What could go wrong?

India has plans to add about 100 warships to its navy over the next decade as it seeks to modernise its armed forces, and develop its low-cost shipbuilding capabilities.

Captain Alok Bhatnagar, director of naval plans at India’s ministry of defence, said on Thursday that 32 warships and submarines were under construction in the country’s shipyards. Work on 75 more ships, including aircraft carriers, destroyers, frigates and amphibious vessels, would begin over 10 years.

New Delhi is sensitive to lagging behind Beijing’s naval might in the region. China has three times the number of combat vessels as India and five times the personnel. Officials are wary of port developments in neighbouring Pakistan and Sri Lanka that offer Chinese warships anchorages and potentially greater control of the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea.

However, India has one of the fastest growing navies in the world. Its fleet of about 120 vessels is the fifth largest. At the weekend, it launched a locally built nuclear-powered submarine, based on a Russian design, to join only a few countries with the technical prowess to produce such a war machine.

• Iran is still closing in on starting its nuclear bomb factories (if it hasn’t already).
• Pakistan is still on verge of collapse, and
• North Korea is 100% unstoppable

There are many MANY more problems to be sure (not the least of which is the confusion over whether or not we’re all support the pursuit of success in Iraq after Obama and Democrats told us to oppose it for the past seven years). Afghanistan is the land of foreverwar. Somalia and East Africa are in anarchy, and much much more. However, those three foreign policy failures threaten not one, not two, but THREE major wars if Obama can’t produce results soon. Clocks are ticking. Nations are literally preparing for total, “all-out war.”

Obama’s foreign policy-the idea of forcing enemies to unclench their fists by offering them open hands is not producing results (could it be the Iranians are left handed?). Even Barack himself recognizes that the effort to “talk” to Iran is failing, and despite years of promising to meet Iranian leaders without preconditions, he’s announced that Iran has but till the end of the year to demonstrate considerable efforts towards peace. Israel probably doesn’t have that long, shouldn’t wait for President Obama’s pipedream, pie-in-the-sky, hail Mary effort to stave off total, all-out regional war. The Israelis are literally facing the threat of another genocide. They know it, and because Obama’s foreign policy has not produced a single positive result with Iran, there is no practical reason to wait. War is coming to the Middle East-a war that will make the invasion and occupation of Iraq look like kids play.

In Pakistan, President Obama’s stepped up air strikes and Special Forces raids have killed so many civilians that locals actually look at Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban more favorably! They’re backing the Taliban’s offensive that is threatening to collapse that country. If Pakistan falls to extremists or collapses into anarchy, then a war with India is very likely. Any war with India threatens 1-2 billion people with nuclear Armageddon. Obama’s efforts to prevent this have produced zero results. He must change the course of events.

In regards to North Korea, even the BBC is admitting now that nothing shy of total war will stop the unchained dictatorship. No amount of sanctions, no harsh letter from the UN, no speech about fake outrage is going to stop or even deter the weapons exporting nation. They’re military is among the biggest and most dedicated in the world, and while armed with antiquated weapons, their artillery alone could kill 2million people in the South Korean capital at any given moment. If North Korea is not stopped (and it doesn’t look like Obama’s charm can do it), then a regional arms race must begin. Japan must build anti-ballistic missiles, and perhaps even nuclear weapons. China must then increase its abilities with both. The chain reaction proliferation threatens billions of lives. It would be far cheaper in blood and treasure for the world to lose a million troops in an attack into North Korea than to lose a billion or two billion to a regional nuclear war, and if Obama’s charm doesn’t start paying off soon, history will make the decision.

We’re told, “These things take time.” No. They don’t. It’s very easy to see if one side of a conversation is interested, willing, or even capable of barter. Once that’s determined, then the ugly balance sheet must come out. There’s no way around it. He has to ask himself what is the cost of inaction vs what is the cost of action-however horrific. In each of the three cases above (Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea), the price of inaction far outweighs the cost of direct military attack. That’s why it’s so important for diplomacy to work, to start showing results, and to stop being reduced to a Monty Python joke.
“STOP! Or we shall be forced to say ’stop’ again!”

India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has told President Obama that nuclear sites in Pakistan’s restive frontier province are “already partly” in the hands of Islamic extremists, an Israeli journal has said, amid considerable anxiety among US pundits here over Washington’s confidence in the security of the troubled nation’s nuclear arsenal.

Claims about the high-level exchange between New Delhi and Washington were made in the Debka, a journal said to have close ties with Israeli intelligence, under the headline “Singh warns Obama: Pakistan is lost.” The brief story said the Indian prime minister had named Pakistani nuclear sites in the areas which were Taliban-Qaida strongholds and said the sites are already partly in the hands of “Muslim extremists.” A sub-head to the story said “India gets ready for a Taliban-ruled nuclear neighbor.”

Amid all that some experts in the US are pissed off that Obama and his lackeys are shrugging their shoulders at Pakistan and the Taliban:

“It is quite disturbing that the administration is allowing Pakistan to quantitatively and qualitatively step up production of fissile material without as much as a public reproach,” Robert Windrem, a visiting scholar with the Center for Law and Security in New York University and an expert on South Asia nuclear issues told ToI in an interview on Thursday. “Iraq and Iran did not get a similar concessions… and Pakistan has a much worse record of proliferation and security breaches than any other country in the world.”…

And as the Taliban gain strength, they also gain the upper hand and are now going mano y mano with Pakistan forces:

Taliban insurgents in Pakistan’s Swat valley may be preparing to fight the army on the streets of the scenic district’s main city, as soldiers and guerrillas adopt surprising conventional war tactics. … Shaukat Saleem , a Mingora resident who escaped from Swat on Friday, said the Taliban had blocked roads in the city with trees and boulders. They’ve mined the streets, dug trenches, made bunkers and occupied many civilian homes, he said. He said that he saw “lots” of Taliban as he was leaving the city, who stopped him for questioning at 10 to 12 of their checkpoints.”

The Long War Journal is reporting that we have struck inside the frontier province of Waziristan again against Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists:

The US has struck at Taliban and al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled tribal agencies for the third time this week. Twenty-five Taliban and al Qaeda operatives are reported to have been killed and several more were wounded in an airstrike in North Waziristan.

Predator strike aircraft fired two Hellfire missiles at a Taliban madrassa and a vehicle in the town of Khaisor, which is just outside of the town of Mir Ali, Geo News reported. The strike reportedly detonated an ammunition dump at the madrassa, causing a massive explosion. No senior al Qaeda or Taliban leaders have been reported killed.

The town of Mir Ali is a known stronghold of al Qaeda leader Abu Kasha al Iraqi, an Iraqi national who is also known as Abu Akash. He has close links to the Taliban, a senior US intelligence official told The Long War Journal in January 2007. He serves as the key link between al Qaeda’s Shura Majlis, or executive council, and the Taliban.

His responsibilities have expanded to assisting in facilitating al Qaeda’s external operations against the West, a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal in October 2008.

Included in the Long War update is the fact that the Abu Kasha network has been hit three times by the US and that we have stopped telling Pakistan about the strikes since the intelligence just gets passed onto al-Qaeda forces.

Democrats like Kerry…don’t seem to care.

The Daily Times of Pakistan also reported that about 200 Taliban stormed terminals storing NATO supplies in North-West Frontier Province capital Peshawar on Sunday, killing a guard and torching a dozen vehicles.

Last Thursday, Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani, said in Washington “the world is not a problem for America to fix” and that the aid package before Congress was too “intrusive” and disregarded Pakistan’s ability to be self-accountable for the funds.

“A company at the verge of failure is quite clearly able to get a bigger bailout than a nation that has been accused of failure,” Haqqani said at the Atlantic Council. “That’s something that in this town needs a review.”

But I doubt most of the O faithful will be celebrating, since what Obama did was hold tight with the Bush legal argument that the Afghanistan detainees held at Bagram Airfield did *not* have Constitutional rights… unlike those held at Gitmo via the vague and damaging SCOTUS decision.

President Obama sided with the Bush administration Friday, saying detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights.

In a two-sentence court filing, the Justice Department said it agreed that detainees at Bagram Airfield cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detention. The filing shocked human rights attorneys.

“The hope we all had in President Obama to lead us on a different path has not turned out as we’d hoped,” said Tina Monshipour Foster, a human rights attorney representing a detainee at the Bagram Airfield. “We all expected better.”

Mata Musing: Ms. Foster is exec director of the International Justice Network.

The Supreme Court last summer gave al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to challenge their detention. With about 600 detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and thousands more held in Iraq, courts are grappling with whether they, too, can sue to be released.

After Obama took office, a federal judge in Washington gave the new administration a month to decide whether it wanted to stand by Bush’s legal argument. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd says the filing speaks for itself.

“They’ve now embraced the Bush policy that you can create prisons outside the law,” said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who has represented several detainees.

What’s the difference we all ask? Well, the Obama justice department argues that the detainees at Bagram are being held as part of an ongoing military action, and that’s cool because it’s in Afghanistan and not Cuba… or what is considered an overseas war zone. In fact, it has already been called “Obama’s Gitmo”.

Same ugly critters being caged, but on different grounds. Everyone feel better now about habeau corpus? LOL

Needless to say, the human rights types, IJN and ACLU are not pleased… So let me say this on record now for you all to see. *Thank You* President Obama for doing exactly the same thing Bush did, and royally PO’ing these terrorist protectors! And too bad you couldn’t carry over that same mentality to the thugs at Gitmo.

So how about we ship ‘em all to Bagram and end the Gitmo argument?

Speaking of Gitmo, the NYTs William Glaberson reported on the Pentagon report ordered by the Obama administration on his second day in office. A report that confirms the Gitmo detainee facilities is in compliance with Geneva Convention regulations.

The report, by Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, the vice chief of naval operations, describes steps that could be taken to allow detainees to speak to one another more often and to engage in group activities, the government officials said. For years, critics have said that many detainees spend as many as 23 hours a day within the confines of cement cells and often were allowed to exercise alone in fenced-off outdoor pens.

The report is being presented to a White House that some government officials have described as caught off-guard by the extreme emotions and political crosscurrents provoked by its plan to close the Guantánamo prison. Some critics said the report’s conclusions could intensify the debate about the prison, and put the Obama White House for the first time in the position of defending it.

~~~

The administration’s plan to close Guantánamo includes a new effort to decide whether detainees can be released, transferred to the custody of other countries or prosecuted. In the report on the conditions at Guantánamo, Admiral Walsh reviewed many accusations of abuse that critics have made about the prison, said one Pentagon official who has seen the report.

The report concluded that the Pentagon was in compliance with the requirements of the Geneva Conventions. The review included some of the most contentious issues, including the forced feeding of hunger-striking detainees and claims that many prisoners were suffering from psychosis as a result of conditions in the detention center.

According to one official, the report noted that some detainees had difficulty communicating from cell to cell, a contention that many detainees’ lawyers have also made. The Pentagon has long insisted that no detainees are held in solitary confinement. Military officials have said instead that the prisoners are held in “single-occupancy cells.”

Some Pentagon officials have continued to press the case that the Bush administration’s approach to detainee issues — and the Guantánamo Bay prison itself — should not be abandoned. The report is likely to accelerate that behind-the-scenes struggle.

The White House had no comment Friday.

Fact is, Bush created a “humane detention camp”, as put by one Pentagon official. And frankly, they are concerned that if the men are moved, they may go from a humane camp to an inhumane camp.

Naturally the ACLU, IJN and other terrorist rights supporters poo pooh the Pentagon report, calling it a “whitewash”.

Now we’ll see if a President Obama wants to accuse his Pentagon of a “whitewash” as well. If not, looks like he’ll be running out of criticisms of “the past eight years” as it pertains to Gitmo.

All of a sudden, six nations are building aircraft carriers (the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, India and China.) For over half a century, most of the carrier building took place in the United States. Russia built some, without much success, towards the end of the Cold War. Britain and France built a few, and several other nations (like India and Brazil), bought second had British carriers so they could maintain one or two in service.

But now six nations are planning or building new carriers, most of them a bit smaller (about 60,000 tons) than the larger U.S. ones (100,000 tons).

Britain & France

India

Brazil

“The terrorists’ aim in Mumbai was precisely this – to get the Pakistani army to withdraw from the western border and mount operations on the east,” said Ahmed Rashid, a journalist and author who has written extensively about militancy in the region.

“The terrorists are not going to be sitting still. They are not going to be adhering to any sort of cease-fire while the army takes on the Indian threat. They are going to occupy the vacuum the army will create.”

~~~

A Swat militant boasted that “we are doing our activities wherever we want, and the army is confined to their living places.”

“They cannot move independently like us,” said the man, who was reached over the phone and gave his name as Muzaffarul Haq. He claimed the Swat militants had no al-Qaida or foreign connections, but that they supported all groups that shared the goal of imposing Islamic law.

“With the grace of Allah, there is no dearth of funds, weapons or rations,” he said. “Our women are providing cooked food for those who are struggling in Allah’s path. Our children are getting prepared for jihad.”

AP writer, Nahal Toosi writes today of a newly expanded control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan by Taliban militants. It is especially worrisome since this is new territory outside their normal operational control. The 2000 approx fighters – both Afghan and Pakistani – have managed to overwhelm what residents did not flee by a campaign of violence, beheadings and fear.

In some places, just a handful of insurgents can control a village. They rule by fear: beheading government sympathizers, blowing up bridges and demanding women wear all-encompassing burqas.

They have also set up a parallel administration with courts, taxes, patrols and checkpoints, according to lawmakers and officials. And they are suspected of burning scores of girls’ schools.

In mid-December, Taliban fighters killed a young member of a Sufi-influenced Muslim group who had tried to raise a militia against them. The militants later dug up Pir Samiullah’s corpse and hung it for two days in a village square – partly to prove to his followers that he was not a superhuman saint, a security official said on condition of anonymity.

A lawmaker and the senior Swat government official said business and landowners had been told to give two-thirds of their income to the militants. Some local media reported last week that the militants have pronounced a ban on female education effective in mid-January.

Locals blame a truce with the militants by the regional government officials. The truce fell apart within two months, and the militants were allowed to regroup.

Yet the Pakistan government – at any level – fails to learn their historic lessons. There is no negotiating with the global Islamic jihad movement. And if they offer to talk? Beware… they are either buying time to reorganize, or distracting the world from another arena in their global strategy for an Islamic rule state.

The Muslim world grows more complex daily as factions continually morph their relationships… at one time standing for a common cause, and at others waging war on each other for power and control.

For the global Islamic jihad movement, the underlying cause remains the same: a world under Shariah law. And the militants do not believe this can be achieved thru parliament, and actually oppose those that wish to achieve the same goal in this method.

From a Nov 2008 article by Sartaj Khan, Behind the Crisis in Swat comes a complex history of generations of class warfare: Khans, Pakhtun, Sayyeds and Mians. Enter a new social element to the area… three militant groups – Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) [Sufi Mohammad, former JEI], the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) [now headed by Baitullah Mehsud] – all expressing the desires of the middle class and landless under the guise of “Islamism”.

The TNSM built its support on the criticism of two issues vital to society: the judicial system imposed on the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA) and the corrupt electoral and political system of Pakistan. The TNSM rejected electoral politics. Sufi Muhammad saw no hope in society’s Islamisation through parliament and opposed the Islamic parties that want to bring changes through parliament. In a speech in Kalam, he said: “There is no room for the vote in Islam and the concept of democracy which some religious political parties are demanding is wrong.”

This concept of democracy being un’Islamic is not new, and in fact has been repeated over and over by others…. including Bin Laden, The Islamic Army in Iraq, the Army of the Mujahideen, and other senior Taliban leaders.

Now… I told you that story to tell you this:

The more one reads of this segment of Islam, the more one understands that truces and negotiations are nothing more than a sign of weakness to be exploited for the next battle’s gain. And this struggle for power via Shariah law is not limited to Sufi, Wahhabi, Shia or any single sect. The common simplistic view of the ill-informed westerner (i.e. Shia good, Sunni-bad or AQ the enemy, others okay) must go away.

Now these jihad movements have increased their controlled territory in Pakistan. The tribal areas regional govt’s are powerless. The PPP/PML-N govt is weak, ill-focused and too willing to talk instead of rein in the militants. Pakistan’s Army instead amasses on the Indian border – another US ally – allowing the more dangerous enemy’s foothold to increase in the NWTA.

In the meantime – in another part of the Muslim world – “Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a religious decree on Sunday that said anyone killed while defending Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip against Israeli attacks would be considered a martyr.”

A group of influential conservative Iranian clerics launched an online registration drive on Monday seeking volunteers to fight against Israel in response to its air assault on the Gaza Strip. About 3,550 people registered Monday with the Combatant Clergy Society’s Web site. The weeklong online campaign gives volunteers three options on ways they can fight Israel: military, financial and propaganda.

The group, which has considerable political and economic power in Iran, did not provide further details on the program including how it would contact the volunteers or implement the program.

Lest ye believe the assault against Israel is not just territorial, Hamas is quick to label it jihad. From circa Mar 2007:

The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas rejected on Monday criticism by al Qaeda’s second-in-command and said it was still committed to Israel’s destruction despite a power-sharing deal with the Fatah faction.

“We will not betray promises we made to God to continue the path of Jihad and resistance until the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine,” Hamas said in a statement, in a clear reference to Israel as well as to the occupied West Bank.

In an audio recording posted on the Internet on Sunday, al Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahri accused Hamas of serving U.S. interests by agreeing to respect past Palestinian peace accords with Israel in a recent Saudi-brokered unity government deal with moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah.

The enemies of the west, of freedom of choice, of democracy aimed at the US and our allies is amassing on many fronts. They assail Israel directly, recruiting help from other Muslim states. They do so while the disengaged and disbelieving world sits back and tut tuts Israel… saying “use restraint”.

They assail other US allies, India and Pakistan – by setting them against each other, and undermining Pakistan’s structural weakness in government from within.

And while many are blind to the intrinsic threads and goals of these different battlefronts, it is dangerously unwise to recognize this global theatre of a small segment of Islam.

It’s integral to national security that our new POTUS can see this global strategy by the enemy – one that doesn’t only go by the name of “al Qaeda” and live along the Afghan/Pakistan border. The goals of Iran/Hamas/Hezbolla cannot be realistically separated from Pakistan/Afghanistan.

It’s even more important that this POTUS learn from the continued failed truces with those who prefer to die before compromising with the west and democracy. If our new POTUS is incapable of seeing this, these groups will start succeeding on each of their individual battle fronts. Iran/Hamas/Hezbollah will accomplish annihilating Israel, and the jihad movements will fell apostate Muslim governments and instill Shariah law in a boundless Caliphate from Spain to China.

And only after the smoke has cleared from those battles will they turn on each other for ultimate control. But by then, the US will have few allies left… as we have deserted them in their time of need.

THEN READ UP ON IT

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that Senator Obama is finally getting national security briefings, reading up on the dangers in the world by reading 4yr old books about 20yr old subjects. I’m really thrilled. I’d of course prefer he read MY BOOKS, but maybe he’ll get around to it. More than anything, I really would have loved-I MEAN LOVED(!!!!) to have been a fly on the wall at the first NatSec briefing of his cabinet appointees. Oh MAN that had to be a conundrum!

“We have to leave Iraq 18 months from now per the campaign pledge, but the DoD says they can’t do it logistically. Hillary Clinton at State says it’d ’cause chaos and force a third invasion of Iraq (OUCH, tough sell to the DNC base!). Intel guys are saying that 1) AQ was in Iraq before the invasion, 2) AQ chose to make Iraq the central front in the gwot (not Bush), 3) AQ is being decimated by Bush’s Surge so leaving now let’s AQ revive in an oil-rich/money rich country. They also tell me that Iran’s gonna be making 40+nukes a month starting in January, India is moving troops to border w Pakistan & both sides are on their bi-annual brink-of-nuclear-war escapade. Oh, and despite the speech in Germany…ain’t nobody in the world gonna stop the anarchy in Africa or SE Asia.”

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE!

Suggestion: Appoint Dennis Kucinich to form a Dept of Peace and abolish the DoD. Yeah, that’s the ticket!

Poor Obama. He honestly had no clue & actually believed the leftist rhetoric. He followed Kos and Huffpo instead of the Milblogs and Flopping Aces. If he HAD been reading FA, then he wouldn’t need to be such a “voracious” reader of dated books. I’m only shocked he’s not skipping to the Cliff’s Notes.

ISLAMABAD, Dec 13: Indian planes violated Pakistan’s airspace on Saturday, but fighters of the Pakistan Air Force chased them away, military as well as civilian officials confirmed late in the night.

Air Commodre Humayun Viqar Zephyr, a PAF spokesman, told Dawn that the Indian planes intruded into Pakistan’s airspace in Azad Kashmir and Lahore sectors, but left as soon as they sighted the PAF jets.

He said there was no cause for concern as the PAF was “fully alive to the situation and capable of giving a befitting reply in case of a misadventure”.

Official sources said President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani were immediately informed about the incident and the matter was taken up with the Indian authorities.

Information Minister Sherry Rehman confirmed that Islamabad had got in touch with authorities in New Delhi, implicitly conceding that the violation did take place. But she hastened to add that Indians had done it inadvertently.

Analysts, however, described as ‘meaningful’ the ‘inadvertent’ intrusion of Pakistan’s airspace in two different sectors on the same day for the first time in recent memory.

They termed it a deliberate attempt on the part of India to create a war hysteria instead of responding positively to Pakistan’s offers of cooperation in investigations into the Mumbai carnage.

CJCSC MEETS PRESIDENT: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, Gen Tariq Majeed, called on President Asif Ali Zardari here on Saturday and discussed professional matters with him.

Sources said the situation in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks came under discussion during the meeting.

They said Gen Majeed briefed the president on the state of preparedness of the armed forces.

TROOPS ON THE MOVE?: A number of people travelling between Lahore and Rawalpindi over the past two days have come up with claims that a heavy redeployment by the army was under way.

“Long convoys of military trucks are heading towards Lahore from Jehlum,” Jawad Khan, a motorist, told Dawn.

link

Indian police interrogators are preparing to administer a “truth serum” on the sole Islamic militant captured during last week’s terror attacks on Mumbai to settle once and for all the question of where he is from.

The mystery of the man dubbed “the baby-faced gunman” has weighed heavily on India’s relations with Pakistan as the nuclear-armed neighbours dispute each other’s accounts of his origin.

Police interrogators in Mumbai told The Times that they have “verified” that Azam Amir Kasab, who was captured after a shoot-out in a Mumbai railway station on Wednesday night, is from Faridkot, a small village in Pakistan’s impoverished south Punjab region. They say that the nine dead gunmen are also Pakistani.

Disputing that account, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan told CNN last night: “We have not been given any tangible proof to say that he is definitely a Pakistani. I very much doubt it … that he is a Pakistani.”

He added: “The gunmen plus the planners, whoever they are, [are] stateless actors who have been holding hostage the whole world.”

Proof that the militants were Pakistani would rapidly escalate the pressure on Mr Zardari’s government to take action or risk a backlash from allies including the United States.

Police interrogators in Mumbai told The Times that they are poised to settle the matter of Kasab’s nationality through the use of “narcoanalysis” – a controversial technique, banned in most democracies, where the subject is injected with a truth serum.

But wait a minute. Don’t they know they have another secret weapon in Obama? I mean, he could fly in on Air Force One and ask him politely. That should get him talking.

India has accused a senior leader of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba of orchestrating last week’s terror attacks that killed at least 172 people here, and demanded the Pakistani government turn him over and take action against the group.

Just two days before hitting the city, the group of 10 terrorists who ravaged India’s financial capital communicated with Yusuf Muzammil and four other Lashkar leaders via a satellite phone that they left behind on a fishing trawler they hijacked to get to Mumbai, a senior Mumbai police official told The Wall Street Journal. The entire group also underwent rigorous training in a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, the official said.

And guess who gave them that “rigorous training?”:

As evidence of the militants’ links to Pakistan mounted, Mumbai police commissioner Hasan Ghafoor said ex-Pakistani army officers trained the group — some for up to 18 months — and denied reports the men had been planning to escape the city.

‘‘It appears that it was a suicide attack,’’ Ghafoor said, providing no other details about when the gunmen left Karachi, or when they hijacked the trawler.

The revelations came as a senior U.S. official said India received a warning from the United States that militants were plotting a waterborne assault on Mumbai. The Bush administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of intelligence information, would not elaborate on the timing or details of the U.S. warning.

And not surprisingly, Pakistan is refusing to hand over anyone India says is involved in the attack:

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari rejected India’s demand that Islamabad hand over some 20 suspects, believed to be in Pakistan, saying: “If we had proof, we would try them in our courts. We would try them in our land and we would sentence them.” Zardari said that he doubted India’s claim that the sole surviving terrorist in the Mumbai terror attacks, who was captured by Indian security forces, was a Pakistani.

“We have not been given any tangible proof to say that he is definitely a Pakistani. I very much doubt that he’s a Pakistani,” he said, appearing on Larry King Live programme on CNN on Tuesday night.

The president has strongly denied his country’s involvement in the audacious attacks in Mumbai, saying the terror strikes in the India’s financial capital were executed by the “stateless actors” who wanted to hold the “entire world hostage.” Zardari also ruled out any possibility of Pakistan and India going to war, saying “democracies do not go to war”.

Meanwhile India police discovered a bomb among the luggage left behind in the attack:

Police in Mumbai found explosives Wednesday hidden in a bag left behind last week at the city’s train station at the start of a three-day rampage by Islamist militants.

While searching 150 bags at the station, police found one that looked suspicious and called the bomb squad. They found two bombs of 8.8 pounds each inside and defused them, said Assistant Commissioner of Police Bapu Domre.

Weird that it took them this long to search the bags but I can only imagine the chaos going on in that city at the moment.

And finally, the US is sending signals that it will back India in any attack against Pakistan if that country does not root out the terrorists responsible:

The United States has set the stage for punitive internationally-backed strikes by India against terrorist camps in Pakistan if Islamabad does not act first to dismantle them by rejecting President Zardari’s alibi that non-state actors were responsible for the last week’s carnage in Mumbai.

The game-changer, outlined by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, among others, robs Islamabad of the fig leaf that Zardari used in his interview on Larry King Live that ‘’stateless actors” are holding the whole world hostage and Pakistan was not to blame. Rice said in effect that the excuse does not absolve Pakistan responsibility for terrorist acts that originate from its territory,“ Rice said.

Although US officials have not outright approved immediate punitive Indian strikes against terrorist targets in Pakistan, it is clear Rice has bought time for Islamabad to prove its bonafides. Pakistan has a ‘’special responsibility” and needs to act ”urgently” she said, even as India has indicated it will wait for a Pakistani response to its demands before any punitive action.

In Washington, experts pressed the administration to expand the scope of punitive strikes to an international level to avoid making it an India-Pakistan issue, particularly since the death toll included citizens of ten countries.

And as Scott noted a few days ago, Obama is backing that decision.

While it is sad that India was attacked, backing India when we need Pakistan cooperation (behind the scenes of course) in rooting out those who have attacked us, and plan to attack us again, is not the smartest thing to do.

-Pakistan has problems. They’ve got nuclear weapons, an itchy trigger finger for launching against India (lest we forget that they’ve been on the brink of nuclear war several times), the country has hundreds of thousands of people willing to be terrorists, and they’ve got those tribal areas where sovereignty exists only on a map.

-The Taliban who took over Afghanistan when the Soviets and Americans abandoned it were backed by Pakistani intelligence as well as Al Queda. Even today, there are innumerable love connections between our ally’s intelligence services and our enemies (the Al Queda network of terrorist groups).

OK, now take those three things and add in the timeline of recent events.

-The US has been pre-emptively, unilaterally, bombing Al Queda leaders in the allegedly-sovereign tribal areas of Pakistan (a sovereign area is one where the government’s rule of law exists, but there is no Pakistani control over these areas=no real sovereignty beyond a line on a map.)

-NEXT, add in these highly publicized terror attacks from an Al Queda group backed directly and in several ways (confirmed by multiple sources in India, US, UK, etc) by the Pakistani Army, Navy, intelligence services and more.

-Now toss in President-elect Obama’s blank check, public permission slip for nuclear-armed India to attack nuclear-armed Pakistan at a time when both nations have their armed forces at a wartime alert level.

I invite you all to draw your own conclusions as we draw closer and closer to a regional nuclear war (again), and to the Inauguration Day for a man with zero foreign policy experience, a national security team without unity of direction, purpose, or the ability to tell their boss he needs to shut up. Me, I think India would be smart to let their very capable intelligence services deal with the Pakistani ISI in terms of retaliation. However, it’s unlikely that such an action would satisfy the angry population of India, and any action that will do so is bound to have equal effect towards enraging the population of Pakistan. Only the hope that cooler heads will prevail can change the direction of this growing crisis sparked by 10 guys with rifles. Sadly, as that need for cooler heads grows, we get a President-elect who can’t help but babble on with hot air that fans the flames rather than cools them.

The only member of the jihadi assault team captured during the Mumbai attacks has fingered several Pakistani organizations as providing support to the group, according to reports in the Indian press.

Kasab has implicated the Pakistani Navy and the Dawood Ibrahim criminal network based in Karachi for providing assistance and training for the Mumbai assault team, police sources told India Today.

Indian intelligence has identified additional links to Pakistan and the Lashkar-e-Taiba. An “intercepted conversation between Muzammil, Muzaffarabad chief of LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) operations, and a certain Yahya in Bangladesh,” showed a direct link in the Mumbai attacks, The Times of India reported. “Yahya arranged SIM cards, fake ID-cards primarily from western countries like Mauritius, UK, US, Australia.”

Phone numbers on the satellite phone found the hijacked Indian fishing boat show calls were made to Zakir Ur Rehman, a Lashkar-e-Taiba training chief based in Karachi.

Indian intelligence officials also told The Times of India that 25 terrorists were “training in the Pakistan village of Durbari Mitho, and that an ISI agent was also involved in the training.” It is unclear if these were members of the Mumbai assault team.

link

…and Pres-elect Obama has already made it very clear that if India wants to conduct airstrikes on America’s ally, Pakistan, it’s perfectly acceptable. [QUESTION: is there a VIDEO PROFESSOR CD on diplomacy that we can send to Pres-elect Obama before January?]

Q Thank you, Mr. President-elect. During the campaign you said that you thought the U.S. had a right to attack high-value terrorist targets in Pakistan if given actionable intelligence, with or without the Pakistani government’s permission.

…do you think India has that same right?

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: I think that sovereign nations obviously have a right to protect themselves. Beyond that, I don’t want to comment on the specific situation that’s taking place in South Asia right now.

I think it is important for us to let the investigators do their jobs and make a determination in terms of who was responsible for carrying out these heinous acts. I can tell you that my administration will remain steadfast in support of India’s efforts to catch the perpetrators of this terrible act and bring them to justice. And I expect that the world community will feel the same way.

[ie here's my comment, but I don't want to comment, so I'm gonna comment some more so I can really screw the pooch]
link to transcript

Brilliant piece of diplomacy there Senator. Our key ally in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda leaders (Pakistan), has just been told that if their nuclear neighbor feels justified in attacking our ally, then we have India’s back…not our ally’s. Call me crazy, but if I’m in a bar fight, and the guy next to me says, “I’ve got your back, unless that guy w the big club over there feels like hitting you” well, that’s not an ally I can count on-not even diplomatically let alone in a fight-be it in a bar room or a nuclear neighborhood.

Way to go. Amazing diplomatic skills. Oh well, can’t say Joe Biden didn’t warn us.

EXIT QUESTION: If India conduct air raids in Waziristan against suspected leaders of the group that attacked them in Mubai…does anyone think the Pakistanis won’t go beserk, or should we believe the narrative that they’ll just shrug their shoulders and smile at ?

Distressed over widespread charges of involvement of Pakistan in the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi cut short his four-day visit to India and abruptly left for Islamabad on Saturday morning

~~~

Qureshi, who started his visit to India Wednesday on a positive note, was “quite upset” about what he saw as India’s “insinuations” pointing to the involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists in audacious terror strikes at in Mumbai.

And the how:

Indian intelligence officials said the gunmen who launched the coordinated attacks appeared well trained and well prepared. The assailants seemed familiar with the layouts of the two hotels and the Jewish center, giving them a tactical advantage over the police and Indian army troops sent in to dislodge them.

“This is a big-scale operation, but it is not beyond the capability of Lashkar-i-Taiba,” said the intelligence officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of his work. “The person we have caught is a foot soldier; he is from Pakistan’s Punjab,” the officer said, referring to a region divided by the India-Pakistan border.

“He has clearly said he is with Lashkar and that he was trained,” the officer said. “They came via a ship. They hijacked a boat called Kuber, shot the man in charge on the boat. They were carrying a CD with the photographs of all the targets of the site, details. It is clear that they were determined to target India’s iconic locations and deter foreign investment.”

They have a eyewitness of when the group arrived the sea:

Ten men, all apparently in their early 20s, jumped out. They stripped off orange windbreakers to reveal T-shirts and blue jeans. Then they began hoisting large, heavy backpacks out of the boat and onto their shoulders, each taking care to claim the pack assigned to him.

Mr. Dhanur flipped his boat light toward the men, and Kashinath Patil, a 72-year-old harbor official on duty nearby, asked the men what they were doing.

“I said: ‘Where are you going? What’s in your bags?’ “ Mr. Patil recalled. “They said: ‘We don’t want any attention. Don’t bother us.’ “

Thus began a crucial phase of one of the deadliest terrorist assaults in Indian history, one that seemed from the start to be coordinated meticulously to cause maximum fear and chaos.

Indian officials had said little publicly about the attackers until Saturday, when the Mumbai police commissioner, Hasan Gafoor, said a total of 10 militants had been responsible for the mayhem. But it remained unclear whether he was referring to 10 attackers arriving by sea to join other accomplices. Unconfirmed local news reports suggested some militants had embedded themselves in Mumbai days before the attacks. Investigations were ongoing Saturday night. In any event, the synchronized assaults suggested a high level of training and preparation.

And just like 9/11, the attack was designed to hit the heart of India. This time the financial capitol of the country:

The terrorists had enough explosives to blow up the Taj hotel.

Sources have told the TV channel that they wanted to reduce the life-size building of Taj hotel to rubble. They also believed to have told about their plan to replicate a ‘JW Marriot’, happened at Islamabad, to the Mumbai hotel.

In a sense to destroy the symbol of financial strength of the country and send shock-waves all across the globe, the terrorists wanted to do a 9/11 in India.

The above revelation came from the 21 year old Azam Amir Kasav, who hails from tehsil Gipalpura in Pakistan’s Faridkot.

On Wednesday-Thursday night Azam and his colleague opened fire at CST before creating havoc at Metro and then moving on to Girgaum Chowpatty in a stolen Skoda, and where they were intercepted by a team from the Gamdevi police station. Azam shot dead assistant police inspector Tukaram Umbale.

But in that encounter Azam’s colleague was killed and he himself was injured in the hand. He pretended to be dead giving rise to the news that two terrorists had been killed. However as the ‘bodies’ were being taken to Nair Hospital, the accompanying cops figured that one of the men was breathing.

Apparently some of the terrorists weren’t smart enough to tell time:

Shortly before the terrorists moved into their targets in South Mumbai, a black and yellow taxi, with three passengers and enough ammunition to bring down a dome, sped in the direction of the airport. Instead of taking a slip road that would have taken the passengers straight to the airport, the driver took the flyover which bypassed the airport, only to get stuck at a red light.

At rush hour, the lights stayed red for long, at which the passengers berated the driver and asked him to cut the traffic lights. The driver moved on, but the wait turned out to be a minute or two too long. The car exploded. All that was found was a severed head and parts of three human legs. Had the terrorists’ plans of coinciding a blast at the airport with the attacks on the Taj and Oberoi hotels succeeded, the death toll of 26/11 would have been much bigger than it already is.

The heroes who ended the attack were treated just as they should of been:

NSG commandos received a rousing welcome from the locals when they came out from the Nariman House after killing two dreaded terrorists, who had holed themselves in the building along with five hostages.

When the commandos came out after the successful mission, they were greeted with cheers, claps, pats on shoulders and patriotic slogans filling anyone’s heart with pride.

‘Bharat Mata ki Jai, Vande Mataram’ reverberated the narrow lanes of the area after the unit came out after a gruelling 12 hours long final assault on the terrorists.

The crowds gathered outside the building came running towards the unit as they came out, drawing smiles on the battle-weary commandos faces going towards the waiting BEST buses.

The roofs and balconies were full as men and women waited with bated breath for the soldiers to come out after finishing the ordeal.

The tiredness along with the sorrow of losing two of their men was palpable on their faces but more than that it was joy of achieving their target and accomplishing what was termed as most watched anti-terror action of the country.

Their disciplined demeanour did not let them mix up with the crowds. Carrying their sophisticated weapons, some of them with their gear in hands tried to keep themselves calm amidst the cheering crowd. Following NSG were troupes of Army, Mumbai Police and RAF who were also welcomed by the crowds.

Some enthusiasts were seen approaching the force and getting a picture clicked with them just like with any Bollywood celebrity. More than 500 people surrounded the bus which was carrying the team of commandos and raised anti-Pakistan slogans till it moved away.

And even members of their entertainment industry show the backbone that rarely gets displayed by our stars: (h/t JammieWearingFool)

Wake up and strike terrorism with an iron hand, say Bollywood’s stars shocked by the brazen terror attack that targeted Mumbai’s poshest areas. From Hema Malini, who worries about her daughters, to Bipasha Basu, who narrowly missed the Vile Parle blast, this terror strike has shaken them all.

Imagine that.

And finally, sadly….the death toll has now risen to 195.

Amazing what ten men can do with a plan, something we learned 7+ years ago and something which many have forgotten.