Recriminations!

This is coolbert:

Even before the fighting in Mumbai has ended, the last terrorist YET to have been killed or captured, the area under attack totally and 100 % secured, the recriminations over the Indian response has already begun.

"Mumbai attacks: foreign governments criticise India's response"

"India has been accused of bungling its response to the terror attack on prominent hotels and tourist haunts in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) by foreign governments whose citizens have been killed."

1. The last group of terrorists were still able to fight NINE HOURS after the commando assault on their position began??!!

"Nariman House, the single story office block that was assaulted by helicopter-borne commandos just after dawn."

"But nine hours later there was still incoming and outgoing fire and grenade explosions at the building."

2. "A . . . British official criticised the Indian response to the crisis. Although the country's Black Cat commandos have a fearsome reputation for efficient anti terrorist operations, their deployment was botched."

"'They are supposed to set-up a command centre in complete control as their first priority,' the official said. 'Instead they arrived and went in guns blazing.'"

"'It was blind. They didn't have maps of the hotels, yet there terrorists had done enough reconnaissance to use the service facilities to manoeuvre.'"

3. "There was also criticism of a midnight announcement on the first day of the crisis by a cabinet minister that 200 commandos were deployed in the area within two hours."

"'The terrorist were forewarned by the government itself,' the official said.
Even in the midst of the fighting, the security operation is riddled with holes."

4. "A masked marine commando said clearance efforts were severely hampered by numbers of people still inside hotels when they moved in to flush out the militants."

"'We could have got those terrorists but for so many hotel guests,' he said."

Comments:

* Normally it would not take NINE HOURS to clear a single-story building during an anti-terrorist operation. The tactics for taking and securing a building should have been well worked out in advance? Practiced over and over until the entire procedure becomes routine? Grenades, sub-machine gun, buddy team, controlled explosives, mouse holes, etc. Anti-terrorist units the world-over know this stuff and practice relentlessly!

* In some ways, this is all the opposite of what occurred during the Columbine shootings and the police response. At Columbine, the first thing the police did was to set up a security perimeter and a command post. As they had been trained to do by the "experts". DID NOT GO INTO THE SCHOOL WITH "GUNS BLAZING" ! In the aftermath of Columbine there was a LOT of recriminations BECAUSE THE POLICE DID NOT MOVE INTO THE BUILDING SOONER AND TAKE OUT HARRIS AND KLEBOLD. LIVES COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED IF THE COPS HAD FOLLOWED A DIFFERENT SET OF PROCEDURES!!
* Apparently, the terrorists, some of them at least, AT ONE OR ANOTHER, HAD JOBS AT THE HOTELS, KNEW AND WERE ABLE TO USE THE SERVICE AREAS OF THE HOTELS FOR THEIR OWN ADVANTAGE DURING THE COMBAT!!
* YES, the hotel guests, the wounded, the dead, the lack of knowledge among who is present in the building is armed and dangerous, all makes for a difficult situation. Especially when you are in a hotel, with so many guests, room, service areas, etc. Behind each and every locked door is a potential terrorist. And those hotels appear to be massive structures!!

Black Cat, MARCOS, and the police on the scene, all faced an impossible situation! This was chaos at the worst??!!

Mumbai represents a new and terrifying form of terror? YES!

coolbert.