Hello:

Should we just let India wipe Pakistan off the map? Can we control it? If we can, what are we going to do about the Pakistan nukes? By the way, do you think Pakistan will just stand by, or do you think they'll fire their nukes? Who do you think they'll fire them AT? OUR troops in Afghanistan?? India?? Who do you think will be pressing the buttons - Pakistan or Al Qaida?

I'm just curious?

excon

I am attaching Stratfor's analysis for you :
Untitled document (http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/238172/b1e369fcda/542002344/b4f35e6f8d/)

Like Stratfor I hesitate to make definitive guesses until more fact as available ;except to assume with more certainty then they that this was the act of jihadists .

I am not certain about a Pakistani connection and my first assumption is that the terrorists are not connected to the current government .But they may have connections to Paki ISI.

More likely however is that they are jihadists ;feeling the pressure from the new Pakistan government and have set up a crisis with India in retaliation for Pakistan military forays into the tribal areas.

The NY Slimes hints along similar lines :




The terrorist attacks in Mumbai occurred as India and Pakistan, two big, hostile and nuclear-armed nations, were delicately moving toward improved relations with the encouragement of the United States and in particular the incoming Obama administration.
Those steps could quickly be derailed, with deep consequences for the United States, if India finds Pakistani fingerprints on the well-planned operation. India has raised suspicions. Pakistan has vehemently denied them. …
Reconciliation between India and Pakistan has emerged as a basic tenet in the approaches to foreign policy of President-elect Barack Obama, and the new leader of Central Command, Gen. David H. Petraeus. The point is to persuade Pakistan to focus less of its military effort on India, and more on the militants in its lawless tribal regions who are ripping at the soul of Pakistan.
A strategic pivot by Pakistan's military away from a focus on India to an all-out effort against the Taliban and their associates in Al Qaeda, the thinking goes, would serve to weaken the militants who are fiercely battling American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/world/asia/28diplo.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

Stratfor points to the 2002 tension between India and Pakistan that almost went nuclear. They say that the US brokered a cooling off by putting the pressure on India in return for Pakistan's cooperation against the jihadists.

But what if the Pakistan ISI is controlling the jihadists and are using the US war against the jihadists against us? ....By using their cooperation as that proverbial dangling carrot while they sucker punch India at their choosing ??

Yasser Arafat used that strategy to great effect throughout many US adminstrations. He was the moderate holding back the radicals while at the same time encouraging the radicals to hit Israel. Heck;he got so good at it that they gave him the Nobel Peace Prize!

But as difficult it was ;eventually when "Palestine " disintegrated ;at least they didn't have nukes.

As for a US response ? I have no clue what President-elect Obama thinks. The US won the Cold War by having a continuity of policy that lasted beyond election cycles. If he is as good as he thinks he is, then he will perhaps continue the Bush policy of strengthening ties with India ;acting as broker in the India-Pakistan dispute while continuing the press Pakistan to clean out the jihadists pockets in it's country.

No one said it would be easy ,and everyone said the war would be long.

More information :

The Telegraph has information from the sole surviving terrorist .



The preparations for the atrocity began a year earlier in a remote mountain camp in Muzaffarabad, in Pakistan- administered Kashmir, according to the interrogation of a 19-year-old believed to be the only member of the terrorist unit to be captured alive.

During the months of training they were taught the use of explosives and close quarter combat. It was ingrained upon every man that ammunition would be in short supply and therefore every bullet should count.
The terrorists were also taught marine commando techniques such as beach landings at another camp at the Mangla Dam, located on the border between Pakistan-administered Kashmir and India's Punjab province.
Kamal revealed that once their training was complete, his team of four travelled to the garrison town of Rawalpindi, where they were joined by another six terrorists, who had been trained at other camps close by.
It was in Rawalpindi that the 10-man team were briefed in detail with digitised images of their prospective targets – the Taj Mahal and Oberoi Hotels, the Jewish Centre and the Victoria Terminus railway station. Each member of the team memorised street names and routes to each location. Kamal told his interrogators that most of the targeting information came from a reconnaissance team which had selected the targets earlier in the year.
From Rawalpindi, the team then moved to the eastern port of Karachi where they chartered the merchant ship MV Alpha and headed for Bombay.
It was during this crucial phase, as the cargo ship headed into the Arabian Sea, that the terrorists appeared to almost lose their nerve. The Indian navy, Kamal revealed, were very active, boarding foreign vessels and searching their holds. The terrorists thought their plan might be compromised so on the night of 15th/16th November, the teams used their inflatable speed boats to hijack a local fishing boat, the Kuber.
Kamal also admitted to his interrogators that three of the Kuber's four crew were immediately murdered, while the ship's captain was ordered to sail for the Indian coast. When the Kuber was within five miles of the coast, the terrorists slit the captain's throat and transferred back into their inflatable speed boats and headed for the lights of Bombay.

Major General RK Hooda, the senior Indian commander, acknowledged the group, the Deccan Mujadeen, were better equipped and had a better knowledge of the battleground than India's soldiers.
After the battle, one member of India's National Security Guard, who led one of the assault groups against the terrorists occupying the Taj Mahal hotel, said they were the “best fighters” he had ever encountered.
He said: “They were obviously trained by professionals in urban guerrilla fighting. They used their environment and situation brilliantly, leading us (the NSG) on a dangerous chase through various tiers of the hotel which they obviously knew well. Their fire discipline too was excellent and they used their ammunition judiciously, mostly to draw us out.
“It was amply clear they came to kill a large number of people and to eventually perish in their horrific endeavour,” he said. “Negotiating with the Indian authorities or escaping was not an option for them.”

The audacious attack which took a year to plan - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/3535801/The-audacious-attack-which-took-a-year-to-plan.html)

They appear to have split up into "buddy pairs ",similar to tactics our troops have adopted which allows one to shoot while the other moved .Each pair had its own set of goals. In this way, moving from cover to cover, they take ground. Since they were largely unopposed until most of their carnage was done they could shoot from the hip and spray their shots to achieve maximum kill.

The local police force was ineffective ;in fact they were largely no-shows. The NSG took over 9 hours to deploy.
Why did NSG take 9 hrs to get there?-India-The Times of India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Why_did_NSG_take_9_hrs_to_get_there/articleshow/3775003.cms)

Clearly local police forces being the first line of defense must have units trained in counter-terrorism.

Imagine similar tactics employed at one of our local shopping malls during the holday season ? Hopefully members of our "well-regulated militia" will be shopping that day .

'I was told to kill to my last breath': Captured terrorist's account of Mumbai massacre reveals plan was to kill 5,000 | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1090546/I-told-kill-breath-Captured-terrorists-account-Mumbai-massacre-reveals-plan-kill-5-000.html)

Amazing thing is that there were only 10 , though highly trained, of them.


Meanwhile the BBC has it totally wrong.

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | The age of 'celebrity terrorism' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7755684.stm)


Lets not forget, that the MSM is more concerned with global warming rather than terrorism. HUH??










g&p

Kasav is a wealth of misinformation. With
Accomplices like control agents, support personnel, scouts, transportation, safe houses, safe rooms supplies,sophisticated command and control communications... my guess is that this operation was significantly larger than 10. Really too big an operation for most non-state actors. The fact that they had to be trained in small craft operation and training;and that they launced their operation from Karachi convinces me that at very least the ISI was involved. It is too much a coincidence that the three top police officials fell on the first night and that 2 American intelligence officers were KIA.

This is a game plan similar to the one that Shamil Basayev ;the Chechen jihadi ,was going to employ at the G-8 meeting at Petersburg in July 2006. He would've had spectacular success if he had a chance to pull it off . But luckily the Ruskies got wind of it from informants, and a truck full of Chechen guerillas were offed in a missile attack.

You mean the coming coronation of Obama didn’t mean the end of Islamic terrorist attacks? MSNBC anchor Alex Witt seemed disappointed that terrorism did not disappear with his election:


“you certainly can’t expect things to change on a dime overnight....There had been such a global outpouring of affection, respect, hope, with the new administration coming in, that precisely these kinds of attacks, it was thought — at least hoped — would be dampered down (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rich-noyes/2008/12/01/msnbc-anchor-frets-why-hasn-t-obama-s-election-ended-terrorism). But in this case it looks like Barack Obama is getting a preview of things to come.”

Goodness, the Jihadists aren’t rolling over for the incoming administration. Was this - as with all other foreign grievances - a reaction to Bush’s policy or was it a reaction to Obama’s plan to focus on Pakistan and Afghanistan? Should we as Deepak Chopra suggested (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122809544395968075.html?mod=special_page_campaig n2008_mostpop), “undertake a Marshall Plan for Muslims?” By all means, we must consider the real victims here, right?