26-11: TERROR'S REFERENCE CASE

Comparisons from Moscow to Paris and lessons for the next outrage.

The share of avoided casualties is to us the best way to measure the effectiveness of a counter-terror response. On this basis, the performance of Indian security forces during the Mumbai terror attacks of November 26, 2008 (26-11) provides several lessons. These become even more useful, when one appreciates that in terms of scale, complexity and novelty of the attacks, there were (and still are) no parallels to 26-11.

India’s political and diplomatic establishment were unable to communicate this, since they did not understand where 26-11 fit in the context of global experiences with terror. They were shocked and awed – and paralyzed. This, ironically, must have been a key objective of the masterminds behind the attacks.

Exacerbating the situation were bumbling, ill-informed and often-tendentious reports by the international press. These lent credibility to the terrorists’ story – of an India plagued by local Islamic discontent, ill-equipped and incapable of taking care of its own security.

Luckily, like elsewhere in the world, confusion did not derail an effective security response. In spite of a visible lack of political leadership, the Mumbai police and fire services, the bomb and dog squads, Indian Army units, and finally, Navy MARCOS commandos and 51 Special Action Group of the National Security Guard, showed they could coordinate and act, and deliver results. They achieved this in the face of one of the toughest urban close quarter terror challenges, to date.

SAS Doomsday Scenario

26-11 was more than a terrorist attack, or hostage crisis.

It was a meticulously-planned blitzkrieg, executed simultaneously at a dozen different, high-value targets. This, as a former head of Britain’s SAS special forces noted, was the Doomsday Scenario, feared by security forces across the world.

After the terror attacks in Paris in November 2015, some commentators drew parallels with 26-11.

However, there are major differences.

Very little, if anything, compares in mission complexity to two sprawling, high-rise hotels with over a thousand rooms, held from within by trained terrorists, as in Mumbai. The Paris attacks, as we shall see later, do not.

Secondly, French forces had carefully studied India’s response, and learned lessons. Their Indian counterparts did not have the benefit of any such hindsight. 26-11 was the first of its kind.

Finally, unlike Mumbai, the masterminds of the Paris attacks did not originate in a State like Pakistan, with its metamorphic chains of command and a proven ability to manipulate a fickle ‘international community’, by negotiating with nuclear weapons pointed at itself.

Military Training

26-11 was conducted by professional gunmen with military training, not fanatics or vengeful killers. Their sign language was one early indicator of such training. So was the manner in which they held their weapons.

Suicide shooters tend to stretch weapons upfront at chest height, or lower – phallus like. They strut and posture. They pose for God’s camera. The leader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was a good example of this.

Another excellent indicator of military training of the 26-11 terrorists was the conservation of ammunition. They limited fire, and moved on after attaining specific objectives. A long-winded analysis in ‘Tehelka’ (December 13, 2008) failed to understand that burst mode is not a feature of AK-47s or 56s. The terrorists needed good training to achieve such a capability.

CST Casualty and Reality Check: AK versus Handguns

Casualty counts underscore some of the above perspectives. The 58 fatalities at CST rail station must be set off against what we calculated as 50,000 to 100,000 passengers transiting and working there at any given point of time. In effect, what was important for the terrorists at CST was time and mission, rather than carnage alone.

They had the means to kill more, many more. This can be inferred from the damage by less powerful weapons than the terrorists’ AK rifles.

In April 2007, at Virginia Tech in the US, a student called Seung-Hui Cho used two handguns – a (very small) .22 and a 9 mm – to kill 32 and injure another 23. All but two of the deaths occurred in less than 15 minutes, or roughly the same time span as the CST massacre.

Symbolism of Targets

So, rather than only kill or maim passengers at CST, the terrorists’ objective was to hit a symbolic target – a railway station, used by about 3 million Indians a day. Then, there were other targets, also symbolic: Leopold’s, a cosmopolitan cafe frequented by both foreigners and Mumbaiites, and afterwards a hospital – Cama, followed by Nariman House, with its high-value Israeli connection. Finally, there were the Taj and Trident hotels. These kinds of hotels host the highest level of Indian and international business, social and political elites. In Mumbai, the Taj is right next to an emblematic icon, the Gateway of India. Needless to say, TV reports on 26-11 used this image whenever they could.

Sowing Chaos, Surgically

Opportunistic hits on targets such as taxis were simply designed to suggest a gang war. This was aimed at drawing key police personnel out, ideally into a trap. It was good planning by the terrorist masterminds.

They had meticulously conceived a surgical attack to sow chaos, showcase a soft, sloppy, sluggish Indian State, whose limbs and organs could be slashed and chopped, at will.

The key objective however was to hit a range of symbolic, high-value targets.

The Time Factor

In effect, once they had attained their objective at CST, the terrorists moved on to their next targets. Time was thus the critical factor, for them.

It was not so for the Indian State, and the international media had a good laugh. On December 15, ‘US News and World Report’ reported: “By any measure, India's response to the crisis was underwhelming…. The country's elite counterterrorism unit took some 10 hours to attack hostage-holding militants because Mumbai, a city of 13 million, has no SWAT-type group capable of fighting back.”

SWAT versus Kids, Terrorists and Tricksters

When there is trouble, armchair experts love to stamp and stomp.

The writers from ‘US News and World Report’ had little idea about situation analysis or outcomes. SWAT may sound sexy, but is also constrained by reality. In December 2008, American SWAT teams took 36 hours to resolve a crisis at Ravenna, Ohio, when the city’s ex-police chief took his own son hostage.

Nor are all SWATters well-trained, or ready and able. In ‘Reclaiming Our Children’, an analysis of the infamous Columbine school massacre in 1999, a renowned psychiatrist called Dr. Peter Breggin notes how one trapped child at hung a sign out of a window asking for help, but none came since the SWAT team suspected it to be a ruse by the gunmen. Finally, when the boy was about to fall, SWAT members caught him, but then retreated, instead of moving in to rescue others in the room.

As we shall see, both MARCOS and NSG personnel in Mumbai faced hundreds of such potential ‘tricks’. But they did their jobs, SWAT or no SWAT.

Taking Cover or Cowering

Another icon of the objective media, ‘The London Times’, reported on December 3 that rather than taking cover, Mumbai police had ‘cowered’ in the face of gunfire.

‘Sky News’ coverage was especially misleading, almost unbelievably so – but this is not unusual about India in the news. When prejudice does not fit reality, reality is adjusted. Sky’s CCTV feed from the CST attack simply deleted the heroic dash by Inspector Shashank Shinde across the line of fire to snatch a bolt-action rifle from a subordinate, and engage the terrorists, until he died.

Dates for ‘The Times’

What Shinde may have achieved with a cheap, pump action .12 gauge shotgun (highly effective at such a range) can only be imagined. On its side, ‘The Times’ seized the occasion to observe that Shinde’s .303 rifle was “similar to the Lee-Enfield weapons used by British troops in the First World War.”

In reality, Shinde’s rifle may well have been a .303-looking Ishapore 2A, built with a different grade of metal for a different calibre of ammunition. ‘The Times’ writers may not have known the difference.

More unhappily for 'The Times' is the fact that the .303 remained the standard rifle for the British Army considerably later than the First World War, actually until 1957.

Saviour Bill and the Bogey of Home Growing

Rand Corporation would be a front-runner for the Fake News Award for 2008, after its painstaking, self-serving and misleading analysis about 26-11 being a ‘homegrown’ operation.

This was rather like Kargil, where rather than a panicking Pakistan Army being beaten back inch by inch, some of the world’s most prestigious media credited Bill ‘The Saviour’ Clinton for gallantly riding in and persuading local Kashmiris to pack up and rescue India. It took a decade for the truth to come out.

Finding Comparisons, Drawing Lessons

Luckily, Indian security forces did not stand by and twiddle their thumbs. Once they were ordered to act, they did, after making an assessment and analysis of the situation.

In order to evaluate and assess this action, there are only a handful of near-parallels. None, however, have some of 26-11’s most confounding elements.

Prior to 2008, the closest such examples would consist of the Beslan school and Moscow theatre stand-offs in Russia. Seven years later, it seems that the November 2015 attacks in Paris were almost certainly modelled on 26-11, but were nowhere as challenging.

The SAS, The Guardian and Apollo 11

One of the most-acclaimed urban close quarter counter-terror operations was achieved by the British SAS at the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980. In July 2002, ‘The Guardian’ exulted happily that the SAS assault was one of the “most dramatic things ever seen on live television, a set of images that would take their place alongside Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon and John F. Kennedy’s assassination.”

However, the reality is that the SAS challenge was much simpler than 26-11. It was confined to a single site. The target was a two-story building, very different from the enormous size and complexity of the Taj and Oberoi Hotels. In terms of 26-11, the SAS target corresponds at best to Nariman House.

What is also important to note is that the SAS acted only on the sixth day, after the execution of one hostage. They had done their situation assessment, just like Indian forces were to do, 28 years later, and found it prudent to wait.

The SAS also produced their TV show without compromising security. What ‘The Guardian’ claimed to be ‘live’ TV was delayed, even though British TV reporters willingly failed to mention this. In India, in another indicator of abject political failure, the terrorists obtained actionable real-time intelligence, both from Indian and foreign TV channels.

The Russian Way

As mentioned, two terror attacks at Moscow and Beslan in Russia in the early 2000s offer some closer parallels to 26-11, in terms of the challenge.

The 2004 stand-off at a school in Beslan involved 1,000 hostages over a period of three days. Both figures correspond to 26-11. The 30 to 50 terrorists at Beslan also had similar, amorphous political demands. Like the hotels in Mumbai, they had pre-stocked weapons and ammunition in the school.

The initial Russian response involved the local police. The government soon brought in special forces from the Army, as well as Omon and Vympel federal police units.

Mumbai, once again, was going to echo such stepped-up sequencing. Unlike Mumbai, however, the Russian rejoinder was ruthless. It involved tanks and helicopter gunships, and Shmel fuel-air explosives. Casualties were massive, between 350 and 500, some near-vaporized by the thermobaric Shmels – reportedly including 20 soldiers.

The Beslan operation followed an equally frontal, hard-fisted Russian response in October 2002 at the House of Culture, a Moscow theatre, when 40 Chechen terrorists seized 800-900 hostages. After two-and-a-half days, Russian forces pumped a derivative of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid roughly 50 times stronger than heroin, into the building’s ventilation system. Then, they raided it. The casualty count was about 150.

Paris November 2015 – Same month, Same Time

The November 13, 2015 Paris attacks were closest to Mumbai in terms of multiple targets (six in total), and by being hit near simultaneously across the city. Aside from the month, the time when the attacks began in Paris (around 21:15 local time) corresponds, closely and intriguingly, to 26-11. So do the weapons, AKs and clones, grenades and IEDs.

At the beginning, suicide bombers struck outside the Stade de France during a football match, which was being watched inside the stadium by the French President and a German minister. The next 20-30 minutes saw gunfire killings and a suicide bombing at cafes and restaurants in four target areas, followed by a mass shooting and hostage taking at the Bataclan concert hall. There was also one final suicide bombing at the Stade de France stadium.

The casualty count was over 130 dead and 415 injured, 100 critically.

As many as 90 deaths occurred at Bataclan, where a rock concert was in progress. Three terrorists gained access to the concert hall at 21:40, firing AKs for at least 20 minutes. They reloaded two or three times, and took hostages at 22:00. The first tactical units from the BRI and RAID special police forces arrived at 22:15. They attacked at 00:20. Two terrorists detonated their suicide vests, a third’s vest blew up as he fell, after being shot.

Paris and Mumbai – Comparisons

As 26-11 was unfolding, a galaxy of TV pundits questioned why Indian forces were taking so long to sort out the ‘situation’. Even were they aware of the Russian way (and there always are similar options), I am sure few would expect India to respond in a similar fashion, risking an extremely high ratio of casualties.

Some may have thought about the SAS, but there is a vast difference between one two-storey building and two high-rise hotels, as we have seen. Indeed, this is also one of the crucial differences between the Paris attacks of November 2015 and 26-11.

In Paris, the engagement at Bataclan lasted just three minutes. However, it occurred two-and-a-half hours after the BRI and RAID units had arrived at the scene, even though it was clear there had been a massacre inside.

Above all, Bataclan offered a relatively simple structure. It had a stage adjoining an open dance floor, ending on the other side in a bar, with a balcony above. There was one entrance via a cafe, along with two emergency exits, two toilets and a control room on one side. The terrorists began firing as they entered the cafe and then within the crowds inside. The BRI units began their assault from the high ground of the balcony.

Bataclan Corresponds to One Restaurant at the Taj

The Bataclan concert hall stands in dramatic contrast to the huge and labyrinthine hotels, within which the Indian security forces engaged the terrorists at Mumbai.

The Taj has over 550 rooms and suites, and over 10 restaurants, bars and spas. Room count in the Trident is similar. More problematically, while the number of terrorists in Mumbai remained unknown until the final engagement, each of the over-thousand rooms in the hotels also offered a bewildering range of concealment spots – underneath beds, behind cupboard doors, in annexes, in the bathroom, all of this confused by mirrors and lights, smoke and darkness.

Within such an environment, Indian security forces had to repeatedly draw out the terrorists, and be ready to risk confusing a plea for help from a hotel guest or hostage, with a trap by terrorists. In the final act, their job demanded the highest metric of professionalism – patience.

Mission Objective 2: Extending the Stand-Off

As was the case at CST, the death toll at the two Mumbai hotels (about 30 each) could well have been higher. Hotel staff and firemen played a key role in minimising such casualties. However, it would not have been easy to prevent a Bataclan-level intensity of massacre (90 dead), had the terrorists so willed.

Why did they not ?

The most probable hypothesis is that the 26-11 masterminds intended to draw out the crisis as long as possible. Indeed, the amorphous demands made by the terrorists to a TV station supports the theory of stretching the stand-off. “Release all the mujahideens”, “Muslims living in India should not be troubled,” said the man called Sahadullah. He named no prisoners or any examples of Muslims being troubled – to provide an agenda, any agenda, for negotiations.

Their aim was instead to showcase the paralysis of the Indian State – good propaganda for more jihadi recruits, and possibly strengthen the position of the 26-11 masterminds, bring them more funding, and glory.

With hundreds of potential hostages in the hotels, it would have been straightforward to maintain media attention for such a spectacle. One example was the report about terrorists collecting passports to pick out foreigners. No one asked why they simply did not pick out white people, and ask them to prove they were Indian. It would have been quicker, but forced their hand. The objective, as I suggest, was to extend the standoff.

When international media attention waned, hostages would have been executed. There are enough precedents for this.

The Role of MARCOS

It is debatable whether the arrival of the NSG in Mumbai earlier would have made a major difference. Time is always required to assess a terror or hostage situation and determine an appropriate response. Even in the clearer, simpler setting of Paris’ Bataclan concert hall in November 2015, French forces took over two hours before acting.

Indeed, at Mumbai, had NSG units rushed into the hotel, with TV channels broadcasting details, they may have provoked a larger-scale massacre. As discussed above, the terrorists had different objectives.

This was also thanks to the professionalism of MARCOS naval commandos. Unlike the insinuations by ‘US News and World Report’ and scores of other media outlets, a MARCOS team had reached the Taj within four hours of the first sounds of gunfire from the Taj hotel – only slightly longer than the French took at Bataclan, and less than the Omon and Vympel units at Beslan.

MARCOS are not NSG, any more than US Seals are Rangers, or French Commando Hubert are GIGN. Their training is focused on sea, air and land operations, outdoors. However, like all special forces, Indian MARCOS are not only out-performing soldiers, but cross-skilled, intelligent, versatile and highly adaptable.

During 26-11, the MARCOS teams took on some of the riskiest, multi-tasking operations, and achieved a mission-critical set of early wins.

Firstly, they had to draw out and engage a still-unknown number of terrorists, and determine the lethality of their weapons. Alongside, they saw a clear and immediate need and shepherded civilians to safety. This included room-by-room search and extraction, when they had to cope permanently with the possibility of a terrorist pretending to be an injured guest inside. By November 27 evening, some 125 hostages had been escorted out of the Taj, and 30 from the Trident; about 150 more were rescued the next day.

On the operational side, one of the biggest achievements of MARCOS was corralling terrorists into the Palace wing and away from the Tower, a vantage point for another potential mass-casualty offensive.

Good special force soldiers do not seek to become heroes, or ‘martyrs’. MARCOS stood by as soon as they had done what they could, to the best of their abilities.

Thanks to their work, the need had shifted to a different set of skills – for urban, close quarter engagement with minimal collateral damage. Unlike MARCOS, this is what the Special Action Group of the NSG are specifically trained to do, and what they eventually did, superbly, under some of the toughest odds one can imagine.

Expertise and Sour Grapes

To conclude, it is important to put 26-11 in an international context. The challenges it posed were very different from what the French faced in Paris, the British at the Iranian Embassy, or even the Russians in Beslan and Moscow. There are many others, from the Israeli attack in Entebbe airport in 1976 to Waco, Texas, in 1993 and the Japanese Embassy hostage crisis in Peru in 1996, where parallels are even fewer and more feeble.

On November 28, a widely-cited report in ‘The London Times’ lamented that the Indian rescue operation was “premature and badly planned.” In hostage situations, “the first thing the forces are supposed to do is assemble at the scene and begin collecting intelligence,” a former member of Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence agency, told ‘The Times’. Instead, said the writer, “Indian troops prematurely stormed the besieged hotels where militants were holding hostages, risking lives in the process.”

The writer, whose military training must have consisted of watching World War II action movies, had clearly failed to understand what the MARCOS teams had gone in for – to begin “collecting intelligence”, take the initiative in cases of clear and present danger or force majeure, and save lives – as it turned out, hundreds of them. He had also failed to understand something else: a galaxy of experts, from CNN to Newsnight and much in between, were clamouring for the hotels to be stormed. That was precisely what was not done by MARCOS or the NSG. Mumbai was not Beslan or Waco, or for that matter, Normandy.

Fewer people died in the giant Taj and Trident hotels than at Bataclan.

As for the Shin Bet agent, this was a clear case of sour grapes. Israel had offered “advise”, which India “politely refused”, according to ‘The London Times’ . This was wise – for Shin Bet or Israeli special force Sayeret Matkal would have claimed full credit for the rescue operation, which would have been lapped up the world over, and given the next terror attackers further proof about an India-Israel axis.

On the other hand, if the Israeli “advice” had led to disaster, guess who would have borne the blame ?

Before the next round of terror attacks hit again, this is also an enduring lesson from terrorist outrages. Keep politics out.