The conflict and terror infested South Asia has taken another major down turn by the terror attacks in the industrial capital of India, Mumbai. Media reports over a hundred deaths and over two hundred injured. Officials claim that these numbers could rise, since the situation is still not under control.
The attackers were known to pin point westerners, specifically British and US citizens, as their targets. These Al-Qaeda hallmarked attacks on westerners in Mumbai would be a blow to its economy as well as the tourism industry of the Maharashtra state and India as a whole. The failure of regional and global intelligence agencies to warn off such an attack is appalling. After 9-11, everyone would expect at least one intelligence service roaming around the region to pick up an attack of such a scale.
This disturbing development is not appealing news for us in the Maldives. We are surrounded by conflicts which may directly or indirectly affect our economy or even national security. As the fall of Kilinochchi is imminent in Sri Lanka; the LTTE would be expected to give a never seen before defensive which may go beyond northern Sri Lanka. Pakistan tries hard to curb terror influences with slow progress and while facing strict resistance. Much further west in the Indian Ocean, pirates from Somalia are carrying out their piracy operations further and further out into the open sea, while International naval vessels are on patrol.
Although far away, the Maldives is not immune from the conflicts in the region. The gun running vessel sunk by our Coast Guard early last year was evident enough of that. These remnants of regional conflicts and instability will trickle down on us in various forms. Examples could be unexpected effects on our economy, influx of escapee combatants disguised as civilians, flood of refugees or illegal immigrants before or after the conflicts ends.
With so many resorts being operated in the Maldives, it is in our own interests to protect the tourism industry from similar or an attack inspired by the one on Mumbai. We know that there are Al-Qaeda sympathizers in the Maldives and we could expect a similar attack, maybe not of such a form or scale as Mumbai, on our tourist islands targeting westerners. Contingencies need to be put in place on how to cope and curb such an attack. Most of all preventative measures should be taken from this point onwards as our surrounding proves to be unstable and plagued by terror attacks.
These warning signs need to be taken into consideration while evaluating our national security strategies. In a time when the world is going through the worst economic crisis in modern history, we cannot afford to loose our tourism industry to a terror attack. I assume that the concerned authorities are monitoring the events surrounding us closely.
