Unconfirmed Reports That Jews Were Targeted at Nariman House. 
Five star hotels, hospitals, gas stations were some of the targets of the raiders at Mumbai, however the most worrisome of the targets was Nariman
House, an undistinguished five-story building that is an Israeli Jewish settlement in South Mumbai -- in a posh, safe neighborhood called Colaba on a peninsula with the sea on both sides. Ongoing hostage rescue situations are ongoing at the pricey, landmark Taj Hotel, the high-rise Oderoi Hotel, and at the anonymous Nariman House. My best Israeli source reports no confirmation as of now that Israeli Jews were singled out as targets. Many foreigners were targeted at the hotels, and the Nariman House settles are in fact foreigners -- Lubavitcher from Israel, an outreach group called Chabad Lubavitch. Mumbai TV 18 is reporting that one Jewish family is believed murdered, but this is not confirmed. My source tells me that the rabbi and his wife at Nariman (Chabad) House, Gabriel (right) and Rivka Holtzberg, have not been seen or heard from since last night. There are up to 20 Israeli Jews in Mumbai in all circumstances who are not now accounted for, but some may be on holiday; and the Israel authorities are seeking their whereabouts. TV 18 is
now reporting that 3 hostages, a mother and child and one other, possibly a cook, have just escaped from Nariman House at approximately 11 am Mumbai time. The escaped hostages are now identifying that five or six killers are still inside the Nariman House and that all the Israelis are hostages. The important details are that the first three floors of Nariman housed five Israeli families. The top two floors hosues Indian national families. The larger questions is, did the attackers single out Nariman House for destruction? It is not now on fire like the Taj Hotel. It is a very small and specific target compared to the Taj or the Oderoi hotels, and it is surrounded by a residential neighborhood (below, Nariman House is at almost dead center, and undistinguished). It is peculiar that the attackers chose the Nariman House. The overall attack came from the sea about 2100 hours Mumbai time Wednesday 26, and the killers landed at the quiet, unremarkable Colaba fishing quay and then spread out to their targets. Much chaos on the TV 18 reporting. No overview being provided by government officials. Three of the top police officials in Mumbai are dead by assault, and the police are busy and grim with multiple incidents underway and missing attackers. At the least, the assault on Nariman House requires a scrupulous post-op analysis. "They are Israeli Jews... That is a reason they may have been targeted," the TV 18 reporter allowed at noon Mumbai time.
Could it be a possibility that what is forming could eventually be a new coalition involving a concerted effort on the part of India and Pakistan? The drummers from the East beat the beast into the open while Afgha and a newly reinforced coalition lie in wait on the Western border could prove to be winning strategy if it could be arranged.
Who can say now that we need to negotiate with the extremists and enter into agreements with them? What will happen if there truly are US, Israeli, and Euro citizens that are victims of these Mumbai raids?
Pakistan and India, together, driving the animals into a hi tech net of destruction?
Impossible?
To what end are these types of operations designed? They are too inconsequential to be other than a news blip, yet, they are too inhumane to be dismissed.
They only alienate. Like juveniles in some perceived self despair who seek attention by commiting suicide, these acts have no impact on the reality outside of the family and the closest friends.
Already, some are saying that Mumbai is a failure of the good people who are tasked to prevent such things from occuring instead of condemning the instigators for their cowardice. Yes, it's everyone elses burden that these malcontents entered into a deal with evil to cause havoc and murder for nothing.
???
Let’s just for a moment imagine that we logged on one morning to find the `John Batchelor Show` website gone. Let’s say, we turned our radios on and all we heard is chants to our great leader. Say, we looked out the window on a weekday morning and see hardly any traffic aside from a few bicyclists and a smattering of runners in sweats, all wearing iPods. What would we think has happened?
We might think we had been magically transported to one of the Asian countries overnight; or to some place in the Middle East. Venezuela.
We find that we’d forgotten to get milk the night before and there’s not enough for cereal. We search the drawers for our ration card; we find it, but all the spaces for the month have already been punched. We’d forgotten that the cousin (from another village) who had come to stay with us in the capital to clear up a hitch in his employment status had severely infringed on our share. It’s now nearing the end of the month. All the shelves in the high-priced black market stores would likely be empty as well. Nothing to do but reach for a cigarette.
Newspaper headlines tell of street fighting in India, Pakistan, Israel, New York, Paris, Rio (there’s more). Our attention wavers. We throw the papers on the pile along with the others. Containment hasn’t worked, but we keep trying.
Our brains are boiling with rage. We’d like to speak out; accuse someone and hold them accountable for our empty stomachs. It’s not fair; the palace gate across the street is always jammed with vehicles delivering this and that – mostly food. But we dare not say a word; somebody would take umbrage and accuse us of dissing the anointed one; the god-savior of this godless land who goes around smiling and waving to the rented crowds because (at their considerable expense) his stomach is full.
For those of you who think that Bush has taken us to the lowest rung on the ladder, I ask: How much worse can it get? You’ll find out alright, a year from now, when your frequent-flyer miles will likely get you no more than a turkey at the local ShopRite. Happy Thanksgiving, guys …and, yes, our prayers go out to the people of Mumbai.
Peter K--
Your extrapolations strike me as a bit overdone and cherry-picked to suit your desired outcome.
You've given us "A" scenario---let's call it Scenario A.
There seem to be others that are more precedented, less apocalyptic.
So, Scenario B--A number of targeted nations--US, UK, France, Spain, India, even Pakistan, form an alliance to search out the hidden menace with the explicit support, funding and Islamic religious blessing. Saudi might bankroll it. Intel agencies for a "interpol" to find and exterminate the jihadists.
Scenario C--we just keep grinding along for 100 years; nothing that reduces the bulk of society but continuing insults to civilization. Not unlike a base-level of crime like the international dope trade, piracy, muggings. For example, Ireland lived with such atrocities for a long time before it burned itself out.
Scenario D--[fill in the blank.]
Ummah signals source:
"...As the smoke begins to clear in Mumbai it appears that a group of terrorists set sail from somewhere in Gujarat state in a mother ship and arrived in Mumbai with inflatable Gemini rafts with outboard motors. Group split up. Bombs placed in taxis. One group holed up at Nariman House while another raided Oberoi/Trident and a third raided Taj. Standoff at Oberoi/Trident continues. Appears to be a larger group than the others.
India has long been in denial about Indian Mujahideen and prior terror events. Suspicion on this attack falls on Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harakat ul-Jihad-I-Islami/Bangladesh (HUJI-B), which are supported by Pakistan intelligence and are affiliated with al Qaeda. Members have trained at al Qaeda camps, receive financial support and assistance from al Qaeda. The "Indian Mujahideen" was created by HUJI-B as a smokescreen to conduct operations inside India while hiding its involvement and association with the radical Students' Islamic Movement of India (which HUJI-B and HUJI recruit from and operate with). It wants to create the illusion that the movement is homegrown. This is also the significance of "Deccan Mujahideen." "Deccan" is the name of the plateau that covers most of southern India. They are trying now to create the illusion that the Islamist movement in India has split into smaller groups - creating confusion within Indian security services.
HUJI-B was a signatory to bin Laden's International Islamic Front in 1998. It is believed to comprise of 15,000 members, and is centered around the coastal areas from Chittagong into Myanmar. JI's Hambali received protection from HUJI-B while he was on the run following September 11. The Times of India has written an excellent article about HUJI-B and its connections to LeT and ISI.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/HuJI_LeT_joining_hands_rattles_security_agencies/articleshow/3660696.cms
Al Qaeda and its ISI patrons, particularly former ISI chief Hamid Gul, have long sought to destabilize India and seek to balkanize the country. In 2004, he said "India will give its land when it will be divided into many pieces. India will have to be break. If India does not give us our land we will go to war and divide India... " Nevertheless, the tactics of yesterday's attacks show an evolution towards more innovative and self-reliant operations. Pakistan's plate is full and it cannot risk a standoff with India when its forces are stretched thin while dealing with AQ and the Taliban in Waziristan.
It is most likely that these terrorists infiltrated into India from Bangladesh but received financial assistance through IM/HUJI operative Aamir Raza in Karachi, Pakistan. Training undoubtedly took place in Pakistan. Background on Aamir Raza:
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/huji-man-from-pak-emerges-as-kingpin/388567/ "
Jim J - Naturally, there are many ways in which this madness can yet play out. Scenario C seems most likely unless we reach the tipping point sooner rather than later. It's just that at some point our guys will have to put down their toys and get serious. Naming the enemy would be a start.
No doubt, we have enough resources to defeat them. What has been lacking thus far is will. We're like a cat toying with a mouse (catching it and letting it go; catching it once again and letting it go; etc.) Each time we let it go, the mouse gets smarter. How long we'll be able to play this game before the mouse evolves into a rat is anybody's guess.
TV 18 at 3 am on Friday 28 Mumbai time is mentioning "LeT" and arguing that the attackers had a plan to strike police chiefs, arguing a mother ship that has been captured with cellphones and Sat phones onboard. "This has been planed over months." One newsreader mentions a "Pakistani" captured at Taj. You see where this is going. Pakistani ISI origins. State to state confrontation. Line of control. Kashmir. Am watching for reports of Army activity.
Below from a Wall Street Journal op-ed up now from an Indian hedgie who works routinely in Mumbai:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122781446844662087.html
"Every Indian is familiar with the Taj, its iconic red brick architecture façade serves as the backdrop for so many stories and Bollywood movies. So when Sonia Gandhi, the President of the ruling Congress Party, says that these are attacks on India's prestige, she means it.
If the attacks on the two hotels were not enough, the CST train terminal was hit. One out of every 10 commuters uses the CST (formerly known as the Victoria Terminus) daily. And after attacking the CST, the terrorists hit the Cama Hospital, a hospital for women and children. The last major target was a Jewish center. Mumbai has housed an Iraqi Jewish community for centuries. Not once have they been targeted. That has changed.
These attacks are going to serve as a tipping point for India. India has had no less than 10 terrorist attacks over the last five years described as India's 9/11. And so now is the latest assault.
As the Indian landscape changed, so has the Indian attitude. The first Bollywood movie on the attacks highlighted the resilience of Mumbai citizens. But in conversations, writings and film, people have shifted from resilience to wanting revenge. One of the most successful movies of 2008 highlights an ordinary citizen taking revenge. The surprise hit of 2008 in India is a low-budget thriller called "Wednesday." "Wednesday" is a taut thriller where the audience is held in suspense. The person the audience believes is a terrorist hell-bent on releasing his jailed compatriots is actually a vigilante. He doesn't secure the release; he blows them up.
The audience cheers as he tells the police, "We (the people) are tired of being resilient. Our hands are not tied, we too can hit back." Audiences around the country clapped and cheered his soliloquy. And now with these attacks, the attitude hardens even more. CNN-IBN, the local English news channel, not known for hyperbole, is calling its coverage not Terror in Mumbai, but "War on Mumbai." Local anchors refer to the rescue operations as urban warfare.
Last week, at an Indian leadership summit, I watched Shashi Tharoor, the former U.N. Undersecretary General and India's candidate to be Secretary General, ask Henry Kissinger how India should react to Pakistani agents attacking the Indian Embassy in Kabul. Mr. Kissinger said it wasn't his place to answer. Fair enough, but the question remains what should India do?
Three target groups:
Indians - the Cama Hospital and nearby Railway station, as well as the drive-by shootings from hijacked police van. As well, any Indians along assorted paths to below targets.
Americans & Brits - Terrorists entered the Taj (and presumably Oderoi) specifically asking for Americans and Brits, bypassing others while searching the 5-Star hotel's 'target rich' guests.
Jews - The team that took the Nariman House did so simultaneously to the Taj, Oderoi and Railway/Cama hospital ops. It was not by chance during an interrupted egress.
This was a coordinated operation with primary mission of media force multiplier effect beyond India. Had it been about India, it would have included, perhaps nearly exclusively, systems: Power, water, fuel, railways (the system/tracks/cars rather than simple killing spree there).
Which means to me that the 'Deccan Muj' is an undeniably false front to put an Indian face on an external operation. Think 'The Fiction of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi'.
The taking of hostages spins some for a loop as they argue in folly whether AQ has/had a role. Matters only in the micro. In the macro, the blur displays the folly in any such argument at this point.
Keep in mind, the hostages were not taken for negotiating leverage. They were taken 1.) because they were American or British in (terrorists') best case scenario, and 2.) to prolong the siege on Mumbai to occupy multiple entire global news cycles with hot ongoing ops with the destructive power of a few dedicated suicidal maniacs on every television screen.
This was a Global PSYOP executed locally with live ammo. With Dead Indians and (intended anyway) American, British (and others) and Jew hostages to ensure prolonged Global exposure.
OK, how does the Indian Government react as far as Muslim Indian nationals? If badly and in a discriminatory fashion, when do the scholarly men come to preach the Koran in a way Thomas Muntzer would have related to and to dispense law justly according to Sharia in local courts?
Does disruption of the increasingly dominant Indian soft-ware industry largely headquartered in Mumbai factor into this?
It makes perfect sense to attack India. They will be the next great capitalist democracy and I would guess to the people of AQ, pose the next greatest threat. China and Russia have no compunction in wheeling and dealing with any third world DB that would be against us or countries on our side if that is possible, but it would be interesting to see how China would deal with such attacks as the west has. Judging from their past it wouldn't be pretty, but it would end. That is where I agree with Peter. We do not have the will or consistently so. I hope India does.