Crosshairs - Military Matters in Review

In Mumbai, India, on November 26, a small group of well-trained and technologically savvy terrorists attacked two luxury hotels, a train station and peripheral targets, killing 173 victims, torturing or mutilating some of them, and wounding hundreds of others. They departed from Karachi, Pakistan, and arrived by a pirated boat. Their strategy parallels the attacks against the United States Sept. 11, 2001, as will be shown.

A gunman who was captured has identified the terrorist sponsors as Lashkar-e-Taiba (Lashkar), which is believed to have its training networks in Pakistan's tribal areas. According to Bruce Riedel's new book, The Search for Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden collaborated with Pakistan's Inter-services Intelligence agency (ISI)  in the late 1980s to create Lashkar. It was subsequently officially banned.

How will India react? It must do something because its citizens are enraged and are demanding action against Pakistan. In a statement similar to President Bush's preemptive doctrine against countries harboring terrorists, Indian foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee has warned that "every sovereign country has its right to protect its territorial integrity."

India and Pakistan have fought four wars since the British decolonized them  -- in 1947-1949, 1965, 1971, and 1999. When considering that both countries have nuclear capability, no sane-thinking person wants these two countries to go to war again.  A Pakistani security official commented that Pakistan cannot afford to deploy to two fronts. This suggests that Pakistan will divert some 100,000 troops from the tribal border region adjoining Afghanistan to the Indian frontier. Such a redeployment would leave the Taliban free to operate, unless the United States has the assets and the will to increase its clandestine operations exponentially in the region. This is mathematically and geographically impossible. The shifting of Pakistani troops also would remove pressure on the Taliban for talks. Furthermore, it would signal that if the United States doesn't support Pakistan in the Indo-Pakistani confrontation, it cannot expect Pakistani cooperation in the Afghan war.

What will India want? For one thing, it might insist that Pakistan's ISI be cleaned up and leashed. But the Pakistani civilian government has little control over the military, and therefore over the ISI. India also would want a guarantee against future terrorist attacks, which neither Pakistan nor the United States can promise.

What might come next? India could deploy more troops to the Indo-Pakistani border, place its nuclear forces on the alert, and perhaps begin artillery attacks into Pakistan. If past wars are any indication, Indian and Pakistani troops might even make cross-border thrusts. After that? Think tanks and airpower. Don't even think about nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, if Pakistan's civilian government falls, it would open the door to an Islamist military government at best, or to a rogue nuclear power at worst.

This sharpens the strategic focus for the United States, and should make Americans acutely aware of the scope of the enemy's strategy. Looking at the situation from the radical Muslim point of view, we find that the length of the Long War remains unchanged -- war to the finish. Fifteen years ago in July 1993, the jihadists planned a virtually identical attack on Manhattan -- dubbed the "Landmarks" plot -- which was blocked only because an informant had infiltrated the group. Analysts Fred Burton and Ben West of Stratfor gave the following details in a report on Dec. 3 , 2008.

U.S. counterterrorism agents arrested eight militants who were linked to al Qaeda, and who were later convicted of plotting a multi-pronged attack against key sites in Manhattan. Their mission had been to kill as many people as possible in the Waldorf-Astoria, St. Regis, and U.N. Plaza hotels, to block the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, and to destroy a midtown Manhattan waterfront heliport. Why the hotels? Because the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the U.S. secretary of state, or other prominent persons might be there. Why the tunnels? To cripple the transportation infrastructure. Why the heliport? Because that's where prominent persons arrive.

Burton and West pointed out the following similarities in the "Landmarks" plot and the Mumbai attack:

• Both New York and Mumbai are financial centers that house their countries' major stock exchanges.
  
  
• In both cities, the targets were high-profile with relatively low-levels of  security.
  
  
• Both targets allow access by waterborne craft.
  
  
• Both plans included peripheral targets to "cause confusion and chaos and thus create a diversion from the main targets."
  
  
• In addition to adapting water transportation for movement to the objectives, both plots included the use of familiar-looking wheeled vehicles that would blend in with other city traffic.
  
  

Burton and West state flatly: "Ultimately, the biggest difference between the Landmarks plot and the Mumbai attack is that the Mumbai attack succeeded."

The radical jihadists used a new plan to attack the United States on 9/11, but they dusted off their old plan for the Mumbai operation. They have a long memory. Do we?

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