Outgoing US envoy warns of a second 'Mumbai attack’

[caption id=“attachment_8471” align=“alignright” width=“300” caption=“Mumbai, November 2008. Arko Datta/ Reuters”]  [/caption] Outgoing US ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, has flagged the risk that “another Mumbai attack” – modelled on the November 2008 terrorist attacks with its origins in Pakistan – could have serious consequences in South Asia, including perhaps a conflict between India and Pakistan. “If another Mumbai attack takes place in India, if we are not able to work with India to deflect that attack, it very well could lead to increased tensions and possibly some kind of exchange between these two nuclear nations,” Roemer said ( from Xinhua) Roemer, who was addressing members of Chicago Council on Global Affairs, noted that progress had been made in the area of counter-terrorism cooperation between India and Pakistan, but “a single violent event” could change all that. In that context, he said, it was crucial for the US to assist India shore up its security and avert terrorist threats before they happen. Romer’s stark warning, which comes amidst strains between the US and Pakistan following the killing of Osama bin Laden by US Navy Seals at Abbottabad in Pakistan, is rooted in a widespread perception that a humiliated Pakistani military and intelligence service could react in unpredictable, even dangerous, ways. Strategic affairs analyst B. Raman had noted recently that : “The Pakistan Army and the ISI might calculate that reviving terrorism against India in Jammu and Kashmir and beyond might benefit them in two ways. It could help salvage their reputation and restore the morale of their personnel; second, it could direct the anger of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and other jihadi organisations at India rather than towards the Pakistani armed forces.” In his comments in Chicago,  Roemer also showcased relations between India and the US as “the defining partnership” of the 21st century. “India is important to the United States because of who they are and where they are."