Blake Hounshell at Passport provides discussions of two critical suspects in the bombings: Dawood Ibrahim and Yusuf Muzzamil. Muzzamil is a leader of Lashkar e-Tayyiba, a Kashmiri terrorist group with operations around the subcontinent and alleged ties to the Pakistani state, particularly Pakistan's radical Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Naturally, the path forward will be fraught with peril; as Stratfor pointed out in last week's Geopolitical Brief, the Indian government will be forced by domestic political pressure to insist on a Pakistani crackdown, which the Zardari government in Pakistan will feel pressure to resist. Whether the United States can persuade the parties to resist escalation – and maintain a Pakistani government presence near the Afghan border – will be a critical diplomatic challenge.
