Mumbai train bombers convicted

In India, 12 men have been convicted for their part in the co-ordinated bombings of Mumbai commuter trains in 2006 that killed 189 people and injured more than 800. One man was acquitted. Sentencing is due tomorrow.

The seven bombs went off during a 15 minute spell, and appeared to have targeted first class compartments as people were going home from jobs in the city’s financial district. Explosives were packed into pressure cookers, then put in bags.

Prosecutors said the attack was planned by Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI, and carried out by the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba with help from the Students' Islamic Movement of India, a banned Indian group. Pakistan has rejected the allegations.

Mumbai has been hit by a number of terrorist attacks. In 2013, bombs killed 257 people, and bombers also struck in 2003 and 2011, killing a total of 70, while in 2008, gunmen attacked a number of places in the city, killing 165.

Ferry disasters - al-Salam Boccaccio 98 nine years on

On this day............9 years ago, the al-Salam Boccaccio 98, a roll-on, roll-off ferry, set sail from Duba in Saudi Arabia across the Red Sea to Safaga in southern Egypt, carrying 96 crew and 1,312 passengers. It would never get there.

A couple of hours into the voyage, a fire broke out among the 220 vehicles on the car deck. Repeated attempts to put it out failed, and at about one o' clock on the morning of 3 February, 2006, the ship began to list alarmingly.

Within a few minutes she sank, without any of her bigger lifeboats getting launched, and people had to get away as best they could in rubber dinghies. More than 1,000 perished. For the full story see A Disastrous History of the World.

IHS Maritime and Trade Intelligence says that over the last ten years, 4,784 lives have been lost in accidents involving large ferries.  The worst year was 2011, when IHS says 1,642 people died. On September 10 of that year, the Spice Islander 1 sank off Zanzibar, with a death toll estimated at up to 1,500.

 

Syria - lessons from Iraq?

As Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague itches to arm the rebels in Syria, a warning from Iraq that getting rid of a bad ruler does not solve all problems.  Yesterday, at least 66 people were killed in a dozen explosions targeting mainly Shia areas in Baghdad.

The United Nations says more than 700 people were killed in April, the worst monthly death toll in nearly five years.  So far this month more than 450 have died, raising fears that violence is heading back to the peaks seen in 2006 and 2007.

Many of the bombs were detonated in busy shopping areas and markets.  Last week, more than 70 people were killed in explosions at bus stations and markets in mainly Shia districts, while two weeks ago, 38 perished in an attack on a Sunni mosque.

Iraq’s Sunni minority has been complaining that the government, led by Shias, discriminates against them.

World's deadliest supermarket fire

On this day…..7 years ago, the world’s deadliest ever supermarket fire killed around 400 people at Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay.    The food court at the Ycua Bolanos store was packed with families when there was an enormous gas explosion.

The blaze spread through the building at such speed it was said that firemen found cashiers sitting dead at their tills.   Some shoppers were burned alive in the underground car park, while other victims were found hugging each other in the store.

Allegations surfaced that fire exits had been locked, and in December 2006, the owner of the store, his son and a security guard were each gaoled for five years, but the verdicts were followed by a riot, as families of the victims complained furiously at what they considered the undue leniency of the sentences.

At a re-trial just over a year later, the owner’s sentence was increased to 12 years, his son got 10 years, while the security guard’s five year sentence was confirmed.    In addition, a shareholder who had been present when the fire started was gaoled for two and a half years, while the building’s architect spent two years under house arrest.

Target Mumbai

Mumbai was always regarded as a diverse, tolerant city.   Maybe that is why it has been targeted so often by terrorists.    In Wednesday’s attack, three bombs went off, thought to have been activated by timers, and 18 people were killed.

In 2008, a group of ten Muslim gunmen murdered 165 people in attacks on hotels, a station, and other places frequented by foreigners.   Back in March 1993, more than a dozen bombs made from plastic explosives and detonated by timers killed at least 257 people, while the terrorists also threw grenades at Mumbai airport.

Ten years later, bombings killed another 50 people, while in July 2006, seven bombs were set off on rush-hour trains during a period of 11 minutes, claiming 209 lives.   Police blamed an outlawed Indian Muslim organisation, Lashkar-e-Toiba (‘Soldiers of the Pure’), but said the outrage had been planned by Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI.

A trial of 13 people accused of involvement is still wending its way through the Indian justice system, with judgment now expected before the end of the year.

Pakistan - normal terrorism resumed

The monsoon floods have disrupted many things in Pakistan, but not, it seems, religious terrorism. A suicide bomb has just killed at least 50 people at a Shia Muslim rally in Quetta in the south-west of the country. Sunni Taliban militants say they carried out the attack.

It came just two days after another suicide bombing operation directed at a Shia procession in Lahore, which killed 31 people. Again the Taliban said they were responsible, and that the attack was in retaliation for the killing of a Sunni leader last year.

In Pakistan, Sunni Muslims outnumber Shias by about four to one. A Shia leader has appealed for calm.

This is the same murderous sectarian feud that has claimed so many lives in Iraq. One of the worst outrages there came on November 23, 2006 when a series of bombs went off during a Shia religious festival in Sadr City, killing at least 215 people. Shias retaliated with a series of attacks on Sunni targets.

(See also my blogs of March 28 and Oct 28, 2009 and Jan 3 and Feb 6 , 2010.)

Train terrorist attack?

More than 100 people have now died following the train crash in West Bengal which the Indian authorities are blaming on Maoist rebels (see also my blogs of Oct 5, 2009 and May 19, 2010). The Maoists have denied involvement, but the crash happened in an area where they are strong and police say they found pro-Maoist posters close to the scene.

An 18 inch section of track was missing. This derailed the Gyaneshwar Express passenger train in the Jhargram area about 90 miles west of Calcutta, causing five coaches to fall onto another track where they were rammed by a goods train.

The railways have often been selected as targets by terrorists in India. The most deadly attack came in Mumbai on July 11, 2006 when seven bombs exploded on trains during the evening rush hour. Islamic terrorists were blamed for the resulting deaths of 209 people.

Maoist terrorists were blamed for the derailment of the Rajdhani Express as it crossed a bridge near the town of Rafiganj in Bihar on September 10, 2002. At least 130 people were killed. An inquiry found the track had been sabotaged, but the rebels themselves denied being involved and some experts have cast doubt on the official explanation.

*Thanks for mentions on the following sites:-
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Mumbai bombings anniversary

Mumbai has been marking the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed 174 people. The targets included luxury hotels and a railway station. The only surviving attacker is currently on trial in India while seven other people have just been charged in Pakistan with being involved. (see my blog of July 23)

The 2008 attacks were just the latest in a series that have targeted India’s financial capital. In 1993, a number of bombs hit targets such as the Stock Exchange, a shopping complex, and banks. A total of 257 people were killed, including 90 on a crowded double-decker bus.

During the winter before the bombings, about 900 people, mainly Muslims, had been killed in inter-communal rioting in the city – a sad blot on Mumbai's reputation for diversity and tolerance.

Another bombing campaign in 2003 cost the lives of more than 50 people. Then in July 2006, terrorists planted explosives on seven rush hour trains taking commuters home from the city. This time the death toll was 209. For more details, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Coincidental quake

The earthquake that has just devastated the Indonesian island of Sumatra was a separate event from the earlier Pacific tsunami that hit Samoa (see yesterday’s blog) though some experts believe the Samoan event may have brought the Sumatran quake forward by a few days.

At least 464 people have been killed on Sumatra, though an official at Indonesia’s disaster centre predicted the death toll could eventually run into thousands. The initial shock came beneath the sea, 50 miles north-west of the city of Padang. An eye-witness said many concrete buildings had collapsed and that fires were burning in the ruins.

Indonesia is in the Pacific’s “Ring of Fire”, the most seismically active region on earth, which suffers up to 7,000 earthquakes a year. Five thousand people were killed by a quake in Yogyakarta in 2006, while 170,000 Indonesians perished in the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004.

The country has also suffered some of the world’s most notorious volcanic eruptions such as Tambora in 1815, and Krakatoa in 1883. The most powerful of all, though, struck Sumatra about 74,000 years ago, when the Toba eruption and the volcanic winter that followed wiped out 99 per cent of the human race. See A Disastrous History of the World.

Samoan tsunami

At least 90 people have been killed by a tsunami in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga. Thousands have been made homeless.

Large parts of the islands are only just above sea level, and a senior official in American Samoa reported that the waves had devastated all the low-lying areas. Samoa's Deputy Prime Minister said the trademark of a tsunami – the sudden rushing out of the ocean – had come just five minutes after houses were shaken by the underwater earthquake.

Young men had tried to raise the alarm by banging gas canisters, but many of those killed were people who had gone to pick up fish stranded by the antics of the sea.

About four in five of the world’s tsunamis happen in the Pacific, and this is the worst since the one in July 2006 that killed up to 800 people on Java.

The trial goes on

The trial of the main surviving suspect for last November’s terror attacks in Mumbai, that killed more than 160 people, will continue in spite of his confession. 21 year old Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab's defence team had called for proceedings to end and judgment to be given.

The accused had originally denied all the 86 charges he faces, then this week he suddenly changed his plea, dismissing suggestions that it was an attempt to secure more lenient treatment. Qasab’s nine accomplices, who had arrived with him by boat from Pakistan, were all shot dead by Indian police during the attack.

In his confession, Qasab said he had been disappointed by the small amounts of money he was earning as a decorator and had been planning to turn to armed robbery. Instead he decided to become a "Mujahideen". He could face the death penalty if convicted.

Mumbai, noted for its racial and religious diversity, has faced a number of attacks from Muslim extremists, like those of March 1993 that killed 257, and the train bombings of 2006 that accounted for 209. Hundreds of Muslims had been killed in riots in the city during the winter of 1992-3.

Tornadoes - in Britain!

This week, a tornado damaged the roofs of two houses in Newport, South Wales. Unpleasant enough for the people who lived there, but much less serious than the twister that hit north-west London in December 2006 which resulted in damage to up to 150 houses and many cars. Six people were injured, one seriously.

Astonishingly, the UK suffers more tornadoes per square mile than any other country on earth. About 30 a year are reported, but fortunately most are very weak. Britain’s deadliest ever tornado appears to have been one that hit Edwardsville, just a few miles from Newport, on October 27, 1913, killing six people.

The USA is generally regarded as the worst place for tornadoes, and it has been hit by many devastating twisters – the most deadly being the Great Tri-State Tornado of March 18, 1925 that killed more than 700 people, but the worst the world has ever seen was the one that struck Bangladesh on April 26, 1989, devastating at least 50 villages and killing an estimated 1,300.

Almost a reckoning

Just over three years since she sank at the cost of more than 1,000 lives, the Egyptian owner of the al-Salam Boccaccio 98 ferry has been sentenced to seven years in jail for involuntary manslaughter. Mamduh Ismail, a former member of the Egyptian parliament’s upper house, which is appointed by President Mubarak, had been acquitted in an earlier trial.

Hundreds of victims’ relatives applauded the verdict, though there is no certainty that Mr Ismail will serve his sentence as he left Egypt soon after the disaster, and is now believed to be in Europe, possibly London. Two other defendants, also absent, were sentenced to three years in gaol.

The roll-on-roll-off ferry, which was carrying mainly Egyptian migrant workers and pilgrims home from Saudi Arabia, went down in the Red Sea on the night of February 2, 2006. A fire broke out on the car deck, and the crew were never able to get it under control. Passengers who were alarmed about the thick smoke were told by crew members to go back to bed.

By the time the crew had decided everyone had to abandon ship, she was listing so badly that it was difficult to launch the lifeboats, and more than 1,000 people drowned, with just 388 surviving. At the initial trial in July 2008, Mr Ismail and four other defendants from the ferry company were acquitted, while the captain of another ferry was gaoled for six months for failing to help the al-Salam.