Batchelor: Massacre in Mumbai — “And if it happens to Mumbai, it happens to all of us.”

The following report about the “massive terror attacks on the gigantic city” of Mumbai — India’s New York City — comes from articles posted by John Batchelor on his blog. John, who is monitoring this situation via online multi-media, provides the chilling observation that this is “global jihad on modernity”. The Middle East Times reports Democracy Under Siege. If it can happen in India, it can happen to any large city.

First, let’s look at video reports from Russia Today. More video at bottom of page.

Overview; terrorists strike India’s financial capital, November 26, 2008:

Interview report, November 26, 2008, with military analyst Eugene Khrushchev:

Interview report: India’s 9/11, November 27, 2008, with commentator Aleksey Nikolov:

Early this morning, at 1:29 am ET, John wrote:

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.

This Sunday, November 30, 2008, on his ABC radio show, John will be talking to B. Raman (Ram), a retired Indian State Intelligence officer and “terrorism prodigy”, presuming, John writes, “we can get through.”

B. Raman (Ram) argues now that this 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), 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 European 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 9:21 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. 2 minutes ago from web
#mumbai Potential confirmed blast at Santa Cruz. Nariman House is amassing a large crowd. 4 minutes ago from web
#mumbai Army is inside Oberoi. NSG still prepping. 19 minutes ago from web
@supersam5 Thanks much. 21 minutes ago from web in reply to supersam5
#mumbai Is there is an up to date quality timeline of these events plotted on a map? That would be very useful for analysis. 24 minutes ago from web
#mumbai Anyone have any data as to how the cellphone networks are holding up? They failed or were shutdown in the last bombing campaign. 26 minutes ago from web
#mumbai There’s a single group thesis that is trumpeted on the media, however, there’s a major big problem – http://tinyurl.com/6nysgh 28 minutes ago from web
#mumbai FPolicy cites Rohan, who confirms my initial analysis regarding Deccan Mujahideen = HuJI/IM/SIMI nexus. http://tinyurl.com/59dyvw 34 minutes ago from web
#mumbai New narrative: attacked the railway hub, then hijacked a car, shot up a crowd, then hit the hotel. Feasible but bad tactics. 36 minutes ago from web
#mumbai Time to think about second order events. Are the hotel attacks a smokescreen? Probably not, but consider – http://tinyurl.com/59v365 about 1 hour ago from web
#mumbai Taj residents are told to stay inside. Phones are dead. Told to turn off the light. about 1 hour ago from web}

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 1: Batchelor, 11/26 22:00 pm ET: 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 Dome of Taj hotel in flames in Mumbai after the terror attack (AFP Photo)

^{Dome of Taj hotel in flames in Mumbai after the terror attack (AFP Photo)}
More Pictures:

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.

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.

Update 2: Batchelor, 11/26 22:18 pm ET: My colleague Bill Roggio posted this on Weekly Standard blog earlier this evening: “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.

Update 3: Batchelor, 11/26 22:38 pm ET: 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 24×7. 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}

Update 4: Anon comment 11/27 Midnite ET: “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?” (See Saikat Chatterjee, India’s Financial Capital Mumbai Shut After Terrorist Attacks, Bloomberg News, November 27, 2008.)

Update 5: Anon, 11/27 00:50 am ET: “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.”

^{The Taj Hotel, Mumbai’s landmark hotel, catches fire after an attack in Mumbai, early Thursday morning, Nov. 27, 2008 (AP).}
Also see:

• Steve Herman, Gunmen Seize Top Luxury Hotels in Mumbai; About 85 Killed, VOA (New Delhi), November 26, 2008. Includes video links.
• Terrorists launched a series of co-ordinated attacks across Mumbai, killing more than 100 people and wounding hundreds more in the space of less than two hours, Sky News (UK), November 27, 2008. Includes video links and pix.
• ‘We want US and British’ say Mumbai gunmen Agence France Press, November 27, 2008.
• Andrew Buncombe, ‘Put your hands up if you are British,’ gunmen tell terrified travellers, The Independent (UK), November 27, 2008.
• Anjana Pasricha, Commandoes Launch Operations to Clear Luxury Hotels Seized by Gunmen in Mumbai, VOA (New Delhi), November 27, 2008.
• 101 Dead in Mumbai Attacks; Police Try to Free Hostages, VOA News, November 27, 2008.
• Randeep Ramesh and Daniel Pepper (in Mumbai), Dozens still held hostage in Mumbai after night of terror attacks. Coordinated series of attacks leave at least 101 people dead and more than 300 injured, Guardian (UK), November 27, 2008.
• Mark Magnier and Subhash Sharma, India terrorist attacks leave at least 101 dead in Mumbai, LA Times, November 27, 2008.
• Rhys Blakely (in Bombay), ‘Free our Muhajideen’ demand Bombay terrorists, Times Online (UK), November 27, 2008.

More video:

Exact Timings of Mumbai Massacre Terror Bombing, November 26, 2008, Headlines Today (India in English):

More than 100 held hostage in Mumbai in terror blitz, November 26, 2008, Russia Today:

Mumbai India has come under attack from a co-ordinated series of attacks, November 27, 2008, Sky News:

War on Terror turns Moderates into Extremist!, CNN, November 27, 2008: