Question

Please research the terror attacks which took place in Mumbai, India on November 26, 2008. There are several videos from major news agencies on youtube. Was this terror attack preventable from your research? Was this terror attack sophisticated? Was it extremely expensive to accomplish? What was targeted? Why? Could this happen on U.S. soil? Why did the terrorist choose their targets?  

Answer 1

The Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 26,2008 in India were a massive blow to the internal security and peace of the Indian sovereign territory. Investigations revealed that the attacks were not sporadic but were rather studied and pre-planned series of several skirmishes thta led to the siege of four densely populated areas the city of Mumbai. Interestingly, crime analysts point out that the Central Intelligence Agency had already intercepted the messages exchanged between the responsible persons who belonged to the organisation, Lashkar-e- taeba an Pakistan based terror group, and informed the Indian intelligence organisation- RAW. The Indian oversees authority however continued to take no immediate action against the lead on the attack. Thus, it is argued that the calamity of the attacks could have been avoided if the inland security was alerted. However, based on the research, it also emerges that although the attacks could have been minimised in their impact, the attacks could not have been completely stopped. This is because the convicted personnel who were involved in the implementation of the multifold attacks testified that the plans for the siege of Mumbai were carried out much in advance and involved a high level of coordination between the different teams. Moreover, peculiar to this incident was the direct involvement of the Pakistan state intelligence (ISI) in providing the logistics support to the terrorists. Thus, the acts were resilient to mere preventive measures as they appear to have been strengthened both in terms of the training and the financial costs for the maintenance of the personnel. Given that the weapons, the personnel came from the neighbouring country Pakistan through the sea route via the Arabian Sea, the plan was extremely expensive in terms of the monetary costs involved. However, the Mumbai attacks proved to be additionally heavy in terms of the costs incurred by the suffering country in order to curb and arrest the terrorists and it additionally took a toll on civilian lives both in terms of survival as well as trauma of the survivors.