26/11: A reminder that counter-terrorism needs a ‘whole of nation’ approach

In an eerie coincidence of numbers, there were 26 intelligence alerts about terrorist attacks on Indian soil before the attacks happened in Mumbai. Intelligence inputs beginning from 2006 indicated there would be multiple attacks on vital areas. These inputs were disregarded. When the attacks finally happened, neither the Central government nor the state government or the local administration were prepared to face the attacks.

In the week that passed, the nation remembered the heroes of 26/11. But the abject failure of the system to act on many inputs prior to the attack is a harsh lesson that holds relevance many years after the event. When the siege on Mumbai ended, 166 innocent lives had been lost and over 300 were left injured. The attacks punched holes in India’s maritime surveillance, intelligence sharing between agencies and within governments, and exposed the ability to enforce actionable intelligence into effective execution. The attack damaged the credibility of the state against terrorist attacks.

Intelligence

There isn’t a similar terrorist attack of this scale in the world with such leads of bewilderingly specific detail. It is intriguing how and why these sets of information were never put into play. As early as in 2006, the R&AW and IB had alerted the Mumbai police of the Lashkar-e-Toiba’s plans to launch fidayeen attacks in India. Subsequently, several sources said the attacks would be conducted through the sea route. A list of top hotels was mentioned in these threats which included the Taj, Oberoi, and the Taj Land’s End. V Balachandran, a former special secretary, Cabinet Secretariat and a former police officer, says that a specific alert also came in from Assam which mentioned one of the targets by name: ‘Leopold’.

Then, there is the well-known story of the American-born Pakistani terrorist David Headley who visited India five times between 2006 to 2008 and roamed around Mumbai filming the targets. In 2007, his Moroccan wife warned American authorities in Pakistan that he was plotting an attack. The Central Intelligence Agency tipped India off about the possibility of a major terrorist attack on Mumbai. Given that the security establishment in India papered over the many inputs that had arrived at its doorstep, it’s no surprise that any such input got buried too.

In his meticulously researched, fine book ‘Black Tornado’, Sandeep Unnithan explains how systemic bureaucratic negligence, instinctive apathy and incompetence in the security establishment ensured that effective counteraction remained a casualty – till the NSG was brought in to quell the siege. The inability of the security agencies to work together was severely exposed. For instance, the intelligence bureau sent a single page alert to the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard that mentioned a suspect LeT vessel along with specific latitudinal and longitudinal features. The alert included two sentences. ‘The boat was attempting to make an infiltration’ – read the first sentence. The alert also advised ‘necessary action to stop infiltration.’ Along with the Coast Guard, the Indian Navy received the IB alert too but disregarded it as the vessel was in Pakistani waters. Interestingly, they read the first sentence but failed to act on the second one – ‘necessary action to stop infiltration.’

Preparation: Police weapons and ability to take on a heavier attack

History bears witness to the fact that attacks of this nature are effectively stopped at the point of initiation. Once attackers gain access to the place of their target and a surprise attack is unleashed, it can be difficult for an unprepared, hapless police force to pose an effective counter. The Mumbai police was neither trained nor prepared for an eventuality such as this one — despite the fact that the city had been regularly attacked by terrorists in 1993 and 2006. No amount of bureaucratic prevarication and inapt jargon-spewing — a favourite practice in India — can explain the outrageous incompetence exhibited by the state government.

To pin the blame on the police rather than the planners would be to miss the wood for the trees. When the attack was developing, a police constable hid in a narrow street between Leopold café and Taj hotel as two terrorists stepped out from the Leopold café and were fixing their magazines in the middle of a narrow street. The constable was using .303 and was hesitant to fire. Two reasons: one, the weapon wouldn’t have matched the automatics of the two terrorists and two, there was little chance that the policeman would have fired his weapon in training! When inadequate emphasis is laid on the use of weapons and ammunition for training purposes, these lapses come back to bite hard, when a real challenge explodes in the face — as it happened that evening of 26th November.

There was another instance when Lt Colonel Sundeep Sen, who led the action at Chabad House wanted to use the teargas gun. The policeman who brought the teargas gun couldn’t fire because the weapon had no firing pin! A teargas gun is one the police is likely to use in internal security duties. And yet, the police had a non-functional teargas gun during a major operation.

A higgledy-piggledy state of affairs

All the terrorists possessed maps of the area they were operating in, and could find their way to the buildings. Two of them, Babar Imran and Umar found their way past the congested Colaba market and laid siege to the Chabad House. However, until the afternoon of 27th November, no one really knew that a building in the Colaba Market had been targeted or where Chabad House was.

When Sundeep Sen and his NSG commandos arrived from Delhi, he and his team were subjected to a merry go around for an entire day – from the cabinet secretariat to the Colaba police station – without anyone from the administration or the police able to show him the location of Chabad House. In fact, it is astounding to note that the location of the terrorist strike was shown to Sen, not by an official of any hue, but by a local Samaritan — a Mumbai Jew — who happened to follow the NSG team on his scooter. The NSG commandos had no maps for guidance while operating during the period between 26-29 November, despite which they neutralised the situation. Besides, the Chabad House was surrounded by a large crowd of curious onlookers and cheerleaders, over which the police had no control. To say that the city was actually sitting on the precipice of a bigger catastrophe had the terrorists used area weapons on the crowd gathered outside is stating a grim possibility that was prevented.

Delinquency during operations

During the conduct of operations, while the terrorists were in direct touch with their handlers in Pakistan, the commandos in India were handicapped by a lack of effective information. The Pakistani handlers, aided by Indian television media’s high-strung ‘aankhon dekha haal’ coverage, directed the terrorists inside Taj, Oberoi and Nariman House while in India, the NSG operated, risking their lives without having the benefit of conversation intercepts that Indian intelligence agencies had picked up real time between the terrorists and their handlers. In cricketing analogy, it’s like playing on home ground against a visiting opposition and yet allowing their biased umpires to stand, adjudicate and run their writ with impunity.

The NSG is known to operate differently if they are aware that hostages are alive while conducting the operation. On 27th November, while operating in Nariman House, conversations between the terrorists and the handler were intercepted in India, which suggested that a hostage may have been alive. However, the information didn’t reach the NSG on time — the result was that the hostage died and the NSG also lost a commando while neutralising the terrorists.

Compromise?

Was it a case of compromise at higher levels? Adrian Levy, author of the book ‘The Siege’ alongwith Cathy Scott-Clark, believes that Headley’s handler in Pakistan told him about a mole in New Delhi called ‘Honey Bee’ which he had cultivated. The mole in Delhi is said to have helped him identify the place of landings. These inputs, though uncorroborated, when combined with a general disinterest to pin down lapses and fix accountability, as seen from the series of events till the attacks and after, raises serious questions.

Lopsided priorities

In India, a botched up intelligence arbitration was compounded by an equally worse understanding of priorities. Commandos had to be flown into Mumbai from Manesar in Haryana. RVS Mani, who was then an under-secretary in the ministry in Delhi says that the Home Minister Shivraj Patil delayed the flight of NSG commandos for personal reasons.

When Dutt asked for a plane for travel of NSG to Mumbai, he was told that a transport aircraft was in Chandigarh for that purpose. Finally, R&AW intervened to rush the NSG teams to Mumbai. Some of these factors are so inexcusable that they put a question mark on intent. Post the attack a two-person probe committee recommended 27 recommendations but were never declassified. Lack of intent may not necessarily cast aspersions on honesty, unless otherwise proven, but surely exposes the levels of extreme indolence and insensitivity.

In a sense, the entire system was cuckolded by the Pakistani deep state. On the evening of 26th November, an Indian delegation led by the home secretary Madhukar Gupta was in Pakistan, having been insisted by the hosts to stay back and visit Murree, a Pakistani hill resort. The coincidence in dates is intriguing since the home secretary would have been directly responsible for issuing instructions for deployment of NSG on the evening of 26th November. But, in this case, he was missing in action.

The events of 26/11 changed the idea of an effective counter-terrorism architecture in India. Though the numbers of terrorist strikes came down after that event because of emphasis on optimal use of NSG alongside developing an effective counter strike mobility, actionable intelligence, when executed in time, serves as one of the most reliable forward posts against terrorism. 26/11 is a day of remembering the gallant heroes who saved the city, however it must also serve as a reminder that intelligence, preparation, and protection ought to be a ‘whole of nation’ approach to serve as a powerful bulwark against ominous surprises.

The writer is the author of ‘Watershed 1967: India’s Forgotten Victory over China’. His fortnightly column for FirstPost — ‘Beyond The Lines’ — covers military history, strategic issues, international affairs and policy-business challenges. Views expressed are personal. Tweets @iProbal

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