Ahmedabad attack email traced to Mumbai
With back-to-back terror attacks in Bangalore and Ahmedabad marking a break from the terrorists' pattern of allowing time to lapse between two attacks, the Centre is preparing for a far more intense challenge than it had so far faced from jehadis.
By TIMES INTERNET NETWORK |
AHMEDABAD: With back-to-back terror attacks in Bangalore and Ahmedabad marking a break from the terrorists' pattern of allowing time to lapse between two attacks, the Centre is preparing for a far more intense challenge than it had so far faced from jehadis.
The Centre decided to convene a meeting of police chiefs of all states, while sounding the alert against more attacks across the country.
If this was part of a routine drill, officials acknowledged that the blasts in BJP-ruled states marked a serious escalation of the terror threat. They pointed out that the attacks on hospitals and trauma centres resembled tactics used by Al-Qaida in Iraq.
Preliminary indications pointed to the involvement of SIMI activists from Maharashtra. The email from Indian Mujahideen which reached the media five minutes before the first of the 17 bombs went off in Ahmedabad, was sent from the Yahoo mail account of alarbi_ gujarat through an internet connection used in the name of Camp Kell White.
The IP address was traced to one Kenith Heywood, C-1503/1504 Gunina CHS Plot, Sector 2&3, 16 A, Sampada, Mumbai. Investigators suspect the sender could be living at the Mumbai address as a tenant.
But the Maharashtra connection was also brought out by references to local incidents in Maharashtra - at Jalna, Yavatmal as well as the alleged humliation of Muslims on Western Railways.
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While there is no evidence yet to suggest that the attacks on Bangalore and Ahmedabad in a space of 24 hours were deliberately timed - the email from Indian Mujahideen makes no mention of the Bangalore blasts - the consecutive attacks on the capitals of two BJP-ruled states certainly shows refreshed intent. Intelligence agencies are not rushing to hazard guesses about the specific jehadi outfit for which the perpetrators of Bangalore and Jaipur blasts could be working. But they are reasonably sure that the logistical support for those who struck in Ahmedabad, just as in the case of Jaipur, came from activists of SIMI.
Apart from the similarities - use of cycles as well as explosives other than RDX - between blasts in the BJP-ruled states, there are other reasons for the agencies to look for the SIMI connection. The email from Indian Mujahideen cites arrests of SIMI activists in Indore - a crippling blow to the fundamentalist organisation.
Significantly, the email also takes great pains to emphasize the alleged local origin of the gang that attacked Ahmedabad on Saturday.
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"We the terrorists of India - the Indian Mujahideen - the militia of Islam whose each and every Mujahid belongs to this very soil of India, have returned to execute the compulsion of Allah". Download
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