A powerful bomb placed in a briefcase outside the High Court in New Delhi killed at least 11 people on Wednesday in an attack authorities said may have been carried out by a South Asian militant group linked to al Qaeda. Officials were verifying the authenticity of an email claiming to be from the outlawed Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (HUJI) militant organisation and taking responsibility for the attack. India is a regular target of militant attacks by both domestic and foreign groups -- from Islamists to Maoists to separatists -- which has rattled relations with neighbouring countries, especially arch rival Pakistan. WHO ARE THE HARKAT-UL-JIHAD ISLAMI? HUJI was originally set up during the Afghan jihad against Soviet occupation and has bases in both Pakistan and Bangladesh. It has predominantly focused its attacks on India and Pakistan. A senior al Qaeda member and HUJI leader, Ilyas Kashmiri, regarded as one of the world's most dangerous militants, was recently killed by a U.S. drone aircraft missile in Pakistan, Washington says. Before his death Kashmiri may have been be exploring ways to attack Western targets including attacks in the United States, the U.S. attorney's office said. The United States charged him with plotting an attack against a Danish newspaper that published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, which angered many Muslims. The group has often been suspected of attacks on Indian cities, from the southern tech hub of Hyderabad in 2007 to the northeastern state of Assam. HUJI has been linked to the plotters behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks as well as the Indian Mujahideen group, a militant outfit which has claimed responsibility for a series of bomb attacks on Indian cities. HUJI has provided fighters for the Afghan Taliban, who are fighting U.S.-led NATO troops in Afghanistan. It is also charged with staging a 2004 attack on a rally by Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was then the leader of the opposition. Twenty-three people were killed and over 150 were wounded, and Hasina suffered partial hearing loss. WHO ARE LASHKAR-E-TAIBA? The "army of the pure" is one of the largest Islamic militant groups in South Asia. Once nurtured by Pakistan's military to fight India in Kashmir, it is now under a tight leash since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, for fear of a new attack that would invite retribution on Pakistan. The group claimed responsibility for the attack on an army base in New Delhi's historic Red Fort which killed three people in late 2000 and for an assault on India's parliament in 2001 that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of a fourth war. In 2005, it was blamed for bomb attacks on markets in New Delhi that killed more than 60 people. The United States has designated the LeT as a "foreign terrorist organization". Pakistan banned it in 2002, but critics say it long operated openly under different names. WHO ARE THE INDIAN MUJAHIDEEN? The Indian Mujahideen is described by global intelligence firm Stratfor as "a relatively amateurish group that's been able to carry out low to medium intensity attacks". While its members are mostly local Indian Muslims, the group is suspected of having been trained and backed by militant groups in neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh. The group first emerged during a wave of bombings in north India in 2007. They have since claimed responsibility for bomb attacks in the cities of Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi. The last attack they claimed was in 2010 in the western city of Pune, where a bomb blast at a tourist spot killed at least nine people. The demands of the Indian Mujahideen, like their targets, have tended to be domestic. The group has declared "open war against India", accusing the Indian army of killing Muslims in Kashmir and also directing its ire at the Mumbai police anti-terrorist squad, accusing them of harassing Muslims. WHAT COULD HAVE TRIGGERED LATEST ATTACK? India has long been a target of militant attacks but this latest comes as New Delhi is trying to improve testy ties with Pakistan and Bangladesh. At the time of the blast Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was on an official visit to Bangladesh, the first by an Indian premier in 12 years. Relations between the two suffered in the past in part because of New Delhi's worries Islamist militants were using Bangladesh as a base. Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan, who have fought three wars in their independent history, have recently held a series of bilateral meetings to rebuild confidence shattered by the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed 166 people. Wednesday's email said the attack was a means of pressuring India to repeal the death sentence of a man convicted in connection with an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 and warned it would otherwise target major courts in the country.
