IndisGuise ji - I concede that I was wrong and my logic did not lead to the truth. Listening to the BBC, I get an impression that the Maoists were actually targeting the civilian bus and not a security vehicle as Prachanda claimed because the bus was regularly being used to carrying security personnel. The Maoists had apparently made a threat before but the timing of this incident confuses me. This is tantamount to war crime IMHO. Having said that, the Maoists have taken the high road of taking the blame for their actions. Their adversary, the RNA does not admit to doing anything reprehensible ? remember the RNA is responsible for making Nepal the world?s number one country in terms of civilian disappearance. In terms of discipline, my understanding of the Maoists is that the core group ? probably couple of thousands ? is quite disciplined because they are very ideological. But the movement has grown so big in the past 10 years that it has attracted local gunddas who have taken laws into their own hands. Yesterday?s blast appeared to be professionally done, thus I had assumed that if was the Maoists then it was done by the disciplined core group and not the gunddas. Btw, the success of Maoists at extortion has created a new genre of criminals, the Maoists-imposters. Now both groups are harassing ordinary people. Please bear in mind that I am not a Maoists apologist. Why should I be? The Maoists have extorted my family, my relatives, and my friends. They have killed, kidnapped and harassed people I know including relatives. But I still don?t consider the Maoists to be terrorists because they are fighting a political battle, in other words subscribing to Clausewitz?s dictum, ?war is politics by other means.? In an armed conflict, the ruling class always labels its rival terrorists. George Washington, Menachem Begin, Yassir Arafat have all been labeled terrorists.