Anti-terror collaboration

With just a few days to go before Mumbai marks another grim anniversary of the 2611 terror attacks in Mumbai unfortunately the scale of the attack its audacity and the eyeballs it managed to capture as terrorists held the city to ransom has made it a kind of grisly benchmark for terror attacks all over the world Global reports related to terrorism often cite instances of terror plots being foiled and say lsquoterrorists were plotting a Mumbaistyle attackhelliprsquo with reference to 2611 ACTION STATIONS A Force One commando gets into action during an antiterror drill at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus station in the city on a terrorism drill The station was the scene of carnage during 2611 When talking about lsquocopycatrsquo attacks though one can see that the Mumbai attacks itself may have been inspired in some ways by the lsquoCoastal Road Massacrersquo in Israel The Coastal Road massacre of 1978 was an attack involving the hijacking of a bus on Israelrsquos Coastal Highway in which 38 Israeli civilians including 13 children were killed and 71 were wounded The attack was planned by Abu Jihad and carried out by the PLO faction Fatah ANGER ON THE STREETS Palestinian protesters lob stones during clashes with Israeli soldiers close to the Israeli Ofer military prison near the West Bank village of Betunia last week The clashes erupted a day after Israeli forces reportedly killed a Palestinian near Jerusalem PicAFP The plan was to seize a luxury hotel in Tel Aviv and take tourists and foreign ambassadors hostage in order to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel In this massacre too the attackers came by water like they did in Mumbai and in Israelrsquos case landed on a beach They had planned to infiltrate a luxury hotel but that did not work out They hijacked a bus but before that were shooting people out of a car with something similar happening in Mumbai too In Mumbai they created murder and mayhem at two FiveStar hotels as the world too well knows LINEUP from r Abdi Mohamed Ahmed Liban Abdulle Omar Adan Mohamed Ibrahim and Hussein Mustafa Hassan the four men charged in connection with the Westgate mall massacre in September in which at least 67 people were killed appear at a Kenyan court prior to a hearing in Nairobi PicAFP More recently the terror attack at Nairobirsquos Westgate mall too had experts saying it had some parallels to Mumbai All these examples show that if terror plots are global and interlinked feeding off each other then antiterror operations too need to be global As terror goes global so does the fight against it BLOOD ON THE WATER MV Kuber the fishing trawler which had been used by the 2611 terrorists All of last month 22 Indian tactical police officers were in theUnited States training in antiterrorism operations A US Embassy security officer stated at the recent graduation of these 22 Indians as the US course on terrorism closed on November 1 ldquoThe US and India are close partners in the fight against terrorismrdquo As part of a partnership with the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs the US Department of State and US Embassy New Delhi sponsored a fiveweek crisis response course The session was conducted by instructors from the Department of Statersquos Antiterrorism Assistance ATA program in Virginia Said a US Embassy spokesperson ldquothe course lasted five weeks starting at the end of September and ending on November 1 with 2 Indian police personnel involved There were eight American instructorsrdquo The spokesperson added that ldquoThe ATA program provides training and related assistance to law enforcement and security services worldwide ATA is enhancing antiterrorism skills by providing training to deter and counter the threats of terrorism in any environmentrdquo When asked about the profile of the eight instructors the spokesperson added that the instructors were retired army and police officials with more than two decades of lsquoCrisis Response Teamrsquo CRT field experience In India the lsquoCRTrsquo is known as Quick Response Team Asked if the course was designed specifically to combat terror by AlQaeda linked groups or even attacks by Naxalites which have been escalating and pose a significant threat to India now the spokesperson preferred to classify these broadly saying that it ldquoprovides the basic skill set to respond to any terror attackrdquo In the West especially one has seen what experts term as lsquolone wolf attacksrsquo one or two individuals acting alone opening fire on civilians This course provided the Embassy spokesperson said ldquotraining to interdict single or multiple terrorists though it did not touch upon biological terrorismrdquo In the end the spokesperson summed up ldquoparticipants were able to use the basic skills necessary to resolve highrisk terrorist confrontations using a variety of options employing the minimum amount of force necessary to protect human liferdquo He added ldquoHalf of the training consisted of Close Quarters Battle techniques and the second largest piece of the training dealt with livefire using both handguns and shoulder weaponsrdquo Since 85 per cent of the course was conducted in an outdoor setting it was very physically demanding u00a0 Some course topics gtgtu00a0Pistol and carbine basic and advance course of fire gtgtu00a0Improvised Explosive Devices IEDs gtgtu00a0Booby Traps gtgtu00a0Weapon Retention Skills gtgtu00a0Defensive Devices gtgtu00a0Diversionary Tactics gtgtu00a0Tactical planning and options gtgtImmediate deliberate and direct to threat assaults vehicle assaults and highrisk raidsu00a0