Naxals butcher 74 in worst blow to Indian security forces

The deadliest ever Maoist attack on security forces left 73 CRPF personnel and a local policeman dead in the thick forests of Dantewada on Tuesday, mowed down brutally, barely able to offer a fight in a dawn ambush along a road near the remote village of Chintalnar-Tarmetla. The deadly message from the Maoists comes as a battlecry, making it amply evident that all offers of truce or talks are essentially red herrings and they see their showdown with the state as a fight to the finish. It was a ferocious response to the Centre's bid to reclaim areas that Maoists have long held unchallenged and consider their domain.

Home minister P Chidambaram admitted that "something must have gone drastically wrong...They seem to have walked into a trap". Saying, "We should not have lost so many lives", home secretary G K Pillai promised that the massacre would not go unpunished. He said the search operations had been carried out on the basis of certain specific intelligence inputs.

The attacks were understood to have been carried out by several hundred Maoists, estimates ranging from 200-300 to 800-1,000. The latest chapter in the world's largest Left-wing insurgency unfolded early on Tuesday, between 6am and 7am, when 81 security personnel, including a local constable, were returning to their base in Chintalnar after an operation that spanned two nights and three days. It was a search-and-engage operation, aimed at challenging Maoists and establishing civilian control over red zones.

• "India's Maoist rebel attack sparks anger", Christian Science Monitor, 4/7/10.
  
• "India Steps Up Its Fight Against Naxalites", Time, 11/20/09.
  
• "India's Naxalites: A spectre haunting India", The Economist, 8/17/06.
• "Andhra Pradesh / Naxalite", Global Security, 8/15/06.
  

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Moscow Remains Insecure After Ten Years of Fighting Terrorism in the North Caucasus

Thirty-nine people died and over 80 were wounded as a result of two explosions on the Moscow metro system during the morning rush hour on March 29. The insurgency in the North Caucasus has been labeled the primary suspect for what is believed to have been a double suicide attack in the central part of the Russian capital, but as of late last night, Russian police still have not presented an indisputable link or information on who was responsible. The attack appeared to come as a shock for both the Russian public and the government, given that Moscow had enjoyed a period of relative safety for the previous six years and the Russian security services repeatedly told the public that the insurgency in the North Caucasus was almost done away with.

Aside from the rhetoric, little has been offered so far to enhance the safety of Moscow’s inhabitants. Initially, the upper house of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council, made a statement that it would introduce capital punishment for terrorists, but later this was revoked by the deputy speaker, Aleksandr Torshin. If the Russian security services adopt the usual way of reacting to terrorist attacks, more suspected insurgents are likely to be killed in the North Caucasus in the next few weeks. It is symptomatic that both Russian leaders, President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, called for such measures as executions to fight terrorism. Yet, the Russian security services, as it is, rarely arrest terrorist suspects in the North Caucasus, instead preferring to kill them on the spot. So, it is difficult to imagine that these failed practices will for some reason work now.

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18 gunmen die in attack on two army bases in Mexico

Dozens of gunmen mounted rare and apparently coordinated attacks targeting two army garrisons in northern Mexico, touching off firefights that killed 18 attackers. The attempts to blockade soldiers inside their bases -- part of seven near-simultaneous attacks across two northern states -- appeared to mark a serious escalation in Mexico's drug war, in which cartel gunmen attacked in unit-size forces armed with bulletproof vehicles, dozens of hand grenades and assault rifles.

While drug gunmen frequently shoot at soldiers on patrol, they seldom target army bases, and even more rarely attack in the force displayed during the confrontations Tuesday in the border states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon -- areas that have seen a surge of bloodshed in recent months. The violence mainly involves a fight between the Gulf cartel and its former allies, the Zetas, a gang of hit men. The cartel -- which has apparently formed an alliance with other cartels seeking to exterminate the Zetas -- has been warning people in the region with a series of banners and e-mails that the conflict would get worse over the next two to three months.

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