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The Jihad Marches On, Today Also In India

The real dateline to the story is Pune, the eighth largest city in India, with over three million people. It is a university center so densely academic that Cambridge, MA may seem quotidian in comparison.

In any case, an explosive went off in a bag left in a bakery frequented by foreign tourists. Eight people are dead, and another 32 are wounded (several in critical condition). No official has yet pinned the deed on Muslim terrorists, preferring to hypothesize that it was committed by "Pakistani militants." But no one seems to doubt that the murderers are Islamic Jihadists doing their usual elevated work of murder.

Oh, yes, there is one other striking fact, though maybe you'd call it coincidence. The site of the bombing of the atrocity, according to the New York Times, was near a Chabad House, part of that world network of Jewish hostels and centers of learning and prayer run by the Lubavitch movement of Hassidim. You know the one, the funny looking old man wearing a hat and peering out at you from posters and billboards from, well, everywhere. As you recall, Chabad was a successful target in the Mumbai mass murder over Thanksgiving in 2008.

Ha'aretz has a story detailing the Chabad part in the narrative. Of course, as I suggested, the proximity of Chabad might just be accidental. But, then, there are over 1 billion Hindus and Muslims in India. And the small number of Jews sure do stand out in the mob.

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