Global Guerrilla’s John Robb weighs in on the Mumbai terror attacks

I’ve been waiting for his opinion on the event.  Sadly, he does not go into too much detail but does reveal some elements of the operation I was unaware of (the ‘buddy pairs’, electronic communication with the media) as well as confirming some points I suspected (electronic monitoring of the media for tactical purposes, the untargeted killing of civilians en route to sow confusion, panic, and fear).

He provides a short breakdown of the elements of the attack here (which he dubs an urban takedown.  Neat).

He extrapolates the direction of future urban takedowns in this post.  I always wonder about the moral consequences of providing open consultation to would-be terrorists in this manner, but what he says is simply logical and probably already thoroughly considered on the terrorist’s side and perhaps overlooked on the law enforcement/counter-terrorist’s side.

In his latest post, Robb cites a Danger Room article (a blog at Wired) which details the technological accelerants and enhancers that the Mumbai attackers made use of to magnify their effect.

I will definitely be looking to Robb for more analysis.  My immediate response to Mumbai is that the casualty count is lower than it could have been, and is simplistic (maybe a bit classical, in a sense), but suggests two important developments:

1. Staffing/recruiting of willing suicidal young males with anger issues, and who apparently have the discipline to undergo the training required, and the intelligence to execute the planning required, are plentiful and cheap.
2. This type of attack could be easily repeated in any region with an angry indigenous population and is especially likely wherever Western tourists and business people congregate (to maximize worldwide media coverage:  You would have to kill 300 Indians to get the same worldwide coverage as killing ten Americans)

Although their appears to be a reliance on off-the-shelf modern technology, I would describe this attack as decidedly low-tech.  Which is what worries me.  If anyone can go to Best Buy and a gun shop and replicate an attack of this effect and scale, how can it be defended against?  Let’s hope Robb has some input along those lines in the future.

… and the cow goes moo