This week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, has raised the question of whether there are continuing deeper motives behind the US's so-called 'War on Terror?'

The horrific attacks are said to have been perpetuated by a previously unknown group, the Deccan Mujahideen. The militants who conducted the attacks, according to India, have been supported by elements within Pakistan, a nation seen as key to American hopes for 'defeating' Al Qaeda in the so-called 'War on Terror'. Indeed, the Pakistani intelligence service has been responsible for backing jihadist movements in the past. For example, the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), Pakistan's main spy agency, received support from the US to both train and arm jihadist movements that included the early Taliban that went onto rule Afghanistan in the late 1990's and also the groups which fought under the leadership of one Osama Bin-Laden against the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

And it is the hand that Osama Bin-Laden's Al Qaeda movement may have had in these attacks that is now being mentioned as reports indicate that Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani group with ties to Bin Laden's group, maybe the real culprit. The strategy behind the attacks in seeking out targets which Westerners tend to gravitate towards and massive, indiscriminate assaults against those targets, as occurred in Mumbai, are said to be the movement's signature trademarks.

Therefore, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Al Qaeda might have given logistical and other support to the group that struck the Indian city on Thursday morning. After all, what does this attack say about the success of the US's much vaunted 'War on Terror?' In recent months, US military forces have crossed into Pakistan from Afghanistan to conduct raids (using special forces) on suspected 'terrorist' targets. In some cases, they have killed jihadist leaders but in most they have ended up killing innocent civilians. This level of 'collateral damage' (or in plain non-Pentagon language civilian casualties) has been blamed on 'faulty intelligence' or just plain 'bad timing'. What could be transpiring is that the Americans are attempting to send a message to regions like the independent-minded North West Frontier Province (where Bin Laden and his lieutenants are said to be hiding) that if they continue to support radical movements, such as Al Qaeda, then the region and its entire population is fair strategic game for the US in its ambitions to geostrategically dominate the South Asian and Middle Eastern regions.

This could be the case as the geographical arc that stretches from Syria, up into the former Soviet Central Asian republics, and southwards down through to India and Bangladesh is the scene of increasing geostrategic competition. This competition, fuelled by various factors, namely, economic growth in both India and China, the need to maintain access to natural resources such as oil and gas and the desire to gain or maintain a foothold over crucial shipping routes such as the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, is becoming increasingly tense.

These are the deeper motives behind the 'war on terror' in my view. Why?

Essentially, 9/11 was just a convenient pretext for the United States to perpetuate its global hegemony in the post-Cold War era. Indeed, the Project for the New American Century, whose membership has included right-wing Republican neo-conservative luminaries like current US Vice-President Dick Cheney, former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush (younger brother of George W. Bush), and current US United Nations Ambassador Zilmay Khalilzad has provided the spearhead for much of the Bush Administration's unilateralist foreign policy.

The desires of those who founded the project and have gone onto drive American global policy since, is best encapsulated within their statement of principles written in 1997 and which can be found on their website www.newamericancentury.org. These include "..the need to strengthen ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values.." and that "..we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity and our principles."

Therefore, America is seeking to become the modern day version of the Roman Empire, at least in the Middle East and South Asian, regions as part of a capitalist drive to compete for resources and profits with other emergent powers. Hence, the American drive to now control Pakistan in order to promote a closer relationship with Pakistan's arch-rival India and to act as a counter-balance to Chinese influence.

It is also interesting to note that since 9/11 Pakistan has only been a lukewarm ally of the US with former president General Pervez Musharraf and now new President Asif Ali Zardari not taking on Al Qaeda in the way that the US wants it to - through the use of lethal and indiscriminate military force. This has prompted the US to develop an excuse for military intervention inside Pakistan itself with the clandestine military raids being furst authorised by President George W. Bush in mid-2008. If anybody is expecting a different response from President-elect Barack Obama then think again as he was ahead of Bush himself in calling for clandestine military action while on the campaign trail earlier this year.

So there is bi-partisan support at the highest levels of the American political establishment for these new acts of aggression against Pakistan in the name of the war on terror. What have US actions served to do with respect to Pakistan? Simply, they have increased support for Islamic fundamentalism within that country and provided groups like Al Qaeda with new recruits. It is more than likely that a number of these fresh recruits have surfaced in Mumbai in recent days. We can only expect more of these kinds of deplorable attacks in the future, despite whatever security measures are deployed, because the US is determined to carry out a short-sighted policy that serves only its own interests. This will be self-defeating for the US and it allies who will not learn that waging war on terror is the wrong way to go about dealing with it. After all, World War One was precipitated by an assassination and could be seen as the world's first and ultimately fruitless 'war on terror'.

The only way to stop extremism is through promoting policies that tackle poverty and injustice. As recent history shows in Iraq, the US is only interested in what it can gain for itself and this is inimical to the interests of other ordinary nations and their peoples.