Terror Attacks in Mumbai - IV

[Rye]

There should be a multi-crore PIL/Civil law suit against the Indian MSM that revealed information that got people killed. This kind of media stupidity needs to be put down firmly with the offenders losing their license to broadcast if the courts find them guilty -- that will send the right message to the errant journalists who get security forces in danger because of their stupidity/irresponsibilty/mercenary behaviour.

[Raja Bose]

India must be one the few nations in the world where our own media gets our soldiers killed. Send Barkha Datt and her cronies to tell that to Gajender Singh's wife and 2 kids and see what their reaction is.

[svinayak]

India must be one the few nations in the world where our own media gets our soldiers killed. Send Barkha Datt and her cronies to tell that to Gajender Singh's wife and 2 kids and see what their reaction is.

Who said it is India's own media which is operating inside India. The people may be Indian and citizens of India but the Corporation and foriegn entities control the media companies including Print.
Entire generation of Indians have been trained to look at India from a western point of view without any nationalistic point of view.

For more details
http://www.scribd.com/doc/5055673/MEDIA-IN-INDIA

[Raja Bose]

Acharya ji,

Very true. Why blame Pakis for doing damage to us when our own citizens have sold themselves to foreign entities. I noticed the behaviour of the media present on site of the operations....they were gushing like star-struck teenage airheads happily prattling about when commandos are going in, where the snipers are, who is sweeping which floor. amazing bunch of idiots we have in our country all of whom have managed to take up journalism. Even our own jingo and only non-DDM media person Vishnu allowed the reporter onsite to give away such info while he was anchoring.

[RajeshA]

For the ilks like Rajesh A who seem to hae some contempt for senior BRites here need to read this, if they already done and still (s)pout...

I was addressing Rajesh how
TSP Army = ISI = Taliban = Alqeda etc
and how nothing has changed since 9-11 to this day as far as TSP is concerned.

John Snow Saar,

On the one hand, you recognize my weakness, that I have difficulty generalizing stuff; on the other hand you ascribe me a greater knack for generalization, than I deserve.

I thank you however for bringing the various Jihadi equations in our neighborhood to my attention, and I'll keep such theories in mind, when I next try weaving some theories regarding leaning towers of Pisawar.

FYI, I would like to differentiate between my motives for differentiation between the various Jihadi tribes and those of some other Western well-wishers of our region and neighborhood.

I would want to have strategies which could use the different shades of jihadism (differences in ethnic, sub-ethnic, lifestyle, power-struggles, business-interests, source of jihadist funding, loyalties, etc) in order to bring all jihadist groups down. I concur with you that RoP, TSPA, ISI, RATS, Taliban, Al-Qaida are all jihadist in nature, and at times have congruence of interests, and at times they diverge, depending on the above differences.

Many Western thinkers, though are of the opinion that they would want some moderate group to triumph over the other rabid and radical ones. I am not looking for moderate groups per se, because even if they exist, like RAPE, or so, do not really wield true power or influence, and never will of their own. So I am not under such allusions.

I am bringing this to your notice, because I presume you may have missed this relevant difference in my posts and have inadvertently categorized me in the second group. You could of course have some other reason for seeking to enlighten me, of which I am not aware.

Cheers and Thanks for your efforts

[Vikas]

Anyone helping enemy lines should be considered an enemy and appropriately dealt with.

Couple of DDM's coming under friendly yet deadly fire and the problem of live telecast will be resolved for good.
Why again have forces acted with restraint? Why is life of a low lying DDM considered more precious than the soldier who is fighting the enemy.

[svinayak]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/117/story/57012.html


How India fumbled response to Mumbai attack
Never miss a McClatchy story -
By Padma Rao Sundarji | McClatchy Newspapers

NEW DELHI, India — It took 10 minutes for word of the Nov. 26, Mumbai terror assaults to reach the top of the government of Maharashtra state, but nearly 10 hours for India's best commando team to reach the scene.

That delay may help to explain why it took three days for India's security forces to overpower 10 assailants who police say killed at least 188 people and wounded more than 280.

Indecision by politicians and the delay in launching the commando force, however, don't fully account for the extent of the slaughter, which now threatens to escalate into conflict between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, where the attacks are thought to have been planned.

"This was not the fault of any one organ of the security apparatus, but a systemic failure," said Arun Bhagat, a former chief of India's Intelligence Bureau, India's main domestic intelligence agency.

Indian officials ignored advance intelligence warnings. Police officers ran away from the scenes of carnage because they lacked weapons, and their bulletproof vests were said to be defective. The Indian coast guard doesn't have night vision equipment, much less the more advanced human detection gear used by China, Japan and other countries.

India's security agencies are now rushing to point the finger at each other.

According to anonymous leaks to the daily Hindustan Times from RAW — the Research and Analysis Wing, India's equivalent of the CIA — intercepts of satellite telephone conversations indicated that the terrorists would arrive by sea, using a prohibited route from Pakistani waters, and attack five-star hotels in Mumbai.

The first major sign, the newspaper reported, was a satellite telephone call between a known operative of the Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba and an unknown person, which said that an operation was being planned to target a hotel near the Gateway to India, a Bombay landmark, and that the assailants would come by sea.

However, the date of that intercept isn't known, its existence hasn't been confirmed and other security spokesmen say the advance warnings were "not specific enough to act upon."

According to the Hindustan Times, though, on Sept. 24 there was a second conversation about possible hotel targets, including the Taj Mahal hotel, the Marriott, the Land's End and the Sea Rock.

The paper reported that in a third conversation, monitored on Nov. 19, a voice said: "We will reach Bombay (Mumbai's colonial-era name) between 9 and 11."

RAW said the call originated offshore, about 25 miles from Mumbai. The final conversation took place hours before the attack, when RAW officials told the paper they recorded a conversation between Yusuf Muzammil, a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, and a number in Bangladesh, asking for five SIM cards — used to pay for cell phone calls — for the operation. RAW officials said they deduced that the attackers might have relayed calls through Bangladesh.

The armed men reportedly did arrive by sea, hijacking a fishing trawler in the western Indian state of Gujarat, killing the crew, and sparing the captain until he piloted the ship to near Mumbai harbor, where they killed him.

They reportedly came ashore in rubber dinghies, undetected by India's coast guard. It's unclear whether the alleged advance intelligence about the plot was shared with the coast guard or the Indian navy. Moreover, Indian naval officers say that the security authorities lack night vision gear or other sensors that can detect a low-profile skiff or rubber dinghy or the people in one.

Although India has the world's third-largest military, its 4,500-mile coastline is largely unprotected. The federal government set aside funds to purchase 26 boats for the country's eight coastal states, but Maharashtra state, where Mumbai is, refused them, saying it lacked the funds for maintenance. There also is a severe shortage of helicopters available to the Coast Guard.

Once ashore, the killers reportedly split up into small groups and headed in five different directions.

At 9:21 p.m., according to published reports, two gunmen stormed the main railway station, where they tossed grenades and began firing indiscriminately as they moved from one hall to the next.

There are no metal detectors at the busy station and only a handful of city policemen, equipped mostly with canes to disperse unruly crowds and clad in ill-fitting bulletproof vests. Most of them fled. Maharashtra, India's richest state, has 180,000 policemen, but only 2,221 weapons, of which 577 are earmarked for Mumbai, a city of 13 million.

The railway special police are armed, but they must share weapons, one for every two policeman. In 44 minutes, 53 people were shot dead at the station.

Police officer Zillu Yadav was one of the few who stood his ground. Remonstrating a colleague for not responding, he grabbed his gun, hid behind pillars and fired. In a later skirmish with police, one of the assailants was killed and the second captured.

At 9:30 p.m., shooting was first heard at Mumbai's Nariman House, also known as the Jewish Center. There, two terrorists gunned down the rabbi and his wife, as well as several Israeli guests. The center had no metal detectors or armed guards, perhaps because Mumbai's Jewish community has been there for 2,500 years and never needed any. By the time commandos ended the siege three days later, 51 people had died at the center.

The chief minister of the state of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Desmukh, was notified of the first terror strike at 9:30 p.m. However, 90 minutes passed before he contacted the country's top law-enforcement official, Home Minister, Shivraj Patil, to request that 200 commandos be sent to Mumbai and Patil ordered the head of the National Security Guard into action.

The "Black Cats," as the commandos are known, are headquartered in Gurgaon, south of New of Delhi, however, and have no bases anywhere else in the vast country and no aircraft. The only plane available to transport 200 commandos was a Russian-built IL-76 transport plane, but it was in Chandigarh, 165 miles north of New Delhi. The pilot had to be awakened, the crew assembled and the plane fueled.

The aircraft reached New Delhi at 2 a.m., picked up the commandos and took off for Mumbai at 2:25 a.m. — five hours after the attacks began.

Gunmen had stormed the Cafe Leopold, where they opened fire on diners, and taken control of the Oberoi-Trident and the Taj Mahal Palace hotels. They fired at guests through the night, set fires using grenades, and collected hostages, many of whom were later executed, according to police.

By commercial aircraft, it takes two hours to fly from Delhi to Bombay, but flying on the IL-76, the commandos didn't reach Mumbai until 5:25 in the morning. There they were met not by helicopters but by a bus, which they boarded at 6:05 a.m. After being briefed, they divided into groups and set out on their mission.

Some counterterrorism experts say that trained commandos must reach the scene of a terrorist attack no later than 30 minutes after an assault begins. In Mumbai, nearly 10 hours had elapsed.

Among those killed were four counter-terror police, including the head of the state counter-terrorism force, all apparently because they had ill-fitting and inadequate bulletproof vests. A former police officer, Y.P. Singh, told reporters in Mumbai that he'd tested and rejected two lots of vests as defective. He said he was sure that the vests being worn during the melee were from those defective lots.

In those three chaotic days, some heroes emerged. Yadav at the railway station stood his ground when other policemen fled the scene. Maj. Sandeep Unnikrishnan of the "Black Cats" went back into the Oberoi to rescue a colleague and was shot. A nanny at the Jewish center grabbed Moshe, the infant son of the slain rabbi and his wife, and ran with him, risking her life.

Some lessons may emerge from the slaughter. Patil, the home minister, is one of the officials who've resigned, and the incident has revealed the deficiencies of India's police, coast guard, commando force and intelligence apparatus.

Indians will go to the polls for national elections in 100 days, and the tragedy is already a central element in the debate. "All this can change only when politicians stop recruiting 'yes-men' to the top echelons of the police," said Julio Ribeiro, a former police chief in Mumbai, "and stop diverting elite commandos towards their own personal security."

Some lessons don't appear to have been learned, however.

On Tuesday, three days after the last shot was fired and the last terrorist's body was bundled out of a first- floor window at the Taj Mahal hotel, a 50-year-old Mumbai resident put his licensed .32-caliber revolver in his pocket and took a train to the main terminal.

"I went in and out of several metal detectors, and nothing happened," said Balasaheb Borkar. When he asked policemen standing nearby why he wasn't stopped, they said they couldn't hear the newly installed metal detector beeping in the crowded, noisy terminal.

(Sundarji is a McClatchy special correspondent.)

JDM]
04:12:03pm 12/04/2008
digg4truth


Most countries learn from their mistakes. This is a very useful article showing
how various agencies were completely unprepared for any type of extremists' attack,
let alone this sophisticated attack that the terrorist group master minded.
02:12:11pm 12/04/2008
lonniesummy
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Pakistani gov't would have to be fools to have secretly supported this terrorist attack. Intelligence branch, maybe, I think Paks are about as incompetent as the Indians. They all blew it. They didn't have the foggiest what was going on in either country. Taiwan, China and South Korea, now theres intelligence services.
01:12:00pm 12/04/2008
rama


[ALL CAPS. Deleted unread. -- JDM]
10:12:58am 12/04/2008
wardpo
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Evidently India has not learned much about anti-terrorism despite numerous attacks there, and the US intellkigence failure on 9/11. By not securring their harbors and waterways they are asking for it. Bush and his minions have also not been securring our borders or harbors in the United States, prefering to waste our defense resources on Iraq.
10:12:02am 12/04/2008
wooddoo
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But isn't India billed to be the democratic role model of third world countries and the antithesis of China, the only place such things could happen due to its undemocratic system and gross violation of human rights resulting in resentment against the government? When unemployed rural mirant workers stage protests in China, it's decribed, or to be more accurately, hailed, by Western reporters as the prelude to the imminent collapse of the great evil. But when people by the thousands have actually been killed by ethnic and religious attacks in India, it's all "It won't affect India! India will weather this! We stand by India!" in Western media. Just for the sake of keeping China down, Western media should stop criticizing India and painting it in a negative light immediately.

[svinayak]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/jul ... 12-04.html
Pakistan Under Pressure as Mumbai Fallout Continues

With pressure increasing on Pakistan to play a wider role in the investigation of the attacks in Mumbai, India, Margaret Warner updates the latest developments and speaks with Simon Marks, who is reporting from India, on the overall security situation in the country.
Simon Marks

RAY SUAREZ: Pakistan comes under pressure after the Mumbai terror attacks. We start with Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: Today it was Islamabad. Handshakes, photo-ops, and meetings on the second stop on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's mission to ease rising tensions between Pakistan and India.

Last week's terror siege in Mumbai -- India's financial center -- left more than 170 people dead. India has linked some of the attackers to Pakistan.

While in New Delhi yesterday, Rice called on Pakistan to cooperate fully in the investigation. Today she said she secured its commitment to do so.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, U.S. Secretary of State: I found a Pakistani leadership that is very focused and, I think, very committed to -- for its own reasons, because Pakistan has been a victim in the war, a victim of these terrorist elements -- very committed to acting.

And Pakistan is going to investigate the circumstances, investigate what may have happened to support in any way the -- the effort -- in the attacks in Mumbai.

MARGARET WARNER: The only alleged attacker to survive reportedly told Indian investigators that he was trained in Pakistan by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmiri separatist group that's officially banned there.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari downplayed the suspect's links to his country. He spoke earlier this week on CNN's "Larry King Live."

ASIF ALI ZARDARI, President, Pakistan: Not as yet. We have not been given any tangible proof to say that he is definitely a Pakistani. I very much doubt, Larry, that he's a Pakistani.

MARGARET WARNER: Ahead of Rice's visit, some 2,000 students demonstrated in Islamabad.

SHABBIR SALEEM (through translator): It is our demand that the government of Pakistan should deal with America and India bravely. We will not hesitate to give our lives to protect the country.

MARGARET WARNER: But there were counter voices, too.

CHUDHRY JAHNGIR (through translator): The government of Pakistan should cooperate fully with India, as peace is necessary for this region.

MARGARET WARNER: Pakistan also came under pressure in Washington this week from a bipartisan commission warning of a likely attack on the United States in the next five years by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction.

Former Republican Senator Jim Talent co-chaired the group.

FORMER SEN. JIM TALENT (R), Missouri: Pakistan is the epicenter of a lot of these dangers, and not just of terrorism, but also of the potential use by nation-states of nuclear weapons, because there's a budding arms race between Pakistan and India in that area.

MARGARET WARNER: The report warned that the next terror attack on the United States was most likely to originate from Pakistan's tribal areas.

Growing pressure on Pakistan

MARGARET WARNER: In India, there was a new security alert today. I talked about that and the growing Indian pressure on Pakistan with special correspondent Simon Marks.

Simon, Secretary of State Rice in Islamabad today said she found the Pakistani leadership very focused on the threat, committed to investigating, even rounding up whoever there might have been behind the attacks.

What's been the reaction in India to that?

SIMON MARKS, NewsHour Special Correspondent: Well, I think there's a degree of confusion here, because they argue here that they've heard two very different messages from the Pakistanis over the course of just 48 hours, now a message of commitment to battling terrorism, where just yesterday they were hearing a message that suggested that President Asif Ali Zardari was saying Pakistan had no culpability in the attacks against Mumbai and that no proof had been presented to him to suggest that Pakistanis were responsible for those attacks.

So they are obviously more pleased with the message that they're hearing from Islamabad now, but they are still treating all of this with a very considerable degree of skepticism.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, there were widespread reports that, after his election in September, but before these attacks, the new Pakistani president, Zardari, had made overtures to India seeking ways to improve the relationship. How did those look from India's side?

SIMON MARKS: Well, from India's side, they were more hopeful than they had been in a good long while. This goes back to October, when President Zardari gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal and, for the first time, used the word "terrorists" to describe some of the Kashmiri militant separatists operating on Pakistani soil.

He caught a lot of flak at home in Pakistan for using that word, but here in India, it was music to the government's ears. So they did feel as though they were in a position to have a more proactive, perhaps productive relationship with his government than they've been able to enjoy with the government of former President Pervez Musharraf.

Then, of course, came the attacks on Mumbai. And now, of course, we see increased tension between Delhi and Islamabad. And it's not clear whether there is a path that takes them back to the more productive discussion that they hoped they were going to be about to have.

Anger and alertness in India

MARGARET WARNER: Meanwhile, today, is public anger against Pakistan still in evidence in India? Does it seem to be building or abating?

SIMON MARKS: It's certainly not abating. I mean, it's very much in evidence. We ran into it again today. We took a trip out of Mumbai to India's fifth-largest city of Ahmedabad, which is about an hour's flight from here.

And wherever we went there -- and that's hundreds of miles away from Mumbai -- we encountered people saying that they wanted to see very tough action taken by India against Pakistan in light of the attacks on Mumbai.

Tonight, Indian television stations are beginning to report suggestions that President Asif Ali Zardari has indicated that he may be willing to move against the Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders situated on Pakistani soil. That may go some of the way to assuaging some of the anger that's being directed in Pakistan's direction from here, but there's an awful lot of anger out there to assuage.

MARGARET WARNER: Finally, the Indian government said today it put airports on high alert after fresh warnings of possible terror attacks. You flew today. Was everything battened down?

SIMON MARKS: Well, it was not as battened down as Indian government officials suggested that it was going to be. We left Mumbai this morning shortly after that alert was issued by the Indian authorities.

We flew to Ahmedabad, spent the day there, and then flew back here. At no point at either airport was any of us asked to produce photo identification before boarding an airplane.

Our bags -- which, as you know, Margaret, from the travels that we've done together -- are laden down with batteries, cables, fuses, light bulbs, all sorts of things that usually attract the attention of baggage inspectors.

Well, they put them through the scanners. They went through the conveyor belt. We were given the bags back. Nobody opened them to take a look at them. We were told tonight that Mumbai airport is on red alert. We certainly didn't see any indication that that was the case when we traveled today.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, Simon, thanks so much. And travel safely.

SIMON MARKS: Thanks, Margaret.

[svinayak]

[RajeshA]

Mumbai: overcoming denial by PureFool ButWhy: Jang

The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and peace and human-rights activist based in Delhi

No words can fully capture the horror and revulsion caused globally by the Mumbai terror attacks, which killed 180 people, in a meticulously planned military-style operation executed with ruthless precision. The Indian and Pakistani public is deeply shocked at this butchery of innocent civilians, which cannot be justified as retribution for the gravest of injustices, and wasn't so rationalised.

Yet, the revulsion hasn't produced spontaneous people-to-people mutual solidarity, nor a civil-society discussion on how we can jointly fight terrorism, which menaces both countries. Rather, there's a retreat into the shell of nationalism. A competitive blame-game has broken out to accuse "the other side" of jingoism, while practising it oneself in some measure or other.

This has jeopardised the gains of the official peace process and even affected citizen-to-citizen reconciliation, which made considerable progress over one-and-a-half decade against heavy odds. Why has this happened? Simply put, the first shot was fired from India. Less than an hour after the attacks began, Indian TV channels blamed Pakistani jihadi groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba. There were premature leaks from the police. And after the arrest of Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman alias Qasab, there was just no stopping hysterical anchors and reporters from speculating on the terrorists' motives and links, and levelling all manner of charges.

Soon, Pakistan's channels launched a retaliatory "defence of the nation" against "Indian provocations." The climate has since got progressively vitiated. Exaggeration was built into the very manner in which the attacks were described on Indian channels, as "India's 9/11" and an act of war. Pakistan was depicted as an undifferentiated, homogeneous entity. Past resentments were stoked--as if nothing changed after 2004. Speculation by unnamed intelligence officials was presented as manifest truth.

The "9/11" analogy was wrong for its context, scale and impact. 9/11's casualties were 16 times higher than Mumbai's. They exposed the vulnerability of the US homeland--for the first time in 60 years. Indians have long recognised their vulnerability. 9/11 changed the way the US looks at the world, especially the "Islamic threat." Mumbai won't radically alter India's outlook. The analogy also dangerously justifies the United States' "Global War on Terror" response. But GWoT has been a disaster. It has caused a million civilian deaths, fomented Islamophobia, encouraged terrorism, and spread insecurity. The American people have paid a heavy price through ethnic profiling, intrusive surveillance and the draconian Patriot Act.

Similarly, it's deplorably misleading to bracket Pakistan's civilian government with the Army and the ISI and terrorist groups as if they formed a continuum. Indian commentators should know the government arose from popular struggles against the Army's domination. It strains credulity to hold that the government would undermine the peace process and risk a costly conflict when Pakistan is in dire economic straits and faces a growing collapse of governance.

The Pakistani Army is beyond civilian control. But it's unlikely that it colluded in the Mumbai operation. That would attract Washington's hostility just when it's is planning to escalate the Afghanistan war. However, far too many Pakistani journalists and commentators have reacted by overrating to Indian TV channels' importance while minimising sober views within Indian society and government. They have thus reproduced the pattern--rushing to judgment and "defending the nation"--for which they rightly criticise India's media. This is partly because Indian channels are much more widely watched in Pakistan than the other way around, and have a disproportionate impact.

I write this as a media practitioner, a firm believer in India-Pakistan peace, and as a long-standing critic of my own government's policies on Kashmir, nuclear weapons, human rights and counter-terrorism, who has never spared communalism, jingoism and religion-based national chauvinism. {RajeshA: Please accept me as your long lost brother, I am sure my parents stole me from a Pakistani hospital right after I was born}

This pattern replication means ignoring ground realities and the vital fact that most Indians haven't succumbed to the jingoistic, anti-Pakistan, Hindutva interpretation of the attacks and are repelled by Narendra Modi's and L K Advani's posturing. They don't regard Mumbai as a "Hindu-Muslim issue."

Unlike in the past, Indian Muslims haven't been harassed for the Mumbai attacks. Not only have the vast majority of Muslim organisations condemned them, including the targeting of Jews, many participated in citizens' marches for cohesion and secular solidarity. Imams have asked people to wear black ribbons as a mark of protest. No Mumbai graveyard is ready to bury the attackers who were killed. India has never witnessed such spontaneous cross-religious unity against terrorism. Most Pakistani leaders and commentators seem to be in total denial of what's becoming a compelling case for holding that those who attacked Mumbai were mainly Pakistani nationals connected to and controlled by an extremist group, who received combat and maritime training from professionals, of the kind usually associated with the ISI and former Army officers.

The second part of this assessment is not only confirmed by US intelligence officials, recently quoted in The New York Times, but has been well-documented and attested by Pakistani analysts such as Ahmed Rashid, Shuja Nawaz, Ayesha Siddiqa and Hussain Haqqani.

Strong clues for the first part come from growing circumstantial evidence--including the attackers' Global Positioning System and satellite-phone records, email tracks, ordnance factory markings on armaments, and fingerprints on boats and other materials. This suggests that they came by sea from Karachi with sophisticated arms. This is corroborated by what's revealed from the interrogation of Ajmal and intercepts of mobile-phone conversations. Much of the circumstantial evidence is admissible in law. The fact that the attackers carried out their pre-assigned tasks with clockwork precision, that they targeted at least nine Mumbai sites, killed Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare, and battled 500 commandos for hours, speaks of a frightening level of combat training and fanatical dedication.

Going by the available expertise on terrorism, there aren't many groups in Pakistan, barring Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, which possess these characteristics, can impart rigorous training to young men, and command them to kill themselves. Yet, Indian intelligence and police agencies must painstakingly collect clinching, irrefutable evidence and establish the attackers' identities and connections before making any more public statements.

Inferences from loose facts, and speculation, however informed or intelligent, just won't do. What is needed is hard, incontrovertible evidence, which can withstand critical scrutiny, and on the basis of which the attackers and their co-conspirators can be convicted. Luckily, for the first time, an attacker has been caught alive, who can provide invaluable information. Ajmal must be put on trial.

Leads pointing to LeT's involvement must be fully established if the international community is to be convinced and Pakistan's cooperation is to be secured. LeT was created and trained by the ISI. But it cannot be assumed that the ISI still fully controls it. That possibility must be impartially investigated. If it's true, the ISI must be reined in and punished.

Perhaps the best way of scrutinising, and acting on, the evidence, once it's fully collected and carefully analysed, would be to involve the United Nations Security Council by citing Resolution 1373, which requires all states to "refrain from providing … support… to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts…", give "early warning to other states" and "deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts…"--all on pain of punitive measures. This multilateral approach will avert overbearing US interference. But to adopt it, we must get out of denial and mutual recrimination.

On BRF, reading PureFool is like watching Xena on TV.

[Rangudu]

I'm hearing that Kiyani promised Condi that he will not stop Zardari from "taking action" against LeT.

This sounds good but I'm betting that this is also a time when the LeT, which became JuD to now assume a new identity. There is a small chance that ISI/RATS may consider building a completely new front inside TSP and may be willing to assume a bit more pain than they did in 2002.

Expect the following things:

1. A "ban" on JuD by mid next week, but likely over the weekend
2. Arrest and announcement of possible "trial" of Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi and that Muzammil fellow.
3. Fake reports of "purges" within lower levels of the ISI
4. A "split" in the LeT/JuD launched by people who were "concerned" with "terrorist" activities of rogue LeT members. This will be the new front and all assets will be moved here. If I'm right, this will precede the possible arrests. They will likely retire Hafiz-e-cheif-pig and get a new titular head
5. TSP wasting i.e. "testing" the Barber and the Shitheen missiles by end of next week

This will likely be the "best" outcome from 200 innocents mercilessly slaughtered and India's economy seriously hampered.

Anyone still believe that even if all of these happen, we are better off than with the B.Raman approach?

[NRao]

After some more thought, India HAS to stop its reliance on ANY Islamic state for anything. Doing business is OK, but not rely on them: as in oil and perhaps even sending Indians to earn money.

[vera_k]

After some more thought, India HAS to stop its reliance on ANY Islamic state for anything. Doing business is OK, but not rely on them: as in oil and perhaps even sending Indians to earn money.

Indians will go only until the oil money lasts. A good response would be a national program for developing technology to replace or reduce dependence on oil first in India and then worldwide.

[chetak]

Food for thought

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/the-ga ... ntentSwap1


The Game Changer



December 6, 2008

Pakistani Islamists hope the Mumbai massacre will tame Barack Obama and diminish Indian influence, writes Christopher Kremmer.

Whoever planned the Mumbai massacre - and it was planned, funded and executed by some group in Pakistan - the murders of at least 188 people and paralysis of India's largest city were intended to change geopolitics.

Topping the shortlist of suspects are al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the Pakistan Government and intelligence and security services, or rogue elements within those services working with Islamist extremists. But what would anyone in Pakistan stand to gain from a terrorist plot so easily traced to that country? And why has Pakistani culpability met with such a muted response from India and the West?

Pakistan is one of those countries - Israel another - for which a benign foreign policy environment is seen as essential to national survival. The stunted offspring of the Partition of the British Raj, Pakistan is doomed to live in India's shadow.

During the Cold War - in which Pakistan sided unreservedly with the United States, while India played footsie with the Soviets - Islamabad's existential fear of its neighbour was balanced by the confidence that only a friendly White House can give. But since the red menace evaporated and the West became a target of South Asia-based terrorists, Pakistan is less secure. The West's embrace of India as an economic and strategic balance to China has exacerbated Pakistan's insecurity.

The American alliance provided Pakistan with some immunity against India. Islamabad's politically-dominant army and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) used or worked closely with a variety of extremists bent on fuelling secessionist violence in parts of India, including Punjab and Kashmir. America even turned a blind eye to Pakistan's covert nuclear program from the 1970s until the early 1990s, when America's victory in Afghanistan led powerful figures in Washington to believe they did not need Pakistan any more, and economic and military aid was cut off.

Fast forward to September 2001 when al-Qaeda and the Taliban attacked the US. Having backed the Taliban in Afghanistan and worked hand in glove with armed Islamists in the 1999 Kargil invasion of Indian-controlled Kashmir, Pakistan was caught hand in cookie jar. Only when General Pervez Musharraf agreed to join the so-called War On Terror did America forgive its sins.

But controllers of Pakistan's security services always regarded that as a mere tactical retreat. Since the time of an earlier military ruler, the late General Zia ul-Haq, the country's ruling elite retained a barely concealed contempt for an American superpower that spent hundreds of billions of dollars buying their friendship. They were confident the West would eventually see the wisdom of subcontracting to Pakistan the messy business of South Asia security. The lavish and misplaced lauding of Musharraf as a hero in the War on Terror illustrated the tendency. But this year, Pakistan's confidence in its ability to set the terms of engagement was badly shaken. American strikes went ahead on al-Qaeda and Taliban forces based in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas despite Islamabad's vociferous protests. Meanwhile, India revived its diplomatic influence in an Afghanistan long regarded by Islamabad as an unofficial province of Pakistan. Adding to hardline alarm has been the vocal adventurism of Pakistan's new president - Asif Ali Zadari, widower of former leader Benazir Bhutto.

He recently pledged to shake up the ISI and uttered the ultimate apostasy by declaring Pakistan had nothing to fear from India and should have warm relations with New Delhi.

The Mumbai attack was designed to wreck rapprochement with India and replace it with military crisis. The same strategy underpinned the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament - an attempt to murder the entire Indian government.

The key suspects for Mumbai all want the US to halt military strikes on Pakistani soil. They want to undermine Western resolve to stay in Afghanistan, thereby facilitating Pakistani suzerainty there. The strike on Mumbai was meticulously planned and expensive, with the foot soldiers getting the sort of specialist training usually restricted to commandos. Above all, it was exquisitely timed to tame two new presidents.

Pakistan's Zardari will find it difficult to pursue his peace and domestic reform agenda in the face of rising tensions with India. And Barack Obama finds his country plunged into another looming crisis in South Asia, one tailor-made to circumscribe his options so that his policy ultimately serves a Pakistan wedded to a chaotic and bloody status quo.

No sooner had India blamed Pakistan than Pakistan threatened to shift to the Indian border military forces fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda - a threat guaranteed to send shivers down the Washington spine.

Panic, of course, is the wrong reaction, as is naivety. Nothing moves in Pakistan without ISI knowledge. The Mumbai massacre could not have been set in train in Pakistan without assistance of the security and intelligence establishment, past or present.

It has taken Pakistan decades to become the sovereign equivalent of a suicide bomber: "Do what we say or we'll blow ourselves up - and take everyone else with us!" Who would call the bluff? Nobody wants to see self-immolation of a country of 170 million people with nuclear weapons.

As always, India will be expected to swallow pain and turn a blind eye to the escape of the back room perpetrators. The more strident New Delhi's reaction, the more it suits the planners of this outrage. But the bitter pill of restraint will be made more palatable for India if it results in closer diplomatic, military and intelligence co-operation aimed at containing the Pakistan problem.

Events like Mumbai are rarely the work of wounded idealists. They are cynical acts of mass murder designed to achieve specific political outcomes. There is method in this madness, but also desperation.

Pakistani extremists - in and out of uniform - want to scare us out of the region and hold hostage to Pakistan indulgence our improving relations with India.

By staying the course, by building a stronger, better targeted international military presence in Afghanistan, by deepening our economic and security ties with India, and by working patiently and methodically to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism in South Asia, we deny the massacre architects their most heartfelt desire, and best serve the security of millions of decent people everywhere, including our own.

Christopher Kremmer, author of four books on modern Asia, is a scholar with the Writing and Society Research Group at the University of Western Sydney.

[svinayak]

After some more thought, India HAS to stop its reliance on ANY Islamic state for anything. Doing business is OK, but not rely on them: as in oil and perhaps even sending Indians to earn money.

Indians will go only until the oil money lasts. A good response would be a national program for developing technology to replace or reduce dependence on oil first in India and then worldwide.

Income form the middle east has to become lower than the avg Income in India.
Then workers going to ME will be reversed

[svinayak]

Prayer meetings across U.K. for Mumbai terror victims

London (PTI): Thousands of people across Britain, including of Indian origin, have attended special prayer meetings to remember the victims of the last week's Mumbai terror attack.

Meetings have been reported from Loughborough, Leicester, Huddersfield, Liverpool, besides other places.

At a prayer meeting attended by civic and faith leaders in Liverpool, Lord Mayor Steve Rotheram said: "This was a despicable act of terrorism designed to cause the maximum amount of fear for tourists and ordinary people in India.

"This event is Liverpool's way of showing support to the people of Mumbai."

Shiv Pande, honorary secretary of the Indo-British Association, said: "It's very important in the U.K. to uphold and deepen good interfaith relations so we see the way to handle well such events and continue to talk together increasing understanding."

In Loughborough, Aruna Measuria, chair of the Shree Ram Krishna Centre said the Hindu community was 'deeply hurt' so many people had lost their lives.

Measuria said: "We condemn this terror and on behalf of the Hindu community we want to say that all this unnecessary loss of life has got to stop.

"We do not point the finger at any nation but as a whole we all need to take responsibility and think about how this can be stopped. Nobody knows where and when something like this will happen again.

"It doesn't matter who has died or what their status is, whether they be a businessman, a working man, a Hindu or a white person, it is somebody who has lost their life unnecessarily."

At Londons Canary Wharf, hundreds of business people stood in silent solidarity at a candlelit vigil to honour those who died in the Mumbai attacks.

In Leicester, better known as 'Little India', a large number of people gathered at an event organised by the Federation of Indian Muslim Organisations in the Midlands and the Indian Muslims Association.

Reports from Leicester say that it was the largest such gathering in the town since the July 7 blasts in London.

Prayers were said and candles lit to remember those who lost their lives. A book of condolence was also opened at the Leicester Exhibition Centre in Belgrave, the centre of Asian culture and business.

Those who gathered at the solemn event included Indian-origin Lord Mayor of Leicester, Manjula Sood, who said: "This was very important to show the solidarity of our community and that people of all faiths can come together".

Suleman Nagdi, spokesman for the Federation of Muslim Organisations, said: "These attacks are an attack on all communities and we need to stand together against them. It is not a religious thing it is cultural and for people of all or no faith."

Victims of the Mumbai attacks included several British nationals, including relatives of people of Indian origin.

We understand that all of us have been in enormous shock and experienced trauma due to the barbaric and inhuman Islamic terrorist attacks perpetrated in Mumbai on the fateful day of November 26. Also, the whole world knows now that this ghastly act was sponsored by none other than the Pakistani Military and Spy (ISI) establishment.



In a global Press release communicated on Nov 27, 2008, OFBJP-USA, on behalf of the Indian American community shared the agony of the people of Mother Bharat. We offered our profound sympathies and condolences to the families and friends of the victims of this bloody carnage and saluted the brave NSG commandos who freed the city of Mumbai from the clutches of the agents of death. We saluted and prayed for the departed souls of our brave hearts NSG cammondos Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan and Havildar Gajendra Singh, ASI Tukaram Omble (Single handedly caught the terrorist alive while facing hail of AK57 bullets), ATS Chief Hemant Karkare, ACP Ashok Kamte, encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar and other police personnel. We also saluted to many more brave men and women staff of Hotel Taj, Hotel Trident, Café Leopold, Cuff Parade – Colaba Fire brigade, Indian Navy, Indian Army and Mumbai Police. Additionally, we demanded the resignation of Manmohan Singh, Shivraj Patil, R.R.Patil and Vilas Rao Deshmukh (Three of the four resigned recently).



In memory of the victims and to condemn the Pakistan sponsored Islamic terrorism, Indian American communities across the nation had conducted many rallies and are planning more. The following information describes the OFBJP activities in organizing these congregations and also the planned rallies and congregations.



Washington DC:



OFBJP led other Indian American associations in organizing the meetings in memory of the Mumbai Terror Victims at the following places.



* November 28th Friday at Shiva Vishnu Temple (MD):

Organized by Shri Sreekant Nayak (Chair: Govt. Relations)



* November 29th Saturday at Lotus temple (VA):

Organized by Prof. Venkat Rao Mulpuri (General Secretary)

In both the places, scores of Indian origin people and some Americans attended the meetings and paid tributes to the Mumbai terror victims and brave men and women who fought the terrorists. Speaker after speaker denounces the Pakistan sponsored terrorism while demanding a stringent action against the terrorist training centers in Pakistan.



Dr. Adapa Prasad (President Elect), Shri Sreekant Nayak, and Prof. Venkat Rao coordinated with the Indian American associations and attended several media interviews and demanded USA government to take punitive actions against Pakistani establishment. Dr. Prasad said that while the Maharashtra government and it's ATS spent 90% of it's time in implicating the innocent Hindu monks, they found no time to pay heed to the alerts and warnings from the Indian intelligence agencies and FBI. Ominously, two days prior to this ghastly attack, OFBJP through its Press release on November 25th, demanded Manmohan Singh government to stop harassing the innocent Hindu Monks for vote bank politics and concentrate on fighting the real Islamic terrorism.



Tampa, FL:



* November 30th Sunday: Represented by Shri Chandrakant Patel (Organizing Secretary)



OFBJP participated in the Sangh Parivar led memorial meeting in the local Hindu temple. Hundreds of Indian American people thronged the Temple meeting and expressed their profound sorrow and anguish. Shri Chandrakant Patel demanded USA to declare Pakistan as the Terrorist State and he demanded the resignation of Manmohan Singh government.





Houston, TX:

* November 30th Sunday:

Organized by Shri Ramesh Shah (Vice President) and Shri Gitesh Desai (General Secretary)



OFBJP organized the Indian American community meeting in the local Hindu temple. The pent-up anger of the Indian community poured out against the Sonia Gandhi headed UPA government whose apathy and Muslim appeasement policies brought India to these sorry state affairs. UPA government's vote bank policies made India a soft target for the Islamic terrorists who struck India 12 times since past 24 months.



Planned Meetings:



Washington DC

* December 6th Saturday:

Ø Sangh Parivar (HSS, VHP, OFBJP and Ekal) led Indian American community rally at Gandhi statue in front of Embassy of India. 1-2 PM

Ø FIA and OFBJP led Indian American community condolence meeting at Montgomery county hall in MD from 3- 4 PM. Organized by Dr. Satish Mishra (Washington DC area Coordinator)

Ø Dr. Adapa Prasad is coordinating the OFBJP participation for both the events





New Jersey

* December 6th Saturday: Shri Jayesh Patel (Vice President) is organizing the OFBJP participation in FIA led Indian American community condolence meeting
* December 7th Sunday: Shri Suresh Jani (President) is organizing the OFBJP co-sponsored Indian American community meeting at Albert Palace.



Chicago, IL

* December 13th Saturday:

Dr. Raj Dave (Vice President), and Shri Amar Upadhyay (General Secretary) organizing a condolence meeting. Details awaited.



New York

* December 20th Saturday:

Sri Suresh Jani (President), Shri Jayesh Patel (Vice President), Sri R.P.Singh (General Secretary) and Sri Ram Kamat (Treasurer) along with the NJ and NY chapters of OFBJP are co-organizing a grand rally in front of the United Nations Organization (UNO). This mega rally is being organized by Sangh Parivar led by HSS with active participation by OFBJP, VHP-A, and Ekal Vidyalaya in cooperation with the entire India American Associations of tri-State Area. Indian and American media is slated to be covering this event.

[Raj Malhotra]

There is Allusion to 'more sophisticated' transport from karachi rather than hijacked sub in some reports, some this indicate use of Pakistan Navy submarine/ship to bring the terrorists near Bombay?

[kobe]

finished a successful buz trip to LA
but only one thing in mind, how to teach chutiya paki a lesson of its life time.

ok folks, here is my suggestion:

give one brahmos gift to a saudi refinery (because saudi money is bankrolling paki machine), and send a clear message
to the world.

this has low risk of any kind of drawn out war, relatively cheap and highly effective

this will immediately put USA on red alert and get things done based on our demands

(and also keep two other brahmos ready for two saudi oil tankers)

think about this carefully before pooh poohing it

[sum]

Very juicy details about how our "guest from across" is lapping up the 5 star treatment :
Link

Anti-terror squad provides top security to Kasab
DH News Service, Mumbai:
If there is one thing that is worrying the Mumbai ATS and the Intelligence Bureau (IB), it is the safety of the lone captured terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Amin, who is being shifted from one location to another and constantly guarded.


Since his capture, there is absolutely no doubt that Amin or Kasab, whatever his true name is, is the topmost target for the Lashkar-e-Toiba, which planned and executed the worst-ever terror attack on Mumbai and now fears complete exposure.

The Pakistan’s ISI too must be after Kasab for the same reason, ATS sources here said.

As a precaution, Kasab is constantly being shifted from one undisclosed location to another. He is not kept in any location for more than a day for fear of disclosure of his whereabouts. Even the food that is given to him is first checked by ATS members thoroughly for poison, ATS sources said. The room in which Kasab is kept is bereft of anything, there are no fans or electric wire or beds.

Another worry for the ATS is that Kasab himself may try to commit suicide. He was being interrogated by the ATS and the IB, and at times was subjected to third degree.

The pressure being maintained on him has already cracked him a lot and the interrogators were able to extract a lot of information from him so far. On the very second day of the attack, Kasab gave the location of the fishing trawler Kuber which the terrorists had hijacked off Gujarat to sail to Mumbai, and it was brought to shore by the Coast Guard.

From Kuber, the investigators recovered GPS and a satellite phone, which the terrorists had left behind, revealing the trail of the terror attack to Karachi and other LeT hotspots in Pakistan.

Kasab is already broken by the constant interrogations and the sleuths fear for suicide attempt. To avoid any such possibility, an ATS constable guards him from the moment he wakes up till he goes to sleep. In past, under trials have used towels or shirt and trouser to hang themselves up from ceiling in a bid to end life. In case of Kasab, he has been provided only underwear.

On Thursday, when a live RDX bomb was recovered from the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the ATS and crime branch sleuths immediately went to Kasab and demanded why he had not told them about the bomb.

The interrogation revealed that terrorists had brought 10 RDX bombs, each weighing eight kg, with them. Two bombs were used to blow up two taxis, while seven bombs were recovered and defused. The investigators are searching for the 10th bomb.

Kasab has also given away names of all the ten terrorists including himself and the masterminds in Pakistan, and how the entire operation was planned and executed. Which shows how his life has become important from the investigation’s point of view.

The guy must be wondering why he didn't shoot himself before the Pandus hauled him out of the Skoda and gave him a thrashing on the road...

[amdavadi]

In case of Kasab, he has been provided only underwear

Kasab can still hang himself using underware...send memo & along with some learning material to unkil in abu ghraib

[sum]

Link

Terrorist’s name lost in transliteration

Praveen Swami

Unable to communicate in Punjabi, police misspelt Lashkar operative’s caste

MUMBAI: More than a week after the arrest of a Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist, taken alive during last week’s terror strike on Mumbai, the world’s media still cannot agree on his name.

Muhammad Amin Kasab, Azam Amir Kasav and Azam Amir Kasab are just some of the names that have figured on print and television reports, much to the delight of Pakistani critics, who argue that the terrorist is a fiction invented by India.

His name is in fact Mohammad Ajmal Amir, son of Mohammad Amir Iman, a resident of the village of Faridkot in the tehsil of Dipalpur in [Pakistan] Punjab’s Okara district.

The confusion over Iman’s surname, investigators told The Hindu, stemmed from the fact that the Mumbai Police officers who first questioned him were Marathi speakers, unable to communicate with the south Punjab resident.

While recording Iman’s particulars — his name, address, family details and, in line with standard Indian practice, caste — the officers spoke to the arrested terrorist in Mumbai’s unique Hindi patois.

Iman, mumbling in pain owing to the injuries he had sustained, correctly answered the question about his caste, replying that he hailed from the Kasai (butcher) community. The Marathi-speaking Mumbai Police officers recorded this as Kasav or Kasab, a name unknown in Pakistan or, for that matter, in Maharashtra.

One junior policeman involved in Iman’s early questioning described the process as a little comical. He said: “Here we were talking to the most important suspect we had ever questioned, but we couldn’t understand half of what he was saying and he couldn’t understand us!”

As the records made their way up the Mumbai Police hierarchy, the misspelt caste name, often used by the media in India as a surname, set in concrete.

Later, Hindi-speaking officers who understood that Kasav was not a name known in north India, took it to be Kamaal, further adding to the confusion. It was only when native Hindi and Punjabi-speaking officers interrogated Iman that the error was corrected.

Since The Hindu broke details of Iman’s background, news organisations, including the Press Trust of India, Rediff.com, ABC News and The Economist have set the record straight. Others, however, continue to use the misconstrued, incorrect, surname.

This sets the record straight on why there are so many versions of the name floating around...
Also, shows that the ATS seems to be giving day by day updates to the media with the latest interpretation of the name being immediately relayed to the media!!!

[sum]

Two more arrested for Mumbai terror attacks
6 Dec 2008, 1019 hrs IST, TIMESOFINDIA.COM

NEW DELHI: Two more men, Tausif Rehman and Mukhtar Ahmed, have been arrested in connection with the deadly terror attacks that rocked Mumbai
killing more than 180 people. ( Watch )

Tausif was arrested from West Bengal, while Mukhtar -- a Jammu and Kashmir police constable, was hand picked up by the Kolkata police, according to a Times Now report.

The duo were arrested by the special task force of the Kolkata police.

Both Tausif and Mukhtar are believed to be associated with the SIM cards used by the Mumbai terrorists.

Earlier, intelligence sources said they had intercepted conversations between Muzammil, Muzaffarabad chief of LeT operations, and a certain Yahya in Bangladesh.

Yahya reportedly arranged SIM cards, fake id-cards primarily from western countries like Mauritius, UK, US, Australia. A Mauritian identity card was found on one of the terrorists shot down.

WB even has a STF?
Im sure these are not locals/Indian nationals(in the words of Shri.Gafhoor)...all were martians or Pakis pretending to be Indians.

Btw, what does hand picked up mean(bolded in the article)?

[svinayak]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaYAy5dD5J8

[bhargava]

Act now, or we will step in, US warns Pakistan
Some more eye wash

[p_saggu]

In case of Kasab, he has been provided only underwear

Chaddi pehan ke fool khila hai, fool khila hai.

Maar dala, maar dala

[harbans]

As the records made their way up the Mumbai Police hierarchy, the misspelt caste name, often used by the media in India as a surname, set in concrete

And what i am horrified to see is that this was not recorded. Senior Officers were nowhere to be seen while junior guys did the 3rd degree and questioning? Punjabi speaking Officers are plenty and should have been available immediately when questioning commenced. I am not getting impressed by the Mumbai ATS.

Also..

To avoid any such possibility, an ATS constable guards him from the moment he wakes up till he goes to sleep

So they are not guarding him when he is "supposedly asleep"??

ATS is making a fool of themselves and the country. This is idiocy one does not expect from investigative agencies. And they seem so innocent to the blunders that they are releasing to the press, i have little words to express indignation. Only sadness, we have some buffoons from a past era that believe this is the way things can be handled this way in this era.

Also this 3rd degree thingie, do the buffoons in ATS realize they will have no shred of credibility left once they put this out? Do you think they can extract any confession and it will hold in any court of law even in the future? Kasabs case may be open and shut because he has been caught on camera, and not ATSs 3rd degree enforced confessions. But ATS is putting India's credibility down in the dumps each passing day.

Does the Mumbai Police Commissioner head the ATS? Is it independent? Mumbai Police Commissioner should go for this. I wonder why he's not getting marching orders?

[neelkamal]

Recieved this email from my bro. Cant vouch for its veracity 100% but seems like a sincere story.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mine is a story so improbable that if it were made into a movie, no one would believe it. It begins innocuously enough with a dinner reservation with another couple (Shiv and Reshma) at a leading restaurant in a world class hotel, and ends 12 hours later in a brazen commando assault by the Indian army that allowed us to be freed. My point in relaying this story is not to tell a sensational true story, but express my eternal gratitude and to pay tribute to the staff of The Taj Mahal Hotel, who literally sacrificed their lives in disproportionate numbers so that we could ultimately survive. They, along with the bravery of the Indian army, are the true heroes and are deserving of due respect.

Let me also preface this by saying that my wife and I were married in the Taj at the Crystal Ballroom, her parents were married there and the couple we were with were married there as well. My wife and Reshma, both Bombay girls, grew up hanging out at the Taj and the Oberoi. Many of my wife’s fondest memories are at this place where she spent so many happy hours and often partied the night away at her favorite nightclub the legendary 1900’s.

My wife Anjali and I arrived at the Taj with Shiv & Reshma at around 9:30 for dinner at The Golden Dragon, one of the better Chinese Restaurants in Mumbai. We were running a little early for dinner, (our friends had just welcomed their 1 month old into the world). We walked through the lobby and made a left to go to the restaurant. Our wives decided that they would go to a book shop on the other side of the lobby and meet us at the restaurant.

Fortunately our table wasn’t ready. Though we were a little early and had reservations, the staff told us we would have to wait 10 minutes for another table to be freed. Hearing this we then walked next door to the Harbor Bar for a drink. A minute later our wives crossed back across the lobby and joined us at the bar. We had barely sat down and begun to enjoy our beers, when the host of The Golden Dragon came to our table at the Harbour Bar and told us our table was ready. For reasons unknown, we decided to stay and finish our drinks.

Literally 30 seconds later we heard what sounded like a heavy tray smashing to the ground. This was followed by 20 to 30 more similar sounds and absolute silence. We knew something was terribly off. Our initial reaction was to crouch behind a table in the bar feet away from what we now knew were gunshots. At this time terrorists had stormed the lobby and were firing indiscriminately. The Harbor Bar is situated right next to the lobby, and while they couldn’t see us the terrorists were within 30 feet of us.

My friend, Shiv, and I knew we had to act fast. We took a chair and tried repeatedly to break the glass window in front of us, but it wouldn’t budge. We then looked and saw a stairway that was inside the bar, but across open space that could be seen from the hotel lobby. Fearlessly, the Hostess of the Harbour Bar stood at her post as all this was going on and ushered for us to go up the stairs and escape this initial wave. She literally was looking straight out into the hallway and lobby and motioned to us that it was safe to make a run for the stairwell. She also mentioned that there was a dead body right outside in the corridor. We believe this courageous woman was later murdered.

We later learned that within minutes of our decision to climb up the stairwell the terrorists came into the Harbour Bar, shot everyone who was there dead, as well as also executing everyone who was still at the Golden Dragon next door. It has also come to light that the staff of the Golden Dragon, who were equally valiant, attempted to usher their patrons into a basement wine cellar which they thought would be protected. They locked the doors in an attempt to keep the terrorists out. The terrorists unfortunately managed to break through the doors and lobbed in grenades that wound up killing everyone in the basement.

Back to the previous - The stairwell connected the Harbour Bar on the bottom to a restaurant called Wasabi on the second floor. After fleeing up the stairwell and having the “fortune” of having the terrorist choose to hunt down people in the Golden Dragon first, we ran into the annals of the kitchen on the 2nd Floor. Our friend Shiv was familiar with these back ways as he had used them at times when his wife was pregnant and could not walk up the stairs. There we took refuge in a small office. The chef and staff were very accommodating; they served the four of us food and drink, and believe it or not were apologizing for the inconvenience we were suffering.

At this point we were hoping against hope that this was an isolated incident and police/military would arrive soon. In the office was a TV, and we and the staff were able to watch the reporting by local media. We were also able to text and e-mail with others to try to get a sense of what was happening. It became apparent that this was a full fledged terrorist assault on Mumbai. We were hopeful that our obscure location would buy us enough time to make it out safely. For about an hour or so we sat as quietly as possible in the office trying to make sense of the situation unfolding around us.

At that point 10 different locations in Mumbai were under assault, including the police station. There were reports that terrorists had even stolen a police car and were impersonating police - killing people randomly on the street. We thought that while not safe, we were in the safest place possible at that moment. There were also no points of exit from our location and the terrorists seemed to have blocked off many of the entry/exit points so we decided to stay put and hope for the best.

Fortunately in the office was a massive wooden conference table. We had positioned the table 3 feet from the door so that if anything felt amiss we could move it quickly to barricade the door. Suddenly at around 11/11:30 the kitchen went silent, we knew something was wrong. We took the table and slammed it against the door, then turned off all the lights and hid where we thought we would be the most protected from gunshots. There were 5 of us in the room, all of the kitchen staff remained in the kitchen, not one staff member had run, not one.

Suddenly “Slam”, “Slam” the door was trying to be broken down, but the door and our table wouldn’t give. Again, “Slam” “Slam”. Then again, “Slam” “Slam”. We then heard the terrorists asked the chef in Hindi if anyone was inside the office and he responded very calmly “no one is in there it’s empty”. This is the second time the staff saved our lives.
After about 20 minutes passed we heard a slight knock on the door, and a staff member whom, we had been with earlier identified himself in English. Many of the staff then stood in a line and provided safe escort down a corridor to an area called “The Chambers”. The Chambers is an exclusive members only area of the hotel. We were told that The Chambers was the safest place we could be, had been secured off that there as the only two entrances were now guarded by the army.

The mood in The Chambers was relatively calm. There were perhaps 200-300 people in the 6 rooms that comprised The Chambers. Inside, staff was serving sandwiches, alcohol and drinks. People were nervous, but cautiously optimistic. We were told that this was one of the safest places to be in all of South Mumbai. The streets were still unsecure, there had been firing at CST- a major railway station, The Oberoi Hotel and even the Cama Hospital for women and children. The army was at the time was being mobilized more fully.

Then at around 1/1:30 the mood began to get more tense. Some member of parliament had phoned into a live newscast and let the world know that 200+ people were “secure and safe in The Chambers together”. What’s better, he made sure to let it out that there were several CEOs, foreigners, and Members of Parliament in the group. The news station of course made sure to broadcast this fact as well.
Adding to the tension and chaos was the fact that via SMS and cell phones we knew that in the heritage wing of the Taj the dome was on fire and potentially moving downwards.

The staff was becoming increasingly concerned for our safety. At around 2am they decided to attempt an evacuation. We all lined up to head down a dark fire escape exit. Things were going smoothly for about 5 minutes, then grenade blasts and automatic weapon fire pierced the air. A mad stampede ensued to get out of the stairwell and take cover back inside The Chambers.

Having barely survived two chances with death already, my wife and I had discussed and decided that in the event The Chambers got broken into and became a real hostage situation we would hide in different rooms. Whilst wanting to be together if this was to be our end, our primary obligations lay with giving our children the best possible chance of having one parent alive. Given that I am American and my wife Indian, and with news reports stating that the terrorists were targeting US/UK nationals, I believed I was further endangering her life by being with her if we were to get into a hostage situation.

Thus, when we ran back to The Chambers amidst gun volley I fled for a toilet stall and my wife stayed with our friends who fled to a large room across from the toilet stalls. For the next 7 hours I lay in the fetal position on the floor of the stall while my wife huddled silently with close to 100 others, including our friends. We were able to stay in contact via email on our Blackberries. I had one and Anjali was with another friend, Vishal, who was holed up with her who had one as well and he kept in contact with me. We were all dead silent and had all silenced our phones.

Outside The Chambers the slaughter continued. Most of the people in the stairwell got shot and killed and many staff valiantly stayed outside the doors in another attempt to protect the guests. I believe many of the staff that stayed outside the door to lock it perished. At this point there were multiple grenades and volleys of gunfire. It sounded as though the terrorists were engaged in a firefight after having murdered the first evacuees and staff.

The layout of The Chambers has six rooms along two corridors which forms an “L” shape. The corridor that runs east/west had five rooms attached to it and was accessible by the obscure door connected to the escape path referenced earlier. The north/south corridor had one big room on one side and the men’s restroom on the other. I fled to the toilets, Anjali and our friends to the large room connected to the north/south corridor.

Back in The Chambers, the staff had again acted quickly and turned off all the lights as soon as we ran back in. The place was pitch black. Unfortunately, the terrorists once again managed to break into The Chambers via the exit where we were previously trying to evacuate. The next 10 minutes, around 2:30, were extremely frightening. Rather than hearing the volley of fire/counter fire, we could just hear single shots. We would later learn that the terrorists went room by room on the east/west corridor and systematically executed everyone they could: women, elderly, Muslims, Hindus, foreigners, anyone. How they did not manage to enter the other corridor is a miracle – it was the commandos at the other side that kept firing back and saved our lives.

The Indian commandos were on the Southern end of the corridor, Terrorists on the North (remember the east/west corridor connected to the north/south, so after they had butchered all the rooms in the east/west corridor, all they had to do was make a turn around the corner to come after our two rooms). The next 5 hours was comprised of an intense grenade/gun battle between the Indian commandos and the terrorists that was fought in pitch black darkness in which each side was trying to outflank the other. Our lives hung in the balance. Anjali could literally see commandos advancing and retreating feet from her, gunshots and grenade blasts were within feet from her and the others in the big room.

We heard a grenade explosion that seriously injured one commando, but amazingly for the hours that hundreds upon hundreds of rounds were expended no one was seriously injured in this battle.

During this time I was huddled in the fetal position on the floor of one of two toilet stalls in the bathroom. I had picked the toilet stall as the preferred hiding location because if we were in an overt hostage situation the floor to ceiling door could conceal my identity. I was joined in the stall by Joe, a Nigerian national with a US Greencard whose wife had recently divorced him. He had moved to Lagos and was in Mumbai on business. For the next seven hours he sat on the pot (full seat down), me on the floor, and we tried to make sense of the situation.

I had, through a friend, gotten in touch with the FBI via Blackberry, where several agents were helpful in giving me a status update throughout the night. I cannot even begin to explain the level of adrenaline running through my system at this point. It was this hyper aware state where every sound, every smell, every piece of information was ultra acute, analyzed, and processed so we could make the best decision to try to maximize the odds of survival.

Was the fire above us life threatening? What floor was it on? Were the commandos near us, or were they terrorists? Why is it so quiet? Did the commandos survive? If the terrorists come into the bathroom and to the door, when they fire in, how can I make my body as small as possible? If Joe gets killed before me in this situation, how can I throw his body on mine to barricade the door? If the Indian commandos liberate the rest in the other room, how will they know where I am? Do the terrorists have suicide vests? Will the roof stand? How can I make sure the FBI knows where Anjali and I are? When is it safe to stand up and attempt to urinate?

At one point we received an incorrect text saying that the terrorists were killed, Joe went out to check on the situation- he lives in Lagos and is much more fearless than me. He saw 5 commandos in the hallway, then another volley of fire broke out and he dove for cover, eventually retreating back to the bathroom stall with me. 10 minutes later we heard a pin drop and what sounded like an object tossed. We said to each other “grenade” and braced for impact. Fortunately we were wrong; no grenade had been tossed.

Meanwhile Anjali was on the other side of the corridor in the large room with our friends and about 100 others. She and others were in what basically was one continuous mass of people clinging to each other lying on the floor. People barely moved for 7 hours, the last 3 hours they felt it was too unsafe to even text. From her vantage point Anjali could clearly see the commandos advancing/retreating, advancing retreating. Whilst I was tucked behind a couple walls of marble and granite in a bathroom and toilet stall, she was feet from bullets flying back and forth. She was also in the middle of the corridor on one side and the terrace on the other. Gunfire and grenades going off on both ends at some points. Shiv and Reshma were up against the glass terrace doors that was all between us and the terrorists. Ironically, the group right next to Anjali were devout Bori Muslims whom would have been slaughtered just like everyone else. Everyone was in deep prayer and most, Anjali included, had accepted that their lives were likely over.

After several attacks and counter attacks, dawn broke and the commandos were able to successfully secure our corridor. In Anjali’s words “a young gorgeous looking commando” came in just like in a movie and told Anjali and the others in the room to put their hands up. He asked whether anyone had a weapon and was told that no one did and this was a peaceful crowd. He asked them to follow single file to safety. When one woman asked whether it was safe to leave, the commando replied: “Don’t worry, you have nothing to fear, the first bullets have to go through me”.
The scene was one literally out of a movie, like Die Hard. The corridor was laced with broken glass, bullet casings, and debris. Every table was turned over or destroyed. The ceilings and walls were littered with hundreds of bullet holes, blood stains were clear, though fortunately there were no dead bodies to be seen.

A few minutes after Anjali had left, I peeked out of my toilet stall with Joe to see multiple commandos and smiled widely. I had lost my right shoe while sprinting to the toilet so I grabbed a sheet from the floor wrapped it around my foot and proceeded to walk over the glass and debris to the hotel lobby.

On my way out next to me was an older Hindu man who had suffered an abdominal wound. The staff had placed him on a sheet and was holding the sheet to carry him out to safety. He said nothing, though I’m sure he was in agony. However, he was still, his hands were clenched tight in prayer, eyes focused above, and his expression was peaceful. It was as if he had accepted that there was a higher power that would determine his fate. I will never forget the look on his face. For myself, I was scared beyond belief of death. I had no peace, everything I attempted was to try and increase my likelihood of survival. Towards the end when it sounded like perhaps the Indian commandos had been flushed and we were in trouble, my heart was pounding so hard it felt like it could explode. As an aside, even though I hadn’t slept a wink that night, I couldn’t go to sleep until 1am that night- the adrenaline was just that strong.

Anjali and I were reunited in the entrance to the Taj on the ground floor. From there we embraced for the first time in 7 hours. At that point I didn’t know whether she was dead or injured because we hadn’t been able to text for the last 3 hours. By a sheer miracle she was untouched, Vishal was untouched and Shiv and Reshma were untouched. We also knew Amrita and Priya Jhaveri who were in there with us who came out along with us. Amrita’s husband Chris a foreigner as well.

I wanted to take a picture of us on my blackberry – Anjali did not want me to as she wanted us to get out of there before doing anything. She was right - our ordeal wasn’t completely over. A large bus pulled up in front of the Taj and, just about as it was fully loaded gunfire erupted again. The terrorists were still alive and firing automatic weapons at the bus. Anjali was the last to get on the bus as I pushed her up and Vishal pulled her inside – I crouched down separated from her once again. We were all told upon coming out of the hotel that we would be taken to a police station to identify ourselves. However, 30 metres away they were let off the bus as gunfire continued – they ran to the Regal Cinema and into Vishal’s waiting car and away to safety. I ducked under some concrete barriers for cover as the gunfire continued. (It later turned out that pictures of this moment were the ones that made the international news.) Shortly thereafter an ambulance came and drove a few others and me away to safety. An hour later Anjali and I were again reunited at her parents home. Our thanksgiving had just gained a lot more meaning.

Some may say our survival was due to random luck, others due to divine intervention. Being 72 hours removed from these events, I can assure you of only one thing: Far fewer of us would have survived if it weren’t for the extreme selflessness shown by the Taj hotel staff, who organized us, catered to us, then in the end literally died for us. That is not to take away from the extreme bravery and courage of the Indian commandos, who in pitch-black darkness and in unfamiliar, close-quarter terrain valiantly held the terrorists at bay. It is also amazing that amongst our entire group not one person screamed or panicked through the entire ordeal and there was an eerie but quiet calm that pervaded – this is one more thing that got us all out alive. Even people in the adjacent rooms who were being executed kept silent.

This is to remark on the truism that only when faced with the worst of humanity can one witness the best. It is much easier to destroy than to build, yet somehow humanity has managed to build far more than it has ever destroyed. Likewise in a period of crisis it is much easier to find faults and failings, rather than celebrate heroes. It is now time to celebrate our heroes.

[arun]

X Post.

New York Times Editorial links the Mumbai terrorist atack to Pakistan / LeT and call's for action from President Zardari and Gen. Kayani.

December 6, 2008
EDITORIAL

The Pakistan Connection

........ Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, must face up to his country’s involvement — whether official or nearly so. We know his new civilian government is weak, and he may not be able to accede to New Delhi’s demands that all suspects be turned over to India for prosecution.

At a minimum, his government must be ready to arrest and try anyone involved in the attacks, and mete out long jail terms if they are convicted. Islamabad must finally shut down all the Lashkar training camps and recruitment activity.

We also are waiting for a forceful public repudiation of the militant groups from the Army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and his personal pledge that all ties between Pakistan’s military and the extremists will be severed. His silence is deafening. .......

New York Times

[chetak]

Irfan Husain in today's Dawn


http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/mazdak.htm

A very big deal



By Irfan Husain


OFTEN, a gambler who is down to his last pile of chips will bet them all on a worthless hand in a bluff to recover his losses.

Pakistan looked a bit like this desperate poker player when the government announced that it would pull its troops out of the tribal area, where they are engaging Taliban insurgents, in case India moved elements of its army close to the border.

Our soldiers are fighting a dangerous enemy because of an existential threat Pakistan faces in this area, and not because we are doing anybody any favours. But by raising the spectre of an open, undefended border, Pakistan is effectively posing an indirect threat to American and Nato forces in Afghanistan. This implied threat, the government hopes, will cause Washington to bring pressure to bear on New Delhi to stop any escalation of the situation. But the United States has little leverage in India, and currently there is a lot of sympathy for the loss of innocent lives India has suffered during the recent terror attacks in Mumbai.

Years ago, a western diplomat wrote that Pakistan was the only country in the world that negotiates with a gun to its own head. Our argument, long familiar to aid donors, goes something like this: If you don’t give us what we need, the government will collapse and this might result in anarchy, and a takeover by Islamic militants. Left unstated here is the global risk these elements would pose as they would have access to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

We have been getting away with this argument for a long time, mainly because a failed, fragmented Pakistan is everybody’s worst nightmare. There are still Pakistanis around, in and out of uniform, who seriously believe that India secretly would like to see the break-up of their country. They need to wake up to reality. Many Indians have written to me, saying that they are glad India was partitioned in 1947, so it now has fewer Muslims to deal with. More to the point, the last thing India wants is to share a common border with Afghanistan. The turmoil there is unlikely to end anytime soon, and our army would be of far more use on that border, dealing with the militant threat.

While defending Pakistan recently, our foreign minister was quoted as saying that we were a “responsible state”. And when India presented our government with a list of the names of 20 people accused of terrorism against our neighbour, spokesmen immediately demanded to see the proof against them. This legalistic approach would have carried more weight had the Pakistani state shown this kind of respect for the rule of law in the past. But given the frequency with which ordinary Pakistanis are picked up and ‘disappeared’ by organs of the state without any vestige of due process, the claim to responsibility rings a little hollow.

Indeed, a responsible state would hardly allow the likes of Maulana Masood Azhar of the Jaish-i-Mohammad; Hafiz Saeed of the Lashkar-i-Taiba; and the Indian criminal Dawood Ibrahim to run around loose. Every time the West raises a hue and cry following a particularly vicious terrorist attack, a few militant leaders and their followers are picked up, only to be released once the furore has died down. This sends a clear signal to the security agencies that these terrorists are above the law. So why should they risk their lives arresting them, only to see them being released a few weeks later?

A Google search for terrorist groups in Pakistan reveals an appalling who’s who of killers, together with the incidents they have been involved in. Going over this bloody history made me realise just how deeply rooted this problem is in Pakistan. Ever since Gen Zia encouraged the establishment of sectarian and ethnic terror groups, we have witnessed a mushroom growth of terrorism over the last two decades. And since many of these groups have supported military governments from time to time, they have acquired important links in officialdom, as well as with some politicians.

But above all, these groups have been important pawns in the army’s proxy wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Now, having gained prominence as well as financial support, they are not going to disarm and go home just because their existence has become an embarrassment to the Pakistani establishment. It is important to remember that there is now a lot of money flowing into the coffers of these groups. Leaders drive around openly in expensive SUVs, while the rank and file are fairly well paid. These are all people who are not qualified to get the meanest of jobs under normal circumstances.

The existence of these dangerous groups, and the impunity with which they have been operating for two decades, all serve to underline the steady meltdown of the Pakistani state. Instead of treating the cancer of terrorism as a law and order issue, the army has viewed it as a political and military opportunity. Lacking legitimacy and a constituency, both Zia and Musharraf depended on religious groups for support. These parties, in turn, gave militants cover. Thus, the Islamic coalition of the MMA allowed the Taliban to flourish when they governed the Frontier province between 2002 and 2007. We are now struggling with the fallout of their policies.

As we are caught up in this vortex of ideology and violence, we often shoot ourselves in the foot. For instance, when Prime Minister Gilani declared that he would send the head of the ISI to India, this move was widely welcomed. All too soon, however, the reality of the power balance in Pakistan raised its ugly head, and the offer was withdrawn. Clearly, the army did not relish one of its own being placed on the mat in New Delhi. Nevertheless, the instinct was the right one, and had the PM been able to prevail, General Pasha’s mere presence in India could have helped defuse much of the tension.

Many Pakistanis have become so accustomed to terrorist attacks on their soil that they have forgotten that this is not the norm elsewhere. Instead of asking “What’s the big deal?” they should be putting themselves in the place of the victims. If, as seems very likely, the group that attacked Mumbai was trained and armed by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-i-Taiba, it is a very big deal indeed.

[email protected]

[milindc]

All the 'pro-terrorist' HR activists are now out of woods.
On NDTV, Meena Menon (self proclaimed ex-Naxalite) says that 'War is not option' and we need to look at root causes.
Sreenivasan Jain the anchor of the show says we don't want to be 'War Mongers'...

[vsudhir]

India acknowledges errors in response to attacks (IHT)

Somany Somini-isms onlee

That anger has been directed in part at India's neighbor, Pakistan, where Indian and American officials believe the attackers received training, and Manmohan said on Friday that other countries around the world should now confront Pakistan over the alleged presence of terrorists on its soil.

Meanwhile, evidence linking the attackers to Pakistan builds. Fresh evidence unearthed by investigators in India has indicated that the Mumbai attacks were stage-managed from at least two Pakistani cities by top leaders of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Indian and American intelligence officials have already identified a Lashkar operative, who goes by the name Yusuf Muzammil, as a mastermind of the attacks. On Thursday, Indian investigators named one of the most well-known senior figures in Lashkar, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi.

The names of both men came from the interrogations of the one surviving attacker, Muhammad Ajmal Kasab, 21, according to police officials in Mumbai.

While Muzammil appears to have served as a control officer in Lahore, Pakistan, Lakhvi, his boss and the operational commander of Lashkar, worked from Karachi, a southern Pakistani port city, said investigators in Mumbai.

While Indian officials have pointed a finger directly at Pakistani elements, terrorism experts and some Western officials warned that the emerging sketch of the plotters was still preliminary and could broaden even to include militants within India. India, too, has a long history of antagonism with Pakistan.

Today it [LeT] is technically banned in Pakistan but operates openly through affiliates. Its links to Al Qaeda remain murky, as does the extent of its current ties to Pakistan's main spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI.

[animesharma]

Years ago, a western diplomat wrote that Pakistan was the only country in the world that negotiates with a gun to its own head. Our argument, long familiar to aid donors, goes something like this: If you don’t give us what we need, the government will collapse and this might result in anarchy, and a takeover by Islamic militants. Left unstated here is the global risk these elements would pose as they would have access to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

[jahaju]

Why in India is everybody afraid of attacking?

MKG has made a lasting impact on us where we will always profer our other cheek and not even bother to atleast stop offering our 2nd cheek, foget about attacking.

[Gerard]

link

Based on a telegram from Reuters, The Times, on September 27, 1947, under the headline "Mr. Gandhi on 'war' with Pakistan" reported:
"Mr. Gandhi told his prayer meeting to-night that, though he had always opposed all warfare, if there was no other way of securing justice from Pakistan and if Pakistan persistently refused to see its proved error and continued to minimise it, the Indian Union Government would have to go to war against it. No one wanted war, but he could never advise anyone to put up with injustice. If all Hindus were annihilated for a just cause he would not mind. If there was war, the Hindus in Pakistan could not be fifth columnists. If their loyalty lay not with Pakistan they should leave it. Similarly Muslims whose loyalty was with Pakistan should not stay in the Indian Union."

[NRao]

Mumbai has some cool company.

New York's top cop warns of copycat Mumbai attacks

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Police Commissioner Ray Kelly warned Friday of possible copycat attacks in the wake of last week's massacre in Mumbai, India.

"In many ways, the city of Mumbai bears striking similarities to New York," Kelly told reporters. "It is the country's financial capital, a densely populated cultural metropolis and a hub for the media ... all of these features make it a compelling target."

On November 26, a group of armed gunmen conducted a series of coordinated attacks throughout the Indian city, leaving 179 people dead and hundreds more injured.

Kelly's remarks came at a news conference where he and the department's chief intelligence officers issued security recommendations to New York hotels and other "soft targets."

Lt. Mario Rivera, of the department's intelligence division, recommended hotels have an emergency action plan, take protective measures and be vigilant of suspicious behavior.

Kelly said the attack "reminds us that the threat of international Islamic extremism shows no signs of abating."

[NRao]

Zakaria: India's restrained response is working..for now

[NRao]

Mumbai terror investigators quiz cellphone dealers

[NRao]

NYTimes :: Police Foiled Earlier Plot Against Mumbai

By ROBERT F. WORTH and HARI KUMAR
Published: December 5, 2008

MUMBAI, India — The Indian police foiled an attempt to destroy landmarks and wreak havoc in Mumbai early this year, breaking up a cell of Pakistani and Indian men who were directed by the same two Pakistan-based militant leaders they have accused of organizing last week’s devastating attacks here, the police said.

The foiled plot also involved Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani group accused of last week’s attacks, the police said. That suggests that the militant group conceived its plan long in advance and that it has made deeper contacts with radical Indian Muslims than investigators have been willing to concede.

It also pointed up another significant security lapse by Indian intelligence and police forces, who months ago had glimpses of a blueprint for the Mumbai attacks and even a strong indication of the intended targets.

Investigators have said they were looking into the possibility that the men who carried out last week’s assault — all believed to be Pakistani — had local, Indian accomplices.

They have not found any so far but say they are looking at one of the men in the foiled plot, Faheem Ahmed Ansari, an Indian from Mumbai, as a possible suspect. Officials said that he and five men suspected as co-plotters were initially arrested in connection with an attack on a police camp in northern India.

After his arrest, Mr. Ansari told investigators he had also carried out reconnaissance of targets in Mumbai.

It is not clear whether that research played a role in the planning of last week’s attacks, which authorities now say killed 163 people.

The six men who were arrested are still being held by the authorities. Mr. Ansari was detained in February.

Mr. Ansari was caught with hand-drawn sketches of 8 to 10 Mumbai landmarks, apparently based on his reconnaissance trips, said Amitabh Yash, the superintendent of the special police task force in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where the men were arrested.

He and the other accused men had AK-47 rifles, pistols, grenades and ammunition, Mr. Yash added, the same kinds of weapons carried by the 10 known attackers who terrorized Mumbai last week.

Other similarities in the plots are striking. The six men suspected in the February plot were accused of plotting an assault on Mumbai’s main train station — one of the first targets struck last week — along with the city’s stock exchange, major hotels and other sites.

Like the men in last week’s attack, members of the earlier group did not expect to return alive, they told investigators.

They also told the police they had been directed by two Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders: Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi, and a man known alternately as Yusuf or Muzammil, documents show.

Those two men planned and coordinated last week’s attacks, and continued to guide at least 10 men who carried out the assault by phone as it unfolded, investigators in India say.

After his arrest, one of the six men told investigators he had received four months of training from Pakistan’s main spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, the police said.

Indian police officials said they had not been able to verify the claim.

The ISI helped found Lashkar-e-Taiba two decades ago, though its current links to the group, which has been officially banned, were not clear. The belief that the spy agency is colluding with Pakistan-based terrorists is nearly universal in India.

India has not accused the Pakistani government of a hand in the Mumbai attacks, but it has furnished evidence of Lashkar’s involvement, and it has pressed Pakistan to act decisively against the group.

With public anger at Pakistan swelling here in India, tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals have risen to a level not seen in years.

Lashkar has denied any role in the attacks. But it has been trying in recent years to recruit more Indian Muslims to its cause, Indian officials said. It has been aided by local communal grievances against the Hindu majority, as well as the global growth of hard-line Islamism.

During the assault last week, one of the attackers is said to have mentioned a 2002 Hindu massacre of Muslims before killing one of the hostages, in an apparent attempt to identify his cause with that of Indian Muslims.

A senior American counterterrorism official said it was highly likely that local accomplices were involved. “They couldn’t have gotten to the places they did without local help,” the official said, speaking on the condition on anonymity because of the continuing inquiry. “They just moved too quickly. They had to have had more assistance on the ground.”

The American official said the investigation’s review on the site of where the attackers came ashore and any evidence recovered from the bodies of the dead gunmen may reveal additional clues regarding any local support.

After his arrest in February, Mr. Ansari told investigators he grew up in Mumbai, and in 2006 moved to Saudi Arabia for work, like many young Indians. An imam at the local mosque inspired him with talk of jihad.

Later, Lashkar recruiters approached him, and before long he was traveling by sea to Pakistan, where he underwent physical, military and intelligence training in Lashkar camps, Mr. Yash, the police task force leader, said. He was given a Pakistani passport and other documents to ease his movements.

Mr. Yash added that interrogations of Mr. Ansari and his fellow suspects “told us a lot about the interactions of Lashkar and the ISI,” he said “They were absolutely intertwined.”

Under the direction of Mr. Lakhvi, the Lashkar commander, Mr. Ansari traveled to Mumbai in the autumn of 2007 to begin doing reconnaissance for an attack, officials said. Later, they said, he took part in a Dec. 31 attack on a police headquarters in Rampur, 100 miles northwest of Delhi, in which seven policemen were killed.

By that time, he was part of a team of Lashkar militants: three from the Indian city of Lucknow; one from Bihar, in northern India; and the two Pakistanis, officials said.

The leader was an Indian Muslim named Saba’uddin Ahmed, a well-educated young man from an affluent family in Bihar. He was the one who had been given four months of training by an ISI operative, in addition to an earlier round of training in Lashkar camps, according to police documents.

Mr. Ahmed had also been involved in at least one prior mission, documents say: an attack on the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore in 2005 in which a scientist was killed.

After the attack on the police headquarters in Rampur, “we were told to go to Mumbai to do the suicide operation,” Mr. Ansari told the police, according to a charge sheet drawn up after his arrest.

Speaking in Mumbai on Friday, India’s new home minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, admitted that there had been “lapses” in the way India handled the crisis and said his government was trying to “improve the effectiveness of the security systems.”

Anger over last week’s attacks has been directed not only at neighboring Pakistan but also squarely at India’s own government for not having done more to prevent the attacks. In the most public outrage so far, tens of thousands have marched in Mumbai and other cities across the country.

“The people of India feel a sense of hurt and anger as never before,” the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, said in New Delhi.

[NRao]

NYTimes :: Mumbai Attack Is Test for Pakistan on Curbing Militants


A Pakistani in Islamabad on Wednesday shouted slogans against the United States and India.

By JANE PERLEZ and SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: December 3, 2008

LAHORE, Pakistan — Mounting evidence of links between the Mumbai terrorist attacks and a Pakistani militant group is posing the stiffest test so far of Pakistan’s new government, raising questions whether it can — or wants to — rein in militancy here.

President Asif Ali Zardari says his government has no concrete evidence of Pakistani involvement in the attacks, and American officials have not established a direct link to the government. But as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice landed in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Thursday morning, pressure was building on the government to confront the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which Indian and American officials say carried out the Mumbai attacks.

Though officially banned, the group has hidden in plain sight for years. It has had a long history of ties to Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. The evidence of its hand in the Mumbai attacks is accumulating from around the globe:

¶A former Defense Department official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that American intelligence analysts suspect that former officers of Pakistan’s powerful spy agency and its army helped train the Mumbai attackers.

¶According to the Indian police, the one gunman who survived the terrorist attacks, Muhammad Ajmal Kasab, 21, told his interrogators that he trained during a year and half in at least four camps in Pakistan and at one met with Mohammad Hafeez Saeed, the Lashkar-e-Taiba leader.

¶And according to a Western official familiar with the investigation in Mumbai, another Lashkar leader, Yusuf Muzammil, whom the surviving gunman named as the plot’s organizer, fielded phone calls in Lahore from the attackers.

Many of the charges against Lashkar originate from investigators in India, which has a long history of hostility with Pakistan. The United States shares an interest with India in shutting down Pakistani militant groups that pose threats to its soldiers in Afghanistan.

Today, Lashkar-e-Taiba, whose name means “army of the pure,” operates openly in Lahore. Its militant wing, Western officials say, has used camps in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and Pakistan’s tribal areas to change from a group once focused primarily on Kashmir into one now determined to join the ranks of a global jihad. The Mumbai attacks, which included foreigners among its targets, seemed to fit the group’s evolving emphasis.

The 63-year-old Mr. Saeed lives in a large compound that includes a cream-colored mosque that faces on to a bustling commercial street. A sign outside says Center of Qadsisiyah, a triumphant reference to the place where the Arabs defeated the Persians in the seventh century.

A spokesman for Mr. Saeed, Muhammad Yahya Mujahid, denied in an interview on Wednesday that Mr. Saeed was involved in the Mumbai attacks, and described the Indian demand that he be turned over along with 19 others as “propaganda.”

“India wants him because he exposes India on Kashmir and on water closure,” Mr. Mujahid said, referring to Pakistani complaints about India cutting off water sources to Pakistan.

The group’s public face, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, runs Islamic schools and charity works and maintains a 75-acre campus about 15 miles north of Lahore, at Muridke, he said. Since 9/11, he added, “The scene has changed and the relationship is not so good with the establishment.”

According to Western intelligence officials, Lashkar was formed in 1989 with the assistance of Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency, with Mr. Saeed as its head collaborator.

How far that relationship extends today remains a topic of intense debate, Western officials said. Critics in Pakistan of the ISI maintain that the intelligence agency still protects Lashkar.

Though established as a proxy force to fight India in Kashmir, Lashkar has since turned itself into a transnational group, officials say. Today it has cells in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan’s tribal areas, and a few of its fighters have even turned up in Iraq, officials said.

Whether the group has come under the influence of Al Qaeda is uncertain.

“We’re not saying there’s a direct hand in it but you have to think there’s some learning going on, emulation going on, there are influences or contacts of some kind,” a senior American official said.

India security officials say that while Lashkar remains active in Indian-administered Kashmir, violent militant activities there have fallen significantly in recent years.

Accounts from the captured gunman in Mumbai as well as those from a former Lashkar fighter who spoke with The New York Times provided glimpses of its recruitment methods and how the Mumbai attacks were planned.

According to Rakesh Maria, the chief of the crime branch of the Mumbai police, the surviving gunman, Mr. Kasab, came from a village called Faridkot, in Punjab. The son of a laborer, he dropped out of school after fourth grade and moved to Lahore to join an older brother and make a living as a day laborer.

There, he told investigators, he was recruited into Lashkar.

One of the camps he attended was in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, where Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Lashkar affiliate, did relief work after a big earthquake in 2005.

There were roughly 25 people, sometimes more, in each camp, said Deven Bharti, a police commissioner in Mumbai. Whether some of them were being prepared for other attacks on other targets, in India or elsewhere, is not known. “We can’t rule it out,” Mr. Bharti said.

Mr. Kasab received training in handling arms, navigating the sea and survival techniques. He was shown Google Earth maps and video images of his targets. At one of the sessions, he told interrogators, Mr. Saeed, the Lashkar leader, gave a motivational speech, covering a host of pan-Islamic grievances from Palestinian territory to Iraq to Kashmir.

A GPS navigational device was found on the boat that the gunmen used to get close to Mumbai, before killing its captain and abandoning it in the Arabian Sea. The GPS device showed that they left Karachi on Nov. 23.

He knew only limited information about his conspirators, Mr. Bharti said. He did not know whether there were plans to attack other targets. “He was only a foot soldier,” Mr. Bharti said.

He was given an AK-47, a pistol, grenades and 5,400 rupees, about $110. The police said they were still looking into whether they had collaborators who helped them plot the attack beforehand, or during the day of the siege. The police dismissed earlier reports that they had rented rooms earlier and positioned weapons.

Mr. Bharti said that the information Mr. Kasab had provided so far had checked out, including his most recent tip: that he and a partner, Ismail Khan, had abandoned a bag with a 17-pound bomb at Victoria Terminus, also known as Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the railway station where they began their killing spree. The police recovered the bag on Wednesday.

But much remains unclear or unknown about him. A strict practice among the trainers of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the former Lashkar fighter told The Times, was a system of changing the names of the members every few months, so that everyone had layers of names that were discarded over time.

That system was intended to make it very difficult to identify members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, and is a likely explanation why Pakistani investigators have had little luck in finding Mr. Kasab’s family in Faridkot.

The former fighter, who comes from the tribal areas of Pakistan, said he joined Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2000, stayed for eight months, then switched to another group, Jaish-e-Muhammad, for “ideological reasons.”

He said that retired Pakistani Army officers impressed with Lashkar’s ideology joined its ranks as volunteers. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be identified to his former associates.

According to the former fighter, some members of Lashkar moved to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, particularly the Mohmand region, close to the city of Peshawar.

The group focused on waging war against India, he said, but was also committed to wider goals, among them the creation of an Islamic state in south and central Asia.

At its start in 1989, Osama bin Laden was widely reported to have been a financial supporter. Since 2002, Lashkar trainers have worked closely with Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, according to Seth Jones, an expert on militant groups at the RAND Corporation who has spent time in Afghanistan.

Their presence has increased in Afghanistan in the last year, Mr. Jones said. “They have had small numbers of fighters embed with local Afghan units on the ground such as the Taliban to gain combat experience and improve their tactics, techniques and procedures,” he said.

Lashkar was banned under strong American pressure in 2002. Since then, Mr. Saeed disassociated himself from Lashkar, said his spokesman, Mr. Mujahid. Lashkar was now an “operational wing” to fight in Kashmir — its fighters no longer under Mr. Saeed’s control.

Asked if he knew the operational commander of Lashkar, Mr. Mujahid waved his hand dismissively, and said he was in Kashmir.

He also denied even knowing the name of Mr. Muzammil, the man identified by the Indian authorities as the person in charge of the Mumbai operation.

“Everyone who was interested in Kashmir, went to Kashmir,” he said. “They are doing there what they have to do.”

[jrjrao]

The Game Changer
December 6, 2008
Pakistani Islamists hope the Mumbai massacre will tame Barack Obama and diminish Indian influence, writes Christopher Kremmer.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/12/ ... 18410.html

Whoever planned the Mumbai massacre - and it was planned, funded and executed by some group in Pakistan - the murders of at least 188 people and paralysis of India's largest city were intended to change geopolitics.

Topping the shortlist of suspects are al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the Pakistan Government and intelligence and security services, or rogue elements within those services working with Islamist extremists. But what would anyone in Pakistan stand to gain from a terrorist plot so easily traced to that country? And why has Pakistani culpability met with such a muted response from India and the West?

Pakistan is one of those countries - Israel another - for which a benign foreign policy environment is seen as essential to national survival. The stunted offspring of the Partition of the British Raj, Pakistan is doomed to live in India's shadow.

During the Cold War - in which Pakistan sided unreservedly with the United States, while India played footsie with the Soviets - Islamabad's existential fear of its neighbour was balanced by the confidence that only a friendly White House can give. But since the red menace evaporated and the West became a target of South Asia-based terrorists, Pakistan is less secure. The West's embrace of India as an economic and strategic balance to China has exacerbated Pakistan's insecurity.

The American alliance provided Pakistan with some immunity against India. Islamabad's politically-dominant army and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) used or worked closely with a variety of extremists bent on fuelling secessionist violence in parts of India, including Punjab and Kashmir. America even turned a blind eye to Pakistan's covert nuclear program from the 1970s until the early 1990s, when America's victory in Afghanistan led powerful figures in Washington to believe they did not need Pakistan any more, and economic and military aid was cut off.

Fast forward to September 2001 when al-Qaeda and the Taliban attacked the US. Having backed the Taliban in Afghanistan and worked hand in glove with armed Islamists in the 1999 Kargil invasion of Indian-controlled Kashmir, Pakistan was caught hand in cookie jar. Only when General Pervez Musharraf agreed to join the so-called War On Terror did America forgive its sins.

But controllers of Pakistan's security services always regarded that as a mere tactical retreat. Since the time of an earlier military ruler, the late General Zia ul-Haq, the country's ruling elite retained a barely concealed contempt for an American superpower that spent hundreds of billions of dollars buying their friendship. They were confident the West would eventually see the wisdom of subcontracting to Pakistan the messy business of South Asia security. The lavish and misplaced lauding of Musharraf as a hero in the War on Terror illustrated the tendency. But this year, Pakistan's confidence in its ability to set the terms of engagement was badly shaken. American strikes went ahead on al-Qaeda and Taliban forces based in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas despite Islamabad's vociferous protests. Meanwhile, India revived its diplomatic influence in an Afghanistan long regarded by Islamabad as an unofficial province of Pakistan. Adding to hardline alarm has been the vocal adventurism of Pakistan's new president - Asif Ali Zadari, widower of former leader Benazir Bhutto.

He recently pledged to shake up the ISI and uttered the ultimate apostasy by declaring Pakistan had nothing to fear from India and should have warm relations with New Delhi.

The Mumbai attack was designed to wreck rapprochement with India and replace it with military crisis. The same strategy underpinned the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament - an attempt to murder the entire Indian government.

The key suspects for Mumbai all want the US to halt military strikes on Pakistani soil. They want to undermine Western resolve to stay in Afghanistan, thereby facilitating Pakistani suzerainty there. The strike on Mumbai was meticulously planned and expensive, with the foot soldiers getting the sort of specialist training usually restricted to commandos. Above all, it was exquisitely timed to tame two new presidents.

Pakistan's Zardari will find it difficult to pursue his peace and domestic reform agenda in the face of rising tensions with India. And Barack Obama finds his country plunged into another looming crisis in South Asia, one tailor-made to circumscribe his options so that his policy ultimately serves a Pakistan wedded to a chaotic and bloody status quo.

No sooner had India blamed Pakistan than Pakistan threatened to shift to the Indian border military forces fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda - a threat guaranteed to send shivers down the Washington spine.

Panic, of course, is the wrong reaction, as is naivety. Nothing moves in Pakistan without ISI knowledge. The Mumbai massacre could not have been set in train in Pakistan without assistance of the security and intelligence establishment, past or present.

It has taken Pakistan decades to become the sovereign equivalent of a suicide bomber: "Do what we say or we'll blow ourselves up - and take everyone else with us!" Who would call the bluff? Nobody wants to see self-immolation of a country of 170 million people with nuclear weapons.

As always, India will be expected to swallow pain and turn a blind eye to the escape of the back room perpetrators. The more strident New Delhi's reaction, the more it suits the planners of this outrage. But the bitter pill of restraint will be made more palatable for India if it results in closer diplomatic, military and intelligence co-operation aimed at containing the Pakistan problem.

Events like Mumbai are rarely the work of wounded idealists. They are cynical acts of mass murder designed to achieve specific political outcomes. There is method in this madness, but also desperation.

Pakistani extremists - in and out of uniform - want to scare us out of the region and hold hostage to Pakistan indulgence our improving relations with India.

By staying the course, by building a stronger, better targeted international military presence in Afghanistan, by deepening our economic and security ties with India, and by working patiently and methodically to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism in South Asia, we deny the massacre architects their most heartfelt desire, and best serve the security of millions of decent people everywhere, including our own.