B. Raman Warns War on the Indian State. 
(Thumbnail left is an unconfirmed snap of a suspect Mumbai killer.) Speaking Sunday 30, presuming we can get through, to terrorism prodigy B. Raman (Ram), retired Indian State Intelligence,
re the massive terror attacks on the gigantic city of Mumbai, which Ram argues now is an attack on the future of the Indian State. The struggle continues as Ram, from the Institute of Topical Studies at Chennai, writes and as I write. I am following it on Shloky Twitter page. Also on a Flickr stream. I listen to Ram for a sense of proportion. He has been writing of the threat of Indian Mujhaideen for years and most fiercely these last months. Ram is a pro's pro, but you can hear the despair as he writes while watching the action on the web and on TV:
8.The Government of Manmohan Singh reacted to the repeated warning signals of the moving iceberg since November 2007, in the same way as the Bush Administration reacted to reports about the plans of the Al Qaeda for an of aviation terrorism in the US; in the same way Megawati Sukarnoputri reacted to reports of the activities of the Jemmah Islamiyah; and in the same way Khalida Zia reacted to reports of the plans of the Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen .
9. Bovine. It just did no react. It was in a total denial mode.I wrote and said again and again ----hand over all the investigation about the IM to a central investigating agency for a co-ordinated investigation instead of their being investigated by the police in a piecemeal manner in different States ruled by different political parties. No reaction.
10.From a localised threat, jihadi terrorism has become a pan-Indian threat with a pan-Islamic ideology. Deal with it with a pan-Indian strategy, I said. No reaction.
The scale of the attacks is the news. Coordinated, cocky, racist and classist, now making war on the five star hotels and transportation centers (above Chattrapati Shivaji Railway terminus), singling out American and British passport holders for slaughter, in order to strike at India's confidence of its place in the world of great states. The most powerful and sinister and long threatening aspect of the Mumbai attacks is that not even Ram has certainty of who the attackers are and what they represent. The best India has to offer on the enemy is in a fog of war:
4.Is the IM the name of an organisation or of a movement? Is it one or many organisations in different States acting, like the International Islamic Front (IIF) of Osama bin Laden, as a united front-----autonomously where they can and unitedly where they should? Who constitute its command and control? Where are they? In India or outside? Nobody knows for certain.
American and Europeans TV are making much of an Al Qaeda link. This is strangely anarchic and sixty year old Indian civil war, a remnant of the Partition Wars of '47-48, and this is also the global jihad on modernity. Moslem-born
killers. A bystander emphasizes they looked like "boys." The twitter service report, and the flickr stream pics, shows that the massive city, tens of millions of people, major communications and transportation systems, is shut down, compromised, paralyzed in the dark. Crowds gathered in the streets in wonder, fear, frustration (right). It is daylight soon and the clean-up and hunt will begin again, and also the on-going hostage events at hotels and hospitals must be resolved. The failure to provide common defense is a fierce judgement of the Singh government. I recall a much smaller scale attack launched on the Indian Parliament building at Delhi in December 2001 that was stopped by quick guards and gunfire. That attack pushed the then BJP government to armed confrontation with Pakistan along the line of control running through Kashmir. Will this Mumbai attack start the confrontation again? The IJ are Indian nationals, however all hands know that the Pakistani ISI trains, equips, houses and aids the jihadists operating out of Kashmir and in cells in India. If this attack has an address, it is the ISI in Islamabad. This is the night of the long knives all over again. A murder raid on the world's most important democracy during the century's first great test of global credibility in markets and prices. A murder raid on global civilization. The good guys fell asleep and lost the night to the killers. Here is an example of what terror looks like from the people trapped inside the massacres at 921 PM Eastern Time:
#mumbai Undetonated grenades are apparently sporadically distributed along the routes the terrorists took.
less than a minute ago from web
#mumbai An "encounter specialist" is a law enforcement officer who specializes in high value potentially dangerous targets.
#mumbai Potential confirmed blast at Santa Cruz. Nariman House is amassing a large crowd.
#mumbai Army is inside Oberoi. NSG still prepping.
@supersam5 Thanks much.
#mumbai Is there is an up to date quality timeline of these events plotted on a map? That would be very useful for analysis.
#mumbai Anyone have any data as to how the cellphone networks are holding up? They failed or were shutdown in the last bombing campaign.
#mumbai There's a single group thesis that is trumpeted on the media, however, there's a major big problem - http://tinyurl.com/6nysgh
#mumbai FPolicy cites Rohan, who confirms my initial analysis regarding Deccan Mujahideen = HuJI/IM/SIMI nexus. http://tinyurl.com/59dyvw
#mumbai New narrative: attacked the railway hub, then hijacked a car, shot up a crowd, then hit the hotel. Feasible but bad tactics.
#mumbai Time to think about second order events. Are the hotel attacks a smokescreen? Probably not, but consider - http://tinyurl.com/59v365
#mumbai Taj residents are told to stay inside. Phones are dead. Told to turn off the light.
Could this happen to New York, or Washington, or Los Angeles? We all know the answer, not if but when. And if it happens to Mumbai, it happens to all of us. My cynicism tonight makes me measure that this is not about stopping the IJ, this is about making the next IJ attack more difficult. And also making the comparable AQ attack aimed at Paris or London or New York or Chicago more difficult. Still, a murder raid, pure savagery, and shocking in its way to a world that had thought in the crash of all markets that it was beyond shocks.
Update 22:00 Wednesday 26:
Add this savvy, despairing comment from the Indian diaspora posted on the India Times Online coverage of the attack:
Senthil,UK,says:Deshmukh and the entire congress leadership have pursued a journey of destruction of India by encouraging terrorists. Deshmuhk was not able to contain the violence against North Indians and is not able to contain the growth of terrorists. The fact that 16 armed groups of terrorists are roaming in the City is a clear example of what the Congress is doing regarding security. People of India will now here statements like 'We are after them', 'Justice will be prevailed' and all non-sense and the state govt will blame it on Pakistan. Shameless Congress! It is only interested in securing Muslim votes. Cong had rolled out red carpet for all the illegal immigrants and given them ration cards in Delhi and Mumbai to balance the votes cast against it by the Hindu votes. Throw this useless govt. They should resign.S--- on their face!! Soniaji spend some time thinking about India's security. Just postpone ur plans to blame the BJP for this.Idiot Lalu will now blame the Sang for this. The terrorists have specifically chosen 5 star hotels to disrupt the low of funds from abroad
From India Times Online, with video links of damage:
Mumbai: In one of the most violent terror attacks on Indian soil, Mumbai came under an unprecedented night attack as terrorists used heavy
machine guns, including AK-47s, and grenades to strike at the city's most high-profile targets -- the hyper-busy CST (formerly VT) rail terminus; the landmark Taj Hotel at the Gateway and the luxury Oberoi Trident at Nariman Point; the domestic airport at Santa Cruz; the Cama and GT hospitals near CST; the Metro Adlabs multiplex and Mazgaon Dockyard -- killing at least 80 and sending more than 900 to hospital, according to latest reports. ( Watch )
The attacks have taken a tragic toll on the city's top police brass: The high-profile chief of the anti-terror squad Hemant Karkare was killed; Mumbai's additional commissioner of police (east) Ashok Kamte was gunned down outside the Metro; and celebrated encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar was also killed. ( Watch )
The attacks have taken a tragic toll on the city's top police brass: The high-profile chief of the anti-terror squad Hemant Karkare was killed; Mumbai's additional commissioner of police (east) Ashok Kamte was gunned down outside the Metro; and celebrated encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar was also killed. ( Watch )
My colleague Bill Roggio posted this on Weekly Standard blog earlier this evening:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/11/indian_mujahideen_takes_credit.asp
Indian Mujahideen Takes Credit for Mumbai Attacks
Thomas Joscelyn is absolutely correct in suspecting the Pakistan and Kashmiri-based terror groups as being behind today's terror attacks in Mumbai. A group called the Deccan Mujahideen, or Indian Mujahideen, has taken credit for today's strike, the Times of India just reported.
While it is certainly possible that the group is taking credit for another's handiwork, the Indian Mujahideen has been implicated as being behind several recent attacks in India.
The group claimed credit for the July 25 and 26 bombings in Ahmedabad and Bangalore. At least 36 Indians were killed and more than 120 were wounded in the attacks. The Indian Mujahideen took credit for the Sept. 13 attacks in New Delhi that resulted in 18 killed and more than 90 wounded. The group also claimed credit for the July 25 and 26 bombings in Ahmedabad and Bangalore that killed 36 wounded 120, the bombings in Jaipur last May (60 killed, more than 200 wounded), and bombings in Uttar Pradesh in November 2007 (14 killed, 50 wounded).
Indian intelligence believes the Indian Mujahideen is a front group created by Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Harkat ul Jihad al Islami to confuse investigators and cover the tracks of the Students' Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI, a radical Islamist movement. The groups receive support from Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence and are al Qaeda affiliates.
Posted by Bill Roggio on November 26, 2008 05:20 PM | Permalink
This is gripping: from Shloky Twitter report on counter terror op against hostage events at Hotels:
#mumbai Slow encroachment on terrorist territory at the Taj. It's not an assault yet.
2 minutes ago from web
#mumbai Hearing a total of 16 terrorists. 4 minutes ago from web
#mumbai Look, this isn't the underworld + terrorists as a combined threat like NDTV is talking about. The black market enables terrorists. 7 minutes ago from web
#mumbai Not sure these guys wanted to die. May have had an exit plan. Especially if a boat is waiting for them. http://tinyurl.com/6xa353 9 minutes ago from web
#mumbai Hydrabad is a nexus of muslim fundamentalism, black market operations, naxals, and foreign operatives. Lots of money and ideology. 11 minutes ago from web
#mumbai Next 30 minutes: high intensity assaults by NSG operatives. Police will clear out hidden hostages. NSG will go straight for the kill 15 minutes ago from web
#mumbai Right now: gunfire to cover the evacuation of as many hostages as possible. 16 minutes ago from web
#mumbai The gunfire being heard right now is cover fire. The key is to clear out as many hostages as possible, then send in the operatives 17 minutes ago from web
#mumbai "Encounter" means assault for those who aren't used to the dialect. 18 minutes ago from web
#mumbai The gunfire at the taj is currently small scale cover fire on the part of naval commandos. 19 minutes ago from web
#mumbai NSG is NOT inside the Taj yet. Hostages being cleared out of the lobby though. 20 minutes ago from web
#mumbai Taj residents are running outside. 21 minutes ago from web
#mumbai Maybe premature to claim the NSG op has begun at the Oberoi. The gunfire is almost in rhythm w/single wpn, could just be potshots. 23 minutes ago from web
#mumbai Sustained burst gunfire at the Oberoi. 24 minutes ago from web
#mumbai To clarify, black cat commandos = NSG = National Security Guard. 26 minutes ago from web
#mumbai A curfew has been declared. Media is being told to move back. Operation is building up. Area's been cleared. 30 minutes ago from web
#mumbai NDTV Hindi is more up to date than NDTV 24x7. 31 minutes ago from web
#mumbai To clarify, the Trident = the Oberoi hotel. 31 minutes ago from web
#mumbai Hearing chatter about NSG moving on Oberoi successfully in the last 20 minutes. 37 minutes ago from web
#Mumbai Niram Bhavan may have been a failed exit route: http://tinyurl.com/6xa353 39 minutes ago from web
Midnite EST: CNN reporting Mumbai financial district is basically closed. Fox News and CNBC are running repeats. Mumbai stock exchange closed. American Markets closed for Thanksgiving holiday. Systempunkt to force the stock markets even lower?
Live Mumbai Tv cable TV
And you can listen to live steaming of Indian television here:
http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/video_streaming.php
This is extremely well coordinated, massive drive-by shootings and then penetrating attacks in Hotels, Cinemas, Rail Stations, Hospitals, Cafes, and a Jewish Chabad Centre.
18 kilos of RDX found at a cafe. This is military plastic explosives, not easy to get in most countries.
Civilized people should know by now... there’s no excuse for being so naive.
It seems that no one realizes that the only way to combat these ignorant, suicidal, and impressionable mujahideen types is to use the same strategies that they incorporate. They target the heads of the organizations arrayed against them- so, target theirs with prejudice; they use bait and trap- bait and draw them in to confrontations against a devoted and overwhelming force (not ill equipped, second guessing police types who will surrender before a fight) that will annihilate them with an extreme presence; use a sweeping tactic to pressure them to move and keep moving into canyons of firepower assembled on land and in the air, complete with IEDs and air to ground precision armaments; try and draw the good civilians out from the compounds, towns, and cities (after surrounding them) and then lay siege on the terrorists that remain; conduct goodwill recruitments for the cause with educational initiatives and rewards on local levels for their cooperation; kidnap some of their warlords and bargain for their release, or better yet, just slaughter them; instigate tribal warfare between the factions by subterfuge and any means possible; devastate their hallowed places of worship... etc, etc, etc
It is known where to start. It will be painful to begin. It will require great resource and devotion. It will be ugly. It will test the dedication and the borders of the affected nations and governments. It will not be simple and it will not be without hardship and questioning.
The most telling fact, though, is... it is generally known where they are located and that is where it should begin. They are hidden, lying in wait while preparing for missions. Before that, they are in the training camps and no opportunity to destroy them should be passed over, even if some so called prince is there for a falcon hunt.
We may not understand them. We can think like them, though, in order to grant them the martyrdom they seek. TERRORIZE THEM... it's change we need.
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 anyone needs to negotiate with the extremists and enter into agreements with them? What will happen if there are US 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?
Note that there are two places for the source of the attack that can be reasonably ruled out: Iraq and Afghanistan. For this, please send a note of thanks to GWB.
AQ is a franchise. AQ is a meme.
"Note that there are two places for the source of the attack that can be reasonably ruled out: Iraq and Afghanistan. For this, please send a note of thanks to GWB."
Why do I doubt that thesis will hold? I wonder how many of these cowboys made their bones fighting us in Iraq and Afghanistan? As many as the guys from Chechnya, who fought Marines in Fallujah in November 2004?
There used to be Americans who followed the surf or the Grateful Dead. Now there are people who follow the long war.
AQ is a franchise. AQ is a meme.
"Note that there are two places for the source of the attack that can be reasonably ruled out: Iraq and Afghanistan. For this, please send a note of thanks to GWB."
Why do I doubt that thesis will hold? I wonder how many of these cowboys made their bones fighting us in Iraq and Afghanistan? As many as the guys from Chechnya, who fought Marines in Fallujah in November 2004?
There used to be Americans who followed the surf or the Grateful Dead. Now there are people who follow the long war.
The training camps are their central command centers that bring in freelancers. That is where to find and neutralize them. Otherwise, we tend to wait for info across the wire that points to their next move.
The training camps... That is where we find them. It's a "rite of passage" in the ideology.
They don't need Harmony Church, Yankee Road, Smoke Bomb Hill, Quantico or West Range at Sill for a training area. That makes this a lot harder to find.