Mumbai Attacks and their impact

[Bill Moore]

Blueblood I agree, but I think advantage diminishes rapidly when you move to mid and small sized towns. NYC and LA police among others have incredible capabilities, but they don't represent most cities and towns.

[blueblood]

Originally Posted by Bill Moore

Blueblood I agree, but I think advantage diminishes rapidly when you move to mid and small sized towns. NYC and LA police among others have incredible capabilities, but they don't represent most cities and towns.

Not likely Bill. I compared "well funded" police forces of both countries. Smaller police forces of US are equally well equipped while the weapon of choice of Indian police in smaller cities is a wooden cane and at the most a Lee-Enfield of the 1960's vintage. More than 80 percent of police members have never operated an automatic rifle. There were CCTV videos of CST, the Mumbai railway station where the initial onslaught took place. Many Railway police constables ran away as they had no weapons. Those who had tried to return the fire but they too jammed since they haven't been used and cleaned since god knows when.

The West jumped the gun when they criticized the performance of NSG during the whole fiasco. People were comparing them with the past performances of American SWATs, GIGN, GSG9 and whatnot, but how many of these forces have faced situation identical to this. These were not some teenagers attacking a high school. They were trained by ISI and SSG(N) and had more tech than your average jihadi.

NSG did more live room clearing drills with hostages inside in less than 48 hours than many forces did in their lifetimes. The attack was deemed as India's 9/11 and so it was. Complete breakdown of the security apparatus.

American SWATs though very well trained are not designed to react to the scale NSG is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operati...er#cite_note-5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Missions

I was dumbfounded when I first saw this show. SWAT members of smaller cities were demolishing the SEALs, Green berets, Deltas and Marines Recons.

[parvati]

Questions are being raised surrounding the sudden and secret hanging of Kasab in India.

From International Business Times India:

Ajmal Kasab a Victim of Dengue or Was He Hanged till Death? Soon after the news of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab's hanging was announced, several people started raising questions about the government's secrecy over his execution. While several people, including the victims' families supported the decision, many have raised doubts on the social networking sites asking whether the terrorist was actually hanged or he died of dengue.

The rumor of Kasab dying of dengue has become a hot topic of discussion on Twitter.

Excerpt From OneIndia News:

Mumbai, Nov 21: The swiftness and secrecy in which the execution of Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab took place have come as a surprise to many. People are wondering why so much secrecy was maintained before hanging Kasab? Kasab was hanged till death at Yerwada jail in Pune around 7.30 am on Wednesday, Nov 21. Kasab, who was held in Mumbai's Arthur Road jail, was then moved to Pune's Yerwada prison."We kept secrecy. It was important to maintain secrecy in this matter," Shinde said, adding that Pakistan had been informed of the execution.

[davidbfpo]

Personally I have no problem with India's decision to execute this man, who gunned down many innocents at Mumbai's railway station, nearly four years ago.

The BBC's local reporter, in a good report, noted that:

many believe, the government, beset by allegations of scandal and inaction, timed the execution perfectly.

It came a day before the beginning of the winter session of the parliament, where it's primed to face a noisy and tough opposition. It also came five days before the fourth anniversary of the attacks when the main opposition BJP would have almost certainly reminded the government of its "failure" to execute Qasab.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-20422270

Some of the victim's reaction are in another BBC article; this says it all:

...the sense that someone has been finally held accountable for the deaths makes the sense of injustice slightly more bearable than before.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-20423470

A comment on the Indian Twitter surge:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-20426516 and the Indian press reaction:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-20440455

[parvati]

Sir,

The Dengue issue is all over the Indi-Pak mainstream(very mainstream) and social media. I think the Indian Government should not have done it in secrecy given South Asia's propensity towards conpiracy theories.

From the Indian Defense Forum:http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/p...ged-death.html

Kasab died due to high BP and cholesterol, thanks to all the rich food served to him. After he was found dead, they hanged his dead body just to show that he did not die due to natural causes!

Nonetheless- one less terrorist on this planet, and it was long due!!!

[davidbfpo]

This anniversary has just passed (26th November 2008) and led to some local commentary. There is a short article in The Times Of India by Vappala Balachandran:http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...olice-response

It opens with:

Security breaches can be prevented only through a combination of measures in which mental anticipation of the possible situation is cardinal.

The US security machinery's pre-9 /11 lapses were described as 'failures in imagination, policy, capabilities and management' by the Kean-Hamilton commission. Despite intelligence alerts since 2006 that a seaborne commando attack on multiple targets in Mumbai was likely, our resistance capacity was not strengthened.

The author has written a longer article for an Indian magazine, Defence & Security Alert, which is not linked on the Web; it is too big to use an attachment, so PM me if required with an email address.

[blueblood]

26/11 villain Ajmal Kasab hanged, Pak stops journalists from entering his village

Pakistani national Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving terrorist of the Mumbai terror attack of November 26, 2008, was hanged in a Pune jail at 7.30 am on Wednesday, after his mercy plea was rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee earlier this month.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-...e1-962152.aspx


What's disappointing is the western media's use of tag of gunman instead of terrorist and even more disappointing is the Pak media's tag of accused despite the CCTV footage and the confession.

Anyhow, it's better late than never.

[SWJ Blog]

For Mumbai, Justice If Not Peace

Entry Excerpt:



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Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

[davidbfpo]

The BIJ return with a lengthy article asking 'Four Disturbing Questions About the Mumbai Terror Attack':http://www.propublica.org/article/fo...-terror-attack

Q. Why doesn't Pakistan capture Sajid Mir?
Q. What was the full extent of the role of Pakistani intelligence in Mumbai?
Q. What risk does Lashkar-e-Taiba pose in the future?
Q. Why didn't U.S. authorities stop Headley sooner?

It ends with a lawyer's quote:

Headley proved that for all our changes in security, we are not much safer.....It was too easy. When the real big bad terrorist showed up, no one saw him.