MARK STEYN ON MUMBAI: Just go read it, okay? But here’s a bit: “What’s relevant about the Mumbai model is that it would work in just about any second-tier city in any democratic state: Seize multiple soft targets and overwhelm the municipal infrastructure to the point where any emergency plan will simply be swamped by the sheer scale of events.”
An armed citizenry would help a lot. IN LIGHT OF THE EARLIER DISCUSSIONS about Mumbai and the value of an armed citizenry, it’s worth noting that India apparently has strict gun control laws that, as usual, don’t seem to have kept guns out of the hands of killers.
But if you want first responders with guns to be fast, then the first responders have to already be on the scene. Which means they need to be the kind of people previously described as “victims,” only with guns . . . .
ANOTHER UPDATE: Related item from Andrew Bostom.
DO TELL: Muslims “Worry About Image” after Mumbai.
Mumbai: Death’s New Paradigm?
Jihad in Mumbai
by Baron Bodissey
Last Wednesday’s massive terrorist attack on Mumbai will have repercussions that extend far beyond the borders of India and Pakistan. This is a major offensive by the Global Jihad, which has no intention of resting on its laurels after killing a mere 200 or so people in India. The battle is just beginning.
But to hear the once and future leaders of the Free World tell it, there’s nothing to see here, and we can just move along.
Pundita points out the contrast between the muscular response from the leaders of Russia and Japan and the pusillanimous statements issued in the names of both Barack Obama and George W. Bush. From the White House we got
this:
The United States condemns this terrorist attack and we will continue to stand with the people of India in this time of tragedy.
There’s only “terrorism”. There’s no jihad. Islam is not mentioned. If we say anything about it, we might damage the “interfaith dialogue” upon which the White House, the UN, and the Vatican have placed so much hope.
Have you noticed that in every incident in which Muslims kill or attempt to kill infidels, “no connection with terrorism is involved”? Before the bodies are even covered up and rolled away on the gurneys, the spokesmen grab the microphones to assure the public that they have nothing to worry about. Despite the fact the Americans, Britons, Spaniards, Italians, etc., are killed while their murderers shout “Allahu Akhbar!”, there is “no connection with terrorism”.
Such denials are not possible in Mumbai. Even so, the Indian government seems to be taking the same sort of tack, playing down the connections with Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Taliban. But not all Indians are buying it. The prominent terrorism expert B. Raman has a lengthy and lucid point-by-point analysis in SAAG entitled
Mumbai: Lessons for the Future. He notes:
- There were 13 incidents of intense firing with assault rifles at different places, including the Chhatrapati Shivaji Train (CST) terminus, where the terrorist operation started at 9-21 PM, the Metro Cinema junction, the Cama and Albless Hospital, outside the Olympia restaurant in Colaba, the lobbies of the Taj Mahal and Oberoi/Trident hotels, and the Leopald Café behind the Taj Mahal Hotel. The terrorists would seem to have chosen the CST for the launching of their strikes because it is named after Shivaji, a Hindu ruler, who fiercely opposed the Muslim rulers of India. Near the Metro Cinema junction, some terrorists hijacked a police vehicle and went around spraying bullets on passers-by.
- There were seven incidents involving explosive devices — outside the Taj Mahal Hotel, in the BPT Colony at Mazgaon, three near the Oberoi/Trident Hotels, the Colaba market and inside a taxi.
- There were many incidents of throwing hand-grenades — two of them at the Cama hospital and on Free Press Road. Hemant Karkare, the legendary head of Mumbai’s Anti-terrorism Squad (ATS), is reported to have been killed in the incident near the hospital.
- There were three incidents of fidayeen style (suicidal, not suicide) infiltration into buildings followed by a prolonged confrontation with the security forces before being killed or captured. These took place in the Taj Mahal and the Oberoi/Trident hotels and in the Narriman House in Colaba, where a Jewish religious-cum-cultural centre is located, headed by a Jewish Rabbi. Jewish people of different nationalities often congregate there. The centre also has cheap accommodation for Jewish visitors from abroad.
And also this:
Almost all the terrorist strikes took place against targets near the sea, indicating thereby that the terrorists, who had reportedly come by sea, were hoping to escape by sea if they managed to survive.
He draws some uncomfortable conclusions about what happened, among them:
| 3. |
|
The Government of Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh and his Congress (I) are back to their denial and cover-up mode. They play down the possibility of the involvement of Al Qaeda despite tell-tale signs of an Al Qaeda stamp on the strikes. They continue to maintain a silence on the role of sections of the Indian Muslims lest any open projection of this cost them Muslim votes. They continue to highlight the role of the LET, but without highlighting the fact that it is a member of Osama bin Laden’s International Islamic Front (IIF) and that it has many associates in the Indian Muslim community. |
| |
|
[…] |
| 9. |
|
In my view, the terrorist strikes in Mumbai had the stamp of Al Qaeda in the way they were conceived, planned and executed. There has also been a touch of the Hizbollah of the Lebanon, the Popular Front For The Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade and other Palestinian organizations. |
| |
|
[…] |
| 12. |
|
The success of the terrorists in evading detection by our Coast Guard and the police reveals a serious gap in our maritime counter-terrorism architecture. If this gap is not quickly identified and closed, the vulnerability of the Bombay High off-shore oil installations and the nuclear establishments to terrorist attacks from the sea would be increased. Many of our nuclear and space establishments — not only in Mumbai, but also in other areas — are located on the coast and are particularly vulnerable to sea-borne terrorist attacks. |
| 13. |
|
The stamp of Al Qaeda is evident in the selection of targets. The Taj Hotel, old and new, the Oberoi-Trident Hotel and the Narriman House were the strategic focus of the terrorist operation. The terrorist strikes in other places such as railway stations, a hospital etc and instances of random firing were of a tactical nature intended to create scare and panic. |
| 14. |
|
The strategic significance of the attacks on the two hotels from Al Qaeda’s point of view arose from the fact that these hotels are the approved hotels of the US and Israeli Governments for their visiting public servants and for the temporary stay of their consular officials posted in Mumbai till a regular house is found for them. |
| |
|
[…] |
| 17. |
|
The fact that the number of foreigners killed was small would show that the attacks on the foreigners in the hotels was selective and not indiscriminate. Available reports indicate that the terrorists were looking for American, British and Israeli nationals — particularly visiting public servants among them with official or diplomatic passports. |
There have been reports that the Indian army has mobilized on the border with Pakistan, and now comes word that Pakistan is doing the same on their side of the line. According to
The Australian:
- - - - - - - - -
Pakistan is withdrawing troops from the fight against al-Qa’ida and the Taliban to redeploy them to its border with India as tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations escalate over the terrorist massacre in Mumbai.
[…]
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari urged India not to “overreact” after Indian and US officials suggested the militants could have been from the Pakistan-based LET. The group was behind the deadly 2001 assault on the Indian parliament that pushed New Delhi and Islamabad to the brink of war.
Given the mounting evidence of Pakistani — including elements of the ISI — involvement in the attacks, what would constitute an “overreaction” by India? Nuking Islamabad?
The more one delves into the labyrinth of information about Mumbai, the clearer it becomes that some of the world’s major powers, including the United States, Britain, Pakistan, and India itself, have good reasons not to want any close scrutiny of what actually happened. According to The Times of India:
MOSCOW: A top Russian counter-terrorism expert on Sunday underlined that the Mumbai attackers were not “ordinary terrorists” and were probably trained by the special operations forces set up in Pakistan by the US intelligence prior to the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“The handwriting and character of the Mumbai events demonstrates that they were not ordinary terrorists,” said Vladimir Klyukin, an Afghan war veteran.
“Behind this terrorist attack there are ‘Green Flag’ special operations forces, which were created by the Americans in Pakistan, just an year before the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and in the initial period were under full US control,” stressed Klyukin, a veteran of the special “Vympel” commando group of the former Soviet KGB.
One of the uncomfortable facts that we all have to live with is that during the Cold War the United States, via the efforts of its intelligence agencies, helped radicalize, motivate, arm, and deploy the various groups of mujahideen that now plague South Asia. The Taliban may have been a new formation when they appeared on the scene in the 1990s, but they emerged from the seething cauldron of jihad that the CIA had so carefully cultivated ten years earlier.
Although the “Deccan Mujahideen” claimed responsibility for what happened in Mumbai, all indications are that Lashkar-e-Toiba, working in concert with elements of Al Qaeda, masterminded the attacks. One analyst, in an interview with AKI, rejects the idea that the Deccan Mujahideen even exist:
The deadly attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai bear the hallmarks of a foreign, Al-Qaeda-inspired group, a New Delhi terrorism expert Vikram Sood told Adnkronos International (AKI) on Thursday. Sood described the attacks as a “very serious” assault on the Indian state.
Suspected Islamist militants launched a series of coordinated gun and hand-grenade attacks late on Wednesday, killing over 100 people, injuring nearly 300. A number of hotel guests were also taken hostage in the attacks.
“I don’t believe it was the Deccan Mujahadeen at all,” Sood said, referring to a previously unknown group which claimed responsibility for the Mumbai attacks.
“The group doesn’t exist. It’s a red herring,” he told AKI.
[…]
The militant group that carried out Wednesday’s attacks in Mumbai appeared to be extremely well trained and well backed in terms of logistics, money and weapons, Sood said.
“From the TV shots of the terrorists, they are totally in control and have a long-term perspective” he said.
He described the Mumbai attacks as a “qualitative leap” compared with other recent attacks in India such as the May serial blasts in the western Indian city of Jaipur which killed at least 66 people and left about 200 wounded.
And what about Pakistan?
Sood declined to comment on whether a Pakistani militant group might be responsible, saying it was “too early to say”.
But he said: “This kind of attack needs careful planning, reconnaissance, knowing the behaviour of security personnel and those coming and going, and how to be inconspicuous.”
Besides the evidence of a seaborne deployment from Pakistan, the incidents involved such careful long-term logistical planning that spontaneous local jihad groups would have been unable to manage them. According to NDTV:
Mumbai: Preparations Began Four Months Back
[…]
According to the police, Qasab had booked rooms in the Taj where the explosives were kept.
Terrorists showed Mauritian ID Cards and posed as students to the hotel. Indian ID cards were recovered from two terrorists at the Oberoi Trident.
A recce of all the locations were done around four months ago by a different group of terrorists.
They studied the satellite pictures of the hotels, various locations and made detailed maps.
In addition, as reported by The Times of India, the plan was executed out with great precision:
Terrorists Did Recce, Set Up Control Rooms in Luxury Hotels
MUMBAI: Terrorists who struck Mumbai had set up advance “Control Rooms” in the luxury Taj and Trident Oberoi hotels which was also targeted and did prior reconnaissance executing plans worked “over months”, Union Cabinet minister Kapil Sibal said on Thursday night.
Sibal said the unprecedented terror attack in the country’s financial capital was planned “over months” and the terrorists were not carrying AK-47 rifles but sophisticated weapons like MP-6.
“The terrorists have identified the targets earlier. Somebody had told them earlier. Enormous planning went into the incident. The terrorists were dropped by a mother ship and travelled in rubber boats which they docked (at Mumbai),” Sibal said.
Terrorists were not attacking people at random. It was a well though out plan, Sibal said.
They had targeted certain key police officers even when they were wearing vests and protective head gears, he said, adding the terrorists shot them dead within minutes of their arrival.
[…]
The Union Home Ministry said the terrorists chose the sea route and came to the city in boats before spreading out in the metropolis to carry out the sinister strike.
And the Wilmington Star-News has this to add:
The Times of India newspaper reported on Friday that the Coast Guard had found an Indian fishing trawler, the Kuber, that disappeared on Nov. 14. The Kuber may have been used as a so-called mother ship to transport inflatable rafts within range of South Mumbai, much as pirate mother ships from Somalia, across the Arabian Sea from Mumbai, have used smaller boats to hijack tankers and other vessels in recent weeks.
[…]
Not all of the terrorists may have entered Mumbai on the night of the attack. Local news media, citing anonymous law enforcement officials, are reporting that one captured terrorist has said during interrogation that some members of his group had stayed in hotels for four days before the attacks to prepare for them and even to store ammunition in the rooms.
When the terrorists landed in front of Mr. Dhanur’s boat, they were just three blocks straight down a narrow lane from Nariman House, a five-story building housing a Jewish center run by a young rabbi, Gavriel Holtzberg, and his wife, Rivka, who had moved from New York.
Determining exactly how the attack was planned and carried out depends on collecting active intelligence from someone in the know. Most of the terrorists died during the shootouts that ended the siege, but at least one of the perpetrators survived. His name is Azam Amir Kasav (or Kasab), and he is being treated at a hospital in Mumbai under the watchful eye of the Indian authorities.
Kasav became the poster boy for the Mumbai atrocities when his picture was taken by a photographer for the Mumbai Mirror. Today the same newspaper reports that Kasav is ready to forego his 72 virgins, which is good news indeed for those who wish to learn more about the planning and execution of his operation:
“I Want to Live” Says Captured Terrorist
His swaggering image as he walked around Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus was captured by Mumbai Mirror photo editor Sebastian D’Souza, and was the first glimpse of the terrorists who have held Mumbai hostage over the last 48 hours.
Now we can also tell you who this man is and how he has become the vital link for investigating agencies to crack the terror plot. His name is Azam Amir Kasav, he is 21 years old, speaks fluent English, hails from tehsil Gipalpura in Faridkot in Pakistan, and is the only terrorist from this audacious operation to have been captured alive. An ATS spokesperson confirmed that the man captured was indeed the one photographed by us.
On the night of Wednesday-Thursday, Azam and his colleague opened fire at CST before creating havoc at Metro and then moving on to Girgaum Chowpatty in a stolen Skoda, and where they were intercepted by a team from the Gamdevi police station. Azam shot dead assistant police inspector Tukaram Umbale.
But in that encounter, Azam’s colleague was killed and he himself was injured in the hand. He pretended to be dead giving rise to the news that two terrorists had been killed. However, as the “bodies” were being taken to Nair Hospital, the accompanying cops, figured that one of the men was breathing.
According to sources, the casualty ward of Nair hospital was evacuated and the Anti-Terror Squad moved in to interrogate him. Azam who was tightlipped initially, cracked upon seeing the mutilated body of his colleague and pleaded with the medical staff at Nair to save his life. “I do not want to die,” he reportedly said. “Please put me on saline.”
Do you think the Indian authorities share our squeamishness about waterboarding?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
One of the details revealed by Azam Amir Kasav is that the terrorists planned to kill 5,000 people during their attacks. This was an ambitious operation, with goals that extended beyond the death of all those infidels.
It’s still too early do draw definite conclusions, but the planners of the Mumbai attacks likely intended some or all of the following:
| 1. |
|
Demoralize the Indian populace; |
| 2. |
|
Destablize the current Congress Party government in India, throwing the door open for Hindu nationalists, and thus also |
| 3. |
|
Increase the likelihood that India and Pakistan will go to war, causing the jihad to go nuclear; |
| 4. |
|
Cause severe economic damage to India, adding to the global financial crisis; |
| 5. |
|
Serve as an inspiration to pious Muslims in India itself, adding recruits to the cause of jihad, and thus |
| 6. |
|
Help the separatist aspirations of Assam and other majority-Muslim areas in India. |
As a general strategy, one may assume that the terrorists are following the time-honored dictum of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, a.k.a. Lenin: “The worse, the better”.
So what happens next? A lot depends on what those troops massing on both sides of the border get up to in the next few weeks.
And there are so many unknowns:
- How will President Barack Hussein Obama handle the issue of a potential nuclear encounter between India and Pakistan?
- Whose arms will he twist, and how hard?
- How likely is it that the new Pakistani government will overcome its current disarray and assert control over the military and the ISI?
- How radicalized are the Muslims within India’s borders?
Too many questions, not enough answers.
Links to additional information:
During the attacks:
- AKI: British Hostages Unconfirmed Says Foreign Office
- AKI: Actress Hid in a Cupboard to Escape Mumbai Attack
- AKI: Jewish Centre Under Siege in Mumbai
- AKI: Bomb Blasts Heard in Hotel by Trapped Australian
- The Times of India: Fight Against Terrorists “Almost Coming to End”: Police Commissioner
Aftermath:
- AKI: Rabbi Among Dead Hostages Discovered at Jewish Centre in Mumbai
- Belfast Telegraph: Mumbai Photographer: I Wish I’d Had a Gun, Not a Camera
- Rediff: Doctors Shocked at Hostages’ Torture
Analysis:
Hat tips: C. Cantoni, JD, TB, VH, and Paul Green.
Read further...
================================================
Editorial from Yers Trooly?
Contrast and compare Mumbai with Sergeant York:
We may never fully understand how ten armed men were able to terrorize a city of 19 million, but this is at least part of the explanation:
In the first wave of the attacks, two young gunmen armed with assault rifles blithely ignored more than 60 police officers patrolling the city's main train station and sprayed bullets into the crowd. Bapu Thombre, assistant commissioner with the Mumbai railway police, said the police were armed mainly with batons or World War I-era rifles and spread out across the station.
"They are not trained to respond to major attacks," he said.
The gunmen continued their rampage outside the station. They eventually ambushed a police van, killed five officers inside - including the city's counterterrorism chief - and hijacked the vehicle as two wounded officers lay bleeding in the back seat.
"The way Mumbai police handled the situation, they were not combat ready," said Jimmy Katrak, a security consultant. "You don't need the Indian army to neutralize eight to nine people."
Constable Arun Jadhav, one of the wounded policemen, said the men laughed when they noticed the dead officers wore bulletproof vests.
With no SWAT team in this city of 18 million, authorities called in the only unit in the country trained to deal with such crises. But the National Security Guards, which largely devotes its resources to protecting top officials, is based outside of New Delhi and it took the commandos nearly 10 hours to reach the scene. ...
Even the commandos lacked the proper equipment, including night vision goggles and thermal sensors that would have allowed them to locate the hostages and gunmen inside the buildings, [Ajai Sahni, head of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management] said.
At the Jewish center, commandos rappelled from a helicopter onto the roof and slowly descended the narrow, five-story building in a 10-hour shooting and grenade battle with the two gunmen inside.
From his home in Israel, Assaf Hefetz, a former Israeli police commissioner who created the country's police anti-terror unit three decades ago, watched the slow-motion operation in disbelief. The commandos should have swarmed the building in a massive, coordinated attack that would have overwhelmed the gunmen and ended the standoff in seconds, he said.
"You have to come from the roof and all the windows and all the doors and create other entrances by demolition charges," he said.
The slow pace of the operations made it appear that the commandos' main goal was to stay safe, Hefetz said.
In view of the number of terrorist attacks India has suffered, its failure to be more prepared is puzzling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_York
Alvin Cullum York (December 13, 1887 – September 2, 1964) was a United States soldier, famous as a World War I hero. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for leading an attack on a German machine gun nest, taking 32 machine guns, killing 28 German soldiers and capturing 132 others...
================================================
SO MUCH FOR post-racial America, I guess. “The number two man at NBC News believes Barack Obama’s skin color gives him more legitimacy around the world than possibly any American leader in history.”THE SPIN BEGINS! New York Times trying to credit Obama with Iraq win. Bob Owens deconstructs.
Obama Tells Worried Supporters He Is the Way, The Truth and the Change (Video)
Despite filling his administration with retreads from the Clinton and Bush administrations
Barack Obama told worried supporters on Wednesday that he is the change.
Too funny:
Face it, nutroots... You've been had.
What a phony.
Previously:Obama Tells Disappointed Supporters: "I Am the Change."
posted by Gateway Pundit at 11/30/2008 01:01:00 PM
And, you've been had, again, Kooks:
Obama Nominates Osama Bin Laden Bungler to UN Post
Yid With Lid reported that
Susan Rice is one those responsible for
letting Osama Bin Laden get away in the 1990's.
Susan Rice in Sudan. Rice bungled a deal with Sudan to capture terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden. (
Sudan Net)
On Monday, Barack Obama is expected to announce that he has chosen the same Susan Rice as his UN Ambassador and that the position will be elevated to a Cabinet Level job.
Here's more on the country's next UN Ambassador:
She deserves a hefty portion of blame for the fact that Osama bin Laden wasn't neutralized during the 1990s.
"The FBI, in 1996 and 1997, had their efforts to look at terrorism data and deal with the bin Laden issue overruled every single time by the State Department, by Susan Rice and her cronies, who were hell-bent on destroying the Sudan," one-time Clinton diplomatic troubleshooter Mansoor Ijaz told radio host Sean Hannity in 2002.
Richard Miniter, author of the book "Losing bin Laden," concurred, saying Rice played a key role in scuttling the deal that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.
In November 2003, Miniter told World Magazine that while Sudan was anxious to turn bin Laden over to the U.S., Rice - then a member of Clinton's National Security Council - questioned Khartoum's credibility.
"Rice [cited] the suffering of Christians [in Sudan] as one reason that she doubted the integrity of the Sudanese offers," said Miniter. "But her analysis largely overlooked the view of U.S. Ambassador to Sudan Tim Carney, who argued for calling Khartoum's bluff."
Power Line wrote more on Susan Rice back in February when she showed up on the Obama team.
posted by Gateway Pundit at 11/30/2008 07:49:00 PM "Another proven loser on the government dole. Welfare for idiots."
Jeb might have been better than George, who knows?
In any case, there’s no chance that he could get elected now, so the question is purely theoretical.
to Rush ( His idea during the Clinton plague upon America ) I am starting a file on “The One,” mostly starting from the election date. 
The election results were long expected, but now that the day has arrived it’s quite a letdown, anyway. Reading about the joy expressed by Hamas and Syria and Italy and Indonesia… contemplating Obama’s Secretary of State, or (God help us) Defense… Thinking about the USA becoming just like Sweden, only with a real army, and aircraft carriers, and nukes… First Lady Michelle…
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
you too!
Drinkers...
