The pictures of all of those cops and troops standing around with automatic weapons made “collateral damage” almost guaranteed. That’s why police SWAT teams are a better idea than commandos. The police prefer to not kill bystanders while the military shoots anything perceived as a possible threat.
Frankly, the live video I saw looked more like a straight assault than a hostage rescue operation. I have a feeling that hotel staff had more of a role in rescuing people than the police, and I don’t understand why they didn’t use a ladder with a hose on the end or a water cannon to fight the fires. it could have been done remotely in safety. Any reaction by the militants would have revealed them to snipers, if they had put spotters and snipers in place, which doesn’t seem likely at this point.
India is yelling about Pakistan when they allowed a pirated vessel to sail into their port unchallenged and drop off at least some of the attackers. That is pretty damn sloppy work.
]]>If that’s true, it’s insane! You don’t use an AMR against a hotel full of civilians! A typical AMR round fired at close range would just about go right through the hotel unless it hit’s something really, really hard and then shrapnel would be a serious bitch! A typical AMR round will penetrate 20-40mm of RHA (rolled homogeneous armor) such as a modern double walled APC, so you can imagine what it would do against an old hotel.
This will get interesting!
]]>Snipers would have made short work of it, as head shots would be the only effective response, but the regular officers would have been working with shotguns almost immediately. Even with good body armor, if you get hit with a 12 gauge slug you are out of action.
Your average LA street gang would have been more effective, and probably escaped, which is why US cities can mount a better response. When you do battle with drug gangs you had better be prepared.
I think the incident says more about the poor state of Indian security forces than anything about the terrorists. It was an expensive lesson, and it shouldn’t be wasted.
It’s not as if there haven’t been terrorist attacks by multiple groups in India for years. There should have been a better response.
]]>If I’d have trained them, they would have been a hell of a lot more *effective*! Believe me. 🙂 They weren’t even that well trained IMO. Amateurs with guns. Big deal. The USA has millions of them. 🙂
]]>You don’t need a country to train 10 guys. There doesn’t need to be any big, elaborate infrastructure behind what happened, all that was needed was an experienced sergeant to train a squad. Anyone with solid experience in urban fighting could have put ten guys together for this operation in a few months. There are plenty of devastated areas that could be used for training.
The Mumbai tourist bureau probably provided all of the maps that were needed, as the points that were struck would be on the simplest maps.
Despite all of the claims of a complex plan, this was actually very simple – shoot and throw grenades at specific points on the route. It was a suicide mission, so the most complicated part, withdrawal after the attack, wasn’t a concern.
]]>The question that lingers on my mind, however, is why does every news channel have to create a special logo and music to accompany it’s stories?
]]>If they were looking for a body count, there was a UK-India cricket series going on that would have made an ideal target with some long range weapons. It was scheduled well in advance at known venues.
Apparently they highjacked a trawler at some point to transport people into the city. With only 10 people, and some of them already in the city, why risk taking the trawler?
This makes less sense as time goes on, and I still don’t see any real connection to Pakistan. There are a lot of Urdu speakers in India, especially in Kashmir, and Kashmir is the most probable base. There was even a report that some of the people who attacked the hotels were from the UK.
Just as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a major nexus, so too is Kashmir. Until there is a reasonable settlement of these issues, the terrorism will continue, no matter how many terrorists are killed.
]]>They also showed a large cafe that was apparently very busy, and at least two attackers with automatic weapons and grenades killed only 8 people in about 90 seconds. If it had been my team from Cambodia, everyone in that cafe would have been dead in 30 seconds. So I’m not sure what the Indians mean by *highly trained and heavily armed*.
There are far too many things that don’t add up. Perhaps they are right to call it India’s ‘9/11’. They have that in common, too many details of the official accounts don’t add up. *shrug* Every time I see a news report, the *facts* have changed again.
Maybe Rove got a job as adviser in India, or a PR job. *shrug*
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