26/11 & Lahore – Attacks or rehearsals?
Does the events in Mumbai on 26/11 & more recently in Lahore on Sri Lankan cricketers on 3rd March point to something big in the making. Is a bigger attack or maybe a series of them, pending somewhere in the world, especially the US? Many would laugh at my assumption or conspiracy theory (whatever you choose to call it) but many may agree.
I am not being Zaid Hamid, living in a make believe world and having a hidden agenda to subscribe to nor Amaresh Mishra, that I'll even defy logic to support my stance. I think my sanity still prevails. And I am also not saying what I am stating is right. It is just an assumption.
The reason I am making this assumption is because of a few reasons that may have gone unnoticed. There were no hostages taken at all by the attackers – none in Mumbai & none in Lahore, though they had a great opportunity to do so in both cases. Some may argue that they did took hostages in Chabad House/Nariman Bhawan & in Taj, Trident/Oberoi but in reality that was not the case.
If you take hostages you gather them all in one place, a terrorist guards them while the others negotiate. You don’t let them easily escape as little Moshe & his nanny did in Cabard House & other people did at the Taj & Trident/Oberoi.
I was glued to the news channels since the attack started (remained glued for the whole three days believe me) and could see people being rescued by the firemen & security forces. They were rescuing them with ease with no resistance being offered by the terrorists. The attackers were just busy blowing up the Taj. As was evident from the intercepts later revealed by the security agencies, even the handlers were not too keen to keep hostages alive. In a hostage situation you do need to keep the hostages alive in order to negotiate but that was never the case. They were more keen on engaging with the security forces.
The CCTV footages that were later revealed too showed the terrorist roaming around the hotel with no hostages. As Kasab stated – this was no suicide mission – why were they not taking a few hostages as that would have helped them either negotiate or atleast escape.
If only killing was the mission – they could’ve killed atleast a thousand people. Most casualties happened at CST station which as all Mumbai stations is over-crowded. They killed nobody inside the Cama Hospital. On the outside though was a different story where we lost our three bravest men. There were around a thousand people in Trident/Oberoi & Taj hotels when the incident took place. They could’ve easily killed a few hundreds but killed only a few (statistically speaking – though the loss was immense). The arms & ammunitions they were carrying was enough to kill almost all of them (RR Patil even stated that the plan was to kill 5000 people). Then why did they neither killed (the way they should have to achieve that target) nor negotiated?
A mission with no objectives is hard to believe in. According to Kasab & also the intercepts of the handlers – they wanted to negotiate release of fellow terrorists but we never saw that happening. No negotiation attempt was ever made. Instead the handler for the Nariman Bhavan told the terrorist to kill the only surviving hostage (rabbi’s wife) in such a manner that the bullet goes out of the window.
Without a few hostages alive how could the terrorists thought of surviving or negotiating or in Kasab’s version return to Pakistan?
Let us now take the tragedy in Lahore. The terrorists came, attacked & returned safe & sound. (Was this they had in mind when they came to Mumbai? Had they thought the security apparatus in India is as pathetic as theirs?) What was the mission all about? There are reports that they wanted to take hostages. Why was that not done? They could also have easily killed the whole Lankan team as the security was in-appropriate. But they never did that instead went away. If anyone says that it was because of the police they ran away then it is not at all the case. The CCTV footage clearly shows they were very casual in the way they went away. There was no fear at all. It was as if they didn’t give a damn to the police. One guy actually came back with his bike & then took the other two with him. A video also shows them passing by a police vehicle with arms in hand. They could’ve easily diverted as the police van was visible from a distance & there was a road going to the attackers left too, but they chose to go straight. If they didn’t fear the police at all as was evident – why did they left without more killings & no hostages?
It seemed to me as if they were rehearsing for a big game ahead. Remember Kasab’s statement that there were around forty others that were trained with him. If that was a batch of 40 & considering there could be other batches as well we can only conclude that a sizeable number of terrorists are waiting to attack another place from the sea route. That place could be India again & more possibly the US. They could’ve done this to gather information on how the responses would be & then incorporate them in future attacks.
This is all an assumption which I thought could be possible. I could not be right in my assumption but one thing is for sure – I’m not all wrong. Rest for you all to comment & put your thoughts forward.
I am not being Zaid Hamid, living in a make believe world and having a hidden agenda to subscribe to nor Amaresh Mishra, that I'll even defy logic to support my stance. I think my sanity still prevails. And I am also not saying what I am stating is right. It is just an assumption.
The reason I am making this assumption is because of a few reasons that may have gone unnoticed. There were no hostages taken at all by the attackers – none in Mumbai & none in Lahore, though they had a great opportunity to do so in both cases. Some may argue that they did took hostages in Chabad House/Nariman Bhawan & in Taj, Trident/Oberoi but in reality that was not the case.
If you take hostages you gather them all in one place, a terrorist guards them while the others negotiate. You don’t let them easily escape as little Moshe & his nanny did in Cabard House & other people did at the Taj & Trident/Oberoi.
I was glued to the news channels since the attack started (remained glued for the whole three days believe me) and could see people being rescued by the firemen & security forces. They were rescuing them with ease with no resistance being offered by the terrorists. The attackers were just busy blowing up the Taj. As was evident from the intercepts later revealed by the security agencies, even the handlers were not too keen to keep hostages alive. In a hostage situation you do need to keep the hostages alive in order to negotiate but that was never the case. They were more keen on engaging with the security forces.
The CCTV footages that were later revealed too showed the terrorist roaming around the hotel with no hostages. As Kasab stated – this was no suicide mission – why were they not taking a few hostages as that would have helped them either negotiate or atleast escape.
If only killing was the mission – they could’ve killed atleast a thousand people. Most casualties happened at CST station which as all Mumbai stations is over-crowded. They killed nobody inside the Cama Hospital. On the outside though was a different story where we lost our three bravest men. There were around a thousand people in Trident/Oberoi & Taj hotels when the incident took place. They could’ve easily killed a few hundreds but killed only a few (statistically speaking – though the loss was immense). The arms & ammunitions they were carrying was enough to kill almost all of them (RR Patil even stated that the plan was to kill 5000 people). Then why did they neither killed (the way they should have to achieve that target) nor negotiated?
A mission with no objectives is hard to believe in. According to Kasab & also the intercepts of the handlers – they wanted to negotiate release of fellow terrorists but we never saw that happening. No negotiation attempt was ever made. Instead the handler for the Nariman Bhavan told the terrorist to kill the only surviving hostage (rabbi’s wife) in such a manner that the bullet goes out of the window.
Without a few hostages alive how could the terrorists thought of surviving or negotiating or in Kasab’s version return to Pakistan?
Let us now take the tragedy in Lahore. The terrorists came, attacked & returned safe & sound. (Was this they had in mind when they came to Mumbai? Had they thought the security apparatus in India is as pathetic as theirs?) What was the mission all about? There are reports that they wanted to take hostages. Why was that not done? They could also have easily killed the whole Lankan team as the security was in-appropriate. But they never did that instead went away. If anyone says that it was because of the police they ran away then it is not at all the case. The CCTV footage clearly shows they were very casual in the way they went away. There was no fear at all. It was as if they didn’t give a damn to the police. One guy actually came back with his bike & then took the other two with him. A video also shows them passing by a police vehicle with arms in hand. They could’ve easily diverted as the police van was visible from a distance & there was a road going to the attackers left too, but they chose to go straight. If they didn’t fear the police at all as was evident – why did they left without more killings & no hostages?
It seemed to me as if they were rehearsing for a big game ahead. Remember Kasab’s statement that there were around forty others that were trained with him. If that was a batch of 40 & considering there could be other batches as well we can only conclude that a sizeable number of terrorists are waiting to attack another place from the sea route. That place could be India again & more possibly the US. They could’ve done this to gather information on how the responses would be & then incorporate them in future attacks.
This is all an assumption which I thought could be possible. I could not be right in my assumption but one thing is for sure – I’m not all wrong. Rest for you all to comment & put your thoughts forward.
Good points, but a few debatable ones - the foremost being we are not too sure about the Lahore incident's raison de atre. There is a theory, and a good theory at that, that there was meant to be a hostage situation that would have been followed by demands of release of senior leaders of banned outfits currently lodged in Pak jails. This was a hostage situation gone bad - again one cannot say that with authority.
ReplyDeleteRemember before 9/11 happened, something else happened a few days prior to it. It was the assassination of Ahmed Shah Masoud in Afghanistan, the leader of Northern Alliance - the main force fighting the Taliban. One forgets this incident - in the grand scheme of things.
There is an Al Qaeda hand and then there is the Pakistan Army hand. The way I see it, in some incidents, they are quite well co-ordinated. (The mutiny of BDR was more a Pak Army ops than Al - Qaeda ops, whereas the Lahore was more an Al - Qaeda ops). Well co-ordinated again.
Cheers
BuA