Russian Military Plane Escorted To Mumbai

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A Russian military cargo aircraft AN-24 rpt AN-24 with six passengers and two crew members tonight intruded into Indian airspace from Pakistan and landed at the international airport. As the plane entered into Indian airspace without the right code, it was escorted to Mumbai airport by Indian Air Force planes, a spokesman of Mumbai International Airport Limited told PTI here.

The MIAL spokesman said the plane with Russian markings came from Pakistani airspace carrying six passengers and two crew and was escorted over the Mumbai airport by IAF planes. The cargo aircraft landed at the airport at around 2240 hours after being allowed by the Air Traffic Control.

Security forces have surrounded the aircraft. PTI.

Mumbai Terror Detective Tells Of World Plot

As terrorist gunmen ran amok in Mumbai on the night of November 26, Rakesh Maria, a detective whose exploits regularly inspire Bollywood’s thriller makers, found himself facing the most valuable captive he is ever likely to interrogate.

The prisoner was Azam Amir Kasab, 21, allegedly the sole Mumbai gunman to be taken alive, who made his first public appearance in a special bomb-proof courtroom inside Mumbai’s high-security Arthur Road jail today.

During the opening moments of what would become a 60-hour ordeal, Mr Kasab and an accomplice allegedly shot dead 58 people at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the city’s main railway station – an assault on working-class commuters that would account for a third of the Mumbai attack’s total death toll. Nine other gunmen were killed.

Mr Kasab, who is accused of being a footsoldier for the Islamist Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist faction, allegedly failed in his bid for martyrdom when the car he and Ismail Khan had stolen ran into a police roadblock. While Khan was shot dead, Mr Kasab was captured.

via The Pakistan link: Mumbai terror detective tells of world plot – Times Online.

Mumbai Terrorists Had List of 320 World Targets

The plotters behind the Mumbai attack, which left more than 170 people dead, had placed India’s financial capital on a list of 320 worldwide locations as potential targets for commando-style terror strikes, the Guardian has learned.

It suggests that Lashkar-e-Taiba, the outlawed terror group that planned much of the attack from Pakistan, had ambitions well beyond causing mayhem in India.

Western intelligence agencies have accessed the computer and email account of Lashkar’s communications chief, Zarar Shah, and found a list of possible targets, only 20 of which were in India.

Two of the November 2008 attack’s key planners – Shah and Lashkar’s operations chief, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi – are now in police custody in Pakistan.

Islamabad’s decision to bring criminal charges against nine men accused of involvement in the Mumbai attack has partly placated Indian officials. But officials in New Delhi have been warning that they want to see people brought to justice for terrorist acts.

“If the west can prosecute people for crimes against humanity in The Hague or use rendition to interrogate them in undisclosed locations then what is stopping them now? After all, [western] citizens were killed in Mumbai too,” an official said.

The US has been trying behind the scenes to co-ordinate intelligence exchanges between the two nuclear-armed rivals. The CIA has worked hard to be seen to help New Delhi – including by recovering phone numbers deleted by the terrorists on their satellite phones.

via Mumbai attackers had hit list of 320 world targets | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Social Media Aids Intel Community In Tracking Terror

From the Office of The Director of National Security

On Feb. 4, the New York Daily News online published an article on the Intelligence Community’s (IC) use of classified social networking sites to collaborate on last November’s Mumbai terrorist attacks. US intelligence officers in various locations around the world utilized ‘Intellipedia’ and ‘A-Space’ to discuss and compare notes on incoming intelligence and news reports accounting the events in Mumbai. Over the span of three days these two sites received over 7,000 page views.

Under ODNI direction, the IC is adapting the concepts behind MySpace and other social networking sites to enable intelligence analysts to share information more freely and collaborate across agency lines.

You can read the New York Daily News online article, “Spies Form Virtual Units on The Fly to Track Terror,” by cliocking the link below.

Spies Form Virtual Units on The Fly to Track Terror

When a cell of 10 Islamic militants stole into the Indian port city of Mumbai in November and began to unleash a fusillade of hell on two hotels, a train depot in rush hour and a Jewish center, US spooks scrambled to make sense of it all. About 20 analysts from across the globe immediately convened – not in the same room, but on two classified Web sites called Intellipedia and A-space.

Think of it as Wikipedia and Facebook for spies.

The first Mumbai entry was posted by a watch officer at the National Counterterrorism Center at the onset of the attacks, officials told The Mouth. Soon, analysts from across America’s 16 spy agencies familiar with extremists in India and Pakistan logged on to A-space – a discussion site accessible to only a few thousand US intelligence analysts with the highest security clearances – to weigh who the attackers might be.

Analysts posted realtime satellite imagery and video depicting the carnage outside the Taj Mahal Hotel, which showed a sluggish response by Indian security forces. They also uploaded the first news photos of one young terrorist in Mumbai’s rail station who was later nabbed alive – noting how professionally he carried his weapons, and how he was dressed as blandly Western as the 9/11 hijackers 7 1/2 years ago.

The ad hoc group of analysts, who did not all know each other – including at least one in a Far East military outpost – quickly agreed that a claim of responsibility by the unheard of “Deccan Mujahadeen” was malarkey. It was really the handiwork of Pakistan’s Al Qaeda-affiliated Lashkar-e-Taiba.

“The analysts concluded it was LeT hours before that was made public,” said one senior US intelligence official.

The Mumbai strikes were the first big test of the new system of collaboration using social networking tools put in place last fall by Directorate of National Intelligence chief technology czar Michael Wertheimer and his crew of savvy young spooks from the Myspace Generation. There are also Top Secret elements modeled on YouTube and Flicker.

Read more about A-space and Intellipedia after the jump.
Read More

NY Police Eye Disrupting Cell Phones in Terrorist Threat

The New York Police Department is looking for new methods to disrupt cell phone calls and other forms of electronic communication among potential terrorists — part of what the NYPD and other law enforcement agencies say are the “lessons learned” after the deadly November terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.

NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly told federal anti-terror officials that the NYPD must have the ability to disrupt cell phone calls in the event of another planned attack on New York City.

Fox News reports that a draft copy of Kelly’s statement to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security says the NYPD believes the Mumbai attacks could be a model for other low-tech attacks. It was not clear whether the NYPD has the means to disrupt electronic communications for a small group of terrorists without shutting down cell phone service to a large part of New York City.

Kelly said that in the India attacks, the terrorists had handlers who used cell phones and other portable communication devices to order the killing of hostages and adjust tactics during the siege of Mumbai.

The 10 attackers, who Indian authorities say came from Pakistan, fanned out to locations such as hotels and buildings, taking and executing hostages and holding off Indian security forces for several days. The attacks left more than 170 people dead and some 300 wounded.

via Source – msnbc.com.

Low-Tech Terror Attack in Mumbai Could Spur Copycats in the West

The Mumbai attacks have prompted some Western officials to step up vigilance against the type of low-tech assault the 10 gunmen mounted last month.

Since the attacks in Mumbai, al Qaeda Web sites and chatrooms have lit up with aspiring militants urging more such attacks, according to the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group. One message cheered “the heroes” of the attack for making “the enemies suffer,” including the U.S., the U.K. and Israel.

Historically, the group accused in the attack, Lashkar-e-Taiba, has focused on furthering Pakistan’s claims to the Kashmir region, disputed with India. Although its messages have a strong anti-American component, U.S. officials have seen the group as a lesser counterterrorism priority.

But current and former intelligence officials say they are worried the Mumbai attacks may reflect a broadening of Lashkar’s interests, and that would-be jihadis may copy the approach of the Mumbai attackers, who carried out their assault on foot using little more than machine guns, explosives and cellphones. Al Qaeda’s resurgent base in Pakistan also provides opportunities for collaboration with groups such as Lashkar, officials said.

David Cohen, the head of intelligence for the New York Police Department and a former senior Central Intelligence Agency official, said what used to be merely propaganda against the U.S. and Israel has now been “operationalized” by the Mumbai attacks. “It puts us on notice in a much more clear and direct way,” he added.

The NYPD has dispatched three officers to Mumbai to better understand the attacks because of concerns about copycats.

“It’s a very clear indication that we have the potential to be victimized by a group motivated by religious ideology that doesn’t use something sophisticated,” said John Cohen, a senior official in the Bush administration’s office for sharing information among intelligence agencies.

Source – Read Full Article

Pakistani Official: Mumbai Attack Mastermind Captured

A suspected mastermind of last month’s deadly terror attack on Mumbai was arrested by Pakistani security forces in a raid on a militant camp, an official said on Monday.

Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was among four men taken into custody following Sunday’s raid on a camp used by Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters outside Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.

Security forces had raided the camp used by militants blamed for the Mumbai attacks and arrested more than a dozen people in Pakistan’s first known response to the assault.

U.S. and Indian suspicions that Pakistan-based militants carried out and plotted the attacks have sharply raised tensions between South Asia’s only nuclear-armed nations.

New Delhi says the Mumbai siege was carried out and plotted by militants belonging to Laskhar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani group accused of other attacks on Indian soil.

The New York Times, citing unidentified American intelligence and counterterrorism officials, reported in a story published Monday that Lashkar has gained strength in recent years with the help of Pakistan’s spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence.

The officials cited by the Times say the ISI has shared intelligence to and provided protection for the outlawed group, though there is no evidence to link the spy service to the Mumbai attacks.

Islamabad’s young civilian government has denied any of its state agencies were involved in the Mumbai attacks, but said it was possible that the militants were Pakistanis. It has pledged to cooperate with India, noting it too is a victim of terrorism.

Source

Is WMD Attack Inevitable?

Earlier this week Vice President elect Joseph Biden was briefed on the just released study by the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism that a WMD attack was likely sooner than later and that the supposed “margin of safety” was narrowing. The “top line” of the report is that while terrorist groups with al Qaeda still being the prime concern and suspect lacked the technical capabilities to actually make the weapon, the ability to find cooperating scientists could enable such an attack is increasing. Further, the Commission warned that all roads lead to Pakistan when it comes to weaponizing a WMD. Specifically, the Mumbai attacks last week, of necessity, raise the specter of an attack being planned and launched from inside of Pakistan, and more specifically, from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

In a sense, the release of this new government report, is new, but it is not necessarily news. The warnings about bio-terrorism have been a part of a clarion call since November 3, 2003 when an unclassified CIA Report discussed the risks inherent in the super-accelerated biotechnology sector. The earlier report, “The Darker Bioweapons Future” went just so far. If told us that the fear was the proliferation of weapons, of labs going research and of the growing number of people engaged in the science of developing new “bugs” so that countermeasures could be developed. They talked about the development of elixirs of combinations of a mild pathogen with its antidote a virulent mixture; or of designer pathogens designed to challenge existing antidotes to force the development of new ones; or most scary, a stealth virus that could lie dormant until triggered. What “The Darker Bioweapons Future” did not cover was the possibility of scientists becoming turncoats and offering weapons skills and capabilities to terrorists, and that the origin of the threat might be in Pakistan. Frankly, it took the passage of a few years and some history to conclude that the threat might be real, and that the enemy might lie in the guise of a lab coat. In 2003, no one really considered the possibility that a scientist might “go to the dark side.”

Some of the highlights and recommendations of the report to take away from the report were:

- Nuclear and biological weapons are proliferating: Yes, indeed, they are. The question of course relates to their availability to access of terrorists organizations to them. The statement that as proliferation continues that more countries come into possession the more likely a nefarious end occurs, is obviously true.

Source

Read more

Gunmen May Have Survived Mumbai Terror Attack

Reports that several terrorists may have survived the three-day siege of Mumbai and escaped into the population will certainly not do much to calm the fears of a city already on edge.

“I think there are more. My sources say (there were) at least 23 of the gunmen,” said Farhana Ali, a former CIA and Rand Corp counterterrorism analyst and expert on militant networks. Ali, who most recently visited India and Pakistan last month before the attacks, said her information came from Pakistan, but declined to further identify the source. Read more

Mumbai: Where are the 14 Other Pakistani-Trained Terrorists?

The lone gunman captured alive in Mumbai has told interrogators only 10 of the 24 young men in his year-long terrorist training course were sent to Mumbai last week, leaving 14 still in Pakistan, ready to strike again.

Security officials say they have been warned by Indian and U.S. officials that a second attack on the Indian capital city New Delhi is possible.

U.S. officials say the captured gunman’s account corroborates other intelligence that points to the role of the Pakistani-based Lashkar e Taiba, a group affiliated with al Qaeda that opposes Indian rule over the disputed state of Kashmir.

U.S. counter-terrorism officials say Lashkar e Taiba’s ability to operate with impunity inside Pakistan is one reason U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has warned Pakistan “this is a time for complete, absolute, total transparency and cooperation.”

A warning issued by U.S. intelligence agencies to Indian officials in mid-October suggests the U.S. may know the precise location of the training camps or headquarters in Pakistan, according to sources in the intelligence community.
Source

Mumbai – New Template For Terror

Several recent articles related to the Mumbai attacks indicate that terror operations and the manner in which they are carried out are becoming much more sophisticated. We’ve included excerpts from just a few.
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Sixty hours in Mumbai have begun to change the calculus of global terrorism.

New reports suggest that both Indian and American intelligence agencies had foreseen the threat to Mumbai (formerly Bombay). Yet the manner of the attack – with 10 heavily armed, highly trained fighters clinically fanning out across the city – meant that no “police force anywhere would have been prepared to counter this type of operation,” says Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism analyst at Georgetown University in Washington.

Armed sieges are not a new terrorist tactic, but never before has one been used to such effect. Some experts suggest this could be the most sophisticated terrorist attack since 9/11. Now, other militants might consider copycat operations – and the world’s cities will have to be ready for them.

“It was not so much of a success in terms of people killed – it was more the publicity they got for three days, and their ability to project the Indian state … as helpless,” says B. Raman, former head of counterterrorism for Indian top intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). “Others will want to repeat it,” he predicts.

Indians’ anger toward their government continued to mount Tuesday as several reports indicated that there was specific intelligence pointing to an attack on Mumbai from the sea – the way the terrorists entered the city.

On Sept. 18 and 24, RAW intercepted two satellite phone calls in which a member of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba discussed an operation that would attack Mumbai by boat, according to the Hindustan Times, an Indian newspaper. One call mentioned the Taj Mahal Hotel, where the last fighter was killed Saturday.

Moreover, a US counterterrorism official told CNN Tuesday that “the United States warned the Indian government about a potential maritime attack against Mumbai at least a month before last week’s massacre in Mumbai.”

Source

Mumbai: Islamist Terror’s New Modus Operandi

The new modus operandi was to attack soft targets, including major landmarks and also kill foreign nationals. While some al-Qaida affiliates – in particular al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb – have recently switched to focusing on soft targets because the hard targets are becoming so well protected, the tactics used in Mumbai are new.

Unmasked assailers walking into public places indiscriminately shooting with machine guns, throwing grenades and also taking hostages – and this for 60 hours, all while it is being documented on world TV.

Compared to a classical car bomb or suicide attack, this tactic has the advantage for the terrorists of remaining in the news for a much longer time. It has also a much higher psychological value on the population: it kills the feeling of security since terrorists can hit anywhere. Also, by attacking foreigners, the terrorists want to create panic in the Western community and project a negative image of India. Thus by shaking confidence, they want to cripple the Indian economy and dry up foreign investment.

What is most worrisome about this new modus operandi is that 10 terrorists were able to inflict so much damage, kill so many people and hold hostage an 18-million-people megalopolis for 60 hours. Imagine how much more horrible it could have been if they were 50, 100 or 500.

Source

New Terrorist Threat–”Jihadi Infantry”

The Mumbai attack is complex. A number of small operations created widespread chaos, triggering security deployment in many areas, while more precise operations targeted higher targets such as hostage taking or similar situation. We will know more as the investigations expands. But it appears this attack was many months in planning. Most importantly, the Mumbai operation launches a very new type of outrage, fear and international instability.

Perpetrators

In view of the historical context, precedents and latest analysis, the most likely groups that may be behind these attacks are the Lashkar-e-Taiba/SIMI (they now call themselves “Indian Mujahedeen”). These groups are jihadists, have links to the other organizations in Kashmir but also inside Pakistan with pro-Taliban elements and eventually up to Al Qaeda, which sits at the apex. Their ideological identification is most likely jihadist although the exact “responsible group” almost surely will issue a more than one release to claim the attack and put it in context. By whatever moniker, their attack is part of an ongoing struggle between jihadis and the Indian state. In October, Indian security forces arrested several Indian Mujahedeen members. Those arrests were a response to attacks in other cities. So, the Mumbai massacres are part of a chain of events.

It is important to remember that Al-Qaeda is the centre of a web. They sit among the Taliban. In Pakistan, the Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed are all interlinked. Hence, we are dealing with a transnational force, stretching geopolitically from Afghanistan to India. These organizations learn from each other. In India, the jihadis are simply applying the Al-Qaeda model, even if they are not organically a part of it.

Source

What’s relevant about the Mumbai model is that it would work in just about any second-tier city in any democratic state: Seize multiple soft targets, and overwhelm the municipal infrastructure to the point where any emergency plan will simply be swamped by the sheer scale of events. Try it in, say, Mayor Nagin’s New Orleans. All you need is the manpower. Given the numbers of gunmen, clearly there was a significant local component. On the other hand, whether or not Pakistan’s deeply sinister ISI had their fingerprints all over it, it would seem unlikely that there was no external involvement. After all, if you look at every jihad front from the London Tube bombings to the Iraqi insurgency, you’ll find local lads and wily outsiders: That’s pretty much a given.

Source

U.S. Warned India of Potential Terror Attack – U.S. Connection Being Investigated

NSA Now Tracking Captured Phones, U.S. Connections.

Brian Ross and ABC News report U.S. intelligence agencies warned their Indian counterparts in mid-October of a potential attack “from the sea against hotels and business centers in Mumbai.

In addition,  U.S. intelligence agencies have been tracking the phones and SIM cards recovered by Indian authorities from the Mumbai terrorists leading to a “treasure trove” of leads in Pakistan and several possible connections to the United States, officials say.

Officials say one of the cell phone SIM cards may have been purchased in the United States but would not provide any more details because of the ongoing nature of the investigation.

The phones also include the same Thuraya satellite phone intercepted in November by the Indian spy agency RAW, the Research and Analysis Wing, which runs an extensive electronic intercept operation.
Source

Hotels Emerging As Terror Magnets?

Was the terror attack on several of Mumbai’s luxury hotels an anomaly or part of an emerging pattern? A communication recently intercepted by TAM-C ‘Targeted Actionable Monitoring Center’ suggests this may only be the beginning.

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Hotel officials say they’re virtually defenseless against the kinds of terrorist attacks as those perpetrated this year in Mumbai and Islamabad.

No amount of preparations could have prevented the teams of heavily armed attackers who commandeered Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace and Oberoi luxury hotels from carrying out their plans, hotel owners told The New York Times. They say they’re totally dependent on governments to stop terrorist attacks before they happen.

P.R.S. Oberoi, the chairman of the Oberoi Group, said this weekend that he ordered his company’s hotels to step up security after a truck bomb killed more than 50 people two months ago at the Islamabad Marriott Hotel but he questioned whether any hotel could have defended against the Mumbai assault.

Analysts say luxury hotels in troubled parts of the world are becoming terrorism magnets and U.S. hotel company officials have noticed.

Source

TAM-C Terror Warning – Communication Intercepted Referring To “War of The Hotels”. Says This Is Only The Start of The Battle

This warning has not been confirmed by U.S. Intelligence Officials

Foreign language researchers of the Targeted Actionable Monitoring Center have intercepted adversary communications discussing future attacks. The communications indicated that “this is the start of the battle.” This has been identified by the adversary as the “War of the Hotels”.

The communications reiterate that the attack on the Mumbai hotels was not by chance but well planned and well considered. The reasons stated are as follows:

* the large hotels have a lot of violators of Islam
* the hotels are a safe house for ones that plan against Islam, including the security forces and intelligence agencies as well as (those of) the west who take advantage of Islam.

The communications provide specific examples of the types of hotels to be targeted by the adversary. Locations in the Sinai, Jordon, Iraq, Indonesia, and Pakistan were identified by TAM-C analysts as examples of targets in the War of the Hotels.

TAM-C researchers have identified the partial name of two hotels that were singled out as future targets because they house “Kofers”.

The communications also indicate that the current operation may not have ended and that the Mujahadein is ready for the next assault and the people are in the field.

TAM-C’s Southeast Asia Desk had previously compiled a list of cities and states under explicit threat: Kerala, Kolkata, New Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Mumbai and Gujarat.

Other states that may be targeted include: Himachal Pradesh, Chattisgarh, and Uttarakhand (Uttaranchal). All of these locations continue to be under threat.

Conclusion:

Because of the threat of a second wave, security for those people still in Mumbai and the region is a priority.

Previous analysis had indicated that the venue – western hotels – is of greater significance than the locale. The adversary’s communications confirms this.

Source – Terror Response.org

Indira Gandhi Airport On High Alert After Email Threat

Security personnel at the Indira Gandhi International Airport IGI went on a high alert after an e-mail threat by the Deccan Mujahideen, the militant outfit that had claimed responsibility for the Mumbai terror attacks.

The email that was intercepted by the Gujarat Police threatened to blow up the Bombay Stock Exchange and the IGI airport.

There was an unprecedented security cover at both the terminals of the airport and security personnel were seen guarding the parking lots and patrolling the airport premises.

A senior Central Industrial Security Force CISF officer confirmed that they had increased security at the airport on specific directions.

Though the IGI airport already has a security mechanism in place, the vigil was mounted, especially on the city side.

“We in collaboration with the Delhi Police increased the security outside the airport as there is threat that terrorists could carry out an attack outside the airport,” said a CISF official. Intelligence Bureau officials examining the email said that there was a specific mention of the BSE and Delhi airport in it.

More dog squads had been pressed into action to check the baggage. Security at both the international and domestic terminals was stepped up several notches with anti-hijack and anti-sabotage measures put in place, police said. With security personnel taking no chances, frisking and manual checking of baggage had been intensified.

Source

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