Were the Kabul attackers inspired by Mumbai?

Posted By Joshua Keating Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 3:20 PM Share

The way that this morning's trio of attacks in Kabul played out seemed troublingly similar to November's attacks in Mumbai: a coordinated series of assaults involving gunmen on multiple targets combined with hostage-taking. Could the huge international attention generated by Mumbai have inspired the Taliban? I e-mailed terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University to ask if this could be a new model for terrorist operations. His take:

Certainly possible that they were inspired/influenced by Mumbai, but even Mumbai was not completely new. Pakistani jihadi groups, like Lashkar-e-Taiba have long used the same tactics as Mumbai in Kashmir. (I was there eight years ago during one such attack.) So, these type of forced entry attacks with automatic weapons blazing and hand grenades hurled were not unheard of, even before Mumbai. The Mumbai attacks, though, have very likely pushed this tactic more forward in the minds of South Asian terrorists and perhaps now made a preferred form of attack.

It should also be noted that in both cases, suspicion has fallen on Pakistan.

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

EXPLORE:SOUTH ASIA, AFGHANISTAN, INDIA, TERRORISM

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CAMILLE

4:46 AM ET

February 12, 2009

Kabul attaks

" Pakistani jihadi groups, like Lashkar-e-Taiba have long used the same tactics as Mumbai in Kashmir."

And in Delhi also : the attack on the Indian Parliament that claimed the lives of 13 people.

PM317

10:45 AM ET

February 12, 2009

And in Bangalore, on Indian

And in Bangalore, on Indian Institute of Science campus on a smaller scale. Maybe the terrorists paid attention to Columbine and VaTech shootings as well.. Pakistan is now accepting responsibility for Mumbai attacks and has released some of the details which links a guy in Spain buying domain names from a company in Houston, TX, and money $ exchange in Italy.. and so on.. Sleeper cells are everywhere it looks like and they are using the Internet masterfully. See

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/pakistan-admits-planning-26-11-india-calls-it-positive/422580/

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