Editorial: India Bombings: Same lessons
Seattle Times, July 12, 2006

The reasoned people of the world now find themselves again sifting through the bloody carnage of yet another wanton terrorist attack looking for clues to help explain who would do such a thing and why.

What officials described as eight well coordinated attacks on Bombay's commuter rail network during the Tuesday evening rush hour killed scores and wounded hundreds.

The attacks -- presumably the work of Islamic militants in the longstanding conflict over the future of Kashmir -- were the latest in more than a decade of terrorist assaults on the world's passenger and train subways, beginning with the March 1993 attacks that also targeted Bombay. Then came the March 1995 nerve gas release in the Tokyo subway that killed 12, the March 2004 bombing of four trains in Madrid that killed 191 and the July 2005 attack on the London subway and bus systems that killed 52.

The lessons from Bombay this time likely will be familiar. Mass transit remains vulnerable to attack because relatively small bombs can create large human casualties and airport-like screening is difficult if not impossible to apply to transit systems with multiple entry points. Terrorism is a weapon, not a definable enemy that can be isolated on or coerced onto a single battlefield. Governments need to improve intelligence-gathering capabilities. Their leaders need to deal effectively and fairly with social and political grievances, but must regard acts of terrorism as crimes, regardless of the social or political justifications their perpetrators claim.