The Lessons of Mumbay -Elliot Chodoff [pictured above]
[A]uthorities are sifting through the destruction and tragedy in India, trying to find clues to “bring the perpetrators to justice.” The first lesson of the attacks has already been misunderstood: this is not a criminal justice issue; it is war.
Some additional lessons are already clear:
The attackers used a hybrid method of both guerrilla and terrorist tactics, attacking civilian targets with military techniques, but also effectively engaging Indian military forces. This method, developed initially by Hizbullah in South Lebanon in the early 1990’s, was a synthesis of classical terrorism with lessons learned from the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Today, it has spread to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and now India.
The attackers utilized basic infantry small-unit tactics of fire and maneuver, emphasizing movement to keep the police off balance. This method gave the attackers the advantages of surprise and initiative, essential for any operation, especially against a superior adversary.
[A]uthorities are sifting through the destruction and tragedy in India, trying to find clues to “bring the perpetrators to justice.” The first lesson of the attacks has already been misunderstood: this is not a criminal justice issue; it is war.
Some additional lessons are already clear:
The attackers used a hybrid method of both guerrilla and terrorist tactics, attacking civilian targets with military techniques, but also effectively engaging Indian military forces. This method, developed initially by Hizbullah in South Lebanon in the early 1990’s, was a synthesis of classical terrorism with lessons learned from the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Today, it has spread to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and now India.
The attackers utilized basic infantry small-unit tactics of fire and maneuver, emphasizing movement to keep the police off balance. This method gave the attackers the advantages of surprise and initiative, essential for any operation, especially against a superior adversary.
The attack demonstrated that the terrorists are capable of good planning and organization, excellent staff work, but only mediocre execution. The plan to attack multiple targets with multiple teams, landing from the sea, was impressive, to say the least. The timetables, target selection, and sequencing provide further evidence that terrorist planners have imaginative skills that should not be underestimated, as they have demonstrated from the skyjackings of the 1960’s and 1970’s, through the Munich Olympics massacre in 1972, and, of course, 9/11.
The preparatory staff work for the attack, from intelligence and reconnaissance through logistics, shows that this is truly the strongpoint of international terrorism. With its network of operatives connected by high-tech communications technology, terrorist organizations can safely and conveniently gather the informational and material threads necessary to launch a complex operation in a hostile (to them) environment. They also clearly have the ability to learn from experience, theirs and others, and constantly upgrade their staff capabilities.
In contrast to their planning and staff successes, the actual execution of the operation was less impressive. True, hundreds were killed and wounded, and this adds up to an enormous human tragedy, but, if reports are to be believed, the plan was to kill 5000 victims. If that is truly the case, the terrorists fell far short of their objectives.
The attackers’ poor overall performance reflects the chronic lack of hands-on operational experience suffered by terrorist organizations: the operatives of terrorist organizations often end their careers quickly, either in prison or “paradise.”
[T]he hostage-taking seems to have been more for tactical reasons, to complicate the security forces’ attack plans, rather than for negotiating purposes: apparently many, if not most, of the hostages were tortured and murdered long before the rescue attempts commenced.
[T]he hostage-taking seems to have been more for tactical reasons, to complicate the security forces’ attack plans, rather than for negotiating purposes: apparently many, if not most, of the hostages were tortured and murdered long before the rescue attempts commenced.
The Mumbay attacks provide us with a glimpse of the terrorist vision of the future. For those who believed that terrorism was a means of improving a negotiating position over limited goals, Mumbay should help them realize that this conflict is neither limited nor over peripheral issues. It is looking more and more like total war with each attack.
[Mideast On Target]
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