PrintDecember 4, 2008
First lessons from the Mumbai Massacres
It now appears that 10 commando-trained terrorists with Pakistani jihadist training were able to kill at least 172 people and wound almost 300 more in Mumbai, India, over some five days. That suggests major failures among Mumbai's first responders, notably its armed police. It is likely, though not certain, that such an attack would have been stifled much more quickly in the United States, Israel, and perhaps parts of Europe, Russia and China. Similar terrorist attacks in those countries have been typically less damaging, although there have been cases of successful mass casualty attacks there, too. India has faced jihadi terror attacks in the Kashmir for decades. It has a great deal of experience in coping with such attacks, but that experience has apparently not sufficiently benefited major cities like Mumbai. India also has apparently failed to penetrate the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, which itself has been penetrated by jihadi terror networks for...(Read Full Article)
