Some background to the Mumbai bombings

Here are some links to some good reading on India, the terrorist threat it faces daily, and past acts.

B.Raman of the South Asia Analysis Group has a paper listing 21 points of consideration in trying fit the Bombay attacks into context. For example,

8. This is the second instance of multiple explosions in trains. The first was carried out by the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in December, 1993, coinciding with the first anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh by a Hindu mob. Those were random explosions and not well-co-ordinated serial explosions. The casualties were small.

9. Jihadi terrorism in Indian territory outside Jammu & Kashmir is a post-1992 phenomenon and is attributable to the feelings of hurt and anger caused in the Muslim community---particularly the Muslim youth---by the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The feelings of hurt over the demolition of the masjid are aggravated from time to time by feelings of anger over alleged police atrocities against Muslims and over alleged Police failure to protect Muslims. A third cause for anger since July last year has been the growing close relations with the US and the perceived failure or reluctance of the Government of India to express itself openly and in strong language against the violations of the human rights of the Muslims by the US.

10. Such feelings of anger have resulted in a series of acts of reprisal terrorism since 1993. These acts have been carried out by angry Indian Muslims manipulated by Dawood Ibrahim and the ISI; indigenous Muslim organisations with proved links to the ISI such as the SIMI; and indigenous Muslim organisations such as the Al Ummah of Tamil Nadu with no proved links to the ISI.

At IntelliBriefs, Praveen Swami has an article explaining the role of the Students Islamic Movement of India in India's militant Islam.

Whichever terror group executed Tuesday's bombing is likely to have drawn at least some of its operatives from the large pool of former Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) members in Maharashtra — an organisation that has survived a ban imposed in 2001 by operating under a variety of cover names. Several of the 11 Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives arrested from the Aurangabad area in May, while attempting to move a shipment of explosives, assault rifles, and grenades into Gujarat, had worked for SIMI before it was proscribed.

Zainuddin Ansari, the still-untraced head of the cell, had also worked as a SIMI ansar, or full-time activist, for several years. Another member of the cell, Shakeel Ahmad Shaikh, had been known to Indian intelligence since at least 1999, when he delivered an incendiary speech at a SIMI convention in Aurangabad. The Lashkar's then commander for its operations in Hyderabad, Azam Ghauri, was among those present at the convention, where the institutional links between SIMI and the terror group became evident for the first time.

Finally, David Frum has rounded up some links worth taking a look at.