December 06, 2008

Mumbai: Massacres Carried Out In "Real Time"

(IsraelNN.com) Fresh evidence unearthed late last week by investigators in India indicated that the Mumbai attacks were directed from at least two Pakistani cities by leaders of the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to the Associated Press.

Indian and American intelligence officials have already identified a Lashkar operative, who goes by the name Yusuf Muzammil, as a mastermind of the attacks. On Thursday, Indian investigators named one of the most well-known senior figures in Lashkar, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi.

The names of both men came from the interrogations of the one surviving attacker, Muhammad Ajmal Kasab, 21, according to police officials in Mumbai.

While Muzammil appears to have served as a control officer in Lahore, Pakistan, Lakhvi, his boss and the operational commander of Lashkar, worked from Karachi, a southern Pakistani port city, said investigators in Mumbai.

It now appears that both men were in contact with their charges as they sailed to Mumbai from Karachi, and then continued guiding the attacks as they unfolded, directing the assaults and possibly providing information about the police and military response in India

In regards to the Shabad house massacre "Almagor", an Israeli terror victims' group, has a few questions:

1. Was there an intelligence command post in Israel or in the Consulate in India that collected information on Chabad House from previous visitors? Did the command post assist the Indians with vital information?

2. Why didn't the Indians use 'selective fire' as accepted in units that must operate in a terrorist attack with hostages?

3. Why was the cleansing operation carried out gradually and not by deploying numerous forces simultaneously, as is generally mandated in scenarios involving hostages, so as to save the lives of the abductees?

4. Why didn't the Indians censor the online filming of their operatives climbing on the roof of the building? The entire world had access to those films including, evidently, the planners and commanders of the terrorists who were able to communicate with the terrorists inside via phones and walkie-talkies.

BBC, CNN and others also aided in reporting too much information during the attacks.