Mumbai

We don’t have all the details on the Munbai attacks yet, but the bare bones are enough to chill you.  Groups of fighters attacked several places in Mumbai two days ago.  Two hotels, a hospital, a cafe, a Jewish outreach organization and the train station were the principal targets.  Hostages have been taken, specifically Western hostages, the fighters going out of their way to find the Brits and Americans. 

So far, the fighters have killed 120 and wounded close to 400 people.  Numbers are still fluid and rumour is still the common coin of information.  Let’s put it this way:  It’s serious and bad. 

Odds are you knew Mumbai as Bombay, the old colonial name for a big city of 20 million on the west coast of India.  Mumbai is the financial hub, India’s largest city and fairly prosperous.  The Mumbai Stock Exchange is the oldest stock exchange in Asia.  Bollywood is based in Mumbai, so that would make the city an amalgam of New York and Los Angeles if you need a North American-equivalent context.

The How of the Mumbai Attacks is sketchy.  Some reports have things starting with speedboats coming from freighters offshore, the speedboats full of heavily armed fighters with lots of extra supplies, intent on shooting everything and anyone that moved while they raced to their targets in vans, cars and Land Rovers.  Some have called it a paramilitary attack, while other commentators suggest that it is a rag-tag collection of armed crazies with the battle skills of drunk 18-year olds with guns.  At either extreme, wounded is still wounded and dead is still dead. 

The Why is the hardest part to divine right now.  Is it a terrorism attack to send a message to the White Devils?  Is it some other religious grudge match?  Is it a straight-up Al Qu’aeda deal?  We don’t know yet and may not know for a few more days. 

That’s the real problem:  There are enough religious and territorial battles going on in the region that you need local knowledge and a player’s guide to keep them straight.  There’s very deep religious hate between several groups, stretching back to before colonial days that you can’t stay on top of if you don’t live it every day.  I don’t and most news outlets in North America don’t either, so there is a knowledge gap.  Even BBC Worldwide with their resources can’t quite get the full handle on the Why, yet.

Suffice to say 120 dead is enough.  This isn’t just some local settling of scores.  We’ll get more details in the next few days and it won’t be good.