Mumbai attacks

A few links to articles and commentary on the Mumbai terrorist attacks:

International Herald Tribune: Attackers expose luxury hotels' vulnerabilities

MUMBAI: Just as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have had a lasting effect on aircraft cockpit security, with reinforced doors separating pilots from passengers, the deadly terrorist attacks that started Wednesday at the Oberoi and Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotels here could leave an enduring imprint on the design and procedures of luxury hotels.

With the death toll approaching 200, and with more bodies still being found at the Taj, the attacks have underlined the vulnerability of five-star hotels to determined attacks by determined gunmen armed with military assault rifles, as well as the attractiveness of such targets to terrorists.
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The Oberoi Group employs many plainclothes security officers in its hotels, but these are unarmed, Oberoi said. Obtaining a license for even a single officer to carry a gun is extremely difficult in India, which has tight gun control laws.

Belfast Telegraph: Mumbai photographer: I wish I'd had a gun, not a camera. Armed police would not fire back

It is the photograph that has dominated the world's front pages, casting an astonishing light on the fresh-faced killers who brought terror to the heart of India's most vibrant city. Now it can be revealed how the astonishing picture came to be taken by a newspaper photographer who hid inside a train carriage as gunfire erupted all around him.

Sebastian D'Souza, a picture editor at the Mumbai Mirror, whose offices are just opposite the city's Chhatrapati Shivaji station, heard the gunfire erupt and ran towards the terminus. "I ran into the first carriage of one of the trains on the platform to try and get a shot but couldn't get a good angle, so I moved to the second carriage and waited for the gunmen to walk by," he said. "They were shooting from waist height and fired at anything that moved. I briefly had time to take a couple of frames using a telephoto lens. I think they saw me taking photographs but they didn't seem to care."
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But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."

Canada's National Post: [Op-ed] A landmark attack in the annals of modern terrorism

The Mumbai attacks represent a scenario that few Western police and security forces have dared envision. Fewer still have prepared for it.

The basic strategy: use a large number of attackers to overwhelm a target city's ability to respond, and then suddenly switch focus to high value targets and seize hostages.
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When "red-teaming" potential attacks inside Western Europe and North America, counter-terror officials have often refused to even contemplate attacks like this. Mumbai-type attacks are seen as too complicated to war-game in training exercises. Moreover, the idea of a hostage situation with a gang of gunmen in a high-rise has been seen as too "Hollywood" ( Die Hard, to be more specific) to be tackled seriously.

This week's Mumbai attacks should change this thinking. Our police and emergency responders have new standards that they will have to learn to meet -- or else the same kind of tragedy could unfold here.

Instapundit: Some commentary on the effect of armed victims shooting back

Rediff: Doctors shocked at hostages's torture

Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: "It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim's body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words," he said.

Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: "It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood," one doctor said.

The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: "Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again," he said.