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29 December 2008
For alleged supporter of terror in Pakistan, it's business as usual
For alleged supporter of terror in Pakistan, it's business as usual
Despite officials' vow to crack down after Mumbai, Islamic charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa still operates unfettered
By Kim Barker Chicago Tribune December 26, 2008
www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-pakistan-crackdown_barkerdec26,0,5582486.story
MURIDKE, Pakistan — The students used computers to draw Pakistani flags and houses, and the hospital patients lined up for the eye doctor. "Fire is hot," a group of 68 1st graders recited in a crowded English class. So far, it is business as usual at the main headquarters of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Pakistani charity that allegedly is a front for the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was blamed for last month's terror attacks in Mumbai, India. Despite the Pakistan government's announced crackdown on the group in response to pressure from India and the West, no one has shut its headquarters, a sprawling campus about an hour from the eastern city of Lahore. No one has closed the group's mosque in Lahore. Ten relief camps for victims of a recent earthquake in Balochistan province — also a Taliban stronghold — continue to operate, charity officials said… Government officials did not return calls for comment, but in the past, have said they are doing everything possible to rein in militants. They have also said they have no evidence this charity is involved in terrorism or the Mumbai siege…
22 December 2008
5 convicted of plotting to kill Fort Dix soldiers

5 convicted of plotting to kill Fort Dix soldiers
Dec 22 04:17 PM US/Eastern
By GEOFF MULVIHILL
Associated Press Writer Write a Comment
In this Oct. 20, 2008 file photo is an artist's drawing showing defendants...
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) - Five Muslim immigrants were convicted Monday of plotting to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix in a case that tested the FBI's post-Sept. 11 strategy of infiltrating and breaking up terrorist conspiracies in their earliest stages. The men could get life in prison when they are sentenced in April.
The five, who lived in and around Philadelphia for years, were found guilty of conspiring to kill U.S. military personnel. But they were acquitted of attempted murder, after prosecutors acknowledged the men were probably months away from an attack and did not necessarily have a specific plan. Four defendants were also convicted of weapons charges.
The federal jury deliberated for 38 hours over six days.
The government said after the arrests in 2007 that case underscored the dangers of terrorist plots hatched on U.S. soil. Although investigators said the conspirators were inspired by Osama bin Laden, they were not accused of any ties to foreign terror groups.
Defense lawyers argued that the alleged plot was all talk—that the men weren't seriously planning anything and that they were manipulated and goaded by two paid FBI informants.
Faten Shnewer, the mother of defendant Mohamad Shnewer, said the informants should be the ones in jail. "Not my son and his friends. It's not right, it's not justice," she said after the verdict. The government "sent somebody to push him to say something; that's it."
Convicted were: Shnewer, a Jordanian-born cab driver; Turkish-born convenience store clerk Serdar Tatar; and brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka, ethnic Albanians from the former Yugoslavia, who had a roofing business. A sixth man arrested and charged only with gun offenses pleaded guilty earlier.
"These criminals had the capacity and had done preparations to do serious and grievous harm to members of our military," Ralph Marra, the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said after the verdict.
But some Muslim leaders in New Jersey disputed that.
"I don't think they actually mean to do anything," said Mohamed Younes, president of the American Muslim Union. "I think they were acting stupid, like they thought the whole thing was a joke."
Jim Sues, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said: "Many people in the Muslim community will see this as a case of entrapment. From what I saw, there was a significant role played by the government informant."
The yearlong investigation began after a clerk at a Circuit City store told the FBI that some customers had asked him to transfer onto DVD some video footage of them firing assault weapons and screaming about jihad.
The FBI asked two informants—both foreign-born men who entered the U.S. illegally and had criminal records—to befriend the suspects. Both informants were paid and were offered help obtaining legal resident status.
During the eight-week trial, the government relied heavily on information gathered by the informants, who secretly recorded hundreds of conversations.
Prosecutors said the men bought several assault rifles supplied by the FBI and that they trekked to Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains to practice their shooting. The government also presented dozens of jihadist speeches and videos that the men supposedly used as inspiration.
According to prosecutors, the group chose the Army post because one of the defendants was familiar with it. His father's pizza shop delivered to the New Jersey base, which is 25 miles from Philadelphia and used primarily to train reservists for duty in Iraq.
The group's objective was to kill "as many American soldiers as possible," prosecutors said.
But the men's lawyers attacked the credibility of the informants and accused them of instigating the plot.
After the verdict, Schnewer's attorney, Rocco Cipparone, said there would not have been a conspiracy without the involvement of the informants. "I believe they shaped the evidence," he said.
Prosecutor William Fitzpatrick defended the government's handling of the case, telling the jury: "The FBI investigates crime on the front end. They don't want to have to do it on the back end."
Members of the jury would not speak to reporters after the verdict and instead released a statement that said, in part, "This has been one of the most difficult things that we have ever had to do."
None of the defendants testified.
The government said after the men's arrest that an attack was imminent, though prosecutors backed off that assertion at the trial.
The government has had a mixed record on terrorism prosecutions since Sept. 11. It won guilty pleas from Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui; Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic jetliner with a shoe bomb; and the Lackawanna Six, a terrorist cell outside Buffalo, N.Y. And it convicted Jose Padilla of plotting terrorist attacks.
But a case against four men in Michigan fell apart after a federal prosecutor was accused of withholding evidence. And a case in Miami against seven men accused of plotting to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower has produced one acquittal and two mistrials.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
18 December 2008
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02 December 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5276283.ece
From The Times
December 3, 2008
Outgunned Mumbai police hampered by First World War weapons
[video]
Jeremy Page in Delhi
Indian police who bore the brunt of last week’s attacks on Mumbai had defective bulletproof vests, First World War-era firearms and insufficient weapons training, police sources have told The Times.
Many wore plastic helmets and body protectors designed for sticks and stones, rather than bullets, as they fought highly trained militants armed with AK47 rifles, pistols, grenades and explosives.
The contrast between them was vividly illustrated yesterday by CCTV footage of two militants attacking Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus, Mumbai’s main railway station, last Wednesday.
It shows the gunmen spraying automatic fire while two constables cower behind pillars, one armed with a .303 rifle similar to the Lee-Enfield weapons used by British troops in the First World War.
Similar scenes were played out at other targets in the first seven hours of the attacks, in which 16 policemen died, including three of India’s top officers.
“That’s 16 too many,” Maxwell Pereira, a former joint commissioner of Delhi police, said. “These casualties could have been prevented if they’d been properly equipped.” The abysmal state of police equipment helps to explain how ten gunmen managed to paralyse a metropolis of 18 million people for more than 60 hours.
It also illustrates how ill-prepared India’s 2.2 million-strong police force is to tackle another such attack.
“We’d react exactly the same way tomorrow,” Ajay Sahni, of the Institute for Conflict Management, said.
He described India as one of the “least policed” places in the world, with 126 officers per 100,000 people, compared with 225-550 per 100,000 in most Western countries.
Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, has one of India’s better police forces, but even it is woefully ill-equipped because of a centralised and highly corrupt procurement system.
Y. P. Singh, who retired after 20 years in the Maharashtra police in 2005, said that he knew of two batches of body armour that had failed tests in 2001 and 2004. “They couldn’t take rounds from AK47 or AK56,” he said. “The bullets pierced the jackets.”
He now believes that the Maharashtra police purchased the defective vests and issued them to officers last week.
On Wednesday, television stations showed Hemant Karkare, the head of the AntiTerrorist Squad, donning a bulletproof vest and a battered tin helmet as he arrived at the scene in Mumbai.
He was shot in the chest three times soon afterwards and died.
Two other senior officers who were travelling in the same car as Mr Karkare and were also wearing body armour were shot dead at the same time.
“If they’d been properly equipped they might have only been injured,” Mr Singh said. “Their vital organs would have been protected.” Other officers were only issued 5mm-thick plastic body protectors designed for riot control.
That is because India has only 100,000 bulletproof vests for police and paramilitary forces, according to Anurag Gupta, the managing director of MKU, which supplies the vests to the Government.
“The helmets used last week were World War Two-era, not designed for combat,” he said.
Most of the police involved were carrying .303s or self-loading rifles like those adopted by the British Army in the 1950s.
Some officers said that they were not given enough weapons training because of a shortage of ammunition and shooting ranges. In theory, all officers shoot 50 rounds a year in training. In practice, senior officers get their full quota with small arms.
“The rest is all bunkum,” Mr Pereira said. “It’s target practice with a .303 rifle. I wouldn’t call it suitable knowledge of weapons and their uses in urban policing.”
All those interviewed said that the issue was not money: the Government allocated £154 million for modernising the police in 2007-08 alone. The problem, they said, lay with the Home Ministry’s procurement system, which is dominated by corrupt bureaucrats and politicians rather than technical experts.
“It’s a cartel,” Mr Singh said. “The Government is spending millions, but the police isn’t getting the equipment it needs.”
30 November 2008
THE SEIGE OF MUMBAI
The Long War Journal: Indian commandos end 62-hour siege of Mumbai
Written by Bill Roggio on November 29, 2008 2:14 PM to The Long War Journal
Available online at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/11/indian_commandos_end.php
An Indian commando rappels to assault the Jewish center in Mumbai. Reuters photograph.
Sixty-two hours after Islamist terrorists launched a multi-pronged assault of India's financial capital of Mumbai, Indian commandos killed the last fighter holed up in a five-star hotel and ended the siege that paralyzed the city. Indian security forces have captured a member of the assault team who has provided some details on the attack.
Indian officials have said that 195 people are currently known to have been killed and more than 300 have been wounded. Twenty-two foreigners, including five Americans, have been killed during the terror assault. The toll may rise as search teams comb through the hotels where heavy fighting occurred.
The terrorists, who are strongly suspect of being members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (the Army of the Good), began their attack on the night of Nov. 26, when one or more inflatable boats were launched from a hijacked Indian fishing vessel of the coast of Mumbai. [See Analysis: Mumbai attack differs from past terror strikes]
Click image to view an interactive graphic showing the attacks in Mumbai. Created by The New York Times.
An estimated 15 to 25 terrorists fanned out throughout Mumbai and opened fire and tossed grenades at eight locations, including two hotels, a police station, a train station, a residential center, a hospital, a cinema, and a cafe. Two taxis were also blown up and a police van was hijacked and used in a shooting spree.
The initial attack overwhelmed the Mumbai police. Three senior police officials, including the head of the Anti-Terrorism Squad and two other senior officials, were killed. In all, fifteen policemen were killed in heavy fighting.
The terrorists made their last stand at the five-star Trident and Taj Mahal hotels, as well as at Nariman House, an orthodox Jewish residential center. Multiple explosions and gunfights erupted at these sites. The final battle ended this morning after Indian commandos killed the last terrorist holed up in the Taj.
Lashkar-e-Taiba operative captured
Indian security forces have captured at least one of the gunmen during the fighting, according to The Times of India. A purported Lashkar-e-Taiba operative named Ajmal Amir Kasab (or Azam Amir Kasav) was captured after being wounded in a shootout with police at the docks in southern Mumbai. Kasab and his partner Abu Ismail were responsible for killing the antiterrorism chief and two senior police officials.
Kasab, who is from Faridkot in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, said that he and 15 other operatives from his assault team were from Pakistan and were trained by the Lashkar-e-Taiba. "All terrorists were trained in marine warfare along with the special course Daura-e-Shifa conducted by the Lashkar-e-Taiba in what at once transforms the nature of the planning from a routine terror strike and into a specialized raid by commandos," Kasab reportedly told Indian intelligence.
Some of the operatives scouted Mumbai months prior to the attack, The Times of India reported. "[Kasab] said he had come along with eight of the operatives to Mumbai as students and lived in a rented room at Colaba market, a stone's throw away from Nariman House."
According to Kasab, his group departed the Pakistani port city of Karachi unarmed and linked up with the freighter MV Alpha. The assault team picked up their weapons and explosives on the freighter.
The group then ran across the Indian Fishing boat Kuber and hijacked it. The terrorists killed four crew members and kept the captain alive. He piloted the ship for one day, and then was killed. A trained seaman in Kasab's group guided the Kubar to a point off of Mumbai. From there, the assault teams boarded two inflatable rafts and landed in southern Mumbai and began their attack.
Kasab's team may not have acted alone, a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal. "Kasab only knew about his portion of the operation, what his team did" the official said. "There appears to have been one or two eight-man teams operating on the ground."
An Indian official told NDTV yesterday that there were 25 operatives total in the assault force. Three members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, possibly from another cell, were reported captured yesterday. And Kasab said his group received logistical support from members on the ground. There are also unconfirmed reports that seven of the terrorists are British citizens.
Lashkar-e-Taiba and al Qaeda
Indian and US intelligence officials believe the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba was behind the attacks. The capture of Kasab, along with signals intelligence, and a satellite phone and GPS recovered by police indicate the group was behind the attack.
The Indian Mujahideen -- a front group for the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Harkat ul Jihad al Islami, and the Students Islamic Movement of India -- claimed responsibility for the attack. The Indian Mujahideen has been behind several mass-casualty terror attacks in India over the past two years.
Lashkar-e-Taiba has an extensive network in southern and Southeast Asia. A senior US military intelligence official described the group as "al Qaeda junior," as it has vast resources, an extensive network, and is able to carry out complex attacks throughout its area of operations. "If by some stroke of luck al Qaeda collapsed, LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) could step in and essentially take its place."
The relationship between al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba is complex, the official noted. "While Lashkar-e-Taiba is definitely subordinate to al Qaeda in many ways, it runs its own network and has its own command structure. The groups often train in each others' camps, and fight side by side in Afghanistan."
Lashkar-e-Taiba forces fought alongside al Qaeda and Taliban in the assault on the US combat outpost in Wanat in Nuristan province, Afghanistan in July of this year. Nine US troops were killed, and 15 US soldiers and four Afghan troops were wounded in the heavy fight that nearly ended in the outpost being overrun. US forces ultimately broke the attack.
Founded by Hafiz Mohammed Saeed in Afghanistan in 1990, the organization quickly expanded its reach. The Lashkar-e-Taiba has received direct support by Pakistan's notorious Inter-Service Intelligence agency as they serve to destabilize India and wage war in Indian-occupied Kashmir.
Like al Qaeda, the Lashkar-e-Taiba seeks to establish a Muslim caliphate in southern and central Asia. Lashkar-e-Taiba "consistently advocated the use of force and vowed that it would plant the 'flag of Islam' in Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi," the Southeast Asia Terrorism Portal reported. Also, like al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba practices Wahabism, the radical Islamist school of thought born in Saudi Arabia.
The group essential runs a state within a state of Pakistan. The sprawling Muridke complex houses "a Madrassa (seminary), a hospital, a market, a large residential area for ‘scholars’ and faculty members, a fish farm and agricultural tracts. The LeT also reportedly operates 16 Islamic institutions, 135 secondary schools, an ambulance service, mobile clinics, blood banks and several seminaries across Pakistan."
The US government designated Lashkar-e-Taiba as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in December 2001. The Pakistani government banned the group in January 2002, but this did little to shut down its operations. The group renamed itself the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and conducted business as usual.
The Pakistani government has arrested Saeed several times of the past six years after major terror attacks in the region. Saeed is "placed under house arrest inside Muridke," a US intelligence official told The Long War Journal. He is "released" after the controversy over the attack dies down,” the official said sarcastically.
"Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pakistani government has shown no desire to shut down Lashkar-e-Taiba, despite the fact the group is operating in the open," the official noted. "They are a state within a state, backed by the state’s intelligence service,” the official said, referring to Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency. “Right now, they are untouchable."
For more information on the Mumbai attacks, see:
• Analysis: Mumbai attack differs from past terror strikes
November 28, 2008
• India’s financial capital under terror siege
November 26, 2008
MUMBAI TERRORIST: WE WERE TRAINED BY PAK NAVY
http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&issueid=82&id=21356&Itemid=99999999§ionid=4
We were trained by Pak navy: Captured terrorist
Aaj Tak Bureau
New Delhi, November 29, 2008
Azam Amir, the terrorist who was held by the Mumbai Police, has made some striking revelations regarding the Mumbai terror attacks.
Azam has disclosed that the Pakistan Navy had trained the terrorists in boating and swimming to carry out the attacks in Mumbai. Azam was arrested on Wednesday from Girgaum Chowpatty in an encounter with the police. Ismail Khan, an accomplice of Amir, reportedly died in the gunbattle.
Sources say Azam has also revealed that people from gangster Dawood Ibrahim's gang helped the terrorists from Karachi in organising the attacks.
Reports suggest that the planning for the terror attacks in Mumbai had begun almost a year ago in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir. Azam has reportedly told the police that around 20 Pakistan nationals were trained in PoK to carry out the attacks. The training in PoK went on for almost five-and-half months, during which the terrorist were taught the use of sophisticated arms and ammunition.
At the end of the five months training, all terrorists were given a months leave and were ordered to gather in Karachi after the break for training in boating, rowing and swimming by the Pakistan Navy.
They were then handed over some CDs and maps of the Taj and Oberoi hotels. The CDs and maps also had pictures of important rail stations like VT. At the end of this training a batch of 10 terrorists was set off for India via the Indian sea route.
Mumbai Police expects more details will come out during the course of their investigations.
URL for this article :
http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/content_mail.php?option=com_content&name=print&id=21356
MUMBAI DOCTORS SHOCKED AT POST-MORTEM
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/nov/30mumterror-doctors-shocked-at-hostagess-torture.htm
Doctors shocked at hostages's torture
Krishnakumar P and Vicky Nanjappa in Mumbai | November 30, 2008 | 19:53 IST
They said that just one look at the bodies of the dead hostages as well as terrorists showed it was a battle of attrition that was fought over three days at the Oberoi and the Taj hotels in Mumbai.
Doctors working in a hospital where all the bodies, including that of the terrorists, were taken said they had not seen anything like this in their lives.
"Bombay has a long history of terror. I have seen bodies of riot victims, gang war and previous terror attacks like bomb blasts. But this was entirely different. It was shocking and disturbing," a doctor said.
Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: "It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim's body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words," he said.
Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: "It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood," one doctor said.
The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: "Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again," he said.
Corroborating the doctors' claims about torture was the information that the Intelligence Bureau had about the terror plan. "During his interrogation, Ajmal Kamal said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis," an IB source said.
It is also said that the Israeli hostages were killed on the first day as keeping them hostage for too long would have focused too much international attention. "They also might have feared the chances of Israeli security agencies taking over the operations at the Nariman House," he reasoned.
On the other hand, there is enough to suggest that the terrorists also did not meet a clean, death.
The doctors who conducted the post mortem said the bodies of the terrorists were beyond recognition. "Their faces were beyond recognition."
There was no way of identifying them," he said. Asked how, if this is the case, they knew the bodies were indeed those of the terrorists, he said: "The security forces that brought the bodies told us that those were the bodies of the terrorists," he said, adding there was no other way they could have identified the bodies.
An intelligence agency source added: "One of the terrorists was shot through either eye."
A senior National Security Guard officer, who had earlier explained the operation in detail to rediff.com, said the commandos went all out after they ascertained that there were no more hostages left. When asked if the commandos attempted to capture them alive at that stage, he replied: "Unko bachana kaun chahega (Who will want to save them)?"
URL for this article:
http://www.rediff.com///news/2008/nov/30mumterror-doctors-shocked-at-hostagess-torture.htm
© 2003 rediff.com India Limited. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
MUMBAI POST MORTEM
http://formerspook.blogspot.com/
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2008
Mumbai Post-Mortem
The terrorist siege in Mumbai ended just hours ago, but experts are already offering their critique of how Indian officials handled the situation.
And the reviews are anything but kind. The New York Daily News was one of the first out of the box, quoting unnamed American experts who described Indian commandos as "clownish," suggesting that poor tactics and equipment problems led to a "Munich moment."
This wasn't the SAS digging knuckleheads out of some embassy," the chagrined official said.
Hesitating may have cost lives at places like the Mumbai Jewish community center, experts said.
"It's just like Columbine," insisted former FBI Hostage Rescue Team leader Danny Coulson, referring to the 1999 Colorado high school massacre. "If they're slaughtering people, you've got to go in."
Grenades were still blowing out windows at the Taj on live TV 48 hours after the horror began.
Indian authorities "were caught completely unaware," said Vince Cannistraro, a retired CIA counterterror chief.
Supposedly elite commandos appeared to be lacking standard tools: tear gas and masks, laser-sighted guns and stun grenades.
Questions about the response underscored by another, disturbing realization: the carnage in Mumbai was perpetrated by only 10 terrorists. At one location (the Taj Mahal Hotel), a single, surviving gunman kept counter-terrorism teams at bay for more than 24 hours before he was finally eliminated. Various reports suggest that terrorists had detailed knowledge of their targets, while police and military elements had trouble getting floor plans for the buildings they had to storm.
Still, any analysis of the Indian response should be tempered by this rather obvious fact: the ultimate "failures" in Mumbai represented the final mistakes in a long string of blunders that began months, even years, before the terrorist attacks.
The list begins with India's immigration and domestic security policies. Like most democracies, Delhi allows freedom of movement within its borders, even among foreign visitors. Nothing wrong with that, but it does mandate some vigilance in keeping track of who's in your country, and their potential ties to hostile regimes. Preliminary information suggests that at least one terrorist was a Pakistani national, and his team was "in constant contact" with a foreign country (you can guess which one) throughout the operation.
But planning for the terror strike began far in advance. Without going too far out on a limb, we'll predict that the investigation will reveal extensive preparations and planning, conducted with outside assistance. That type of activity (typically) produces a spike in chatter between various conspirators, and is often detected by signals intelligence elements. It will be interesting to learn what India's SIGINT element knew in the weeks leading up to the attack, and what information--if any--was conveyed to counter-terrorism officials.
At this point, it appears that such data was closely held--if it existed. There's no evidence that anyone in the Indian security apparatus tried to disrupt the plot, which moved steadily toward execution. The line of lapsed defenses includes Delhi's Navy and coastal security forces. By some accounts, the terrorists were delivered to the waters off Mumbai by a trawler, which was ignored as it approached the city.
As the attack unfolded, security and counter-terrorism forces were already behind the power curve. Responding to multiple attacks--unfolding at the same time--Indian forces were initially overwhelmed, and their tactical and equipment issues compounded the problem. Making matters worse, two of their most experienced counter-terror officers died early in the siege, in gun battles with the bad guys. Leading from the front isn't always the best idea.
Meanwhile, the terrorists were communicating with each other via text messaging, cell phone conversations and satellite phones. Television and radio coverage from the Indian media (and the western press) provided invaluable information on the government's response, allowing gunmen to adjust their tactical plans. It would not be surprising to learn that the remaining hostages in the Jewish Center died as commandos fast-roped onto the roof of the building--an event carried live on Indian TV, in broad daylight.
The details of these mistakes will become increasingly clear in the coming weeks, as the Delhi government conducts various inquiries into the terrorist attack and its aftermath. But the tragedy already offers a cautionary tale for the U.S. and other potential terror targets. While it is easy to criticize the Indian response, their failures bear an eerie resemblance to our own mistakes into the run-up to 9-11.
But we're beyond that, right? After all, the U.S. has spent billions on homeland security over the past eight years, closing the gaps that existed before that fateful day in 2001.
True, security has improved. But our borders are still porous, immigration remains a mess and there are serious issues in the sharing of intelligence information with local law enforcement. In other words, we remain vulnerable to the same, root problems that allowed a handful of terrorists to wreak havoc in Mumbai, and paralyze that city for almost three days.
Labels: Mumbai attacks; India; homeland security



