Unmolested by any naval action to intercept, the terrorists sailed leisurely towards Mumbai. There was no sign anywhere of warships, alerted by the Elint-intercept, conducting radar sweeps conjointly with the navy and Coast Guard-run Dornier air surveillance sorties, or more intensive searches seaward by the naval and Coast Guard ships. The wonder is that in choosing to stage a spectacular event, a la the Islamabad Marriott, at the Taj and Trident hotels, the terrorists and their minders in Karachi missed out on a truly stupendous feat—that of doing a “Pearl Harbour”—sinking or disabling with powerful limpet mines and similar ordnance the bulk of the Indian Navy’s western fleet, featuring the most modern capital ships less than a kilometre away from the Gateway of India. That would have meant all-out war, and possibly a nuclear exchange ending in the certain extinction of Pakistan. Be thankful for intended or unintended mercies.
In this context, the facts that the navy did nothing and the Coast Guard were caught unawares or, alternatively, as a news report suggested, a Coast Guard boat commander accepted bribes to ensure safe passage for the terrorists—and that the marine police and the Mumbai Port Trust do not subscribe to 24/7 harbour and proximal inner water patrolling using search light-equipped armed patrol craft, are reduced to mere footnotes.
2) As is commonly seen when such disasters occur, just about everybody at every level of government and, notwithstanding the Elint message, even the intelligence agencies, appeared clueless and surprised. A root problem may be that in the aftermath of a 1997 directive to the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) by then prime minister Inder Gujral to cease and desist from activities inside Pakistan—and it is not certain this order has been countermanded—RAW assets and capabilities have been seriously degraded. Had it been otherwise, the first hints of this operation launched from Karachi would have reached Delhi early, and the operation supposedly supervised by the traditionally Inter-Services Intelligence-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba could have been scuppered at that end, or the terrorists apprehended at various points—on the high seas or in coastal waters, before they made landfall.
3) It is all very well to call in the army special forces and the mainly army-personnel-staffed Special Action Group (SAG) of the NSG, when the going gets tough. The trouble is all military special forces, including the marine commandos specializing in sea-borne action, are simply not trained in counter-urban terrorist guerilla warfare. That they lacked the necessary tactical skills was apparent from the operational haste the NSG displayed, resulting in terrorists being eliminated and civilians directly taken hostage being killed. In hostage situations, specialist commando generally “wait it out”, tire out the terrorists, by using various sensors triangulate and “map” out the positions of the terrorist combatants on a real-time basis and, when opportunity presents itself, shoot to disable the terrorists. This is important because the premium is on subsequently interrogating these urban guerillas in order to generate information, data and actionable intelligence about their backgrounds, group antecedents, technical training programmes and material support infrastructure outside the country and social support bases inside India.