LONDON — India was a victim of terrorism long before the twin towers in New York collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001. But as the global "war on terror" continues, India has experienced increasingly lethal terrorism. The sheer scale, scope and audacity of the latest attacks in Mumbai put them in a different category from earlier terrorist incidents, but it would be a mistake to suggest that they were India's 9/11. To do so would miss the underlying issues that have allowed such horrific attacks to take place.
India, in many ways, faces a unique set of challenges in dealing with terrorism. First, it has a structural problem as it is located in one of the world's most dangerous neighborhoods — South Asia — which is now the epicenter of Islamist radicalism. The vast tribal areas in Pakistan, which have never been under the effective control of any Pakistani government since independence, have become a breeding ground for Islamist radicals.
Driven out of Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion and the overthrow of Taliban, the Islamist extremists have found a new haven in the Pakistani tribal belt. From there they are wreaking havoc in Afghanistan and beyond, and their radical Islamist ideology is penetrating far and wide.