Breaking: Multiple Bombings Reported In Mumbai; Casualties Reported

Police confirm 3 separate blasts.

Three blasts rocked Mumbai, police said on Wednesday. TV reports say at least 15 people have been injured. Two of the blasts were in south Mumbai, while one was in central Mumbai, police said. Blasts have been reported at the Dadar, Opera House and Zaveru Bazaar areas in Mumbai.

An NIA team has been sent for Mumbai. All states have been put on high alert.
Mumbai was the city where a 2008 gun raid by Pakistan-based militants killed at least 166 people.

Police are trying to determine what is going on and bomb squads have been rushed to the scenes and the area is on high alert following the attacks.

Coordinated attacks are a hallmark of al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was involved in the 2008 attacks. The blasts apparently coincided with the birthday of the sole surviving terrorist from the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed more than 160 people.

UPDATE:


UPDATE:
Map of Mumbai:

View Larger Map

At least four people were killed, and 25 others have been taken to hospitals. Unfortunately, I think that those numbers are likely to rise as more reports come in.

Expect Indian authorities to point fingers at LeT and the Pakistanis considering the targets, the means and methods, and the timing.

UPDATE:
10 dead and 60+ injured. The death toll continues climbing and it may increase still further. The three bombs that detonated were spread across the city:

The first explosion took place in south Mumbai's Zaveri Bazaar, near the famous Mumbadevi temple, in which some people were injured, said Mumbai Police spokesperson Nisar Tamboli. The bustling market also has a number of jewellery shops.

The second explosion was reported in a taxi in Dadar area in central Mumbai, he said.

The third blast was reported from south Mumbai's Opera House in Charni Road after 7pm.

UPDATE:
A fourth bomb was apparently discovered in the Dadar area and the bomb squad is working to disarm the device.

It isn't the first time that the Zaveri Bazaar area was targeted by terrorists either; a twin bombing in 2002 killed 50.

UPDATE:
13 dead, 81 injured.

Mumbai Terrorist Convicted On Terror Charges In Deadly Attacks

One of the Mumbai terrorists was convicted today in the deadly attacks at various Mumbai hotels and locations, including a Chabad house. However, two co-conspirators were found not guilty of assisting the terrorists in their plot:

Pakistani terrorist, Ajmal Amir Kasab, charged with the deaths of 166 Indians and foreigners, has been pronounced guilty of all charges by a special court in Mumbai. The two Indians, who were named as co-accused in the case-- Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin Shaikh, have been acquitted.

The argument on quantum of sentence to Kasab will be held tomorrow.

Kasab has been convicted on all 86 charges against him. He was found guilty or murder and waging war against the nation, the court said while delivering the judgment.

"You have been found guilty of waging war against India, and killing people at CST (train station), killing government officials and abetting the other nine terrorists," Judge M.L. Tahaliyani said as he announced his verdict. They were the most serious charges laid against Kasab, a 22-year-old Pakistani who was arrested after the Mumbai siege.

The conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan, the judge said.

The two Indian co-accused were set free because the evidence against them was weak, the court ruled. Kasab had said that the duo supplied maps of Mumbai to LeT bosses. Thus, they gave logistical support to carry out the attack. But the judge, punching a hole in the prosecution’s argument, said better maps were available on Google than the crude drawings Kasab claimed had been supplied by Ansari and Sabauddin.

The terror attacks, which included attacking several swanky hotels, a Chabad House, and other locations around the city killed 173 people and wounded another 300 and did significant damage to two hotels. The Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was behind the attacks.

Al Qaeda Faces Recruitment Challenge; And So Do We

I can't say I'm sorry to hear that, but the Guardian reports that al Qaeda faces recruitment challenges.

Speaking to the Guardian in advance of tomorrow's eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, western counter-terrorism officials and specialists in the Muslim world said the organisation faced a crisis that was severely affecting its ability to find, inspire and train willing fighters.

Its activity is increasingly dispersed to "affiliates" or "franchises" in Yemen and North Africa, but the links of local or regional jihadi groups to the centre are tenuous; they enjoy little popular support and successes have been limited.

Lethal strikes by CIA drones – including two this week alone – have combined with the monitoring and disruption of electronic communications, suspicion and low morale to take their toll on al-Qaida's Pakistani "core", in the jargon of western intelligence agencies.

Interrogation documents seen by the Guardian show that European Muslim volunteers faced a chaotic reception, a low level of training, poor conditions and eventual disillusionment after arriving in Waziristan last year.

"Core" al-Qaida is now reduced to a senior leadership of six to eight men, including Bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to most informed estimates. Several other Egyptians, a Libyan and a Mauritanian occupy the other top positions. In all, there are perhaps 200 operatives who count.

The most significant recent development is evidence that al-Qaida's alliance with the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan is fraying, boosting the prospect of acquiring intelligence that will lead to Bin Laden's capture or death. Despite an intensive US-led manhunt, there has not been a credible lead on the Saudi-born al-Qaida leader in years. Bin Laden's nickname among some CIA hunters is "Elvis" because there have been so many false sightings of him.

When you consider that the terrorist group is being relentlessly hunted down in former safe havens like Pakistan and Afghanistan, it's affiliates in Iraq were decimated, and even Hamas considers al Qaeda a mortal threat to its own terror operations, you can see why al Qaeda has problems.

However, that's not quite the full story. Al Qaeda may be losing its power as a distinct entity, but its worldview and the pursuit of jihad is not going away. It's still a very powerful force in places like Pakistan, Iran, Somalia, and other failed states and regions around the world. Instead of groups directly linked to al Qaeda, there are more freelance groups and cells operating to plot attacks. Groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat al-Muslimeen fill the void.

Even in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Taliban under the Mehsud clan took up al Qaeda's banner and were effectively holding off Pakistan's military in the frontier provinces. Recent airstrikes killed Baitullah Mehsud, but a relative picked up where he left off.

The problem is that when you drop the number of members in a core group below a certain point, the ability to track, let alone penetrate, the terror group to gain intel about whereabouts, plans, and coordination with operational terror cells becomes increasingly more difficult. With the core leadership down to 6-8 terrorists, finding those terrorists in the vast space of the frontier provinces of Pakistan and Afghanistan is exceedingly difficult.

It requires continued vigilance to prevent another mass casualty attack, and to consider attacks in venues that might not be suspected.

Forgotten Conflicts?

MSNBC has an interesting report on 10 forgotten conflicts that the media has missed reporting on for years. While MSNBC and its fellow media outlets are busy misreporting on Israel's war to defend itself against Hamas, or were busy commiting media malpractice in the course of reporting the war and following insurgency in Iraq, there are numerous other conflicts that got short shrift around the world.

The highlighted conflicts: Colombia, Sri Lanka, Ivory Coast, Central African Republic, DR Congo, Zimbabwe, Sudan (Darfur), Somalia, East Timor, and Chechnya.

MSNBC has actually done a better job reporting on the situation in Zimbabwe than other American news outlets, but sadly their coverage of most other conflicts is lacking. At the same time, there are three other hotspots that MSNBC ignored entirely:

The Thai insurgency. Islamic terrorists are busy trying to establish an Islamic state in Southern Thailand; more than 3,000 Thais have been killed and the fighting has gone on for years.

The India/Pakistan border. The Line of Control separates these two nuclear powers and the recent mass murder of Indians in Mumbai once again highlights the tenuous relations between India and Pakistan. There have been numerous skirmishes across the Line of Control which marks the border region between the two countries. Pakistan has sent troops previously meant to fight against the Taliban to the Line of Control in response to India's military moves following the Mumbai attacks, which were traced back to Pakistan' Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist group, which has repeatedly received assistance from Pakistan's intel services, the ISI.

Philippines. The Moro Island Liberation Front (MILF) has been waging an insurgency against the Manila government for years, and it's sent hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing from their war. The terrorist group operates in conjunction with Abu Sayaaf, which itself is affiliated with al Qaeda.

Why were those three regions and conflicts omitted from the list? Could it have anything to do with the fact that all three are fueled by Islamists seeking jihad and the expansion of Islamic rule?

Pakistanis Move Troops From Anti-Terror Operations Towards India

The terrorists who carried out the Mumbai attacks can only smile at the good fortune of their deadly work. The Pakistani government is considering the Indian government a bigger threat than the very Islamists who operate inside the country and who carried out the deadly Mumbai attacks and who support and carry out terrorist attacks not only inside Pakistan, but against Afghanistan as well. For more than a month, the Pakistanis have threatened to take troops off the line in the frontier provinces and send them towards the Indian border. Today, we get some word that they're actually carrying through on that threat.

The Pakistani government is busy directing one of its armies to redeploy away from the Afghan border where it was being used in counterterrorism operations, towards the Indian border, which is a serious misallocation of resources in the war on the terrorists.

Two intelligence officials said the army's 14th Division was being redeployed to Kasur and Sialkot, close to the Indian border. They said some 20,000 troops were on the move. Earlier Friday, a security official said that all troop leave had been canceled.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Indian officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

An Associated Press reporter in Dera Ismail Khan, a district that borders the Afghan-frontier province of South Waziristan, said he saw around 40 trucks loaded with soldiers heading away from the Afghan border.

India is blaming Pakistan-based militants for last month's attacks on Mumbai. Islamabad has said it will cooperate in any probe, but says it has seen no evidence backing up India's claims.

Both countries have said they hope to avoid military conflict, but Pakistan has promised to respond aggressively if India uses force, an option the Indian government has not ruled out.

Pakistan has deployed more than 100,000 soldiers in Waziristan and other northwestern regions to fight Islamic militants blamed for surging violence against Western troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistan is sending the troops towards the Line of Control, which has been site of multiple skirmishes and three wars. India has every right to demand that the Pakistanis hand over the terrorists and all those responsible for the attacks, which were plotted and carried out from Pakistani territory.

Pakistan is playing a real dangerous game with India, figuring that it can appease the Islamists and nationalists all while trying to maintain a veneer that they're operating counterterrorism operations against the same Islamists. Complicating matters is the fact that the Pakistani intel services, the ISI, is thoroughly penetrated by the Islamists and it is all too likely that the ISI assisted the terrorists in their deadly attacks.

At the same time, the Pakistani government can't maintain security for the NATO supply lines that run from Pakistan into Afghanistan, and that threatens the ongoing NATO and US military operations there. It's a situation that cannot persist without seriously compromising the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, which is yet another reason why the terrorists must be smiling. They're attacking the US war effort's soft underbelly - reliance on the Pakistani government to transit materials into Afghanistan. Cut the supply lines, and the war effort in Afghanistan grows immeasurably more difficult as air resupply is far more expensive and time consuming.

For their part, the Pakistanis claim that it was a homegrown Indian terrorist group responsible for the Mumbai attacks. Indian authorities have given Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations proof that the Pakistanis were involved in the attacks. That's at the same time that Indian authorities claimed to have disrupted another terror plot involving Pakistani ISI against India.

Pakistani Jails = Communications Hubs For Terrorists

Prisons are supposed to keep the terrorists from communicating with their fellow jihadis and prevent terror plots from being hatched. That is far from the case in Pakistan, where the terrorists behind the murder of Daniel Pearl were able to use the Pakistani jail as a communications hub from which to direct an assassination plot against Pervez Musharraf.

If this is what the Pakistanis do with the terrorists in their custody, imagine what the terrorists are able to do in places like the frontier provinces? If anything, the situation is even worse than that since we have once again been provided with evidence showing that Pakistani authorities are busy aiding and abetting the jihadis in their war against the West.

This thug hasn't had his death sentence carried out because he's got friends in high places - or in this case, the Pakistani ISI.

Omar also is a close associate of Maulana Masood Aktar, the leader of the Jaish-e-Mohammed terror group. Omar and Aktar were freed from Indian custody in 1999 after terrorists hijacked an Indian Airline flight and forced it to land in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He also has close links to the Kashmiri terror group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the Taliban, and of course Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency. After the murder of Pearl, Omar is said to have turned himself in to his ISI handler. It is believed Omar’s death sentence has not been carried out because of his connections with the ISI.

With Pakistani officials sympathetic to the cause of jihad, it's not unexpected to find them looking the other way as al Qaeda bigwigs continue to operate their terror networks from behind bars. If anything the terrorists have more time to focus on their plots since they don't have to worry about meals or airstrikes.

The situation in Pakistan is awful, and the Pakistani government is between a rock and a hard place in trying to deal with the Islamists and to prevent the Islamists from toppling the government because of their sheer numbers and domination of places like the frontier provinces and the widespread indoctrination into jihad at the madrassas spread throughout the country.

Even after the Mumbai attacks, the Pakistanis are only paying lip service to cracking down against the terror groups responsible.

The Pakistani government reluctantly cracked down on Jamaat-ud-Dawa only after significant pressure from the US and Indian governments. Once it became clear the United Nations would declare Jamaat a terror group, the government launched raids on offices and detained several operatives.

While some government leaders talked tough on dealing with Jamaat, Pakistan's defense minister freely admitted actions are underway because the government was concerned it would be labeled a terrorist state and suffer from UN sanctions. "We are part of the international community and cannot afford confrontation with the whole world,” Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar told the Pakistani press.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi refused to say whether Pakistan has banned the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, and he has repeatedly stated that anyone involved in the Mumbai attacks would not be turned over to India.

The way in which Pakistan's announced its crackdown on Jamaat-ud-Dawa showed how reluctant the government is to move against the group, which is supported by powerful elements within Pakistan’s military and intelligence community and has a wide following throughout Pakistan for its ability to deliver services the state cannot or will not perform. The announcement of the government's action was made "at midnight when most viewers had gone to bed," The New York Times reported.

The Pakistani Two Step

Pakistan has announced that it has carried out raids against Lashkar-e-Taiba camps in the country.

Pakistani security forces on Sunday raided a camp used by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), two sources said, in a strike against the militant group blamed by India for last month's deadly attacks on Mumbai.

Local man Nisar Ali told Reuters the operation began in the afternoon in Shawai on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani side of disputed Kashmir region.

"I don't know details as the entire area was sealed off, but I heard two loud blasts in the evening after a military helicopter landed there," Ali said.

An official with the Jamaat-ud-Dawa charity, which is linked to LeT, said security forces had taken over the camp.

India has demanded Pakistan take swift action over what it says is the latest anti-India militant attack emanating from Pakistani soil. No comment on the raid was immediately available from Indian officials.

It's the Pakistani two-step. The Pakistanis have been doing this for years, and it follows a trend in other places like Saudi Arabia following terror attacks.

You make a few arrests.

You kill a few terrorists and say that you're cracking down. You do just enough to stay in power (in the case of Pervez Musharraf and now Asif Ali Zardari), and little more. You cycle between appeasement and crackdown, and the Islamists know this is coming just as surely as anyone who has been watching this for years.

The only way to break out of this mess is to take on the Islamists and destroy the Islamist terror infrastructure, but no one in Pakistan is willing to take it on; they've penetrated the ISI and the government can barely control the frontier provinces, let alone deal with the immediate threat of India's wrath following the terror attacks.

The US has been largely operating with tacit approval of the Pakistani government in taking out targets inside Waziristan and the NWFP. A major problem is that the terrorists aren't simply confined there - there are rat lines all through Pakistan, and going after them is tougher, although the US did take out an al Qaeda bigwig a few weeks back outside the frontier provinces. That's a much more delicate situation and one that threatens the overall US policy on airstrikes inside Pakistan.

The Pakistanis have chosen for far too long to enable and condone the Islamists and the jihad. They can't simply turn and burn them now without payback, and the Pakistani government is going to walk the tightrope, just as Musharraf did. They'll do only so much to reduce the pressure from the West and India, but no further because that would risk the Islamists rising up against the government.

In fact, Pakistan's ISI appears to have aided and abetted the terrorists in attacking Mumbai. This isn't the first time the ISI has been implicated in terrorism either.

More ominously, the former ISI chief is linked to al Qaeda's WMD advisory group.

Lieutenant General (Retired) Hamid Gul served on the board of the Umma Tameer-E-Nau, an organization founded by Pakistani nuclear scientists and industrialists, according to a secret dossier that the United States has put together to present to the United Nations Security Council, The News reported. Gul has also been implicated in supporting the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, the Haqqani Network, al Qaeda, and other extremist groups.

Gul served as the chief of the ISI from 1987 to 1989. Gul is known as the Godfather of the Taliban for his efforts to organize the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, and the helping to facilitate the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s. Gul supports the terrorist insurgency in India-occupied Kashmir and opposes the US-led effort to defeat Islamic extremism.

The Umma Tameer-E-Nau "was founded by Pakistani nuclear scientists with close ties to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban," the US government stated in December 2001 after blocking the group's finances under Executive Order 13224. Three of the group's directors - two Pakistani nuclear scientists and an industrialist - were also proscribed under the executive order.

Note too that the NATO operations in Afghanistan are at tremendous risk because Pakistan simply cannot maintain operational security for the transportation terminals and convoys carrying the weapons and equipment into Afghanistan, and that threatens the IFOR. A major Taliban attack against one such terminal in Peshawar resulted in 160 vehicles destroyed, including dozens of humvees destined for Afghanistan. 70% of the equipment and vehicles destined for Afghanistan pass through Pakistan.

That's not a good situation to be in at all.

Cracking down against LeT and the Taliban in general is the absolute least the Pakistanis can do at this point. Appearing to crack down on LeT and the Taliban is the most they can do, precisely because of the risk of looking like the government is operating at the behest of the West or India.

UPDATE:
This certainly isn't good news. Pakistan has suspended the NATO supply lines from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

The decision came just hours after a logistics terminal in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, where dozens of trucks carrying Humvees and other military vehicles were parked, was attacked by insurgents on Sunday.

More than 300 Taliban militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles burned down the logistics [had to fix a typo in the original report] terminal.

That comes on the heels of still more attacks on NATO supply lines today, with 90 containers destroyed in an attack today. Pakistan claims that the terrorists involved are getting international assistance and that they can't handle the security of the NATO supply lines.

I guess the ISI now counts as international assistance?

High Alert In India: UPDATE: Gunfight At New Delhi Airport?

India has issued warnings alerting people to the possibility of terrorists attempting to hijack aircraft in the country. That follows revelations that the Indian government failed to heed warnings about the Pakistani ISI training Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists to infiltrate by sea.

Three airports in particular are on high alert.

Indian authorities have put on high alert airports in the capital, New Delhi, the southeastern coastal city of Chennai and the southern city of Bangalore. The move followed a threat of possible attacks by militants who claimed last week's deadly assault on the Indian financial capital, Mumbai.

The previously unknown Deccan Mujahadeen group which claimed responsibility for last week's terrorist attacks on Mumbai reportedly threatened to attack the three airports this week between Wednesday and Sunday.

The threat was made in an e-mail sent form Saudi Arabia and received by Indira Gandhi Airport officials in New Delhi, news reports said.

"We are now on a high state of alert," airport spokesman Arun Arora, was quoted as saying by the media.

Indian officials were cited as saying there had been warnings of possible attacks using hijacked airlines, and Indian Air Force sources said fighter jets had also been put on stand-by.

Of course, LeT claims that they weren't behind the attacks and that they couldn't possibly be involved because they don't target civilians.

"We didn't do it. Lashkar doesn't believe in targeting civilians. It is not the first time India has blamed Pakistan. It was the intelligence failure that led to Mumbai attacks," LeT founder said in the interview.

Hafiz further added that India is using Pakistan as a punching bag to cover up its own failures and is not interested in a proper probe into the attacks.

It was the terrorists that led to the Mumbai attacks, and the intel failures only prevented the capture of those responsible for plotting mass carnage.

Pakistan continues to struggle against the Islamists in the frontier provinces, which see near daily attacks and civilian deaths at the hands of terrorists. Curiously, among those injured in the latest violence was a deputy of Baitullah Mehsud in an IED incident. The ongoing violence threatens NATO's supply lines in to Afghanistan, which is why Pakistan's handling of the Islamist threat is crucial.

UPDATE:
It's laughable that LeT's leader can claim that they don't target civilians, when it's part and parcel of their modus operandi to murder civilians in suicide bombing attacks. Sure, they attack military and security forces with alarming regularity, but another one of their tactics involves rounding up civilians and massacring them.

Also important to keep in mind is LeT's ties to al Qaeda; Abu Zubaydah was captured in a LeT safe house in Pakistan, and there are repeated reports suggesting operational assistance and ties between the two terror groups.

UPDATE:
There was good reason for those emergency alerts to be issued. Terrorists apparently opened fire at the international terminal at the New Delhi airport and security has killed six terrorists.

The British Broadcasting Corp. is reporting that six gunmen have been shot and killed by Indian security forces at New Delhi's main international airport.

The report on the BBC Web site Thursday was attributed to airport officials.

Airports in India went on high alert Thursday following fresh warnings of attacks as officials said India suspects two senior leaders of a banned Pakistani militant group orchestrated last week's deadly siege in Mumbai.

UPDATE:
Now, there's further concern that not all the explosives used by the terrorists in the weekend attacks have been accounted for.

UPDATE:
The BBC is now reporting that there were sharp sounds reported, but no gunfire. Everyone is clearly on edge, but how noises were reported to six people shot remains a mystery.

Defusing the Mumbai Situation

The security situation in Mumbai remains tenuous at best as a bomb was discovered and defused at a Mumbai rail station today among the baggage left following the terror attacks last week. That can't be good news for Mumbai law enforcement, which is already reeling from their inability to contain the massive terror attacks over the weekend that exposed serious flaws in the emergency response.

Thankfully, they managed to discover and defuse the bombs today.

Police in Mumbai found explosives Wednesday hidden in a bag left behind last week at the city's train station at the start of a three-day rampage by Islamist militants.

While searching 150 bags at the station, police found one that looked suspicious and called the bomb squad. They found two bombs of 8.8 pounds each inside and defused them, said Assistant Commissioner of Police Bapu Domre.

The report came after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in India as part of an effort to defuse escalating regional tensions in the wake of last week's three-day terrorist attack that killed 171 people in India's financial capital.

Why did it take so long for emergency crews to check through all those bags left behind? You would think that the first thing that law enforcement should have done is sweep the entire area for additional bombs and weapons to prevent them from potentially going off while the investigation proceeded.

Sec. State Rice is trying to walk a delicate line between India and Pakistan, cajoling and pushing Pakistan to release more information on the attackers and to keep the situation under control. India wants Pakistan to hand over 20 terrorists and persons of interest, but Pakistan is saying that they want to prosecute these people if they're involved:

The Indian government, already facing accusations of security and intelligence failures, has demanded that Pakistan take action against those responsible and asked that 20 suspected terrorists believed living in the country be handed over.

However, Pakistani President Asif Zardari said any of the 20 suspects wanted by India would be tried in Pakistan if there is evidence of wrongdoing.

Zardari said he would "look into all the possibility of any proof" about the suspects sought by India and insisted they would be dealt with under Pakistani law.

"At the moment, these are just names of individuals — no proof and no investigation," he said Tuesday in an interview with CNN's Larry King. "If we had the proof, we would try them in our courts and we would try them in our land and we would sentence them."

That's even as Pakistan and NATO face an ongoing threat from the Islamists and Taliban that continue harassing NATO convoys to Afghanistan. Pakistan is between a rock and a hard place as they've spend years placating and playing to the Islamists and the Islamists have had free reign in the frontier provinces and have set up a parallel existence whereby they openly train young men to be jihadis at madrassas throughout the country. Any attempt to crack down on the Islamists and the terrorists who carried out the Mumbai attacks will necessarily affect the ability of the government to govern, and Zardari will fall into the same trap that Pervez Musharraf did before him - alternating between appeasement and crackdown to remain in power. Zardari will do just enough to muddle along, but it means that the terrorists will continue to find Pakistan an inviting safe haven to train and plot future attacks.

UPDATE:
The Indian government has also announced who they believe was behind the attacks.

A terrorist chieftain in Pakistan masterminded the Mumbai massacre and kept in touch with the 10 attackers by satellite phone, Indian police believe.

They said Yusuf Muzammil, head of anti-Indian terror operations for the notorious Lashkar-e-Taibe, or LeT group, was identified by the only one of the 10 Mumbai attackers to survive, The Wall Street Journal reported.

His claim was backed up by a satellite phone left behind by the attackers in the fishing trawler they hijacked to reach Mumbai.

The phone's records showed calls were made to Muzammil and four other LeT henchmen in the two days before the slaughter.

India is demanding that Pakistan hand over Muzammil and 19 others suspected of plotting the slaughter that killed 171 people in India's financial capital last week.

But Pakistan has not responded to the demand, which threatens to escalate the powderkeg standoff.

UPDATE:
The Times of India notes that the US warns that if Pakistan doesn't go after terrorists and their training camps, not only will the US continue its practice of carrying out airstrikes against terrorists, but that it would back India should it contemplate actions of its own:

The United States has set the stage for punitive internationally-backed strikes by India against terrorist camps in Pakistan if Islamabad does not act first to dismantle them by rejecting President Zardari’s alibi that non-state actors were responsible for the last week’s carnage in Mumbai.

The game-changer, outlined by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, among others, robs Islamabad of the fig leaf that Zardari used in his interview on Larry King Live that ''stateless actors'' are holding the whole world hostage and Pakistan was not to blame. Rice said in effect that the excuse does not absolve Pakistan responsibility for terrorist acts that originate from its territory,“ Rice said.

Although US officials have not outright approved immediate punitive Indian strikes against terrorist targets in Pakistan, it is clear Rice has bought time for Islamabad to prove its bonafides. Pakistan has a ''special responsibility'' and needs to act ''urgently'' she said, even as India has indicated it will wait for a Pakistani response to its demands before any punitive action.

In Washington, experts pressed the administration to expand the scope of punitive strikes to an international level to avoid making it an India-Pakistan issue, particularly since the death toll included citizens of ten countries.

The Mumbai Terror Blame Game

The media is busy casting about for someone to blame in the deadly Mumbai terror attacks. They'll focus on the failings of law enforcement, the Indian government, and everyone but those on which responsibility for the attacks rests - the terrorists themselves (that is if they bother to call them terrorists at all; often they will refer to them as gunmen or militants).

That always seems to get lost in the blame game.

Law enforcement shouldn't get blamed for the attacks, but rather castigated for being unprepared to handle such an emergency situation and that a city of 13 million people didn't have a special weapons and tactics police group to handle such incidents is unforgivable.

That's a situation that can be corrected with due diligence and can help prevent future attacks as well as respond to future attacks in a far more decisive and swift manner that will reduce the chances of a mass casualty incident.

India also apparently didn't heed two US warnings over a possible attack according to CNN:

U.S. intelligence indicated that a group might enter the country by water and launch an attack on Mumbai, said the source, who refused to be identified due to the ongoing investigation into the attacks and the sensitivity of the information.

Indian security forces have confirmed to CNN that not only did U.S. officials warn them of a water-borne attack in Mumbai -- they were told twice. The area entered a higher state of alert for a week, including tightened security measures at hotels, but those efforts were eventually reduced, Indian officials said.

Local fisherman in Mumbai said they witnessed a group of gunmen dock their boat Wednesday night, before heading toward the busy causeway.

Again, intel failures and the inability to deal with intel in a time sensitive manner are issues that can be addressed and corrected, but that is a response to those who carry out the terrorism, not on whom blame can be assigned for the attacks.

India is demanding that Pakistan hand over 20 terrorists, including members of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

At the top the list are Laskhar-e-Taiba leader Hafiz Saeed, Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Maulana Masood Azhar, and mafia and terror kingpin Dawood Ibrahim. The Long War Journal has obtained the names of several other senior terrorist leaders wanted by the Indian Government.

The demands were made during a meeting between Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Shahid Malik yesterday. The Indian foreign minister summoned Malik to the ministry and registered an official diplomatic protest with Pakistan.

"We have in our demarche asked for the arrest and handover of those persons who are settled in Pakistan and who are fugitive of Indian law," Mukherjee told The Times of India, noting India "will await" a response from Pakistan.

LeT is closely aligned with al Qaeda, and the Pakistani ISI has been known to support the terrorist group as well.

The terrorists received training and tactics courtesy of their stay in terror camps operating in Pakistan. That's simply intolerable and must be addressed by the Pakistani government. Their ongoing failure to stop the indoctrination of thousands into Islamist madrassas that call for jihad is tantamount to condoning such activities and the ISI helps facilitate those activities.

Pakistan knows what's at stake should the trail lead back to Pakistan's official door - either through inaction or assistance by the ISI (rogue or otherwise), and are hoping to defuse the situation with a joint investigation. That's probably in the best interests of both India and Pakistan, but both countries have to be willing to let the investigation go where it needs to - and if the outcome shows Pakistani complicity, Pakistan must be willing to accept responsibility. Likewise, if the attacks show no complicity, the Indian government must respect that as well.

At this point, the Indian investigation suggests that the terrorists had ex-military training although the nationality of the training isn't being released:

All the 10 terrorists, suspected to have been involved in the Mumbai attacks, were trained by ex-army personnel even as the lone arrested
terrorist has admitted to being a Pakistani, the police on Tuesday said.

Ajmal Amin Kamal, the only terrorist of the group of ten caught alive, has admitted he is a Pakistani and hailed from the Punjab province of Pakistan, Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor said.

"The group of ten had come from Karachi by ship, flew an SOS flag in international waters and then hijacked a trawler which they used to come near Mumbai's shores," Gafoor said.

The group of ten had been trained by former army personnel, some for over a year, Gafoor said, refusing to comment on the nationality of the army personnel.

When asked if there was any evidence of Pakistan's involvement in the attacks, Gafoor said, "At the moment investigations are on and if we have proof we shall present it."

He said there was no evidence of local persons involved in the attacks.

Meanwhile, the sole surviving terrorist captured following the attacks claims that his father sold him into LeT. I guess free will doesn't even enter his consciousness and that he had no problem going out and murdering hundreds of people - with the intention of killing thousands in the name of jihad. He's looking for a reason to excuse his heinous actions, but there are none. He's a stone cold murderous bastard.

Several terrorists are still believed to be at large.

Mumbai Mourns and World Wonders What Is Next

Indian authorities are still trying to determine just how many were murdered in the heinous terrorist attacks that spanned over four days of bombings, shootings, and hostage incidents spread across the city at 10 different locations and involving what appears to be 20-40 terrorists. While the official death toll is 195 and 26 foreigners were among that tally, the death toll is expected to rise significantly as those murdered in the hotels have yet to be included in the counts. Nine terrorists and 20 police and soldiers were also killed. A tenth terrorist was caught alive.

Bill Roggio notes the tactical picture and how the terrorists swept into Mumbai to carry out their deadly attacks. Of particular interest is that it's believed that there were perhaps two to three teams of 8-10 men involved, including a team of eight men who entered the city via boat, including the one terrorist, a purported Lashkar-e-Taiba operative named Ajmal Amir Kasab, who was captured after being injured in gun battles with police.

According to Kasab, his group departed the Pakistani port city of Karachi unarmed and linked up with the freighter MV Alpha. The assault team picked up their weapons and explosives on the freighter.

The group then ran across the Indian Fishing boat Kuber and hijacked it. The terrorists killed four crew members and kept the captain alive. He piloted the ship for one day, and then was killed. A trained seaman in Kasab's group guided the Kubar to a point off of Mumbai. From there, the assault teams boarded two inflatable rafts and landed in southern Mumbai and began their attack.

Kasab's team may not have acted alone, a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal. "Kasab only knew about his portion of the operation, what his team did" the official said. "There appears to have been one or two eight-man teams operating on the ground."

India's top security official has offered up his resignation. It's a situation that has been brewing for some time as a series of terror attacks has undermined faith in his abilities:

India's top security official offered his resignation Sunday, a senior aide said, as the government struggled under growing accusations of security failures following the Mumbai attacks that left at least 174 people dead.

Home Minister Shivraj Patil submitted his resignation letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but has not received a response, aide R.K. Kumar said.

Patil has become highly unpopular during a long series of terror attacks and his ouster has long been predicted in political circles.

Foreign SIM and fake ID cards from Bangladesh were found on some of the terrorists.

Apparently, the Taj Hotel received some kind of terror warning before the attacks and had briefly stepped up security protocols, but they had been relaxed by the time that the terrorists stormed the building complex. I have to believe that the hospitality industry will learn from that mistake and expand their security protocols in light of the devastating attacks in Mumbai.

Far more important, Pakistan is threatening to send 100,000 troops to the India-Pakistan border if India continues to intimate that Pakistan was behind the terror attacks. Those troops would be coming from the frontier provinces where they've been dealing with the Taliban/Al Qaeda threat. As I have been noting since the outset of this crisis, the terrorists may have sought to destabilize relations between India and Pakistan and relieve pressure on the Islamists in Pakistan by creating a conflict between India and Pakistan at a time when both countries were actually moving towards rapprochement.

The terrorist attacks not only threaten to create a conflict between India and Pakistan, but it threatens to derail Pakistan's efforts against the terrorists inside the frontier provinces (NWFP and Waziristan).

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is seen as one of the leading candidates for being behind the attacks, and that has many Indians up in arms about Pakistan's role, since LeT is seen as little more than a creation of the Pakistani ISI - Pakistan's intel services. LeT is also known to have ties to al Qaeda.

Both the US and Israel are sending teams to India to help investigate the attacks. President Bush has offered whatever assistance is deemed necessary and the FBI was en route. Israel was sending forensic and defense teams to assist.

At the same time, life is starting to return to normal in some parts of Mumbai, as Leopold Cafe reopened, although it was shut down a short time later because of security concerns. It was the target of one of the terror attacks.

UPDATE:
Neo-neocon writes about the reluctance of the Mumbai police to engage the terrorists in gun fights, even when they had the ability to do so. An incident a month ago suggests that the police were hesitant to act because of condemnation over how they killed a deranged man who was firing indiscriminately in the air after taking over a bus.

UPDATE:
Here's a timeline of the Indian response as they appear to have played out. Among the problems is that an aircraft needed to transport the NSG wasn't in the right place and ready to go. That delay, coupled with a delay recognizing the scope and severity of the attacks, gave the terrorists additional time to consolidate their positions and kill many more people.

UPDATE:
It's also reported that the terrorists were meticulously trained and prepared for the attacks, and one of the NSG interviewed claimed that the terrorists were the best prepared they had ever encountered.

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."

At this point, it's still not clear that the Deccan Mujahadin were even behind the attack or whether it was simply a throwaway name for one of the more well known groups like LeT or HuJI or even al Qaeda. Whatever the case, the terrorists were clearly preparing for the attacks and caught the Indian government and Mumbai law enforcement ill prepared to handle the attacks of this scope.

UPDATE:
Even though there are concerns that some Indian police were reluctant to open fire on the terrorists, at least one police commander on the scene took the initiative and sought to pin down the terrorists in the old wing of the Taj Hotel, making it appear that there were larger numbers of police present than there were at that time.

The Indian government is moving with surprising speed to address shortcomings with the response. They are calling for the creation of a new security agency, and to set up four regional hubs for an expanded NSG counter-terror strike force. The NSG (Black Cats) went into the Taj Hotel blind to the layout and that slowed down their response. That too is a situation that must be resolved - better intel and operational details that improve the ability of the security forces to respond and deal with developing situations; floor plans are critical to improving the chances of any rescue operation.

Meanwhile, a Russian military expert is trying to suggest that the training and tactics may have been the result of training obtained from US intel operations in Pakistan prior to the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan.

"The handwriting and character of the Mumbai events demonstrates that they were not ordinary terrorists," said Vladimir Klyukin, an Afghan war veteran.

"Behind this terrorist attack there are 'Green Flag' special operations forces, which were created by the Americans in Pakistan, just an year before the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and in the initial period were under full US control," stressed Klyukin, a veteran of the special "Vympel" commando group of the former Soviet KGB.

He said for such guerrilla operations at least two-three years of preparatory work with the involvement of experienced instructors is required.

Klyukin did not rule out that the Mumbai attackers could have taken part in similar attacks in other regions.

"People from the streets, without any planning and training are simply not able to hold four big complexes in a city so long," Soviet special services veteran was quoted as saying by largest Russian Interfax news agency.

It's in Russia's interest to try and somehow pin the blame on the US, which is working to engage in closer ties with India. Blaming the US for the origination of the training and tactics could undermine efforts to improve ties between the US and India, all while straining relations between Pakistan and India.

While earlier reports suggested that the taxi bombings were meant for other locations, including the airport, new evidence seems to point to the possibility that the terrorists sought to cover their movements by killing the people who were best able to identify them.

UPDATE:
Law enforcement and rapid reaction to terror attacks in Mumbai were sorely lacking, but the scope of the failure is just astounding. Mumbai doesn't even have a SWAT team of its own, which means that Mumbai law enforcement had to wait on the NSG to arrive, and even then there were multiple delays due to the lack of aircraft prepared to deliver the troops in a timely fashion.

It's simply mind boggling to believe that the city of Mumbai, with a population larger than that of New York City, doesn't have a SWAT/ESU team available at a moment's notice 24/7/365. New York City has multiple units spread out across the city to handle all manner of emergency situation that call upon special tactics or terrorist incidents with the necessary manpower and weapons to handle just about any threat. Each minute of delay can have deadly consequences, and the Indian authorities had a delay of hours. That's simply unacceptable and Mumbai residents must demand better.

After Four Days, Mumbai Terrorist Siege Ends

The city of Mumbai can finally breathe a sigh of relief as Indian authorities say that they've finally ended the terrorist siege inside the city.

Government officials said Saturday afternoon that the death toll had risen to 162 and was likely to rise again. They also said 283 people had been wounded.

Most of the dead were apparently Indian citizens, but at least 18 foreigners were killed and 22 had been injured, said Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra State. At least five Americans were believed to have died in the attacks.

Just 10 militants, the city’s police commissioner suggested Saturday, had caused all the mayhem.

“With confidence I can say that 10 terrorists came in,” said the commissioner, Hasan Gafoor. “We killed nine of them and one was captured alive.”

His comments were confirmed by Mr. Deshmukh, although it remained unclear whether they might have been referring to 10 attackers coming in by sea to join accomplices who, according to unconfirmed local news reports, might have embedded themselves in Mumbai days before the attacks. Investigations were ongoing Saturday night.

A senior Mumbai police inspector, Nagappa R. Mali, identified the captured suspect as a 21-year-old Pakistani man, Ajmal Amir Kasab. Mr. Mali said the man had a fourth-grade education and worked as a laborer.

Four other suspected terrorists were at the morgue at the JJ Hospital in Mumbai. Officials there put their ages between 20 and 25. All four were males.

According to the Times of India, the death toll has risen to 195, and it's expect to rise further still. Now that the fighting has ended, the grieving can begin for those affected by the attacks, including the members of India's law enforcement and security forces that died in the line of duty attempting to stop the terrorist attacks.

The terrorists acted with great precision and there are more details about the group of ten terrorists that entered the city from the sea.

Ten men, all apparently in their early 20s, jumped out. They stripped off orange windbreakers to reveal T-shirts and blue jeans. Then they began hoisting large, heavy backpacks out of the boat and onto their shoulders, each taking care to claim the pack assigned to him.

Mr. Dhanur flipped his boat light toward the men, and Kashinath Patil, a 72-year-old harbor official on duty nearby, asked the men what they were doing.

“I said: ‘Where are you going? What’s in your bags?’ “ Mr. Patil recalled. “They said: ‘We don’t want any attention. Don’t bother us.’ “

Thus began a crucial phase of one of the deadliest terrorist assaults in Indian history, one that seemed from the start to be coordinated meticulously to cause maximum fear and chaos.

Indian officials had said little publicly about the attackers until Saturday, when the Mumbai police commissioner, Hasan Gafoor, said a total of 10 militants had been responsible for the mayhem. But it remained unclear whether he was referring to 10 attackers arriving by sea to join other accomplices. Unconfirmed local news reports suggested some militants had embedded themselves in Mumbai days before the attacks. Investigations were ongoing Saturday night. In any event, the synchronized assaults suggested a high level of training and preparation.

There are also reports that the terrorists hoped to blow up the Taj hotel.

The terrorists had enough explosives to blow up the Taj hotel.

Sources have told the TV channel that they wanted to reduce the life-size building of Taj hotel to rubble. They also believed to have told about their plan to replicate a ‘JW Marriot’, happened at Islamabad, to the Mumbai hotel.

In a sense to destroy the symbol of financial strength of the country and send shock-waves all across the globe, the terrorists wanted to do a 9/11 in India.

The above revelation came from the 21 year old Azam Amir Kasav, who hails from tehsil Gipalpura in Pakistan's Faridkot.

On Wednesday-Thursday night Azam and his colleague opened fire at CST before creating havoc at Metro and then moving on to Girgaum Chowpatty in a stolen Skoda, and where they were intercepted by a team from the Gamdevi police station. Azam shot dead assistant police inspector Tukaram Umbale.

But in that encounter Azam's colleague was killed and he himself was injured in the hand. He pretended to be dead giving rise to the news that two terrorists had been killed. However as the 'bodies' were being taken to Nair Hospital, the accompanying cops figured that one of the men was breathing.

It may take more than a year to repair the damage to the Taj hotel, and the cost will be considerable.

Meanwhile, India is going to have to undergo serious review of its security plans in light of the fact that so many terrorists infiltrated from the sea; it's a gaping hole in India's security that had not been addressed previously.

Many of the questions that dogged investigators from the outset remain, including who was behind the attacks, and what role if any was played by Pakistan. The latter question is one that is seriously concerning US officials, and it should worry everyone considering that India and Pakistan have fought three vicious wars and both now have nuclear arsenals, to say nothing of the fact that both India and Pakistan have regularly engaged in gun battles across the Line of Control for much less.

Mickey Kaus wonders whether the attacks were meant to be a Madrid-bombing styled attack designed to affect the outcome of India's elections. However, increased security in November may have delayed or thwarted the attack from happening at that time.

Terrorist groups with links to Pakistan are at the focus of who carried out the attacks, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Pakistan was behind them. Still, one has to wonder whether rogue agents within the Pakistani ISI could have been involved, and Pakistan has previously been implicated in the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

UPDATE:
Why the attacks occurred is actually a more pressing question than who carried them out since the political ramifications will differ greatly as should the response by India.

It's clear that an Islamist terrorist group was behind the attacks, and the question remains which one. The attacks weren't simply meant to be a random act of violence, but one that shocks and threatens all of India. I think that the attacks were meant to threaten the growing peace overtures between India and Pakistan. The jihadi groups want to prevent India and Pakistan from engaging in rapprochement and closer ties. That would seriously harm the ability of the jihad to move forward if the Pakistanis become friends with the nation that they've fought multiple wars and skirmishes with over the past 50+ years.

When you look at the attacks from that angle, it makes perfect sense. Give the impression that Pakistan was behind the attacks, and India has to make the determination that it was an act of war that must require a response - out of domestic pressure to respond and seek justice for those killed, and to prevent future attacks. Get India to strike at Pakistan, and the jihadis get to spread via the violence and discord sown in their wake.

Mickey Kaus alternatively suggests the possibility that the attacks may have been meant to affect the outcome of India's November elections but were delayed as a result of tighter security. In other words, they were hoping for a Madrid bombing outcome - get the current government thrown out in favor of one that is more likely to appease in the face of increasing terrorism.

Throw in the specter that the ISI could have played a role (thus far only speculation), and you can see just how dangerous this situation is for all of South Asia.

Meanwhile, MSNBC reports that one of the captured terrorists allegedly said that his fellow terrorists intended to blow up the Taj Hotel, killing thousands of people, but that his fellow terrorists underestimated the strength of the stone walls. The report also indicates that the terrorists continue to plumb the depths of depravity by boobytrapping bodies with grenades while the Black Cats - India's elite military group had to go room to room to clear them of terrorists.

Pressure is already mounting on the Indian government to take action against Pakistan, which as I've already noted will lead to dire consequences for all of South Asia and the world beyond.

UPDATE:
Jammie notes that Bollywood's reaction to the terrorist attack in Mumbai is far different than the reaction of the Hollywood types here in the US, although we'll see how long that lasts.

UPDATE:
Here's still more eyewitness accounts of the siege at the Taj hotel. The Black Cats, the nickname of India's counter-terrorist strike force NSG, was instrumental in ending the siege. Here's a brief background on the group. Residents of Mumbai were busy issuing their thanks to the NSG members who helped bring the siege to an end.

UPDATE:
Barcepundit has a great roundup, and notes that there was apparently a failed attack against the Mumbai airport. Indeed, the attack failed when the taxi made a wrong turn and the bomb within detonated short of the airport itself.

Day Three of the Mumbai Terror Attacks

As hard as it is to grasp the scope and seriousness of the situation, keep in mind that the terrorists are still operating inside Mumbai and the Indian authorities are still trying to secure the city and last remaining locations where the terrorists are holed up.

At least seven of the terrorists were British and there are concerns that the attacks may have links back to Great Britain and additional terror cells within the United Kingdom:

British-born Pakistanis were among the Mumbai terrorists, Indian government sources claimed today, as the death toll rose to at least 155.

As many as seven of the terrorists may have British connections and some could be from Leeds and Bradford where London's July 7 bombers lived, one source said.

Two Britons were among eight gunmen being held, according to Mumbai's chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. At least nine others are reportedly dead.

The eight arrested were captured by commandos after they stormed two hotels and a Jewish centre to free hostages today. Despite the Indian authorities' assurances that the situation was under control, the siege continued at the Taj Mahal hotel and explosions could still be heard in central Mumbai.

One security official said: 'There is growing concern about British involvement in the attacks.'

But Gordon Brown has urged caution. He emerged from a conversation with India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to say there was no suggestion of a British link.

More than 150 people have been killed, including two Americans and five Jewish hostages at the Chabad house. That includes the head of the Chabad house and his wife, both of whom were originally from Brooklyn:

Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah, who ran the movement's local headquarters in Mumbai, India, were killed during a hostage standoff at the center, said Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, a spokesman for the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

The center was one of 10 sites attacked beginning Wednesday.

The couple's toddler son, Moshe Holtzberg, was rescued Thursday by an employee and is now with his grandparents.

``Gabi and Rivky Holtzberg made the ultimate sacrifice,'' said Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, vice chairman of the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch.

``As emissaries to Mumbai, Gabi and Rivky gave up the comforts of the West in order to spread Jewish pride in a corner of the world that was a frequent stop for throngs of Israeli tourists. Their selfless love will live on with all the people they touched. We will continue the work they started.''

Sadly, the Taj Hotel still isn't under complete control, and the authorities have yet to fully sweep the building and account for all those inside. Two or three terrorists remain holed up inside the hotel even now. Indeed, it is possible that some of those killed or injured in the past two days may have been the result of the rescuers unable to differentiate between the terrorists and the victims.

Indeed, the terrorists appeared to be well versed in the layout and operations of the hotels. That's in addition to being heavily armed and loaded for bear.

I can only hope that the Indian authorities take a real hard look at the training and tactics for their local police and their special weapons and tactics services to deal with this kind of situation. That includes the national security forces who were called in to reinforce and take back the hotels and secure other locations.

In New York City, the ESU is called in to provide tactical support for situations that the police can't handle on a normal basis, and they have heavy weapons, additional body armor and training to deal with these kinds of situations. Even the regular police force is equipped with bullet proof vests, which a review of photos and videos from the first hours of the attacks was not in evidence among many of the emergency responders, who were often wearing little more than their standard uniforms and rifles.

Meanwhile, US, British and Israeli intel agencies are ramping up assistance to India to help pinpoint who was behind the attacks and what role, if any, was played by Pakistan, although the leading suspect is the Islamic terror group HuJI, which operates out of Pakistan. The concern is that there might be rogue elements inside Pakistan's own government or the ISI that might attempt to sabotage any rapprochement between Pakistan and India.

Unprecedented intelligence cooperation involving investigating agencies and spy outfits of India, United States, United Kingdom and
Israel has got underway to crack the method and motive behind the Mumbai terrorist massacre, now widely blamed on Islamist radicals who appeared to have all four countries on their hit list when they arrived on the shores of India.

Investigators, forensic analysts, counter-terrorism experts and spymasters from agencies the four countries are converging in New Delhi and Mumbai to put their heads, resources, and skills together to understand the evolving nature of the beast. The spy chief of the Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence(ISI) is also being summoned to India to help with the investigations because of the widely-held view that the terrorists' footprints go back to Pakistan.

The Bush administration has taken the lead to forge cooperation, partly out of concern that charges by India that the terror plot has Pakistani fingerprints could setback fast-improving government-to-government and people-to-people ties between the two countries, officials said.

But there is an implicit recognition both in New Delhi and Washington, and also other world capitals, that Pakistan's hard-line Army and its spy agency are spoilers of the honeymoon between the civilian governments and the people of India and Pakistan. Hence the summons to the country's chief spook, Ahmad Shuja Pasha, an acolyte of the new Army Chief Pervez Kiyani, himself a former ISI chief.

Meanwhile, while some Muslim groups have moved to condemn the heinous and vile terrorist acts, other dispicable Islamists are actually justifying the attacks supporting the attacks or somehow blaming Israel or the US for the attacks.

Given that there are now links to individuals with a British background, it is possible that the focus on who was behind the attacks will shift away from HuJI and on to al Qaeda, which has been desperately trying to carry out a mass casualty attack to remain relevant in the global jihad against the West.

This attack is different in many ways from prior attacks against the Indian people. The kind of sophistication and coordination takes time and training to accomplish, and at least 25 terrorists may have been involved in the attacks on 10 targets around the city. There are also questions about how the terrorists entered the city, including looking at reports that they entered by boat.

Two ships that have been boarded are strongly suspected of being involved in the attacks: the Kuber, an Indian fishing boat, and the MV Alpha, a Vietnamese cargo ship. Both ships appear to have been directly involved. The Kuber was hijacked on Nov. 13, and its captain was found murdered. Four crewmen are reported to still be missing.

Indian security officials found what they believe is evidence linking the boat to the attack, as well as linking the attackers to Pakistan. "A GPS map of south Mumbai was found along with a satellite phone on the ship, Coast Guard officials confirmed," The Times of India reported. "There were reports that this phone was used to make calls to Karachi immediately before the shootings began in Mumbai."

Indian police also detained three terrorists from the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terror group closely allied with al Qaeda. The three men are said to be Pakistani nationals, and claimed to have been part of a 12-man team that launched from the MV Alpha. They said the MV Alpha departed from Karachi.

Another Indian official said that it is "suspected that the Pakistan Marine Agency helped the terrorists hijack the trawler (the Kuber)," although this has not been confirmed. Another unconfirmed report indicated the Kuber originated from Karachi, Pakistan.

UPDATE:
According to reports, one of the terrorists checked into the Taj hotel and began stockpiling weapons and explosives in his room four days before the attacks commenced.

The Intelligence Bureau, India's domestic spy agency, said it had detained a Muslim militant, Abu Islami, found to have checked into the five-star Oberoi/Trident hotel four days before the rest of the attackers landed in Mumbai by boat.

"He used the room to store explosives" including 40 hand grenades "and weapons for a prolonged operation", a top Intelligence Bureau official told AFP on condition he not be named.

"We are asking him who supplied the weapons, the explosives, the Chinese-made grenades. He came in much before the main body of the terrorists landed by boat" on Wednesday evening, he said.

At least 150 people have died so far and more than 350 others have been injured in the attacks in Mumbai.

The Intelligence Bureau also said credit cards and one identity card from the Indian Ocean nation of Mauritius were recovered from the militant's room.

That is highly suggestive that the terrorists were busy casing their targets in advance of the attacks and were waiting for the right time to strike with all their fury.