worthy of our military support, why aren't they paying taxes for us to defend them? These terrorists get zero sympathy from me, but shouldn't we be putting our own house in order?
We just had the congress tell us that they can't raise minimum wage because it would hurt companies too much, so now you want the taxes of people working full time and living in poverty to go to the Indian government so that the jobs we lose to them will be safe? Did you forget we're already in the red paying for two wars? Seriously, what the hell are you talking about?
Disclaimer: MINAA (Mummy! I'm Not An Animal!)
If 'militants','activists', or radicals' use terroristic tactics, how are they not terrorists?
Calling these people 'militants' is as repugnant as calling Himmler an 'activist' These people are terrorists pure and simple or no one is.
If you have a small decentralized and poor army attacking hardened military targets would be useless execize. For terrorists it just makes sense to attack civillian economic targets. If anything it causes even more damage and of course increases the amount of terror. As a bonus it also forces undustry to implement extra security measures which increases their costs and erodes their competitiveness.
The idea is to weaken the entire country and hurt/scare the general population who will eventually give in. I say eventually because terrorists are usually thinking in timespans that take generations.
Whether it works or not is debatable. Terrorism was a key component of the establishment of Israel as a state. It also worked in Afghanistan against russia. In other places the record is spotty at best.
evil is as evil does
Dude, he made a joke about the number of tech support reps that are located in India for various companies. How is that Xenophbic, ignorant, or self centered? The only ignorance I see is in your hatred of Americans. You can claim your are not anti-American but your posts suggest otherwise.
Self-centred and ignorant because it takes something very serious in India/Pakistan and turns it into a joke about call centres (which seems to be the farthest most comments get here on any story about India). It's not just that joke - look down through this story and you'll count tens of jokes that are all just as lame and just as insulting to people who have died and are dying in a conflict that's been going on for ages. Yes, it's a joke and not something to get righteous about, but I don't think it should go unchallenged.
Saying Xenophobia is valorised was a general comment on the insular attitude of the Bush administration since 9/11 who have consistently encouraged the country to disparage other nations (France comes to mind) and promoted a climate of fear and eternal vigilance against an undefined foreign enemy. I couldn't pretend to talk about all Americans and wouldn't want to. I certainly feel no 'hatred of Americans' but if that makes it easier to dismiss the criticism...
Somehow I don't think if that same joke was made about a failed attack on IT companies in NYC on this same site, people would be defending it as funny.
Journalists hope that if they suck up to this monsters, being careful to call them 'macho' names like "militant" they won't get hurt and may even get leads that let them have a cameraman in place when a bomb goes off in a marketplace (as is happening in Iraq). The typical journalist mindset (particularly in the European press) is, "Go blow up that schoolbus filled with Jewish schoolchildren. That's OK. Just leave me alone."
And have you noticed something else? Around the world it's the political left that's displaying the same zeal to keep blood-thirsty Middle-East tyrants and religious zealots in power that their fathers and grandfathers displayed for Stalin and Mao. The mainstream media is trying to get us to believe that the threat is from "religious fundamentalism," but the evil is the same that attracted so many to Karl Marx, a ideological rationale to kick people around and build a brave new world. It's the same zeal for blood that makes feminist so rabidly proabortion. It's the 'progress comes through death' mindset that lies at the heart of Darwinism, as Darwin himself stated so coldly but eloquently in the last paragraph of The Origin of Species.
Sick, sick, sick! Thank goodness the Internet and bloggers are giving us an alternative to scum who can't tell the difference between a terrorist and a militant.
--Mike Perry, Seattle
Editor: Dachau Liberated
Editor: Eugenics and Other Evils
You fail to mention that the king might have been Hindu, but the majority of Kashmiris were Muslim and either wanted to side with Pakistan (Islamic State) or be independent. Let the Kashmiris be free and autonomous then, since that was the agreement afterall.
Its rather interesting that ppl here are so much against Indian call centres, complaining about language issues. Of course, you're not gonna understand ppl there, and they're not gonna understand u cause u guys have different accents, not becaue either side can't speak english. I'm from Vancouver, Canada and I find it hard to understand ppl from the South US, australia, and the UK. Here in Canada, when I call up a gov agency, I get some french person speaking english and its pretty hard to understand them too. Not because they don't know english, its because their accent. What I'm even more suprised about is /.'ers who need to call tech support. Can't fix ur own comp eh?
Ummm ...
Not familiar with the King David Hotel, are we?
True, but any <insert-belief-set> militant group is simply doublespeak for terrorists. Christian, vegetarian, feminist, racial pride, etc.
Fo an intro to Wahhabism that doesn't resort to conclusions like "nutballs" and "islamic nut cases", there's an article here (probably with its own biases, but I found it more informative and it includes references.)
Shhhh don't you know you can't metion Saudi and Terrorists in the same breath! It may raise to many questions as to why we invaded Iraq and not Saudi Arabi after 911.
I think the numbers speak for them selves. 14 Saudi High jackers ; 0 Iraqi High Jackers and 0 WMD's found in Iraq.