Posted on 07/05/2009 9:08:03 PM PDT by cold start
ALL too often, natural disasters and human atrocities make only a fleeting impression. We watch fascinated and horrified as TV anchors give us their impressions while images of death and disaster roll across our screens.
But soon, one particular crisis is overtaken by another, and relentlessly, the news cycle moves on.
It is not until one sees and hears the survivors that the magnitude of a disaster really sinks in. This is what I experienced while watching Channel 4’s programme on its Dispatches series. Called Terror in Mumbai, the documentary retraces the steps of the terrorists as they first landed in Mumbai by boat, and then made their way across the city, spreading mayhem over a period of 60 hours.
We were shown clips from CCTV cameras that had captured the killing spree. Casually the killers shot everybody who moved. At the VT railway station, where 52 people died, they massacred a family, and a young boy who survived later recounted who had died: ‘My father. My mother. My aunt. My uncle. Their two sons. What had we done to them? So many dead. What had they done to the terrorists?’ What indeed?
When I wrote a couple of columns after the atrocity last year, expressing sympathy for the victims and condemning the killers and those behind them in Pakistan, I got a flood of angry emails, demanding to know the proof that linked the terrorists to Pakistan. Our government was in similar denial. And although it has grudgingly accepted that the controllers and planners of the attack were based in Pakistan, and has even arrested some members of the Laskhar-i-Taiba that has morphed into the Jamaatud Dawa, very little progress has been made on punishing those responsible.
The most chilling part of the documentary was the constant voice contact between the terrorists and their handlers. Talking on cell phones, the controllers urged on their pawns in Punjabi and Urdu, interspersed with the odd English words and phrases. They certainly did not sound like graduates of a madressah. Rather, they were professionals doing a job, instructing the young terrorists to kill as many people as possible; urging them to move from one target to another; and repeating that they must not allow themselves to be captured.
Soon after his arrest, Ajmal Kasab was questioned by the police, and admitted that he had been sent by the Lashkar-i-Taiba. Asked why and how he had joined the group, he said his father had ‘sold’ him to the Lashkar. He said his father had explained that the money would lift the family out of poverty, and pay for his sisters’ weddings. How many more young men are being sold to terror outfits across Pakistan?
One Turkish couple, spared because of their faith, recount how the bodies of massacred guests at the Trident Oberoi piled up around them, and how slippery it was to walk over the pools of blood. A neighbour of the rabbi and his wife who were murdered at the Jewish Centre describe how one by one, the couple said ‘shoot me’ to the killers, and were duly shot. After the terrorists had left, the two-year old son of the murdered couple is filmed in a heart-breaking sequence, walking around in the room, clearly confused.
After Kasab had been captured, the controllers realised what would happen if he spilled the beans. They ask two of the killers to take a hostage and get her to call the authorities with a demand to free Kasab in exchange for her life. After an hour or so, when there is no response from the government, they are told to finish off the hostage.
All through the atrocity, the handlers — obviously watching the drama on TV — keep urging their foot soldiers on, encouraging them by descriptions of what they are seeing on TV. ‘The whole world is watching your deeds…. Remember this is a fight between the believers and the non-believers…. If you speak to the authorities, tell them this is only the trailer and the real film is yet to come.…’
And when the terrorists are clearly exhausted, the controllers urge them on: ‘Throw some grenades, my brother, there’s no harm in throwing a few grenades. How hard can it be to throw a grenade? Just pull the pin and throw it. For your mission to end successfully, you must be killed. God is waiting for you in heaven.’ After each such exhortation, the young terrorist at the receiving end says, ‘Inshallah’. At the start of the programme, the handler asks the landing party if they have eliminated the captain of the hijacked boat, and if so, how? ‘Zibah kar diya,’ is the chilling response. (Literally: ‘We have slit his throat’; but there is a ritualistic connotation to ‘zibah’ that does not translate well into English.)
This repeated use of Islamic phrases and responses underlines the extent to which the faith has been cynically used to spread violence. While Muslims argue that Islam does not condone this kind of terrorism against unarmed, innocent civilians, most do not condemn it in clear, unequivocal terms. After agreeing that such acts are un-Islamic, there is all too often a lingering ‘Yes, but…’ hanging in the air.
It is this ambiguity that has given terror groups in Pakistan and elsewhere the space and legitimacy they need to operate. Now that Pakistanis have seen the true face of terrorism in Swat, and have begun to support the government in its drive to rid us of this cancer, the lesson needs to be reinforced. One way would be to dub the Channel 4 documentary and show it extensively on various TV channels in Pakistan. We need to hear ordinary people who survived or lost close relatives, and see their pain.
We need to see the horrors inflicted in the name of Islam. Above all, we need to share the agony of our neighbours.
How soon we forget
Inshallah my ass
My other posted pic disappeared
Ajmal Kasab
I begged my family that day, stay out of Bombay.
They acted like I was nuts. It’s no big deal.
Can I ask what India has done to piss off the Jihadis?
These people are rabid wolves
Videos from post no. 1 (with 2 link corrections from me):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edsRBijAx_U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXq8HpH_0Kw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujjuuqQF3Zk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exWd_dBLU1s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3bBk8Hc2UA
FBI.gov - Congressional Testimony: "DONALD VAN DUYN Chief Intelligence Officer Federal Bureau of Investigation: "STATEMENT BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS" (SNIPPET: ""Good afternoon Chairman Lieberman, Senator Collins, and members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to discuss the FBI's role in investigating terrorist attacks overseas, including our response to the recent tragic attacks in Mumbai, India. I will also describe how we are working with our U.S. intelligence and law enforcement community partners to apply lessons learned from the Mumbai attacks to protect the U.S.Homeland.") (January 8, 2009)
HINDU.com: "MUMBAI TERROR ATTACKS - DOSSIER OF EVIDENCE" (SNIPPET: "This is a scanned copy of the 69-page dossier of material stemming from the ongoing investigation into the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 26-29, 2008 that was handed over by India to Pakistan on January 5, 2009.")
Blog.WIRED.com: "MUMBAI TERROR GROUP TRAINED AMERICAN JIHADISTS" by Noah Shachtman (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Since 2003, at least five U.S. citizens have been convicted in federal court of conspiring to provide material support to Lashkar-e-Taiba. At least nine more men, considered to be in the same larger circle, have been convicted of firearms violations and other felonies. (A partial list is here.) Several other cases are still making their way through the legal process.") (December 10, 2008, 7:00 am)
NST.com.my: "MUMBAI TERROR: MILITANTS NOT TOLD SUICIDAL NATURE OF MISSION" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Ajmal made another important disclosure: all terrorists were trained in marine warfare." ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Ajmal has revealed the names of some of his fellow jihadis -- all Pakistanis -- as Abu Ali, Fahad, Omar, Shoaib, Umer, Abu Akasha, Ismail, Abdul Rahman (Bara) and Abdul Rahman (Chhota).") (November 30, 2008)
MUMBAI MIRROR.com: "'I want to live'" by Rakesh Prakash, Ravikiran Deshmukh and Danish Khan (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "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." ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Ammunition, a satellite phone and a layout plan of CST was recovered from him. According to sources, the young terrorist has given the investigators vital leads including how the chief planner of the Mumbai terror plot had come to the city a month ago, took pictures and filmed strategic locations and trained their group and instructed them to "kill till the last breath".") (November 29, 2008)
The earlier links have been removed. These are working as of now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSX3CEdPp3I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSX3CEdPp3I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_-1TOnjQLQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBEyIQwu8SY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05rf7wmKiDE
Thank you Cold Start.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.