Mumbai Attacks and their impact

[davidbfpo]

As the trial of the lone Pakistani terrorist moves along at an Indian pace, a new BBC report: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/5...-happened.html . Part of a programme due to be shown tonight. Interesting comments on whether observers were present giving updates, the BBC dismiss tactical knowledge was vailable from watching TV reporting.

(Added 6th August 2009). The lone terrorist has pleaded guilty by surprise, the trial goes on IIRC.

davidbfpo

[davidbfpo]

Found when reading an Indian news website and offers a glimpse inside Indian intelligence (or lack of it): http://www.tehelka.com/story_main41....coverstory.asp

No idea how reliable source is, India is not in focus.

davidbfpo

[davidbfpo]

At the time of the Mumbai attack it was reported that Raheel Sheikh, a suspect for an earlier (2006) bombing attack was arrested in Birmingham, UK (Posts 2 & 5). A local paper has recently reported Sheikh who'd fled to the UK in 2006, to B'ham at one point, had in fact returned to India at some point and had been arrested in India a month ago.

From: http://www.sundaymercury.net/news/mi...6331-24742628/ Note the story was picked up by news agencies, but cannot find an Indian coverage or confirmation.

davidbfpo

[gh_uk]

Also a new article in Vanity Fair

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/f...-siege-200911?

Focuses a lot on the human element, but brings across the chaos of the response and the poor command and control of security forces.

One wonders how police forces in the West would have handled this? David - how would the Met police in London have coped if 10 heavily armed men had gone on the rampage in Canary Wharf? I struggle to think of any instances where police firearms teams in the UK have had to face well-armed, serious opposition. How many Armed Response Units could they have mustered, deployed and coordinated? I'm sure they would have had to ask for military back-up also - though I guess it would not take eight hours to get from Hereford to London.

[davidbfpo]

GH_UK,

Your question:

One wonders how police forces in the West would have handled this? David - how would the Met police in London have coped if 10 heavily armed men had gone on the rampage in Canary Wharf? I struggle to think of any instances where police firearms teams in the UK have had to face well-armed, serious opposition. How many Armed Response Units could they have mustered, deployed and coordinated? I'm sure they would have had to ask for military back-up also - though I guess it would not take eight hours to get from Hereford to London.

I suspect that even the Met (MPS) would struggle to respond and rely on containment in the first hour. Containment of the scene would be from a distance, choosing Canary Wharf as your example would help the MPS, rather than say another symbolic target in London, say a major railway station. This first response would absorb all the 24/7 three-man response cars (last figure was eight on duty) and others available e.g. Diplomatic Protection (far larger numbers). Even they would IMHO be quickly be outgunned and run out of ammunition; H&K machine pistols being standard issue. Back-up from better armed and trained full SWAT-like teams would follow, from planned operations and training. Even with those teams deployed it would be containment.

After the MPS come other police SWAT teams, e.g. Ministry of Defence Police (usually on guard duty) and the London-based Special Forces contingent (for VIP protection etc).

Any 'well armed, serious opposition' would need the deployment of the Army, primarily the Hereford-based Special Forces and anyone else available (Windsor based light armour, seen years ago at Heathrow Airport in a terror alert).

After the July 2005 bombings one would hope co-ordination has improved at the centre (Scotland Yard) and for the on the ground tactical commander. Then add on Mumbai and horizon-scanning e.g. school massacres. Not my field this, so opinion and open sources only.

In support are these comments from another recent thread.

From Wilf's posting on another thread:

My understanding is that SWAT = Special Weapons and Tactics, was implicitly developed for the minimum use of force, so it is ROE dependant, and that was explicit in the original concept. The UK developed a "Red- Amber- Green," scale to define the use of force in the Urban environment. Red was basically LE-SWAT, and Green was "ceiling hits the floor," stuff. For sure, all the "Shoot house," stuff is basically garbage, against someone who knows you are coming.

Wilf also reminded us of the last example of a heavily armed man going on a rampage, the Hungerford incident in 1987: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre

I responded:

Some years ago I asked our local SWAT equivalent what happens if the "bad guys" do not stay still i.e. in a premises and go mobile. There was a pained reaction and invocations of "Trust us, we know they will". Bearing in mind the 24/7 capability was six firearms officers, so I asked will front and rear entrances be covered? "Trust us, we practice a lot". I assume "bad guys" have learnt, "stay still, you lose". Then of course along came the Mumbai attack and all the comments worldwide on whether capability matched that risk.

Hope that helps.

davidbfpo

[gh_uk]

David,

Very enlightening - thanks for the comprehensive (and swift) answer.

gh

[davidbfpo]

Once more Stephen Tankel has provided an update on LeT (the group blamed for the Mumbait attack):http://ctc.usma.edu/sentinel/CTCSentinel-Vol2Iss11.pdf

LeT is emerging as a global actor in terrorism.