Indian Mujahideen claim responsibility for Assam blasts

GUWAHATI: A little-known Islamic group claimed responsibility in a text message to a news channel Friday for serial blasts in India’s Assam that claimed 76 lives on Thursday, police said. The group, identifying itself as the ‘Islamic Security Force-Indian Mujahideen’, warned such attacks would continue in the Assam state, police said.

“The Islamic Security Force-Indian Mujahedeen takes the responsibility for yesterday's blasts,” said the text message sent to the Newslive television network in Assam. "We warn all of Assam and India for situations like this in the future and we thank all our holy members and partners," added the message.

A police spokesman said the group was believed to have come into existence in 2000 in western Assam, where tribal Bodo militants are campaigning against Muslim settlers from nearby Bangladesh. The group has not been active recently in Assam, where more than a dozen militant groups are campaigning for demands ranging from independence to greater autonomy. Read more ...

Source: Daily Times

Muslims Against Sharia unequivocally condemn Assam bombings. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of these atrocities. Our condolences to the friends and loved ones. May the perpetrators and their accomplices be swiftly brought to justice.

Hunt for Delhi bomb suspects

Bruce Loudon, South Asia correspondent | September 15, 2008

INDIAN police anti-terror squads were last night raiding the homes of known Islamic militants in New Delhi as they searched for those responsible for the worst terrorist bomb attacks seen in the city in years.

"We have very vital clues, positive clues. We are hopeful we will solve this case very soon," a police official said after at least 20 people were killed and more than 100 injured in a series of bomb blasts about sunset on Saturday, in the heart of the Indian capital.

It was claimed to be the work of the al-Qa'ida-linked organisation Indian Mujahideen.

But in swooping on known pockets of Islamic militancy in the teeming city, police were following a familiar and longstanding pattern in Indian terrorism cases, which invariably involves hectic action in the first few hours after an attack and then no follow-up.

Public anger with police and their failure to deal effectively with terrorism was apparent when relatives of victims who visited them in the city's hospitals took aim at the authorities, chanting "Down with the police".

Reports last night said that at least 10 suspects had been picked up in relation to the bombings on the basis of information supplied by witnesses.

A co-ordinated series of at least five explosions struck a park and crowded shopping areas in New Delhi just after nightfall on Saturday, a prime time for weekend shoppers in the crowded, chaotic Indian city.

The bombs were timed to go off at sundown, just as shoppers were going out in the relative cool of the evening. All five bombs exploded within 30 minutes of each other.

An Islamic militant group, Indian Mujahideen, claimed responsibility for the bombings in an email sent to several Indian news organisations.

Some of a series of vitriolic "catch us if you can" emails read: "Indian Mujahideen strikes back once more. This time with the Message of Death dreadfully terrorising you for your sins."

The emails charged India with "never-ending hostile hatred in your hearts against Islam and its people" and declared the group had "the potential to assault any city of India at any time".

A bomb disposal expert said the devices appeared to have been packed with steel ball bearings and nuts and bolts.

As barricades were thrown up and all cars and buses searched, the emails promised more terror attacks "to punish you even before your wounds have healed".

The number of casualties might have been much higher if at least two more live bombs that had been planted and primed had gone off - one in a children's playground adjoining India Gate, and the other at the Regal cinema complex in Connaught Place.

At India Gate, a 10-year-old street urchin known as Ravi is said to have found the bomb planted in a garbage bin, "fishing it out with his trembling hands" and called out to his uncle.

"I could see it was a bomb. It had wires dangling from it. Uncle told me to take it to a deserted side of the park and he called the constables," he said yesterday.

Scenes of desperate panic and carnage were witnessed as the bombs went off and the blood-soaked victims - many of them young shoppers visiting markets to buy fashionable clothing - were rushed to nearby hospitals.

In Connaught Place, lifeless bodies of victims were carried by rescue workers from the underground Palika Bazaar and hundreds of thousands of commuters fled in panic after the city's new subway system was closed down.

Chaos and confusion intensified as mobile phone jammers were activated to thwart further detonations and terrified shoppers and commuters found themselves unable to contact their families.

Media reports said 10 people had been detained in the overnight raids. Police spokesman Rajan Bhagat confirmed only that "several" people had been detained. He gave no further details on the suspects' identities or where they had been captured.

"We have collected vital clues and we hope to crack the case soon," Mr Bhagat said.

After deadly attacks in May and July by the Indian Mujahideen, police launched a series of raids but they made no arrests or filed charges.

Nevertheless, Indian officials vowed they would not be cowed.

"It's a very cowardly act of violence," Mayor Arti Mehra said near the scene of two of the explosions, in the M-Block market of the city's upscale Greater Kailash neighbourhood.

"They want to break the spirit of Delhi. They have tried this in other places before and they have not succeeded and they will not succeed here. They will not scare us," Mr Mehra said.

Indian Mujahideen, the militant group blamed for the weekend attacks, first appeared last November following a series of blasts in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

It is seen as an operational offshoot of the al-Qa'ida-linked banned organisation known as the Students Islamic Movement of India.

Source: The Australian

Dont' term perpetrators of blasts as Muslims: IUML

Tiruchirapalli (PTI): Condemning the Friday's serial blasts in Bangalore, the Indian Union Muslim League has asked the media and public to not to brand the perpetrators of the deed as Muslims.

"I appeal to the media and the public not to brand the perpetrators of the Bangalore blasts as Muslims," State president of IUML K M Khader Mohideen told reporters here on Saturday night.

"These kind of people are neither Muslims, Hindus or Christians. The Centre and the state government should take steps to nab them quickly," he said. Read more ...

Source: PTI

DO NOT associate Bangalore bombings with Islam!
IGNORE the fact that responsibility for the bombings were claimed by Indian Mujahideen!

---

Khader Mohideen
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award

Muslims Against Sharia unequivocally condemn Indian bombings.

Our thoughts in prayers with victims of the atrocities and their families.

May everyone responsible for the bombings burn in hell for eternity!

Death toll in Ahmedabad blasts rises to 45

A bomb squad officer defuses a live device in Ahmedabad, India.
At least 45 people were killed in a series of up to 16 explosions across the city.

Denis Campbell, Haroon Siddique and agencies
Sunday July 27 2008

The death toll from yesterday's wave of bombings in the Indian city of Ahmedabad has risen to 45, a government official said today.

Jaynarayan Vyas said 161 people were injured when 16 separate small bombs went off in several parts of the city, which has a history of violent clashes between the Hindu majority and Muslim minority. He also said that 30 people had been arrested in connection with the explosions, which came a day after seven synchronised explosions rocked the southern city of Bangalore, the hub of India's burgeoning information technology industry, killing two and wounding five others.

Yesterday's attacks in Ahmedabad happened in two waves early in the evening local time. Some of the devices were hidden in lunchboxes or bicycles. The first series exploded near busy market places. The second, about 20 minutes later, went off in and around a hospital where casualties were being taken. At least six people died there.

'We saw a blue bag near the trauma centre, and before we could react we saw it explode in a shine of blinding light, and some 40 people were hit by flying shrapnel,' said Vipul Patil, a doctor at the Dhanwantari hospital.

The side of a bus was blown off and its windows shattered while another vehicle was engulfed in flames.

Prithviraj Chavan, a junior in the prime minister's office, called yesterday's bombings "deplorable" and said they were set off by people "bent upon creating a communal divide in the country". That is the sort of language officials tend to use when blaming Islamic militants suspected of being behind a series of coordinated bomb attacks across the country in recent years. Targets have included mosques, Hindu temples and trains.

'Anti-national elements have been trying to create panic among the people of our country. [The] blasts in Ahmadebad seem to be part of the same strategy,' the federal home minister, Shivraj Patil, said.

Several television stations said they had received an email claiming responsibility from a group called the Indian Mujahideen at the time of yesterday's blasts. The same group said it was behind bombs in Jaipur, western India, in May that killed more than 60 people. The email made no mention of Friday's bombings in Bangalore, according to reports.

Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat state, which includes Ahmedabad, condemned the blasts as "a crime against humanity" and said the group or groups behind them were "using a similar modus operandi all over the country". The state government home Minister Amit Shah said: "The government had received a threat email, and we are probing it."

Tension between Hindus and Muslims is acute in Gujarat, a relatively wealthy state. It was the scene of riots in 2002 that left about 2,500 people dead. They were triggered by a fire on a train packed with Hindu pilgrims that killed 60 passengers. The cause was never proven, but Hindu extremists blamed the deaths on Muslims and reacted by rampaging through Muslim areas.

Source: The Guardian

Indian Muslim clerics reject terror despite accusations of apostasy

Note that the Indian Mujahideen have accused Khalid Rasheed and his colleagues of apostasy. This is the jihadists' consistent line: that they represent the truth and purity of Islam, and those Muslims who reject their perspective are, in effect, rejecting Islam. It is a potent appeal in the Islamic world, and one it would behoove us to understand -- but instead, the PC straitjacket has both liberals and conservatives ignoring, denying, or downplaying it, and pretending that the battle within Islam has already been won by the "moderates" -- who in reality haven't even articulated an Islamically consistent position that has won any widespread acceptance among Muslims. Read more ...

Source: Daily Times
H/T: Jihad Watch