The expert orchestration of terrorist strikes in Jammu and Kashmir and Mumbai local trains on July 11 carry the signature of Al Qaeda, which has been carrying on an anti-India campaign since US President George W Bush's visit to India in March this year.

Since that time, Al Qaeda has been talking of a Crusader-Jewish-Hindu conspiracy against Islam. Osama bin Laden highlighted this in his April 23 message. (In this connection, please refer to my paper No 47 titled 'Bin Laden Targets India' available at www.saag.org/papers18/paper1776.html.)

While there is no reason to believe that the terrorist strikes of July 11 might have been carried out by the Arab members of Al Qaeda, the inspiration and planning are likely to have come from the group.

The execution could have been through Al Qaeda's surrogates -- Lashkar-e-Tayiba, other Pakistani members of the Al Qaeda-led International Islamic Front, members of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India or the followers of Dawood Ibrahim.

Pakistani media had reported last month that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence had re-located Dawood in the tribal areas near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Bin Laden and his second in line of command Ayman al-Zawahiri operate from the same area.

Since 9/11, Al Qaeda has been targeting tourist spots (Bali, Mombasa, Casablanca and Istanbul) as well as means of transport (Madrid and London).

Therefore, Al Qaeda's inspiration behind terrorist strikes on July 11 is a strong possibility.