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.

Best Article Yet on the Mumbai Attacks

This sums it up better than any others I have read yet. Keep in mind that the Indians always blame Pakistan every time something like this happens.

Pakistan is blamed 100% for the revolt in Kashmir, which has local roots and is based on imperialist India's colonial occupation of Kashmir, which even the UN says is illegal. India blames Pakistan for most of its other separatist rebellions too, even those in the Far East. Pakistan was blamed for the mass rebellion in the Punjab in the 1980's.

For these reasons, you need to take anything that the Indian government, its "counterterrorism scholars", or really any Indian Hindu author on this subject with a pound of salt.

Your average middle class Indian buys this load of horse manure 100%. I've spoken to a few Indians, and I haven't met one yet who isn't shaking with rage at Pakistan and utterly livid about Kashmir.

India can't even feed or house its own population and is for all intents and purposes a failed state with a wealthy elite sprinkled on top. Why does India need even more people? It doesn't.

Pakistan has no right to Kashmir either. The legal future of Kashmir is up to the Kashmiri people themselves.

Keep in mind that the Kashmiri people never agreed to join India in the first place. The place was 90% Muslim, and they wanted to go to Pakistan. Kashmir had some idiot Hindu governor who insisted that Kashmir go to India, and that's the root of the whole stupid rebellion that has nearly propelled these two powers into a nuclear war.

I have no idea if Pakistan's ISI played a role in all of this. The LeT Pakistani Kashmiri fighters are a bunch of scumbags, but they have denied involvement, and they usually claim responsibility for this stuff.

Lately, LeT are fighting US troops in Afghanistan. That's probably mostly for combat training.

There seems to be a very strong connection to British Pakistanis, 50% of whom are from Kashmir. At least seven of the terrorists were British Pakistanis. Juan Cole suggests that this is the real source of the attack. British Pakistanis in particular are very exercised over the US occupation and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and over the Palestinian cause.

The attackers hijacked an Indian trawler to conduct the attack and used it to come onshore via sea. The entire crew of the Kubar (others put the ship name as MV Alpha), a trawler adrift in the Indian Ocean, was missing. Only its headless, bound captain was found aboard. The attackers left incriminating evidence on the tanker before disembarking.

Hostages in general were released unharmed, unlike unfortunate folks just walking, standing or sitting in the paths of the attackers. However, an exception was made for six Israelis and two US Jews, all of whom were bound and executed in an attack on the Chabad-Lubivitcher offices in Mumbai.

15 Indian commandos and police were killed in the counterterrorist operation. The death toll is 195 and likely to rise, probably to 350 or so.

Keep in mind that these same jihadis are wreaking horrible havoc inside Pakistan itself, tried to kill Musharaff over and over, killed Benazir Bhutto, have killed many Pakistani troops, blew up a hotel in Islamabad, and seem to be threatening the very government of Pakistan itself, yet another failed state.

So saying they came from Pakistan doesn't say a whole lot. The militants tearing Pakistan itself apart "come from Pakistan" too. Does that mean they are part of the very state they are blowing up and shooting at all the time? Hardly.

All nations blame all insurgencies on outside actors. Flush with idiot patriotism and jingoism, vast numbers of the ultra-gullible fall for it every single time. It all boils down to psychological defenses. What nation can admit that its own people are rising up in rebellion against it? No nation can admit this painful fact, hence lies are cooked up about the whole insurgency being imported from abroad.

Our own "field nigger" citizens are cheerful and satisfied on the plantation called the nation. God forbid the slaves should rise up. Such ingrates. Denial plus projection away from the root cause. Blame other people. What works in the individual ego works in the conglomeration of millions of egos called the nation.

The problem with this typical Indian denial and projection subterfuge is these lies have the possibility of setting off a major war between two nuclear powers who seem prepared to actually use their nukes against each other.

I don't mean to support this outrageous crime, but a little context might be nice. India treats its Muslims like crap. The fact that Pakistan treats its Hindus like crap is no excuse.

The roots of this attack are right inside India itself, despite all of India's BS finger-pointing and head-shaking.

The field niggers on the Indian plantation are not so happy after all. Deal with it, India.