A gunman walks at the Chatrapathi Sivaji Terminal railway station in Mumbai
They were 10 gunmen, well-trained and armed with assault rifles and grenades, officials say. They had scouted their targets ahead of time. The knew the hallways and the basements. They even carried bags of almonds for energy. Police say they were Muslim extremists from Pakistan, and may be tied to India’s long-running insurgency in the disputed, largely Muslim, Himalayan region of Kashmir.
They landed in an inflatable rubber boat not long after nightfall on a Mumbai beach, a semi-isolated stretch of sand and stone where fisherman bring in their boats during the daytime. From there, it was less than a 15-minutes walk to their major targets. The group fanned out across the city, hitting 10 spots in two hours. They chose some of the best-known landmarks, many popular with foreigners and the city’s elite. Many of the attacks ended in minutes. But at two luxury hotels and a Jewish center they dug in, fending off hundreds of commandos for days.
India will doubtlessly cast blame towards Islamabad as it should for Pakistan is but one large madrassa of jihadism but the fact remains that the Indian intelligence community and security forces are guilty of serious lapses and incompetence. How did ten twenty-somethings manage to hold off the Indian army for 72 hours?
As an investigation moved forward, there were questions about whether Indian authorities could have anticipated the attack and had better security in place, especially after a 2007 report to Parliament that the country’s shores were inadequately protected from infiltration by sea — which is how the attackers sneaked into Mumbai.
Home Minister Shivraj Patil, responsible for public safety and internal security as one of the most senior members of the government, resigned on Sunday to take responsibility for the failure of the country’s intelligence services and military to prevent the attacks in Mumbai.
Mr. Patil’s resignation is the clearest sign yet that the current government is feeling pressure from the general public in India to make amends.
All the while, tensions are swelling with Pakistan, where officials promised that they would act swiftly if any connection to Pakistani-based militants were found, but also warned that troops could be moved to the border quickly if relations with India worsened.
It was still unclear whether the attackers had collaborators already in the city, or whether others in their group had escaped. And perhaps the most troubling question to emerge for the Indian authorities was how, if official estimates are accurate, just 10 gunmen could have caused so much carnage and repelled Indian security forces for more than three days in three different buildings.
Part of the answer may lie in continuing signs that despite the country’s long vulnerability to terrorist attacks, Indian law enforcement remains ill-prepared. The siege exposed problems caused by inexperienced security forces and inadequate equipment, including a lack of high-power rifle scopes and other optics to help discriminate between the attackers and civilians.
If I were an Indian citizen, I’d be mad as hell. As it is, I am rather steamed and frustrated with a Pakistan incapable of controlling its own destiny and incapable of providing an alternative route of development for its citizens. Pakistan has become a state without frontiers whose primary export is now terror and terrorists. If Pakistan can’t control its own territory then it risks intervention. Already, US forces are encroaching into Pakistan’s Northwest Tribal Areas because Pakistan has failed to stem the violence seeping out of those areas. Now, India gazes across its own border and sees dozens of training camps and hundreds of fighters being trained to wreck havoc and destruction. It’s hard to ask India to show restraint but that is what we must do. Otherwise, we risk a wider war which is precisely what these fundamentalists want. But we also owe India every instrument at our disposal in demonstrating our resolve to Pakistani authorities to act now and act decisively before the entire world comes bearing down on the Punjab and the Sind.