Mumbai

[fluffhead]

What on earth is going on!!! Insurgents from one nuclear power attack another nuclear power....this is scary stuff.
my daughter's classmate is the cousin of the rabbi who was murdered with his wife. My daughter doesn't know yet, but I'm sure she will on monday. Hard to explain this to a 6 year old.
So some people justify indiscriminant firing of rockets from Gaza into Sderot day care centers in the name of justice. Is this along the same lines?

[Meenah]

Re: Mumbai

Very tragic. I'm enbarrassed to admit that I didn't know that Mumbai is the former Bombay

[Rapunzel]

Re: Mumbai

According to news reports the Indian military is saying that a satellite phone recovered from one of the terrorists they killed showed calls to the capital of Pakistan immediately before and immediately after the attacks began. Additionally, the military intelligence from India is saying that the terrorists were definitely speaking in a native Pakistani language when they thought they couldn't be heard. They spoke in what was described as Kashmiri accents and at least two spoke with British accents and have been identified as Pakistani's from Britain. Additionally, two of the captured terrorists have told Indian intelligence that they are part of a Pakistani Islamic terrorist group - and the name "Decca Mujahideen" (sp?) is nothing more than a front name for that group.

It's looking like this is a Pakistani group.

160+ people dead and 340+ people wounded is the last total I saw. A city of 18 million has been shut down for two days - including the Bombay stock exchange. This qualifies as India's "9-11".

DH's comment: Maybe Obama is right to specifically target Pakistan when mentioning military intervention (specifically shutting down Islamic terrorism).

[Cumberland]

Re: Mumbai

160+ people dead and 340+ people wounded is the last total I saw. A city of 18 million has been shut down for two days - including the Bombay stock exchange. This qualifies as India's "9-11".

209 people were killed in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings and 700 were injured. 329 were killed when Air India flight 182 was bombed in 1985. The Indian embassy in Kabul was attacked by a suicide bomber in 2008 and 60 were killed. India and Pakistan have a long, long history of aggression towards each other.

Freedom at Midnight is an excellent book describing the partition of India into Pakistan and East Bengal/Bangladesh. It definitely gives insight into how either side could be unable to forgive the other for the atrocities that were committed.

It is strange to think that I had dinner once a week or so at Cafe Leopold and walked through the shops in the lobby of the Taj Hotel a little more than two years ago. India is a high energy, emotional place to be on a normal day, I am sure it must be extremely intense right now.

[McPants]

Re: Mumbai

As much tension as exists between Pakistan and India, I don't see any reason to believe that this is an act of warfare by Pakistani forces, but rather a terrorist act. So as long as India's government remains civilized, the risk of nuclear warfare remains very low.

I think the reason why the U.S. props up the Pakistani government is to keep the country's leadership from becoming as anti-western as its population is. Because of this, I wonder if withdrawing U.S. support for the government will cause anything positive except for saving some money.

Given that Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons, I would strongly advise against U.S. military interventions against the country.

[Rapunzel]

Re: Mumbai

Mumbai Killer's Confession:

MUMBAI, Nov 30 - A sensational revelation has emerged from a terrorist caught alive by Indian troops: The attack on Mumbai's top hotels was meant to be India's Sept 11.

Azam Amir Kasav - some reports have his name as Ajmal Amir Kasab - confessed that part of the plot called for him and his fellow terrorists to carry out a replay of the destruction of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel, in targeting Mumbai's Taj Mahal Hotel.

The Marriott was blown up by militants in September, an attack that killed more than 50 people.

According to a report in The Times of India, Azam said the attacks on the Taj and The Oberoi Trident were aimed to create a "Sept 11 in India", a reference to the coordinated attacks by Al-Qaeda on the United States in 2001. They involved the crashing of hijacked planes into the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon that left nearly 3,000 people dead.

The confessions of the clean-shaven, fluent English-speaking 21-year-old Pakistani have given investigators a clearer picture of what had happened last Wednesday.

Azam said he was member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, but the Kashmir- based Pakistani militant group has denied any role in the attacks.

Founded as a guerilla group to fight the Indian army in Kashmir, the group was banned by the Pakistani government after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks, but reportedly continues to enjoy the backing of some Pakistani politicians and security officials.

A native of Faridkot in Pakistan- occupied Kashmir, Azam revealed the names of his fellow terrorists, all Pakistani citizens: Abu Ali, Fahad, Omar, Shoaib, Umer, Abu Akasha, Ismail, Abdul Rahman (Bara) and Abdul Rahman (Chhota).

But the 10 men were apparently not the only ones directly involved: Another group, he claimed, had checked themselves into hotels four days before, waiting with weapons and ammunition they had stockpiled in the rooms.

The 10 men in Azam's group were chosen well: All were trained in marine warfare and had undergone a special course conducted by the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Preparations were also detailed, and started early.

Azam and eight others in the team made a reconnaissance trip to Mumbai several months before the attacks, pretending to be Malaysian students. They rented an apartment at Colaba market, near one of their targets, the Nariman House.

The chief planner of the attacks also visited Mumbai a month before to take photographs and film strategic locations, including the hotel layouts.

Returning to Pakistan, the chief plotter trained the group, telling them to 'kill till the last breath'.

Surprisingly, the men did not expect themselves to be suicide terrorists. Azam said they had originally planned to sail back on Thursday - the recruiters had even charted out a return route, stored on a GPS device.

On the evening of Nov 21, Azam's group set off from an isolated creek in Karachi in a boat. The next day, a large Pakistani vessel with four Pakistanis and crew picked them up, whereupon the group was issued arms and ammunition.

Each man in the assault team was handed six to seven magazines of 50 bullets each, eight hand grenades, one AK-47 assault rifle, an automatic loading revolver, credit cards and a supply of dried fruit. They were, as some media put it, in for the long haul.

A day later, the team came across an Indian-owned trawler, Kuber, which they boarded. They killed four of the fishermen onboard, dumped their bodies into the sea, and forced its skipper Amarjit Singh to sail for India.

The next day, they beheaded the skipper, and one of the gunmen, a trained sailor, took the wheel and headed for the shores of Gujarat, India.

Near Gujarat, the terrorists raised a white flag as two officers of the coast guard approached.

While the officers questioned them, one of the terrorists grappled with one of them, slit his throat and threw his body into the boat. The group then ordered the other officer to help them get to Mumbai.

On Nov 26, the team reached the Mumbai coast.

Four nautical miles out, they were met by three inflatable speedboats. They killed the other coast guard officer, transferred into the speedboats and proceeded to Colaba jetty as dusk settled.

The Kuber was found later with the body of the 30-year-old captain onboard.

At Badhwar Park in Cuffe Parade - just three blocks away from Nariman House - the 10 men got off, stripped off the orange windbreakers they had been wearing and made sure to take out their large, heavy backpacks.

It was there that they were spotted by fisherman Prasan Dhanur, who was preparing his boat, and harbour official Kashinath Patil, 72, who was on duty nearby.

"Where are you going?" Patil asked them. "What's in your bags?"

The men replied: "We don't want any attention. Don't bother us."

Thinking little of it, Dhanur and Patil, who said they did not see the guns hidden in the backpacks, did not call the police, and watched the 10 young men walk away.

Then the carnage started.

On hitting the ground, the 10 men broke up.

Four men headed for the Taj Mahal Hotel, two for The Oberoi Trident, two for Nariman House and two - Azam and Ismail - for the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus by taxi.

At the railway station, Azam and his colleague opened fire, targeting Caucasian tourists while trying to spare Muslims.

The two gunmen also destroyed the CCTV control room, throwing grenades into it.

It was here that Azam was photographed, dressed in light-grey combat trousers and sneakers, a rucksack on his back, toting his AK-47.

According to one security expert, the way he carried the assault rifle revealed months of training.

The two men left the main hall of the railway station littered with bodies and pools of blood, then moved on to Metro Cinema and then to the Girgaum Chowpatty area in a stolen Skoda.

It was there that their plans started to unravel.

At the Girgaum Chowpatty area, Azam and Ismail were intercepted by anti-terror troops from the Gamdevi police station, and they ended up trading shots.

Azam managed to shoot dead assistant police inspector Tukaram Umbale, while one of them also gunned down anti-terror squad chief Hemant Karkare.

Ismail, however, was eventually killed, while Azam himself was shot in the hand. Pretending to be dead, he fell, and the two men were taken to Nair Hospital.

But police soon spotted him breathing and quickly evacuated the hospital's casualty ward, and brought in the anti-terror squad to interrogate him.

At first, Azam remained tight-lipped, but the sight of Ismail's mutilated body broke his resolve.

Pleading with medical staff to save his life, he said: "I do not want to die. Please put me on saline."

The bullet in his hand was removed, and after his condition had stabilised, Azam was moved to another location on Thursday for more interrogation.

Reports, however, say that the grilling at the hospital had been so intense that at one point, he pleaded with the police and medical staff to kill him.

He said: "Now, I don't want to live." - The Straits Times

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/inde ... n-students

The group that purportedly trained these terrorists is an Islamic terrorist group that has, in the past, received help and training from Pakistani intelligence services. There is no knowledge that Pakistani intelligence organizations of any sort helped plan or carry out the attack at this point, however. See http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/00 ... 291131.htm for more information.

Also see:

Lashkar-e-Taiba denied any responsibility on Thursday for the terrorist strikes. American intelligence agencies have said that the group has received some training and logistical support in the past from Pakistan’s powerful spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or I.S.I., and that Pakistan’s government has long turned a blind eye to Lashkar-e-Taiba camps in the Kashmir region, a disputed territory over which India and Pakistan have fought two wars.

Found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/world ... intel.html

[Vishenka69]

Re: Mumbai

What I don't get is why India didn't ask for Israeli and US help? Teams were flown in but were waiting to be officially asked for help. Everything could have been over much sooner if Indian army/police admitted that they were in over their head. According to BBC they didn't know the layout of either hotel and didn't have night-vision equipment (among other things).

[McPants]

Re: Mumbai

What I don't get is why India didn't ask for Israeli and US help? Teams were flown in but were waiting to be officially asked for help. Everything could have been over much sooner if Indian army/police admitted that they were in over their head. According to BBC they didn't know the layout of either hotel and didn't have night-vision equipment (among other things).

Prestige presumably. I think most countries would hesitate to allow foreign forces to act on their soil unless they're absolutely certain they won't be able to cope without them.

[Momo]

Re: Mumbai

What an amzing survivor/woman/mother /wife...Anjali Pollack inspite of the horror she endured she get's it.
Please listen to this clip,especially the last 45 seconds.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6366075

[fluffhead]

Re: Mumbai

The clip was very moving. If the muslim world were as forthcoming with unqualified condemnation of this type of thing, we might make some progress. I hear alot of "this is not right, because it gives people a negative view of Islam" and not much of "it's bad to kill innocent people. period"
Here's a nice editorial in today's nyt
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/opini ... ef=opinion

[Rapunzel]

Re: Mumbai

This piece in Der Spiegel is quite interesting:

India Is Pointing in the Right Direction

By Claus Christian Malzahn
Mumbai a terror zone, and India bitterly points its finger at Pakistan. The unloved neighbor needs all the help the West can offer. Pakistan is nearly a failed state -- and a US invasion under President Obama can't be ruled out.

It is still not clear who exactly carried out the terror attacks in Mumbai this week. But the actions speak for themselves. The murderers expressly went after Britons, Americans and Jews. In the world's largest democracy, attacks were carried out by a determined minority against the will of an overwhelming majority. The crimes bear the clear and bloody fingerprints of militant, political Islamism.

The uncomfortable resonance left behind by the series of attacks is that the criminals were almost omnipotent: They could strike where, when and -- almost -- whomever they wanted. The terror didn't just claim its victims in one awful moment; it spread out and lasted for days. There was a similar feeling during the terror attacks on the living quarters of Westerners in Saudi Arabia in 2004 as well as the battle at Pakistan's Red Mosque, in the center of Islamabad. But this time the terror overtook an entire city.

The attacks struck the heart of an Indian civil society that has always functioned fairly well, despite recurring conflicts between the country's Hindu majority and Muslim minority. The terror struck a country that is closely allied, politically and economically, with the West. The terrorists' mission can be neatly summarized: political, economic and cultural destabilization of the whole subcontinent.
The attacks were an attempt to spread religious war from the whole of Afghanistan and regions of Pakistan to their southern neighbor, India. It's obvious the terrorists follow the ideology of al-Qaida, though it's unclear whether the head of that organization gave orders for this mission. Perhaps we'll never know -- it wouldn't be the first time. But we can assume the murderers from Mumbai see themselves as part of an international movement in which Zawahiri and bin Laden hold high ranks.

Now the population of India, shocked to the core by the brutality, is pointing unmistakably in one direction: to the northwest. "Elements with links to Pakistan" are responsible for the massacre, says India's foreign minister. Several terrorists have Pakistani backgrounds, say Indian officials, though the government has so far presented no firm evidence. But a lack of evidence does not mean Pakistan had nothing to do with the well-planned attacks.

On the contrary: The Indian embassy in Kabul was made the target of a bloody attack earlier this summer. Western intelligence services have traced the attackers in that case back to the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI. Pakistani groups in the past have often been responsible for terror attacks in India. Of course, there are also "homegrown" jihadists in India as well. But in Pakistan, above all in its tribal area near the border with Afghanistan, these fighters have the territory they need to plan the spread of their war beyond its local confines.

There have been three major wars between the two countries since 1947, when Britain withdrew and the protectorate was divided into Pakistan and India. There have also been a number of smaller armed conflicts, most recently in 1999. Even when the fighting ceases, a deep mistrust abides. The political mottos in this conflict might be summed up as, "My enemy's enemy is my friend," and "What hurts my neigbor is good for me."

These maxims, born from deep enmity, were familiar in Europe in the 19th century, when every nation thought it was better than its neighbor. But on the Indian subcontinent 21st century Islamist terrorism has to be added as a decisive political factor to these kinds of parochial ideas.

Brainwashing for the Holy War

Nevertheless, Pakistan's foreign minister offered India his help on Friday. He pledged to send the head of the ISI to share information with his Indian counterparts. These are praiseworthy developments, but it will take more than words to prevent attacks like those in Mumbai from happening again.

Even if the governments in New Delhi and Islamabad have cautiously begun to discuss their core differences, like the status of Kashmir, and even if telegrams of sympathy are sent from Islamabad to Mumbai and New Delhi, the benefits will be limited. And if the murky political and military situation in Pakistan is not clarified and solved, then the war on the terror between Kabul, Karachi and Mumbai will almost certainly be lost.

For years a kind of death industry has been taking hold in Pakistan's tribal areas. There are hundreds of Koranic schools which could better be described as cadet schools for Islamists. Boys as young as five are sent here by their impoverished parents. The state provides hardly any free education; the schools that exist are poorly equipped. Children learn the Koran by heart in Arabic, often without understanding a word. After all they speak Pashtun, not Arabic.
The idea is to condition or brainwash them. The goal is jihad. As young men these warriors are given military training which underscores their so-called spiritual training.

Anyone who doubts the existence of this death-machinery can visit the hundreds of schools just a few hours' drive from Quetta, near Afghanistan's border. To get there one has to pass checkpoints and roadblocks erected by the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency. The ISI carefully protects this region, which might be described as an extended barracks for jihad, interspersed with rural villages. Why? No one in Islamabad seems willing to answer that question.

Is Pakistan a Failed State?

The Pakistani government has long ago given up control of this region. The army and the ISI, which takes a lion's share of the national budget, lead their own independent existence. Their links to the Taliban and to Islamic groups in Kashmir and India have grown.

Even if the government in Islamabad showed a will to crack down on these tribal areas, it's doubtful the army and the ISI would follow orders. Even Pakistan's former President Pervez Musharraf was unable to keep a lid on terrorism, and unlike his successor he had not just political but military power.

All in all, medium-term prospects for the subcontinent are rather gloomy. Pakistan recently had to be taken under the wing of the IMF. The state is as good as bankrupt. Its political leadership is either corrupt or -- when it comes to the military-intelligence service complex -- almost without influence.

And somewhere in Pakistan, nuclear weapons are stored. The Americans have always vouched that the weapons of mass destruction in the bunkers between Karachi and Lahore were secure -- but that was before American helicopters were fired at in Pakastani airspace by, ostensibly, their closest allies in the War on Terror.

From a political point of view Pakistan is nearly a failed state. But no Western statesman will say that out loud, because openly admitting it will not make things any easier.

The next American president seems to understand the reality of power relations in Pakistan. During the campaign, Barack Obama's rhetoric in this regard set him apart with surprising clarity from his opponent John McCain. Whereas the Republican put diplomatic negotiations with the regime in Islamabad up front and centre, Obama was open about bringing military intervention in the tribal areas into the discussion. Strengthening the US presence there seems, in any case, a firm part of Obama's agenda. The planned American withdrawal from Iraq could -- in a worst-case scenario -- be followed by an invasion of Pakistan. This must not be something he wants, at least not in the fullest sense. Even Vietnam was never imagined as a long war.

Naturally Obama will talk with the government in Islamabad. But the fact that he has emphasized military strength shows that he is soberly, if pessimistically, assessing the political power relations between the army and the Pakastani government.

The coming weeks should demonstrate what the Pakastanis are in a position to undertake in the battle against terror. If they want to prevent the Americans from raising the stakes, they must act now. Of course the chances of purging the jihad zone with one, two, or three military actions -- whether from Americans, Pakastanis, or some combination -- are very slim. If a serious battle there is now envisaged, it will be very protracted.

The Enemy of My Enemy

It's difficult to win a war when one side refuses to accept moral, military, or state boundaries while the other is permanently bound by them. Clausewitz himself might groan in despair. Carl von Clausewitz -- the Prussian war theoretician -- wrote that the goal of a war is to disarm the enemy. But how do you begin to disarm an enemy in tribal areas where it is hard to tell the difference between harmless peasants and fighters in disguise?

The jihadis who tried to transform Mumbai into a killing zone have the deaths of Hindus, Jews, Americans, Britons, and also Germans to answer for. Like-minded people are also killing Muslims every day -- in Pakistan the attack on the Marriot hotel hit several groups that were celebrating the end of Ramadan.
These death squads can only be defeated if the political actors in the subcontinent start to see through the borderless game their enemies are playing, and if they share information and act together. This would require a level of trust and goodwill that hasn't existed between India and Pakistan for many years.

The Mumbai attacks seem to have caught the Indian government by surprise. At the moment it may not know where to direct its energies in the war against terrorism. In contrast to Pakistan, though, it retains full control of its military -- which brings its own kind of responsibility.

India's foreign minister has blamed "elements with links to Pakistan" for the terror attacks. A couple of years ago it would have called them "Pakastani elements." In the Great Game against terror in the subcontinent, this is a difference as small as it is important -- and given the depressing outlook for the region, one is thankful for any nuance that offers a glimmer of hope.

Maybe now the regimes can agree to a marriage of convenience. They, do, after all, have the same enemies.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 15,00.html

[houseelf]

Re: Mumbai

The clip was amazing.

I agree with the often cited criticism that more Muslims need to decry terrorism. At the same time, it is incumbent upon Christians, Jews, Hindus, (fill in the blank with your respective belief system) need to stand up for their peaceful muslim friends to demonstrate their clear understanding of the delineation between the vast majority of muslims and these terrorists. The survivor portrayed in this clip passionately embraced the good in the Muslim world, something that would take this world a long way.

Kelly

[Rapunzel]

Re: Mumbai

Islam is beside the point here. I think it's safe to say that most people in the world understand that all Muslims are not bad people intent on blowing everyone up in crazed mass murder.

The real issue is Pakistan and what to do with an arguably failed state in which terrorist training camps are thriving. If it's not state-sponsored terrorism then it is state-ignored terrorism on the part of Pakistan.

I'm really starting to agree with Obama on the issue of Pakistan during the election campaign.