Leadership lapses marred response to Mumbai terror attack

Top police officials under fire for errors of judgment

MUMBAI:

Errors of judgment and top-level leadership lapses marred the Mumbai police’s management of the first, critical hours of last month’s Lahskar-e-Taiba attack — errors that are now driving calls from for a full review of the force’s crisis response system.
Mumbai’s top police officials, highly placed government sources said, failed to take charge of the Police Control Room, the nerve centre of the city police’s overall command structure. Nor did they use the force’s wireless system to rally their men demoralised by the loss of several of officers, notably the heroic joint commissioner of police and chief of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, Hemant Karkare. Instead, one top official chose to station himself and two aides inside a bullet-proof vehicle parked at the National Centre for the Performing Arts Building near the Oberoi Hotel, thus cutting himself off from the broad flow of operations.
Coordination at the Police Control Room fell to a committee of three joint commissioners of police — Crime Branch chief Rakesh Maria, his Law and Order counterpart, K.L. Prasad, and Administration head Bhagwantrao More. Without authority over subordinates outside their own chain of command, the control room team achieved little. Mumbai’s police failed to initiate a thoroughgoing lockdown of major roads, to block the potential movement of the terrorist groups. Nor were teams of police personnel dispatched to other potential targets. Worst of all, police and Special Reserve Police personnel stationed in the suburbs were not rushed to reinforce the small, ill-armed groups engaged in the early fighting.

Pakistan ready to ban Jamat-ud-Dawah :Yousuf Raza Gilani

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani confirmed on Wednesday that Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a Lashkar-e-Taiba commander who Indian investigators suspect to be the mastermind behind the Mumbai attacks, had been taken into custody in a crackdown on the group.He also hinted that Pakistan is prepared to impose a ban on the LeT front Jamat-ud-Dawah and take action against the founder-leader of both, Hafiz Saeed, if it was designated as a terror group by the United Nations Security Council.
In addition, he confirmed that Zarar Shah, named in a New York Times report as a communications expert of the LeT and a “central character” in the plot, and a possible “liaison” between the group and the Inter-Services Intelligence, was also in custody.
Speaking to reporters in his hometown Multan, Mr. Gilani, however, said he did not know about the reported action against Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Maulana Masood Azhar. A Pakistani newspaper had said authorities had “confined” Azhar to his home in Bahawalpur which, like Multan, is in southern Punjab province.
“About the other two [Lakhvi and Shah], yes. We are investigating them,” Mr. Gilani said, in reply to a question about all three. “As far as Maulana Masood Azhar is concerned, I have not received any report about him.”
The Prime Minister said if India provided evidence of any Pakistani’s involvement in the Mumbai attacks, action would be taken against that person or persons in accordance with Pakistani law.
“If the Indian government provides evidence, we will take action; we have already started taking action on our own, and that is a good message for our neighbour country and for the whole world that Pakistan is a responsible nation and is taking action on its own,” he said.
He denied the actions were being taken under pressure from India and the U.S. Mr. Gilani declined to answer a question about the Indian allegation that all attackers were Pakistanis, and said he would wait until full investigations had been conducted.
Asked about the possibility of a ban on the Jamat-ud-Dawah in case the U.N. Security Council designates it as a terrorist group (Pakistan’s permanent representative to the U.N has said this could be considered) Mr. Gilani said the world did not differentiate between the JuD and the LeT. “Lashkar-e-Taiba is a banned organisation. If the office-bearers of [the LeT] become part of a new group, then tell me what should we call such an organisation. They are not making a differentiation between the [LeT and the JuD]. They are considered one and the same.”

“U.S. verifying reports”

Warning of “unintended consequences” if Pakistan did not act against the “non-state actors” who used its territory to stage attacks in Mumbai, the U.S. on Wednesday said it was “working hard” to verify what Islamabad was actually doing against such elements.
“... I think we have to be concerned because it’s obviously a time of great outrage in India. And what I emphasised was that this was a threat to both Pakistan and India, these terrorists,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview to the National Public Radio.

Mumbai attacks similar to 1993 New York

The meticulous planning and execution of the Mumbai terror attack, which has left the country's security agencies scurrying for cover, might not be as original as it is presumed to be, because of its eerie resemblance to the 1993 New York Landmarks Plot, hatched by Al-Qaeda.

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When compared to an Osama bin Laden's then-relatively new terror group's plot to target prominent hotels and landmarks in Manhattan that was uncovered 15 years ago, the audacious last week's attack looks like a re-play of the same. According to US-based private Intelligence company, Stratfor, in July 1993, US counter-terrorism agents had arrested eight individuals later convicted of plotting an elaborate, multi-stage attack on key sites in Manhattan. 'The militants, who were linked to Osama bin Laden's then-relatively new group al Qaeda, planned to storm the island armed with automatic rifles, grenades and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). In multiple raids on key targets combined with diversionary attacks, they aimed to kill as many people as possible,' the firm's latest report on Mumbai terror attack said. The planned attack, which came to be known as the Landmarks Plot, called for several tactical teams to raid sites such as the Waldorf-Astoria, St. Regis and UN Plaza hotels, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and a midtown Manhattan waterfront heliport servicing business executives and VIPs travelling from lower Manhattan to various New York-area airports. The militants carried out extensive surveillance both inside and outside the target hotels using human probes, hand-drawn maps and video surveillance. Detailed notes were taken on the layout and design of the buildings, it stairwells, ballrooms, security cameras and personnel all reconnoitered,' the report said. It said the attackers intended to infiltrate the hotels and disguise themselves as kitchen employees. 'One attack team planned to use stolen delivery vans to get close to the hotels, at which point heavily armed, small-cell commando teams would deploy from the rear of the van. Stationary operatives would use hand grenades to create diversions while attack teams would rake hotel guests with automatic weapons. The attackers planned to carry gas masks and use tear gas in hotel ballrooms to gain an advantage over any security they might come up against. They planned to attack at night, when the level of protection would be lower, it said. The targeted hotels, the report said, hosted some of the most prestigious guests in Manhattan, like in the case of the hotels targeted in Mumbai. 'These could have included diplomats like the US Ambassador to the United Nations, who traditionally keeps an apartment in the Waldorf-Astoria, or even the US Secretary of State, who is known to stay at the Waldorf during UN Sessions. They also host various business leaders. If successful, the attackers doubtless would have killed many high-profile individuals key to New York's stature as a center for financial and diplomatic dealings, it said. Stratfor said at the time, US counter-terrorism officials deemed that the attack would have had a 90 per cent success rate. Disaster, then, was averted when federal agents captured the plotters planning the Landmarks attack, thanks to an informant who had infiltrated the group, it said. The intelligence firm said that Mumbai terror attacks closely followed the script of the New York plot. 'The similarities between the Landmarks plot and the November 26 Mumbai attacks are quite obvious. In symbolic terms, as the Mumbai attacks unfolded, many onlookers said that an attack on Mumbai is to India what an attack on New York is to Americans. 'In more concrete terms, the targets, methods, weapons and geography involved were similar (if not identical), and the unconventional style of the attacks points to a common author,' it said. Outlining that Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are known to return to past targets and plot scenarios, the private intelligence company says that the Mumbai attack had al Qaeda brand written over it. The country's counter-terrorism forces had then detained Landmarks plot mastermind Ramzi Yousef in 1995, who remains in US federal prison. Listing out the similarities in the method and targets and surveillance carried out in both New York plot and Mumbai terror attacks, Stratfor said the similarities suggested that Ramzi Yousef and other early al Qaeda operatives who helped prepare the Landmarks plot in New York authored the Mumbai plan. 'Considering that the militants launched their original attack from Karachi, Pakistan, and the previous involvement of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, which has connections with al Qaeda leaders in western Pakistan, it is very likely that al Qaeda in Pakistan at least provided the blueprints for this attack. It also added, 'Ultimately, the biggest difference between the Landmarks plot and the Mumbai attacks is that the Mumbai attacks succeeded. The failure of the Landmarks plot probably provided key lessons to the planners of the Mumbai attacks, who were able to carry out the stages of the attack without detection and with the full element of surprise.'