As Ennis mentioned in the earlier post, there isn’t much we, as American bloggers, can add to the story from Mumbai as it continues to unfold on the ground. The time for blogging about the specifics will come in the next few days as more facts emerge. I recommend forgetting the news channels with their endlessly repeating video loops and paid talking heads. The best place to follow what is happening in Mumbai is to visit the wiki page created to compile all information about these attacks. It is continually being updated and the references section is terrific. There is also a Google Map of the region that has been created with all the attack sites highlighted.
Twitter has also been a great way to get details about what’s going on. Try typing Oberoi for example. “Terrorists trapped” also results in a slew of Tweets.
USE THE COMMENTS TO POST INFORMATIONAL FACTS or WORDS OF SYMPATHY ONLY. RIGHT NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR RECRIMINATIONS.
PingPong:
It looks like a Sig 551 SWAT with some custom rail for lights/lasers. The PSG-1 being used is here
I don’t think these terrorists were here to negotiate.
One of the ironies of the situation is that Maharashtra is one of the few Indian provinces which has a draconian anti-terrorist law called the MACOCA.
Cliched though it is at this time, it is hard not to recall Alfred Pennyworth’s words: Some men just want to watch the world burn. It was particularly chilling to hear the phone interview of that terrorist who was killing and willing to die himself without even knowledge of a figleaf of a reason – when asked what their demands were, he needed to ask one of his terrorist buddies who stuttered and then coughed up the very believable “free all the mujahideen”.
Vikram, thanks!
Re the MACOCA cited by Red: it apparently stands for “Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999″. Weird abbreviation.
Rahul:
Was anyone else reminded of the first Die Hard movie where Alan Rickman trots out a long list of prisoners he wants released simply because that’s the role that the cops and media expect of a hostage-taking terrorist?
Light a candle in memory of those slain in Mumbai.
So Manmohan Singh demanded Pasha to make his way to India so the evidence of involvement from Pakistan (or Pakistanis) could be presented. Gilani agrees. A big deal is made out in all the news organizations. On CNN various Pakistani officials were specifically pointing to that as part of their goodwill, etc.
Gilani, Zardari and the Army General meet and decide NOT to send the ISI chief, but merely a representative.
Who wins out here P.R. wise?
Does Singh win for demanding such a thing, having a big deal out of it, and then for Pakistan to back out? Or Pakistan, for not being “forced” or not acquiescing to Indian demands/
Scott, thanks for this. You nailed it. I’m so thoroughly sick of the overused trope in the mainstream press here that centers on “nuclear rivals” and all the bogus story lines that emphasize the windbag notion that Pakistan just wants Kashmir, and perhaps rightfully so. Of course, people who go on about this never seem to know a thing about how Pakistan was put together in the first place, and why they don’t worry about claiming bits of Afghanistan instead, for which they could equally put forth a similar argument.
BTW, I’m not too clear on why you allowed Kai Hendry to undercut your position. After all, it’s highly unlikely that CIA top brass knew nothing about clandestine CIA operations in Chile, Nicargua, Cuba, etc., even if they did not formally sign off on particular initiatives.
When many Pakistanis talk about the “return of Muslim lands” as these people are doing, they mean the return of whatever lands the Mughal empire held circa 1700, including the lands taken over shortly thereafter by their viceroys who became the Asaf Jahi rulers on the Deccan plateau.
If the account of my once close personal acquaintance from Pakistan is to be believed, many Pakistanis were and obviously still are taught in school that the British should have given back what they took (which was land, according to this martially inclined narrative)to exactly those people they took it from, something like a claim to a lost throne. This loser-takes-all-back belief or fantasy is a hard habit to shake in any context, and in this context it is couched in religio-cultural terms not only to update it, but because the British did indeed help in their own way to make it impossible to restore the eleven generation and seriously kaput Mughal line.
This rendition of the historical position also happens to be a notable counterpoint to what is or was taught in Civics class in Indian schools– that the British policy of Divide and Rule ended up creating Pakistan, and that the correct, if tutored, response to that narrative was, more or less, “Ach, woe, alas, alack, but what is done is done…”
This massacre was a long time in the planning and had inside help:
I am confused. Why did they need 48 hrs to bring the situation under full control?
The next person who addresses or references Kayastha Lady in their comment will be banned, the way she was.
Some talking head/moron on FoxNews said this could be the work of Hindu extremist or Tamil Separtists…
Well, I guess. Singh Lost. Because the talking heads don’t realize that the ISI head is not going to be coming down. Chritiana Amanpour just spouted off the same crap, and pointing out that Pakistan sending the head chief of the ISI to show they they are not involved.
Sigh.
Ok this will be my last comment on Fox, Alan Colmes just said twice “we are looking at live coverage from New Delhi..sorry for the diversion
308 · Amrita said
Dear Amrita,
I didn’t change my post because of what Kai wrote to me, rather what a friend of mine who is a security researcher wrote to me in an e-mail shorty after the post (http://www.scottcarneyonline.com/blog/2008/11/case-against-pakistan.html). All of the signs show that ISI is behind the attacks in some way, but I’m not convinced that everyone in ISI would be willing to finance an operation like this. The ISI chief is on his way to India now to follow up on the attacks with his counterparts at RAW. I get the feeling that the politics in ISI are the same as in every police station in South Asia–the Inspector Generals, Director Generals, and other IPS officers never really know what is going on at the Superintendent and Inspector level. They are political appointees and rotate positions so quickly that the have no breadth of knowledge when it comes to the every day functioning of the regions that they have official control over.
In the case of ISI, I think that it is very likely that the agency is fractured into different well-funded groups with lots and lots of clandestine money that goes unaccounted for. Anti-India hardliners in the agency prop up groups like Lakshar e Toiba and there is little that a political appointee can do about it. It will take a complete disillusion of the agency and formation of a new one to get Pakistan’s house in order.
The WSJ has an op-ed strongly excoriating both the congress and the BJP for mismanaging both the relationship with the Muslim community and the legal and security apparatus to handle terrorism. One of the few times that I actually agree with a WSJ opinion piece, although it is only one part of the story – it mentions the American mismanagement of Pakistan, and its tacit and active abetting of the deviousness of the ISI and the Pakistani government that has caused India much tragedy over the years.
Christiane Amman-pore and Dee-pack Chopra both– paid to emit the same misinformation znd carry forward the same BS– keeps Larry King and Wolf Blitzer and management happy, I suppose, along with that no-man’s land map. Hopefully, Obama will not act on such delusions and presumptions, or empower The Hillary to do so.
315 · Scott Carney said
The ISI chief is not going to come to India. See comment #307.
That probably proves that not all of the establishment are on the same page, but this little fact of Pakistan’s backtracking has failed to make its way to some international news outlets.
My previous comment meant to quote this from Scott Carney
316 · Rahul said
I meant to say:
it mentions the American mismanagement of Pakistan, and its tacit and active abetting of the deviousness of the ISI and the Pakistani government that has caused India much tragedy over the years, only in passing.
Scott is certainly right on different portions of ISI having differing aims. Pakistani general and former ISI chief Hamid Gul is on record saying that he was willing to launch nukes on India, even if it meant end of Pakistan. I also read that Bin Ladin’s thoughts on this matter is that he is willing to sacrifice Pakistan in order to conquer India (as if Pakistan is one of his possessions). There is a virulent hardline section in ISI. Musharraf who attacked India and was architect of Kargil war is a moderate in comparison. The real inspiration for the hardliners come from the retired ISI cadre like Hamid Gul General Zahir Ul Islam Abbasi,Colonel Imam, Khalid Khawaja who were angry at Musharraf for taking a U-turn on hard line politics after 9-11. These guys carry a bitter wound since 1972 war and want to teach India a lesson. Its these guys influence that has protected Bin Ladin and taught Taliban on how to fight the US. Its these guys who provided the inspiration for attack on Indian embassy in Kabul. Its a war declared on India whether India realizes or not. In their estimation time to attack India is now, while they still have influence. Its probably also a struggle for real power in Pakistan, and to show the elected politicians on who is really running Pakistan.
Hi Scott, I’m not sure everyone in any organization in any country needs to approve an undertaking of that organization in order to launch it, but I should think that, just as in civil law, the organization as a whole is held accountable for the misconduct of its employees, this should be the situation for establishing basis for prosecuting claims against national government agencies under public international law. I have no idea if this is how it’s done.
In any event, as de-lurker points out above, it’s not a done deal. Zardari and Gilani may have decided that Pakistan’s top spy is not going to India after all: http://www.onlinenews.com.pk/details.php?id=136901
If I thought any number of dissolutions and reconstitutions could fix the problem, I’d agree, but since it can only be put back together by the same handful of people, and will always serve as a platform for more of the same, there’s no chance of correction — it’s the natuure of the beast.
264 · Ponniyin Selvan said
But those suicide attackers are usually local population and not anyone from India.
If the guys in Mumbai are Pakistanis then it can be considered an act of war.
my cousin was 1 block from there. thank god he got the f-ck out….gulp