As much as I’d like to simply mourn the horrible loss in Mumbai, detailed news reported in sources like The Times of India brings the inevitable urge to analyze security controls and the sequence of events. The story “Satellite phone vital clue to solve mystery“, for example, shows that in-band digital communication was a key component of the attackers’ planning:

The satellite phone and global positioning system (GPS) map recovered from a trawler abandoned in the high seas is now among the most crucial pieces of evidence connected to the terror attacks on Mumbai.

Quite clearly the attack involved hijacking two ships in order to avoid coastal patrols. I suspect the captain and perhaps even crew were alive until it was clear that the ships would not be challenged by authorities, and then they were eliminated to reduce risk to the planners. Many are tempted to link this to the Somali pirates, but I would argue it is more likely the other way around. Militant elements in Pakistan and Afghanistan have been training the Somalis to be more effective pirates — success in the pirate industry of the Horn of Africa has surely been subsidizing Middle-East and African militant groups.

Although ship crew and captain were eliminated, satellite phone communication and GPS were not and thus have provided a trail for analysis. In other words, phone calls to Pakistan have been said to establish a crucial link to highly-trained political and militant splinter groups, rather than al Qaeda. The attackers handled the security of their email differently as they used an anonymous proxy in Russia to impede normal investigations.

Bill Roggio’s report in The Long War Journal argues that this attack “differs from past terror strikes”. He supports the idea that these militants were highly trained soldiers who followed a complex attack plan to paralyze a city and undermine economic targets.

While the attackers were not explicitly acting under a nation’s flag, they almost certainly represented a Pakistani military faction. This has shades of regional conflict not unlike that now seen in the Congo between a rogue General of the army who fights both the Congolese army as well as rebels from Rwanda. I see hallmarks of an expeditionary team trying to incite regional war, or move peaceful states towards a debilitating conflict, most likely fueled by fringe religious differences. Bill’s conclusion is that the complexity of the Mumbai attack makes it entirely different from prior al Qaeda missions for two reasons. The al Qaeda have operated either within a state of war or with remote suicide bombing run. This was a complex assault by soldiers into foreign territory:

The Mumbai attack is something different. Foreign assault teams that likely trained and originated from outside the country infiltrated a major city to conduct multiple attacks on carefully chosen targets. The primary weapon was the gunman, not the suicide bomber. The attack itself has paralyzed a city of 18 million. And two days after the attack began, Indian forces are still working to root out the terror teams.

The Pakistani extremists do not need or rely on al Qaeda for this level of effort. They almost certainly have links, but the effort appears to have been launched from within a militant faction of Pakistan. The Times of India has also revealed that one of the terrorists caught by police has admitted that they were given orders to plan an escape.

Ajmal made another important disclosure: that all terrorists were trained in marine warfare along with the special course Daura-e-Shifa conducted by the Lashkar-e-Taiba in what at once transforms the nature of the planning from a routine terror strike and into a specialized raid by commandos.

Battle-hardened ATS officials are surprised by the details of the training the terrorists were put through before being despatched for the macabre mission. This was very different from a terrorist attack, and amounted to an offensive from the seam, said a source.

Finally, I noted that their orders were to kill “particularly white foreign tourists” as they moved into the city and establish control over target areas. Objectives were identified several months prior when eight of the terrorists entered from Pakistan as students and performed surveillance on the city. These factors highlight the broader tragedy of events and hopefully will come to light more as people wonder whether Americans, or British or even Jews were a target or terrorism versus a much larger political agenda. It is no secret that militant extremists in Pakistan dislike all three of these groups and will kill indiscriminately, but the real issue here is whether the attackers were sent as a catalyst to stir wider regional warfare, and how India will respond.

The Deutsche Welle tries to make light of a simple escape from prison:

Taking the risk of being pulped into toilet paper over spending the next seven years doing time for drug dealing offenses, the savvy jailbird managed to evade all the security measures the prison had in place and escaped to freedom with the rubbish.

Now the police in the neighboring town of Viersen in North Rhine Westphalia are considering issuing an international arrest warrant for him.

Whether the warrant will be printed on recycled paper or not, the police wouldn’t say.

Ha ha.

Residents of San Francisco are now able to get ID cards independent of their citizenship:

The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to issue municipal identification cards to city residents – regardless of whether they are in the country legally….

Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who authored the ID card legislation, said the program is a smart public safety measure because it would make residents living on the social margins of San Francisco more likely to seek the help of police and could give them more access to banking services.

“People are afraid to report crimes,” Ammiano said, referring to illegal immigrants who avoid local law enforcement authorities over fear of being arrested or deported by federal immigration officials.

The city will consider ID cards legitimate forms of identification for municipal work, and major banks are expected to accept them as well. Ammiano pointed out that people without IDs and therefore unable to open bank accounts are exposed to higher risk of theft.