Mumbai sea attack alert came Nov 19

New Delhi: The most brazen and longest Terror attack on India has left several red faces in the Government with facts emerging that not only was there advance intelligence about this attack but even the time to have possibly thwarted it. But what happened, instead, was a case of competitive mistrust in the entire security establishment leading to a catastrophic misjudgement.

The Sunday Express has learnt that on November 19, just about a week before the attack, one of the intelligence agencies had circulated “top secret” information on the basis of an intercept the previous day that an attack had been planned from sea on Mumbai and would be effected very soon. While November 26 was not mentioned as a precise date, sources said, another date before the day of the attack was specified. It also said the terrorists could probably come by an Indian fishing trawler.

This input was passed on for further analysis to the National Security Council Secretariat and Joint Intelligence Council. Subsequently, this was shared with the Navy and the Coast Guard. Also, it was sent in the form of an advisory to Maharashtra. However, somewhere through the entire process, the seriousness and authenticity of the input were interpreted differently by different agencies. State agencies now claim such alerts had become a regular feature in recent months which, too, is arguably correct in many respects. Some have argued that the input was not specific enough and only mentioned the “possibility” of a trawler being used.

If this was not enough, preliminary investigations have revealed that the terrorists stayed on the Kuber for a few days and were in Indian territorial waters for at least 72 hours. While this is being verified, it has now been established that the terrorists who attacked Mumbai had left from the Azizabad area of Karachi on November 22-23.

Contrary to initial suspicion that they had “compromised” the Ukrainian crew of a merchant ship to enter Indian waters, it is now believed that the terrorists boarded a Pakistani vessel Al-Hussaini to reach close to Indian territorial waters near the Gujarat coast. Here onwards, the details are still hazy though it is certain that Indian trawler Kuber had been under observation for this purpose.

As of now, sources said, the assumption is that Kuber was hijacked possibly in Pakistani waters as the boat seemed to have been making short forays across possibly in search of better catch or some other purpose ¿ a regular Indo-Pak feature that has led to arrests of many fishermen off the Gujarat coast. Having noted this, the terrorists went for the trawler, hijacked it and apparently moved four members of the crew into the Al Hussaini and killed them there.

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trawler by captainjohann on 2008-12-02 19:29:51.198351+05:30
Customs which uses captured Dawood boats,coast guard which is interested in liasing with smugglers.The question is why the terrorists left only one body in Kuber? What happenned to others?Dis kuber indulge in smuggling before? Did the crew of kuber suprised by terrorists instead of their smuggler friends?

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MUMBAI TERROR by MUDASSIR on 2008-12-01 18:26:41.956766+05:30
I am a resident of karachi.I frequently visit the area of Azizabad and I dont think that the attackers could have reided in Azizabad because it is a densely populated area people are lways vigilant about the people around them and it is not easy for a person coming from outside the city to rent or buy any house in Azizabad because people usually rent their houses to those are some how or the other known or related to them.It is also very difficult for suspicious people to rent a house in such a densely populated area of the city.

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