The MUMBAI Killings

[Warph]

Police: 10 terrorists had entered Mumbai

29 Nov 2008, 2302 hrs IST, Mateen Hafeez, TNN

MUMBAI: The city crime branch probing the terror attack on Saturday confirmed that only 10 terrorists had entered the city just an hour before the
hostage drama unfolded on November 26.

While nine of them were killed in encounter, a 21-year-old was captured alive. Arms and ammunition brought in by the terrorists was enough to kill around 5,000 people, said police.

Cops officially put toll at 162, including 18 foreign nationals. The arrested terrorist, Ajmal Mohammed Amir Kasab, resident of Faridkot village in Pakistani Punjab's Ukada district, told investigators all the terrorists had come from Karachi, police said.

They had come in a ship and used a boat to come to the shore, said the police. "Four Indians were already on the boat and the terrorists killed three of them while they used one, Amar Narayan, to handle the boat. When the boat was just three nautical miles away from shore, they slit Narayan's throat and dumped his body in the trawler. They then used their own skill to come to shore."

"After landing at Fish Market at Cuffe Parade near Colaba, they formed four groups and hired taxis to reach to their destinations. A group of two young terrorists entered Hotel Oberoi, four into Hotel Taj Mahal, two stormed into Nariman House while the rest entered the CST railway station from its mail trains' gate. Their plan was just to cause maximum damage and return with hostages protecting themselves," said Rakesh Maria, joint commissioner of police, crime branch.

As the hostage drama began at around 9.30pm, Kasab along with his accomplice, Ismail Khan, started random firing at CST railway station while the three other teams had began firing at Oberoi, Taj and Nariman House. Kasab, who sustained a bullet injury in his hand during an encounter with the police near Cama Hospital, was captured near Girgaum Chowpatty while Ismail was gunned down. Police recovered a satphone, a GPS tracker, and Indian currency of Rs 6,200. The satphone contains a dozen international numbers.

Kasab, cops said, had come to Mumbai for the first time. Cops are still probing if the same terrorists had planted bombs in two taxis that exploded at Byculla and Vile Parle.

The terrorists, said police, wanted to launch an attack which would have international ripples. "They were to return after completing their plan," said Maria.

He said they all were trained in the same batch in a terror camp. "We have recovered 10 AK-56 rifles, 10 9mm pistols, two explosive devices of eight kg each etc. Kasab and Ismail had fired at Leopold before coming to CST. They all are highly-trained terrorists but it would be difficult to say which terror group they belonged to. We have also recovered 10 fake ID cards of some Indian colleges from the terrorists," said Maria.

He said the terrorists had packed huge quantities of dates, almonds and raisins, which they ate during the three-day gun battle.
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Arrested Terrorist says Gang Hoped to Get Away
29 Nov 2008, 0515 hrs IST, TNN

NEW DELHI: The gang of terrorists who wreaked mayhem in Mumbai for three days were made to believe by their Lashkar bosses that they were not being sent on a suicide mission and that they would be coming back alive.

In a sensational disclosure made by Ajmal, the jihadi nabbed alive by Mumbai cops, the group had planned to sail out on Thursday. Their recruiters had even charted out the return route for them and stored it on the GPS device which they had used to navigate their way to the Mumbai shoreline.

This suggests that the terrorists were willing to undertake a mission which they knew would be very risky, but not necessarily suicidal.

Sources said that the bait of safe return must have been used by the recruiters to convince the wavering among the group to join the audacious plot against Mumbai.

Ajmal made another important disclosure: that all terrorists were trained in marine warfare along with the special course Daura-e-Shifa conducted by the Lashkar-e-Taiba in what at once transforms the nature of the planning from a routine terror strike and into a specialized raid by commandos.

Battle-hardened ATS officials are surprised by the details of the training the terrorists were put through before being despatched for the macabre mission. This was very different from a terrorist attack, and amounted to an offensive from the seam, said a source.

Ajmal has revealed the name of his fellow jihadis all Pakistani citizens as Abu Ali, Fahad, Omar, Shoaib, Umer, Abu Akasha, Ismail, Abdul Rahman (Bara) and Abdul Rahman (Chhota).

The account of Ajmal also strengthens the doubt of the complicity of powerful elements in the Pakistani establishment. According to him, the group set off on November 21 from an isolated creek near Karachi without the deadly cargo of arms and ammunition they were to use against the innocents in Mumbai. The group received arms and ammunition on board a large Pakistani vessel which picked them up the following day. The vessel, whose ownership is now the subject of an international probe, had four Pakistanis apart from the crew.

A day later, they came across an Indian-owned trawler, Kuber, which was promptly commandeered on the seas. Four of the fishermen who were on the trawler were killed, but its skipper, or tandel in fishermen lingo, Amarjit Singh, was forced to proceed towards India. Amarjit was killed the next day, and Ismail the terrorist who was killed at Girgaum Chowpaty took the wheel.

A trained sailor, Ismail used the GPS to reach Mumbai coast on November 26. The group, however, slowed down its advance as they had reached during the day time while the landing was planned after dusk. The group shifted to inflatable boats, before disembarking at Badhwar Park in Cuffe Parade.

From there, they mandated to kill indiscriminately, particularly white foreign tourists, and spare Muslims split up into five batches. Two of them Ismail and Ajmal took a taxi to Victoria Terminus. Three other batches of two each headed for Oberoi Hotel, Cafe Leopold and Nariman House. The remaining four went to Taj Hotel.
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Mumbai cops ignored LeT terrorists' confessions

29 Nov 2008, 0000 hrs IST, Pervez Iqbal Siddiqui, TNN

LUCKNOW: The mayhem in the Maximum City could have been averted had Mumbai Police taken the February 10 inputs from the Anti-Terrorism Squad and the Special Task Force of Uttar Pradesh police seriously.
After the attack on a CRPF camp in Rampur, six Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists, including a Pakistani national, were arrested in Lucknow on February 10 last year while boarding a train to Mumbai. Their interrogation revealed LeT's plan to target key installations in Mumbai, including the Taj, CST and seven other places. TOI Lucknow edition published a report highlighting the details on February 11, 2008.
Mumbai Police, however, didn't even seek the remand of the arrested, saying there was no criminal case pending against them in Mumbai, even though a two-member Mumbai team had come to Lucknow to question the six.
In the story, TOI, quoting top UP ATS and STF officials, said two of the arrested people Faheem and Mohammed Shareef had revealed during interrogation that three of their aides Sabauddin Ahmad of Madhubani in Bihar, Amar Singh of Gujranwala in Pakistan and Abu Sama of Kashmir were in India to carry out terror attacks in Mumbai. Faheem was based in Mumbai and had a fake Pakistani passport, which showed his name as Hammad Hassan, son of Bashir Hassan from Rawalpindi.
"The terrorists had multiple targets,'' STF SSP Amitabh Yash had then said. The terrorists had done a recce in Mumbai and prepared maps of the vital installations to be targetted. They had even rented an accommodation near Nariman Point, which was being used as the local base in Mumbai, sources had then told TOI. The investigators also said the accused had confessed to their involvement in the attack on Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.
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Mumbai:  We have 11 Indian newspapers listed
http://www.thepaperboy.com/city1.cfm?PaperCity=Mumbai

[Teresa]

Mumbai photographer: I wish I'd had a gun, not a camera. Armed police would not fire back

Jerome Taylor talks to the photographer who took this picture of the terrorist attack in India ...

"There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."

"I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera."

Read the entire story here:

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/mumbai-photographer-i-wish-id-had-a-gun-not-a-camera-armed-police-would-not-fire-back-14086308.html
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One word comes to mind... pathetic.  The officers that chose cowardice over performing their duties should be charged with accessory to murder for all of the lives lost under their "protection".
OR even worse, they were "sympathetic to the cause"... enough to hide long enough or "wait for orders" long enough to let the terrorists get their plan in action. It has happened before in that part of the world.