Terrorism in Mumbai

The bombings last week in Mumbai, their ensuing terror, and the public outcry by the Indian population offer a 21st century example (or, perhaps, a better term would be a post 9/11 example) of the new face of ethnic violence. We have studied the way that the politics of identity can be subverted to disrupt or overthrow an existing nation-state - the documentary on the village in Bosnia is the archetype of how religious/ethnic diversity can be exploited to become so polarized that an absolute severance is the only acceptable solution. While we have also seen numerous political theorists who view ethnic diversity as a potential buttress to democratization, modernization, and development, the terror attacks in Mumbai demonstrate that the ethnic cleavages of today's world have taken on international/global dimensions that make it much more difficult to channel constructively.
The 100 million Muslims that live in India are a populous minority who live and work and vote in the world's largest democracy. The first global and Indian reactions to the bombings were an acknowledgment of the strength of the Indian Muslim community and an immediate - implicit - allegation that Indian's historical enemy, its neighbor Muslim Pakistan, was somehow involved. That the Indian Muslim population may be ethnically more bound to its Muslim Pakistanis is thus taken for a given. As opposed to the ethnic violence that spurred the Bosnian war and led to the breakup of Yugoslavia, this ethnic violence - assumingly Muslim against Hindu - implies other regional nation-states. How does a global political system try and deal with ethnic cleavages that threaten a state from both within and without?
One possible solution to this question would be Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilization," a reference made time and time again when considering CPS theory and current events. Should we forget framing the attacks in Mumbai in any terms of India/Pakistan/US and simply view it as just another example of a global ethnic war? Bush's "War on Terror" might very well support this. But, interestingly enough, admist the outcries of indignation and sorrowful recognition of tragedy, many American intellectuals have - for one of the first times since September 11 - spoken out in the name of a public hesitation. What is terror? Who are terrorists? Is this a jihadist attack against the west or an inner-state ethnic conflict? The only answer is that it's not clear. And without clarity, without being sure about the terms of political science we use to understand this event, we should be reluctant to apply the old paradigms of CPS to an event we can't quite yet understand.


Addendum:
Just came upon this article, it may shed some light to how this is actually being interpreted, correctly or not: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/world/asia/02mumbai.html?hp