The West’s Disregard for Islamist Massacre
“The usual defect of man is not to foresee the storm in good weather,” said Nicolas Machiavelli in the early 16th century.
This maxim is still so current and the European political and media circles that make up the opinion have the art of not seeing, not knowing how to foresee, or even deliberately to conceal the dangers and threats to what was called the West...
A stark example: the Mumbai (ex-Bombay) bombings of 2006 and 2008.
On July 11, 2006 at around 6:00 pm, as in all major cities, offices were emptied and commuter trains filled: in the space of 11 minutes, seven bombs hidden in pressure cookers exploded in several crowded trains, killing 188 people and injuring 600. The Lashkar-e-Qahar group, which is close to Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba militants, will claim responsibility for the attack on residents of the suburbs of Mumbai.
Just over two years later, on the night of November 26, 2008, ten Islamist terrorists, heavily armed with Kalashnikovs, pistols, and grenades, simultaneously carried out attacks on symbolic locations in Mumbai, the capital of India’s western state of Maharashtra. This time, it is mainly tourist sites and civilians, Jews and foreigners who are targeted:
The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST Railway Station) in South Mumbai built in 1887 by the British and designated a Unesco World Heritage Site. Every day, 3.5 million passengers pass through it.
The "Leopold Café", a large restaurant in the heart of South Mumbai, founded in 1871 and popular with western tourists and backpackers.
The "Taj Mahal" hotel, a palace built in 1903: composed of a historical part, "The Heritage" and its 290 rooms, and a modern Tower of 275 rooms.
The hotel complex "Trident-Oberoi", with its two towers and 877 rooms.
An Orthodox Jewish cultural center: the “Nariman House” designated as Chabad House. It is noteworthy that this was the first time that Jews were the target of a terrorist attack in India.
But also:
Cama Hospital, which treats women and children,
Saint Xavier Catholic Private College,
and the Cinéma Metro, a multiplex of pure Art Deco architecture.
In total, the attack will last almost 60 hours: from Wednesday 26 November 2008 at 21:30 to Saturday 29 November at 08:00.
The death toll this time around will be high: 165 - including 26 foreign tourists (9 women) - and 304 injured. Among the 26 foreigners: 3 Americans, 2 Australians, 2 Canadians, 2 French, 3 Germans and 5 Israelis.
November 26, 2008: 60 hours of terror!
The terrorists attacked multiple sites simultaneously and sought to maneuver in a densely populated city.
The US and UK passport holders captured were executed at the two luxury resorts. In the Jewish cultural center, Israeli nationals were tortured before being killed. The “Leopold Café” was heavily attacked by automatic weapons. It was only at the city’s main train station - the site of the largest death toll - that all of the victims were Indians. Armed attackers appeared to be at war not only with India, but more broadly with the Western world.
Not familiar with the topography, one of the terrorists failed to disappear in time and local police managed to intercept him alive. The arrest of the gunman, Ajmal Kasab, was a game-changer after India managed to capture and interrogate a suicide bomber for the first time.
Why Mumbai ?
Bombay, renamed Mumbai since 1996, is India’s most populous city, with 12.5 million people and a city of 18.5 million, making it the world’s tenth largest city.
The city is the commercial capital of India. It produces 5% of India’s GDP, and its activity accounts for 25% of India’s industrial output, 40% of maritime trade, and 70% of the economy’s capital transactions. Mumbai is one of the world’s ten largest financial hubs, owing to its huge capital flows, and is home to the Indian Reserve Bank, the Mumbai Stock Exchange, the Indian National Stock Exchange, and the headquarters of many Indian and multinational corporations.
Moreover, Mumbai is home to one of the world’s largest film industries and the largest in Indian cinema: Bollywood, the contraction of Bombay and Hollywood.
All these qualities make this city a bogeyman for the Fools of Allah and for the political regimes that shelter them...
The Indian Inquiry
Ajmal Kasab confirmed immediately upon arrest by Indian police that there had been nine other gunmen in the city and said they were all Pakistani nationals.
Aware of the international ramifications of these revelations, the Indian government then allowed the US FBI to interview Kasab directly and Kasab independently confirmed to the FBI what he had already told the Indian police, namely:
he was a Pakistani citizen and a member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba ‘LeT’,
and that the attack was directed in real time from the Pakistani port city of Karachi, via mobile telephony and the internet.
This digital trail linking the gunmen in Mumbai to the Karachi Service proved crucial for the rest.
At a glance at a map, it is easy to mount an attack on Mumbai by taking a commando to Karachi and dropping him off Mumbai 2-3 days later, 589 nautical miles (1,090 kilometers).
The move of the commando from Karachi
According to the investigation, the terrorists left Karachi in a small boat on 22/11 at around 08:00, before being transferred 40 minutes later aboard the “Al-Husseini”, a larger boat owned by “LeT” chief Zali-ur-Rehman Lakhvi. They were then 7 LeT members on board. On 23/11 an Indian trawler, the M.V. Kuber based in Porbandar, Gujarat, was approached and hijacked by the terrorist squad. The four M.V. Kuber fishermen were transferred as hostages to the Al-Husseini and commando ships with the Indian captain to take them to Mumbai, some 550 nautical miles away. The four sailors were later executed by LeT members.
The 10 terrorists to be sent to Mumbai were each equipped with a Kalashnikov (AK47), ammunition, 9mm handguns, hand grenades, dried fruit, etc., and an IED (Improvised Explosive Device).
The trawler stopped 4 minutes from Mumbai, at 16:00 on 26/11. As soon as it got dark, Commando Chief Ismail Khan contacted Karachi’s commander and was ordered to kill the trawler captain, Amar Singh Solanki. The 10 terrorists boarded an inflatable 11-seat dinghy, equipped with an outboard motor, to reach Mumbai South at about 20:30.
The terrorists split into five teams of two and took taxis to reach their goals: two of the five taxis were trapped with two IEDs that exploded later, killing their drivers, one north of Mumbai and one south, causing mayhem. The operation had begun...
At 21:20 two terrorists entered the CST station, opening fire at random and throwing grenades: death toll 58 and 104 wounded! The two terrorists continued their murderous journey, killing policemen to steal their vehicles and ending up at a police checkpoint: one terrorist was shot dead and Ajmal Kasab was captured alive. This allowed us to reconstruct the origin, the course and the precise objectives of this commando from Pakistan.
taj mahal hotel
Meanwhile at the Taj Mahal :
21:38 - two terrorists reached the main entrance of the Tower, after planting a bomb in front of the nearby police station. Armed with AK-47 rifles, ammunition and grenades, they headed for the lobby, shooting at anyone who saw them.
21:43 - two other terrorists entered through the La-Pat gate of the Palace and started shooting people in the pool area. The fact that terrorists knew that the door to La-Pat, which was generally closed to the public, was open that day for a few business meetings and a wedding, attests to the planning of the attacks.
It will take 3 a.m. for the army and fire brigade to arrive at the Taj Mahal.
On 27/11 at 06:30, a team of 200 commandos arrived from New Delhi and took charge of the rescue operations at the Taj and the Oberoi. The Indian government then gave the order to storm the buildings to facilitate evacuations of people entrenched in the floors.
Rescue and extraction operations continued until Saturday morning 08:00.
Balance sheet :
The human toll of this terrorist attack is extremely high, with 165 dead and more than 300 injured. To this human toll must be added the destruction caused and the cost of rescue interventions. All this with 10 seasoned men determined to eventually sacrifice their lives for Jihad!
So it was an extremely profitable operation for its sponsors, the Lashkar-e-Qahar group, and for its Pakistani backers.
Incidentally, the French and European media have not given much attention to these events since 2008 when, the same causes always producing the same effects, the Islamist attacks on the population of Mumbai should be of great concern to us...
In a forthcoming article we will look at the motives of the Lashkar-e-Qahar group, which is close to the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants, its links with the Pakistani government and Pakistan’s objectives against India...
Alain Establier
Sources:
Damien McElroy and Rahul Bedi, “Bombay Attacks: Britons and Americans Targeted,” Telegraph, 27 November 2008, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/3529123/Bombay-attacks-Britons-and-Americans-targeted.html
Wilson John, The Caliphate’s Soldiers: The Lashkar-e-Tayyeba’s Long War (New Delhi: Amaryllis, 2011) and Stephen Tankel, Storming the World Stage: The Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011)
https://icct.nl/publication/decade-2008-mumbai-attack-reviewing-question-state-sponsorship#_edn1
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/avoidingarmageddon_chapter.pdf https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/08/mumbai-hotel-attacks-court-hears-of-earlier-attempts-on-city
https://www.britannica.com/event/Mumbai-terrorist-attacks-of-2008
Photos credits: Associated Press, Encyclopedia Britannica