Day 4 Of Mumbai Seige, Finally Ended

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I think now we can understand why the Mumbai attacks took place:

Distressed over widespread charges of involvement of Pakistan in the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi cut short his four-day visit to India and abruptly left for Islamabad on Saturday morning

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Qureshi, who started his visit to India Wednesday on a positive note, was “quite upset” about what he saw as India’s “insinuations” pointing to the involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists in audacious terror strikes at in Mumbai.

And the how:

Indian intelligence officials said the gunmen who launched the coordinated attacks appeared well trained and well prepared. The assailants seemed familiar with the layouts of the two hotels and the Jewish center, giving them a tactical advantage over the police and Indian army troops sent in to dislodge them.

“This is a big-scale operation, but it is not beyond the capability of Lashkar-i-Taiba,” said the intelligence officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of his work. “The person we have caught is a foot soldier; he is from Pakistan’s Punjab,” the officer said, referring to a region divided by the India-Pakistan border.

“He has clearly said he is with Lashkar and that he was trained,” the officer said. “They came via a ship. They hijacked a boat called Kuber, shot the man in charge on the boat. They were carrying a CD with the photographs of all the targets of the site, details. It is clear that they were determined to target India’s iconic locations and deter foreign investment.”

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They have a eyewitness of when the group arrived the sea:

Ten men, all apparently in their early 20s, jumped out. They stripped off orange windbreakers to reveal T-shirts and blue jeans. Then they began hoisting large, heavy backpacks out of the boat and onto their shoulders, each taking care to claim the pack assigned to him.

Mr. Dhanur flipped his boat light toward the men, and Kashinath Patil, a 72-year-old harbor official on duty nearby, asked the men what they were doing.

“I said: ‘Where are you going? What’s in your bags?’ “ Mr. Patil recalled. “They said: ‘We don’t want any attention. Don’t bother us.’ “

Thus began a crucial phase of one of the deadliest terrorist assaults in Indian history, one that seemed from the start to be coordinated meticulously to cause maximum fear and chaos.

Indian officials had said little publicly about the attackers until Saturday, when the Mumbai police commissioner, Hasan Gafoor, said a total of 10 militants had been responsible for the mayhem. But it remained unclear whether he was referring to 10 attackers arriving by sea to join other accomplices. Unconfirmed local news reports suggested some militants had embedded themselves in Mumbai days before the attacks. Investigations were ongoing Saturday night. In any event, the synchronized assaults suggested a high level of training and preparation.

And just like 9/11, the attack was designed to hit the heart of India. This time the financial capitol of the country:

The terrorists had enough explosives to blow up the Taj hotel.

Sources have told the TV channel that they wanted to reduce the life-size building of Taj hotel to rubble. They also believed to have told about their plan to replicate a ‘JW Marriot’, happened at Islamabad, to the Mumbai hotel.

In a sense to destroy the symbol of financial strength of the country and send shock-waves all across the globe, the terrorists wanted to do a 9/11 in India.

The above revelation came from the 21 year old Azam Amir Kasav, who hails from tehsil Gipalpura in Pakistan’s Faridkot.

On Wednesday-Thursday night Azam and his colleague opened fire at CST before creating havoc at Metro and then moving on to Girgaum Chowpatty in a stolen Skoda, and where they were intercepted by a team from the Gamdevi police station. Azam shot dead assistant police inspector Tukaram Umbale.

But in that encounter Azam’s colleague was killed and he himself was injured in the hand. He pretended to be dead giving rise to the news that two terrorists had been killed. However as the ‘bodies’ were being taken to Nair Hospital, the accompanying cops figured that one of the men was breathing.

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Apparently some of the terrorists weren’t smart enough to tell time:

Shortly before the terrorists moved into their targets in South Mumbai, a black and yellow taxi, with three passengers and enough ammunition to bring down a dome, sped in the direction of the airport. Instead of taking a slip road that would have taken the passengers straight to the airport, the driver took the flyover which bypassed the airport, only to get stuck at a red light.

At rush hour, the lights stayed red for long, at which the passengers berated the driver and asked him to cut the traffic lights. The driver moved on, but the wait turned out to be a minute or two too long. The car exploded. All that was found was a severed head and parts of three human legs. Had the terrorists’ plans of coinciding a blast at the airport with the attacks on the Taj and Oberoi hotels succeeded, the death toll of 26/11 would have been much bigger than it already is.

The heroes who ended the attack were treated just as they should of been:

NSG commandos received a rousing welcome from the locals when they came out from the Nariman House after killing two dreaded terrorists, who had holed themselves in the building along with five hostages.

When the commandos came out after the successful mission, they were greeted with cheers, claps, pats on shoulders and patriotic slogans filling anyone’s heart with pride.

‘Bharat Mata ki Jai, Vande Mataram’ reverberated the narrow lanes of the area after the unit came out after a gruelling 12 hours long final assault on the terrorists.

The crowds gathered outside the building came running towards the unit as they came out, drawing smiles on the battle-weary commandos faces going towards the waiting BEST buses.

The roofs and balconies were full as men and women waited with bated breath for the soldiers to come out after finishing the ordeal.

The tiredness along with the sorrow of losing two of their men was palpable on their faces but more than that it was joy of achieving their target and accomplishing what was termed as most watched anti-terror action of the country.

Their disciplined demeanour did not let them mix up with the crowds. Carrying their sophisticated weapons, some of them with their gear in hands tried to keep themselves calm amidst the cheering crowd. Following NSG were troupes of Army, Mumbai Police and RAF who were also welcomed by the crowds.

Some enthusiasts were seen approaching the force and getting a picture clicked with them just like with any Bollywood celebrity. More than 500 people surrounded the bus which was carrying the team of commandos and raised anti-Pakistan slogans till it moved away.

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Nov. 27, 2008: People gather at Balasaheb Bhosale’s funeral in Mumbai, India. Balasaheb Bhosale was a police official who died during an anti-terror operation at a railway station.

And even members of their entertainment industry show the backbone that rarely gets displayed by our stars: (h/t JammieWearingFool)

Wake up and strike terrorism with an iron hand, say Bollywood’s stars shocked by the brazen terror attack that targeted Mumbai’s poshest areas. From Hema Malini, who worries about her daughters, to Bipasha Basu, who narrowly missed the Vile Parle blast, this terror strike has shaken them all.

Imagine that.

And finally, sadly….the death toll has now risen to 195.

Amazing what ten men can do with a plan, something we learned 7+ years ago and something which many have forgotten.

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“When the commandos came out after the successful mission, they were greeted with cheers, claps, pats on shoulders and patriotic slogans filling anyone’s heart with pride.”

What? No self loathing peaceniks on hand to question whether the commandos tactics were exceessive and may have violated the terrorists rights?

Oh well, maybe we can send over the Code Pinkos to help out!

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if this were to happen here i doubt that we would have our commandos go in like that. they would be worried about if they were to offend someone and if maybe they wouldn’t saythe right thing. now with obama sitting in the hot seat i am sure if they asked him how to proceed he would vote present. i am sorry for the lose of life and i have heard that the indian people are very giving and kind and i hope they recover from this and move on. i hope the terrorists burn in hell as they should and i really hope that their families are ashamed for having raised murderers.

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The above revelation came from the 21 year old Azam Amir Kasav, who hails from tehsil Gipalpura in Pakistan’s Faridkot.

More:

Azam who was tight-lipped initially, cracked upon seeing the mutilated body of his colleague and pleaded with the medical staff at Nair to save his life. “I do not want to die,” he reportedly said. “Please put me on saline.”

Ammunition, a satellite phone and a layout plan of CST was recovered from him. According to sources the young terrorist has given the investigators vital leads including how the chief planner of the Mumbai terror plot had come to the city a month ago, took picture and filmed strategic locations and trained their group and instructed them to “kill till the last breath.” Every man was given six to seven magazines with fifty bullets each, eight hand grenades per terrorist with one AK-57 , an automaticloading revolver and a supply of dry fruits.

Azam reportedly disclosed that the group left Karachi in one boat and upon reaching Gujarat they hoisted a white flag on their boat and were intercepted by two officers of the coast guard near Porbandar and while they were being questioned one of the terrorists grappled with one of the officers slit his throat and threw the body in the boat. The other officer was told to help the group reach Mumbai. When they were four nautical miles away from Mumbai there were three speedboats waiting for them where the other coastguard officer was killed. All the ammo was then shifted into these three spedboats they reached Colaba jetty on Wednesday night and the ten men broke up into groups of two each. Four of these men went to the Taj Mahal hotel, two of them to the Trident hotel, two towards Nariman House at Colaba and two of which Azam was one moved to CST.

Azam, who was at Nair hospital for nearly four hours, was taken away by the intelligence agencies in the early hours of Thursday to an unknown location after the hospital authorities had removed the bullet from his hand and declared that his condition stable. But it seems the police grilling was so intense that before he left the hospital for an undisclosed location he pleaded with the police and the medical staff to kill him. “Now , I don’t want to live,” he said.

Meh….sounds like the Indian police aren’t about to read him any Miranda rights. Where are those snot-nosed ICLU lawyers, damn it?!

Of peripheral interest:

November 17th, 2008 5:22 pm
Other Wars on Terror

American media can be amazingly myopic. Since the September 11 attacks, the media has pretended that the U.S. is the only democracy that had to ask itself fundamental questions about fighting terrorists.

In reality, European, Anti-Podean and Asian democracies have been asking hard questions about freedom and safety since the 1970s. Can a non-citizen (or even a citizen) be held on the mere suspicion that he is involved in terrorism? For how long? Can the phone calls of terrorists be intercepted without a warrant? And so on.

In the media’s zeal to pretend that Bush has a tyrant in the making, journalists have largely overlooked what other advanced democracies have done in their wars on terror. In general, they have taken a harder line against terrorists without being overly fussy about the “privacy rights” of people with the top terrorists’ cell phone number.

Take Spain’s headline-making capture of ETA commander of its “commando” (i.e. terrorist) units. No word yet on exactly how the Spanish police were able to capture this elusive villian. But Spain’s laws and its lead counter-terrorism prosecuting judge have been known to aggresively use wiretaps and detention without immediate habeus corpus to break terror cells. Some terrorists have even been sent to Arab nations where they would face almost certain torture…

Perhaps President-elect Obama should study the European, Australian, and Japanese examples. Governing is a lot more difficult than campaigning. He can start by asking how many advanced democracies give terror suspects full-blown civilian trials?

After all, Obama should not be unilateral is his approach to fighting terror.

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Bill Roggio:

The Mumbai attack is uniquely different from past terror strikes carried out by Islamic terrorists. Instead of one or more bombings at distinct sites, the Mumbai attackers struck throughout the city using military tactics.

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The planners of the Mumbai attack appear to have chosen able military-aged males. Witnesses have described the men as young and fit. Some of the gunmen appear to have been well trained; some have been credited with having good marksmanship and other military skills.

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Indian police also detained three terrorists from the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terror group closely allied with al Qaeda. The three men are said to be Pakistani nationals, and claimed to have been part of a 12-man team that launched from the MV Alpha. They said the MV Alpha departed from Karachi.

Another Indian official said that it is “suspected that the Pakistan Marine Agency helped the terrorists hijack the trawler (the Kuber),” although this has not been confirmed. Another unconfirmed report indicated the Kuber originated from Karachi, Pakistan.

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The Indian Mujahideen has taken credit for several recent mass-casualty 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 bombings in Jaipur last May (60 killed, more than 200 wounded), and bombings in Uttar Pradesh in November 2007 (14 killed, 50 wounded).

In several of those attacks, an Indian Mujahideen operative who calls himself Arbi Hindi e-mailed the media to claim responsibility. Arbi Hindi’s real name is Abdul Subhan Qureshi, an Indian national who is believed to be behind many of the recent terror attacks inside India. Qureshi, a computer expert, is believed to have trained hundreds of recruits to conduct terror attacks in India. He is often called India’s Osama bin Laden.

Indian intelligence believes the Indian Mujahideen is a front group created by the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Harkat ul Jihad al Islami. The Indian Mujahideen was created to confuse investigators and cover the tracks of the Students’ Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI, a radical Islamist movement, according to Indian intelligence.

The Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Harkat ul Jihad al Islami receive support from Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence to destabilize India and wage war in Kashmir. Both of these terror groups are local al Qaeda affiliates in Pakistan and conduct attacks in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The Indian “occupation” of Kashmir helped spawn these groups.

Reports indicate signals intelligence has linked the attackers back to Pakistan. Intelligence services are said to have intercepted the terrorists’ conversations via satellite phone. The men spoke in Punjabi and used Pakistani phrases.

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The Mumbai attack differs from previous terror attacks launched by Islamic terror groups. Al Qaeda and other terror groups have not used multiple assault teams to attack multiple targets simultaneously in a major city outside of a war zone.

Al Qaeda and allied groups have conducted complex military assaults on military and non-military targets in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia, Algeria, and Pakistan. But these are countries that are actively in a state of war or emerging from a recent war, where resources and established fighting units already exist.

Al Qaeda has also used the combination of a suicide attack to breach an outer wall followed by one or more assault teams on military bases in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, as well as at the US embassy in Yemen. But again, these attacks are focused on a single target, and again occur where the resources and manpower is available.

Previous terror attacks in non-war zone countries such as India, London, Spain, the United States, Jordan, Morocco, and Egypt have consisted of suicide or conventional bombings on one or more critical soft targets such as hotels, resorts, cafes, rail stations, trains, and in the case of the Sept. 11 attack, planes used as suicide bombs.

The only attack similar to the Mumbai strike is the assault on the Indian Parliament by the Jaish-e-Mohammed, aided by the Lashkar-e-Taiba, in December 2001. A team of Jaish-e-Mohammed fighters attempted to storm the parliament building while in a session was held. A combination of mishaps by the terrorists and the quick reaction of security guards blunted the attack.

The Mumbai attack is something different. Foreign assault teams that likely trained and originated from outside the country infiltrated a major city to conduct multiple attacks on carefully chosen targets. The primary weapon was the gunman, not the suicide bomber. The attack itself has paralyzed a city of 18 million. And two days after the attack began, Indian forces are still working to root out the terror teams.

A number of interesting items at Counterterrorism Blog.

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Indian minister offers resignation over Mumbai attacks:
http://my.att.net/s/editorial.dll?pnum=1&bfromind=7406&eeid=6240843&_sitecat=1181&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=1&ck=&ch=ne&rg=blsadstrgt&_lid=332&_lnm=tg+ne+topnews&ck=

MUMBAI, India (CNN) – Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil has submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying he would take “moral responsibility” for the Mumbai attacks, a Home Ministry spokesman said Sunday.

Patil was been widely criticized even before terrorists stormed hotels and other locations in Mumbai on Wednesday night, beginning a three-day siege that killed at least 183 people.

Prime Minister Singh accepted the resignation and immediately named Finance Minister P. Chidambaram to take over the Home Ministry post, according to a source in the prime minster’s office.

Singh will add the Finance Ministry to his responsibilities, the source said.
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Meanwhile, an Indian official has said the attacks could have been much worse.

“We found bullets with them, hand grenades, bombs,” R.R. Patil, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra state, said at a news conference. “Based on our investigation, we believe they had planned to kill 5,000 people.”
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Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari pledged his country’s full cooperation with the investigation and vowed to take “the strictest action” if it is found the terrorists were based in Pakistan.

Investigators probing the attacks said they found cell phones and a global navigational device on an abandoned boat floating off the coast of Mumbai, CNN’s sister station CNN-IBN reported.

The television station showed photographs of a phone’s log that indicated calls had been placed to Pakistan.

The boat, intelligence officials told CNN-IBN, had been hijacked. The captain was found dead, lying face down with his hands bound behind his back. Four crew members were missing.

Zardari — whose wife, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated a year ago — said he was “as committed as can be” to wiping out the terrorists because they also threaten him and his country.

“They may not be the same individuals, but they are definitely the same forces with the same mindset.”

Zardari said Pakistan’s cooperation with Indian investigators will be present “without any hesitation whatsoever.”

“As the president of Pakistan, let me assure you, if any evidence points to any individual or group in my part of the country, I shall take the strictest of action in light of the evidence and in front of the world.”

Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, vowed Saturday to take action against any group within its borders if it is found to be involved with the attacks.

“The Indian leadership has not blamed the government of Pakistan; please be very clear on that,” he said. “What we have said is, if we have information, if they (India) have evidence, they should share it with us. As far as the government of Pakistan is concerned, terrorism is terrorism and we do not qualify it nor do we differentiate between organizations.”

Good to see that both countries view these terrorists as a mutual threat. This should effectively turn up the heat on any potential collaborators within the ISI. Yet Zardari & Qureshi will have to remain on their toes against a potential coup/Civil War. Their above statements are likely to further anger Pakistani militant factions. He has a shaky hold on the government and IMO if Zardari wishes to remain in power, he is going to need NATO help and the sooner he gets it, the better for him. Although at home we applaud the successful missile strikes against the Northern villages to take out the al Qauda factions and training camps. It does place him in a very precarious position. Our aid need not be of an overt nature. In fact it might be wise for Zardari to negotiate it to include a suspension of missile strikes combined with NATO intelligence aid in a governmental purge of dissidents.

Once his leadership is more secure and Pakistan’s military is firmly under his control, then he could afford the risk of a multinational concerted effort to eliminate all terrorist training camps within his country, coordinated with massive ground movements to enter the northern villages and capture or kill al Qaeda, Taliban, and all world-wide terrorist networks who have used those camps to train operatives for over 30 decades (including European terrorists agencies such as the IRA). The world will never be able to gain control over terrorism until they can first eliminate the terrorist “boot-camps”.

Otherwise it’s like trying to control the gang problem in America. We’ve pussy-footed around that issue for far too long as it is. Our police know who they are, and where they are, but do nothing to dissolve them because of fears of litigation. Gangs are the urban terrorists of our nation, but all we seem to be able to do about it is to sympathize with the victims and clean-up the messes after the crimes are committed. IMO there is sufficient cause within the RICO Act to put a stop to it. Our legislators should pass a bill naming the names of gangs known to foster crime and give enforcement officials the means to round them up. Gangs activities today are no different that the old syndicated Mafioso crime sprees of the early 20th century and should be pursued as such. By not acting to dissolve them, America itself is harboring it’s own terrorists. By the nature of the beasts, criminal gangs do not fall under the rights of the people to have organized militias for their own protection. They use illegal and stolen weapons, they sell and distribute illegal drugs and stolen goods, the open fire on our city streets without regard to innocent victims, they vandalize personal and public property, etceteras. Like the Pakistan villages, we have citizens who aid and abet them, look the other way, or share in the ill-gotten profits. We even have welfare mothers who accept gang members as their lovers. I can’t count the number of times in Las Vegas where I saw women with children out on the streets dressed in rags & begging for money with a cardboard sign, taking time out to “love on their man” when he stops by in his “pimped-out” ride, grinning away with his “grill” of gold teeth.

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No matter how many terrorist attacks there are, we must never fear, resist or mock the precious and ever peaceful Islam. Who are we to say that raping 6 year-olds is immoral? Who are we to say that stoning gays and rape victims to death is evil?

Who are we to say that killing hundreds of people every month in the name of Allah is the height of evil? That is just their culture and ideology and it MUST be respected. Morality is all relative, we must remember that.

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
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absurd thought –
God of the Universe wants
all planets Islamic

Earth is one of many
in process of conversion

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absurd thought –
God of the Universe wants
many Taliban planets

stonings and beheadings
billions served daily

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absurd thought –
God of the Universe says
allow Islamic conquest

enjoy the dhimmi life
of second class citizens

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absurd thought –
God of the Universe says
convert the infidels

or make them pay a tax
if they don’t want to die

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All real freedom starts with freedom of speech. If there is no freedom of speech there can be no real freedom.
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Philosophy of Liberty Cartoon
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Help Halt Terrorism Today!
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USpace

🙂
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Don’t freak Craig & others, Uspace is obviously being sarcastic. I mean come on; look the other way on the abuse of 6-year olds? stoning? I sincerely doubted anyone could be THAT pacifistic. If the “Absurd Thought” point don’t tip it off, his last link to a book plug is the direct give-away.

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ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALITS, AGAIN
Paul Miller

They wanted to kill 5000 innocent men, woman and children and in their disturbing view of the world only succeeded in murdering approximately 300 civilians. Azam Amir Kasab, 21, from Pakistan, the only terrorist to survive, told India police, these attacks were planned six months ago and were intended to kill 5,000 people. This poor excuse for a human being told authorities “I did right” in referring to the rampage of death he and his terror colleagues committed.

Read the rest:
http://comments.americanthinker.com/read/1/241855.html

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