Terrorism In Mumbai

Remember , Remember

Lessons from the Mumbai terror attack
Nov 23rd 2013 / from the print edition

The Siege: Three Days of Terror Inside the Taj. By Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy. Penguin; 352 pages $28. Viking; £18.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

FIVE years ago Pakistani gunmen launched a terrifying attack on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, killing 166 people. The ten assailants were from Lashkar-e-Taiba, a jihadist group closely linked to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s military spy outfit. Men from the ISI, including a “Major Iqbal”, helped prepare and guide them. A mysterious Pakistani spy in Delhi, “Honey Bee”, reportedly supplied crucial information. Another man, David Headley, a Pakistani-American who also worked for the Drug Enforcement Agency and perhaps American intelligence, surveyed the targets.

The jihadists spread panic, humiliated the Indian authorities and won global attention. Among the targets: a railway station, two luxury hotels, a café popular with foreigners and an American Jewish centre. The heart of the attack was on the century-old Taj Mahal hotel, a “giant sandcastle tipped from its mould”. Four young men prolonged the spectacular assault there for three days, lighting fires and executing hostages, as television cameras rolled outside. Somali extremists used the same methods when attacking a Nairobi shopping mall two months ago, killing 72.

Over the years, Indian investigators have made no serious effort to find out what went wrong and to prevent another “26/11” (the attacks began on November 26th 2008). Political leaders find it easier to point at appalling behaviour in Pakistan, where the jihadists remain close to spies and the army, and those culpable are yet to face trial. In turn, that poisons peace efforts between the countries. In India the lone surviving attacker, Ajmal Kasab, was tried and, a year ago, executed.

Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark are British investigative journalists with a striking record of reporting on South Asia. In “The Siege” they offer a compelling account told through an impressive range of interviews with surviving victims, officials, relatives of assailants, and other sources both in Pakistan and India. It is a pacey, unsettling story (this reviewer made the mistake of reading it while staying in the reopened Taj hotel). The authors’ other books include “The Meadow”, a gripping retelling of how Pakistani jihadists took and killed Western tourists in Indian-run Kashmir in 1995, and “Deception”, a study of Pakistan’s nuclear programme. All three books argue that Pakistan is a threat to its neighbours and beyond. They also accuse some of those in power in India of arrogance, complacency and cynicism.

If India reflected harder on its failings it might address them better. Individual heroes—staff at the Taj and poorly equipped police—saved many lives. Commandos eventually defeated the attackers. Many in authority, however, behaved shamefully. The hotel ignored detailed police warnings, just before the attack, that it was badly protected against terrorists. Those running the Taj had even removed additional security measures considered off-putting to well-heeled guests. Once the attack began, Mumbai’s inept police chief, Hasan Gafoor, did far too little, telling his men to wait for specialists from Delhi. They took 12 hours to reach the hotel.

“The Siege” is compelling both for the quality of its research, especially on Mr Headley, the Pakistani-American spy, and its human stories. Yet fuller accounts are also needed, to set out the context and reflect on the wider consequences. Readers might have benefited, for example, from being told that 26/11 was only the third-deadliest recent terrorist attack on the city: bombers in 1993 killed over 250 people and in 2006 killed 209. This one got so much attention, in part, because so many Westerners died. It is perhaps telling, too, that whereas 53 people (all Indians) died at the train station during 26/11, the 33 who were killed at the Taj have earned much more attention, including from these authors.

As for India, it deserves praise for its restraint after the attack. Most obviously, the jihadists’ spectacular did not provoke war between two nuclear-armed powers, India and Pakistan, as some had feared at the time. The attack brought about closer collaboration between India and America, for example in intelligence. And it probably also ensured that Pakistan’s ISI and its extremist allies were kept under somewhat closer watch. So some good did emerge from this episode.

Source : http://www.economist.com/news/books-...ember-remember
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