Why the Mumbai Attacks shouldn’t have surprised anyone

The story of why this attack was allowed to happen.

The latest Mumbai tragedy is the fourteenth terrorist attack on the city since 1993, raising the total terrorism-related death toll in the city to 701. With history repeating itself yet again, one has to wonder how many more attacks the so-called “spirit of Mumbai,” if there ever was one, can bear before it breaks. Of course, the most tragic aspect of the attack remains that it came as no surprise, at least to those who were observing the situation closely.

While no one could have predicted where exactly the attack would be and on what date, given the developments of the last two years gave a clear indication that a major attack is coming somewhere in the middle of 2011. In fact, we provided this risk assessment regularly to public and the government, to be ignored regularly. Worse yet, if this attack receives the same apathetic response that was given to the previous indicators, we can expect more and bigger attacks on other major cities by the year’s end . 

The story of why this attack was allowed to happen begins in the year of 2008. 

One must remember that 2008 was a bloody year for India even without the Mumbai Terror Attack of 26 November. The country had been at siege for more than two years with a campaign of one city being bombed after another by the Indian Mujahideen (IM) network, which was essentially a loose coalition of India and Pakistan-based Islamic Jihadist terror groups. 

This terror campaign was new for India. Never before were the terrorist attacks so systematic and well-coordinated. Between 23 November 2007 and 13 September 2008, there were 50 blasts in five cities with a total death toll of 186. The magnitude and tactical capability of this group was unprecedented. On 26 July 2008, the group managed to coordinate 21 explosions within a time window of 70 minutes. This was a group with enough tactical understanding to plant a bomb in a hospital timed to go off just when victims of the previous blasts are being brought in. Moreover, being based in India the network was more dangerous compared to the Pakistani groups since it could manufacture bombs nearby, recruit locally and travel around the country with impunity.

Fortunately, through intelligence gathering and a little luck, the security establishment was able to close in on the network. By the end of 2008, the entire IM network had been disrupted by several arrests and raid carried out by police in Delhi, Bangalore and elsewhere. With every arrest, more intelligence was put together against the group and it seemed like the security forces had the perfect opportunity to shut down the group forever. Then 26/11 happened and changed everything.

26/11 was an independent attack, planned and sponsored by Pakistan, with – as far as we know – minimal contribution from Indian networks. It was a one-off attack which may have had a high death toll but not long-term implication like the IM campaign. It nevertheless stole the spotlight away and became the sole symbol of Indian terrorism – our 9/11. 

All of a sudden the national focus swung completely away of indigenous terrorists and set its sights across the border. All the security commentators – former generals and government officials – who had built their career on Indo-Pakistan conflict and were unfamiliar with the subject of domestic terrorism, found themselves in familiar territory again. Pakistan bashing was once again the mainstay of our war against terrorism. 

Over the next two years there were no major attacks and the country was lulled into a false sense of security. The reason for this relative peace was disruption of IM network prior to 26/11, but that fact remained ignored. 

On the national level countering terrorism was seen as an exercise of diplomacy. Dealings with US and Pakistan became the only way to stop further attacks. As for the state police, as they became more entrenched with the growing threat of Maoist insurgency, countering terror attacks on major cities was slowly downgraded to a lower priority. Basic measures of countering terrorism went unobserved. Intelligence gathering was not beefed up, forensic investigations were ignored, local police was neither trained nor briefed, new technology and practices were not brought in and government continued to refuse to communicate Indian security scenario with the public. Meanwhile counter-terrorism was lost in a myriad of bureaucracy where the job of pre-attack investigation was with one agency, post-attack investigation with another, physical security with a third and investigation of peripheral cases was relegated to a fourth agency in different ministry.

It was in this setting, that the Islamist Jihadist network slowly started to regroup again. (Whether this group still calls itself IM or not is immaterial. The fact remains that it is an indigenous group based within the country and can be traced back to IM as its origins.)

Without the pressure of police, this group could regain its lost capabilities and leadership. Slowly the group began to experiment with explosives again (believed to have lost its primary bomb-maker in 2008). After the first attack of Pune Bakery in February 2010, which was in collaboration with other groups, the network began to try attack on its own, although it was a far cry from IM’s previous tactical and technical expertise. 

Over the next one year, it carried out several attempts at attacking India, most of them failures. But it could be plainly seen that the network was getting better. In the first few attacks like IPL attack in Bangalore and Jama Masjid attack, the bombs fail to go off. Later – like in Varanasi and Delhi High Court – the explosions happened at the wrong time at the wrong place. Several other bombs were discovered in this period around like in Ranchi, Rajdhani Express in Jharkhand and Delhi’s Gargi College which may have had the group’s involvement. Someone, somewhere in India, was learning how to make bombs.

Unfortunately, all these signs were ignored by the police and media alike. Some of these attacks didn’t even make the national news and those which did were quickly forgotten. Some of the attempts were even dismissed by the police as mere pranks. There was no significant investigation mounted after any of these attacks, no forensic reports were made public and most of the follow-up news of these attacks was relegated to back pages of newspapers. The focus firmly remained on Pakistan.

By the latest attempts at Varanasi and Delhi High Court, it had become clear that whoever was behind these attempts had learnt enough to carry out successful attacks in a major Indian city. After that it had become merely a matter of time. By a simple trend analysis of previous attacks by Indian Mujahideen, you could even further narrow down that time window to somewhere in mid-2011. The attack was coming and we were not prepared.

Tragically, now that the network has regained its capabilities, the 13 July Mumbai blasts are likely to be followed up with more. By the end of 2011 there may be more attacks, depending on the group’s capacity. 

If these Mumbai blasts end up receiving the same apathetic response from the government, security establishment and media as the previous attempts have, one can easily expect threat level to remain high for all major cities.  

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