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November 28, 2008 09:33 PM UTC
18 Comments
I think this would involve several agencies working together. But I think even just the local police squad would have the same level of training as the commandoes in India. I think we would be in about the same boat as India. Our intelligence community would be blamed for not catching them before they carried out the attacks. And there would be conspiracy theorists who say the government carried out the attacks (unlike India where they will just immediately blame Pakistan).
Regardless, it was good to see your diary. While I still enjoy checking in on Colorado politics there is a lot going on elsewhere.
Without being bogged down by an “anchor”, what are your other questions? It would be fun to discuss more specifics.
is how few attackers there were. According to the Times of India there were only ten terrorists involved: http://timesofindia.indiatimes…
This was an extremely well planned, coordinated, and executed attack, military in its execution. By spreading out the attacks, they forced the local authorities to wait for trained reinforcements from elsewhere in the country. Most anti-terrorist units in any given city are equipped and manned to handle one terrorist hostage situation at a time, the number of targets hit at the same time forced the Indian authorities to wait in order to hit multiple targets at once.
The FBI has 56 field office SWAT teams, but any situation involving hostages would involve the Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) which has special training for such a situation. There are three separate teams with around 90 members, so there would be a problem with a larger operation over a greater area (ie. multiple cities in different states).
Mumbai was a totally new type of operational attack, and will require thought on the part of specialist in the field as to the type of response necessary.
195 dead in three days of attacks. Even if this group isn’t al Qaeda trained or financed, it could lead to attacks more like this. Few shooters with many targets with a attack-attack-attack mentality, rather than the suicide bombers with a one-shot chance at taking out as many as possible.
This is a nightmare scenario for our police forces nationwide. They’re not prepared for this kind of rampage.
India and other countries throughout Asia and Europe are better prepared for attacks like this partly because they’ve been terrorist targets in the past, or they have forward-thinking leaders who don’t expect to be attacked, but believe in preparing for them. The British and Israelis are good examples of this kind of thinking.
Until we as Americans understand that the virtue of being in America won’t dissuade terrorists from attacking, we won’t urge our leaders to give law enforcement the tools to prevent attacks.
We hear about the feds stopping attacks, but it’s almost boastful, as if daring them to try again. We were complacent until 9/11, and I’m afraid we’ve become complacent again.
The police there responded quickly and in reasonable numbers and yet supposedly 2 – 3 terrorists were able to hold off much superior numbers. That doesn’t make sense.
It’s possible that while the getting would have been good the cops just didn’t know how many there were, or who they were. By the time you’ve got a number the perpetrators are locked in a room, for example, with possible hostages, so it’s not like you can just blast the room apart.
I don’t know what really went on, it’s just a theory.
When the commandoes were filtering people out, it was found that one guy was a tare-ist. He had just blended in for several hours. Maybe he’s the one still alive (ruefully.)
It does seem most improbable.
You can find the whole story here: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co… and admittedly it is from a journalist and not trained law enforcement officer. But it may be that the local police were not trained in any way to respond to such an incident, and may have been trained not to use their firearms without authorization from a superior officer. That’s the only way I can see that armed officers were being shot without returning fire. And it would explain how such a few terrorists would be able to cause such damage.
Obviously that is not something we have to worry about here, if a first responder sees someone opening fire on a crowd, they will take action.
…It’s sort of like the Pearl Stree Mall, dining and hanging out. Every block or so, an IDF with an Uzi. Still, those suicide bombers do their stuff.
Obviously, all Israeli citizens must be made to carry weapons, surely that will stop the tare-ists.
Between a suicide bomber, who conceals their purpose until the explosion, and a gunman walking through a railroad station, shooting targets at will, with law enforcement present and doing nothing about it.
Just a sort of “But yet….” statement.
There are also in-the-ground “garbage cans” outside of every major building. Drop that suspected purse or ticking package in there.
…I’ve been following this fairly closely on BBC’s website, as well as a few international ones, as well as the US scandal sheets. 10 trained military people could easily inflict this kind of damage, and hold off the Indian Commandoes.
First off, don’t dismiss these terrorist as “untrained ragheads” as I’ve seen on other blogs. Just because they received their weapons and small unit training in some mountain pass doesn’t make them any less lethal.
Second, they clearly had recon’ed their targets and had trained extensively in moving from point to point. Once they attacked the Taj hotel, they had trained to fall back into the maze of the restored parts of the hotel, and use service elevators and stairs to move back quickly and engage the Indian Commandoes who weren’t expecting them.
Third, their plan was to inflict maximum casualties over an extended period of time, hoping to (and succeeding) in getting the maximum amount of international press coverage for the duration of their assault. If they were bent on grabbing a bunch of wealthy Westerners and holding them hostage, or conducting a mass public execution, that would’ve happened the first night in the first hour.
As far as it happening here in Denver, it’d have to be the nutjob Anti-gov’t types attacking the Denver Federal Center. That’s a target with significant symbolic meaning to those weirdos (Bureau of Land Management, FEMA, big Fed Training center.) Between the Jeffco & Denver SWAT teams, HRU the FBI has as part of the Denver Field Office, and maybe even the Special Ops guys at Fort Carson on the 10th SF compound, I think there’s plenty of firepower that can respond.
Still, it seems that the Indian commandoes were on top of things extremely quickly. How long would it take for the FBI teams to get to Denver? Or does it have one? But even if there is one in Denver, they still need to call guys up, get in from home, etc.
Although there were hostages in India, I don’t sense it was a classical situation. Very spread out, unknown groups inside roooms inside buildings, no communications or demands. Nothing to hang an HRT hat onto.
It wasn’t a whole lot different than what we would probably see happen.
The local police did what they could until the special commandoes were flown in from New Delhi.
Some of their problems mirror ours before 9/11. The difference may end up being that they may not change enough to prevent another attack.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/171366
People in India. Mumbai is the 5th most populous metro area in the world, behind NYC. With so many people in India it is pretty impressive more bombings don’t happen, though this attack truly was much more than a simple bombing.
I am curious if this will change any travel requirements…for example when signing into most hotels foreigners have to present their passport. Your nationality and room number are recorded right next to each other and usually kept in a book at the front desk. The hunting couldn’t be easier.
You’re just great