Model For the Mumbai Assault: Mike's Place, Tel Aviv

You have to take Debka with a bucket of salt, but they often have some pretty good insights. The Mumbai operation bore some striking resemblances to the Mike's Place assault in Tel Aviv in 2003, which is now acknowledged to have been conceived by Al Qaeda. Based on the evidence, I am rejecting the calls by many pundits and experts that Al Qaeda had nothing to do with this attack.

Both attacks used British Pakistanis. Both attempted to attack Israelis and Americans. Both attempted to land the operatives by sea, seize a major hotel and take as many hostages as possible, while killing everyone in their path.

The Mike's Place attackers, Asif Muhammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif were supposed to attack the US Embassy, but that never came off. Both operations utilized attackers who were trained for long periods outside the country they were attacking. Hanif and Sharif were trained in Syria and the Gaza Strip.

In Gaza, their trainers were Hamas, so this really was a Hamas-Al Qaeda joint operation. The casualties were much fewer at Mike's Place - 3 dead and 60 wounded.

In May 2007, US forces captured Al Hadi al Iraq, an Al Qaeda operative, in Iraq. He confessed to having trained Hanif and Sharif, cementing the suspected AQ link.

In contrast, the Mumbai attackers utilized 30 attackers in teams of seven or more and attacked seven targets inside Mumbai. The locations to be attacked had been meticulously cased prior to the attacks, to the point of possibly setting up prior bases inside the Taj Majal Palace Hotel.

They were also in contact with handlers outside India (apparently in Pakistan) and seem to have had a support network inside Mumbai working with them during the operation.

Al Qaeda has advanced quite a bit in five years, from bomb vests to commando tactics, careful reconnaissance and attacking from third countries were hallmarks of both operations.

One of the terrorists' names has been released. He is Azzam Amir Kassab, age 21. Nothing more is known about him. He is one of the terrorists seen in a number of photos of the attack.

The terrorists used a very interesting cell structure. Each terrorist was linked to a handler outside of India. He only knew his handler. If caught, he could only give up one person, his handler, who has a code name and isn't even in India anyway.

With 30 attackers and 30 different handlers, the attackers probably met for the first time, like many of the 9-11 attackers, on the day of the attack.

This is an excellent use of the cell structure. In traditional cell structure, you only know the people in your cell. In a cell of three, three people know each other, possibly only by code names. If caught, they can maybe give up the members of their cell, but maybe not. Surely they can't give up anyone else.

At times, they are instructed to meet a courier or a messenger. They meet the person at the assigned place, transfer whatever needs to be transferred, and then part, never to meet again. If caught, there is no way to give up the messengers or couriers, because the cell members don't even know who they are.

I am quite certain that Al Qaeda was heavily involved in this attack. Other groups like SIMI or the Indian Mujaheddin (internal Indian Islamist terrorists) may have also been involved, but at a lesser level. The scale and the nature of the targets seems to rule out LeT or other Kashmiri separatists out of Pakistan, whatever their tenuous links to Al Qaeda.

Anyway, LeT is never shy about claiming responsibility, and they strongly condemned this attack in a statement. As Hamas is all about Palestine, LeT and JeM are all about Kashmir. What do they care about Americans, British and Israelis? Not much. That's Al Qeada's purview.

Since Al Qaeda has also declared total war on the Pakistani government, it makes little sense to blame the Pakistani regime for this attack. Both governments are being attacked by the same group.

The name Maulana Abdul Bari, an Indian Muslim based in Saudi Arabia, keeps coming up. He is suspected of bankrolling the attack. That makes perfect sense to me - Indian Muslims and Saudi Al Qaeda, with a British connection to boot. Saudi Arabia is after all, Al Qaeda's home territory, and traditionally, 80% of AQ's core were Saudis, though that may be changing in recent days.

Pundits and experts says that AQ is down to 100 or so members along the Pakistani-Afghan border, and is in such disarray that they are incapable of mounting any serious operation.

I disagree. Further, I feel that "macro-Al Qaeda" may have up to 70,000 "members and associates" worldwide. Keep in mind that when we discuss Al Qaeda, our theories about traditional hierarchical organizations or even "organizations" period go out the window.