Editor’s Note: We were in Mumbai in November – December 2008. We experienced the anguish and anger of all Mumbaikers. The day after the attack, we were involved in a scare near the Taj due to rumors of a second attack by remnants of the attackers. In the weeks following the attack, we spoke with a large number of Mumbaikers from all walks of life, read a lot that was written in India and saw the coverage on Indian news programs. We waited until we got back to New York and created a distance between the event and the city. Distance gives perspective and we will share our perspectives in a series of article on this topic.
The Mumbai Attack – A Military Operation Not Terrorism
Let us be explicit and unequivocal. The attack on Mumbai was NOT terrorism. The world is no stranger to terrorism. The bombings in the various Indian cities were terrorism. The bombings in London and Madrid were terrorism. The suicide bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan were terrorism.
The attack on Mumbai was a totally different animal. It was an exquisitely planned and flawlessly executed attack by Special Forces commandos. This is the sort of a military operation that made the British SAS famous in World War II.
The attackers were professionally trained commandos armed with an arsenal of weapons. Prior to the attack, the supporting cadres had scouted the targets, established base camps in nondescript buildings and stockpiled weapons and support material. The attackers or the execution team traveled from Karachi to Mumbai in trawlers; they came ashore in inflatables in isolated portions of the Mumbai coastline at night and went quietly to their planned rendezvous points. Then, like clockwork, they carried out their mission.
In our considered opinion, this military operation would have been impossible without the conception, execution and operation by a sophisticated military-intelligence combine – The Pakistani Military-Intelligence complex.
It has become fashionable to focus the blame on the ISI, Pakistan’s Intelligence Agency. The Indian Government and more recently the Bush Administration have pointed fingers at ISI as the Central Terrorism Agency for Pakistan.We disagree. There is only one institution in Pakistan that counts. That is the Pakistani Army. The ISI is protected by the Pakistani Military because it is an agency of the Military. It fulfills a critical role for the Military. The ISI masterminds terrorism to fulfill the objectives of the Military and yet, gives the Pakistani Military plausible deniability. This is why we shall not segregate the ISI for independent blame but put ISI in its true organizational role as an agency of the Pakistani Military.
If you doubt us, ask yourself who was the previous head of the ISI. It was General Kiyani, Pakistan’s Military Chief. Is there any doubt that the agency he headed before becoming the Military Chief is not under his control?
General Kiyani and the Pakistani Military plays the same game with American Forces in Afghanistan. They allow the Taliban to attack American Forces, they pretend to take action against the Taliban when pressured, they express their heartfelt inability to control the Taliban and yet, they refuse to allow American Forces to enter the same territory over which they claim lack of control.
This is a beautiful game, a smaller version of the game the Pakistani Military has played with India for the past decade.
Rationally speaking, you have to congratulate the Pakistani Military. The Mumbai Attack was the most successful operation of the Pakistani Army since their initial attack in 1947 which, thanks to Nehru, divided Kashmir. Since that attack, the history of Pakistani Military is utterly pathetic. Every one of its adventures had resulted in a fiasco whether it was the 1965 invasion, the 1971 attack or the 1999 Kargil operation.
New Pakistani Military Strategy Post-KargilAfter Kargil, the Pakistani Military realized that they could not win by engaging the Indian Military. They had to find a way to wage war on India without involving the Indian Military.
They found it – the perfect military strategy that magnifies their core strength and matches it against the core, endemic Indian weakness.
Pakistani Military decided to bypass the Indian Military and attack the domestic Indian Administration, the soft underbelly of India. It is no secret that the local administrations in India are utterly pathetic – inefficient, incompetent and corrupt to a large extent. During the past 60 years, every local Indian department or agency has been politicized, including the police and the anti-terrorist departments. An honest officer in any agency is liable to be transferred if he or she acts against the interests of the politicians in power. The various agencies have been kept apart and feuding with each other so that politicians can exercise maximum control.
Pakistani Military realized that attacking local Indian administrations would be easy and effective. It would cost less and create the maximum havoc in India. The pathetic state of the Indian political machine would render it incompetent to taker any effective action.But, the key to this strategy was to do it in such a way that Pakistani Military would be able to deny any involvement and ideally blame the attacks on the divisions of Indian society.
They found the answer in the desperately poor and notoriously fanatic sections of Pashtunistan or Talibanistan. In this area, the Pakistani Military found a large supply of young men who, for a small amount of money, could be trained in military combat, bomb-making and other terrorist activities. These men could be infiltrated into India for specific missions, a trivial task given Indian complacency and laxness. If these young men were successful, mission accomplished. If they were not, no harm done. There were too many others to fulfill the next mission. Regardless of success or failure, no link could be established with the Pakistani Military. The Pakistani Military created a agency, the ISI to manage this strategy, to serve as a scapegoat if needed and to ensure the deniability of the Pakistani Military.*
You can see all of this come true with devastating effect in the Mumbai Attack. In an actual war with India, such an attack would have been impossible. In a war, the Indian Navy would have blockaded Karachi so that no trawler could travel from Karachi to Mumbai. The protection of Mumbai coastline would be handled by the Indian Navy and not the hopelessly pathetic local Mumbai administration. Even if successful, the retaliation by the Indian Military would have been swift and devastating to Karachi.But, under the new strategy, the Pakistani Commandos did not meet the Indian Army initially. They met the local administration in Mumbai. The Pakistani Commandos had detailed maps of the Taj and Trident Hotels. They had a heavy arsenal of weapons and a detailed plan which they carried out flawlessly.
On the other hand, the local administration in Mumbai had to call in Army commandos from Delhi and they had to charter a plane to fly the commandos. When the Indian Army commandos landed in Mumbai, the local administration could not give them maps of the Taj and Trident Hotels. The Indian Army commandos had to go in blind and make their way under withering fire without any intelligence of what awaited them. The local Television channels showed the actions of the Indian Army commandos to the public fully realizing that their coverage was being seen by the Pakistani commandos on the TV screens inside the hotels. The Indian TV stations put the lives of Indian Army Commandos at risk to maximize their ratings. It is a miracle or a testament to the training of the Indian Army that only one Indian commando lost his life in this long operation.
The Mumbai Attack was a grandiose success of the new strategy of the Pakistani Military, the culmination of their 9 year covert war with India.
A Pyrrhic Victory?
The Mumbai Attack was so spectacular and so successful that it jolted the entire world. Even the complacent Indian Society got angry for the first time in a decade. The anger and outrage of the Indian people was so white hot that even the timid Indian Government felt it had to do something. So far, it has done what it does best. Talk tough and appeal to the world to do something about its bad neighbor.
If you doubt us, look at the actions of General Kiyani after the Mumbai Attacks. He has denied all responsibility and he fired Pakistan’s National Security Adviser, Mahmud Ali Durrani for simply admitting that the attackers were Pakistani. He did not see the need to consult Pakistan’s elected President before doing so. He simply instructed Pakistan’s Prime Minister to do so. This is an ultimate brazen act that shows the total power of Pakistan’s Military and their utter contempt for Indian Government. (read the wall street journal story at online.wsj.com/article/SB123143217528664691.html ).
Indian Society is, at its heart, a peace-loving and tolerant society. It also believes that it is often wiser to give in small demands of an attacker than to fight the attacker and suffer greater damage. This core weakness of Indian Society has been exploited by the Pakistani Military for the past 9 years. This is why India has suffered a series of terrorist attacks, each worse than the previous. Yet, the tolerance of Indian Society and the timidity of the Indian Government has not changed. In one sense, this tolerance has helped India achieve greater economic prosperity than Pakistan. On the other hand, the economic success of India has led to greater determination in Pakistan to attack increasingly softer India.
It would be inconceivable for Pakistan to attempt such a strategy against any other country. Every strong society in the world has realized that every attack must be answered and every attacker must pay a very heavy price for the attack. Fear of a massive retaliation is the only protection against future attacks.
So far, modern Indian Society has not learned this lesson. But, in the aftermath of the Mumbai Attack, we saw, heard and felt the first stirrings of determination in Indian Society. That makes us hopeful.
We hope that the Indian Government takes decisive retaliatory action against the Pakistani Military. If they do not and the Pakistani Military gets away with the attack on Mumbai, then it is certain that they will plan more deadly attacks on India in the near future.
So let us stop minimizing the Mumbai Attack by calling it terrorism and call it for what it was – a military operation against India.
* This strategy was used by the Mumbai underworld a few years ago. The Mumbai underworld dons would recruit young men from poor villages and pay them money via intermediaries to come to Mumbai to shoot their intended victims from close distance. If the young men were successful, it was a big win. If the young men failed or were arrested after the killing, no harm was done. The supply of such young men was large and the risks were trivial. The key to this strategy was to ensure absence of any provable linkage to the underworld dons. If you want to see this strategy in action, get a DVD of the movie “Satya”, a realistic, well-made thriller.
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