Mumbai: Israel calls Indian forces lackadaisical, unprofessional, incompetent, untrained, slow, confused and inefficient

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Mumbai: Israel calls Indian forces lackadaisical, unprofessional, incompetent, untrained, slow, confused and inefficient

Posted on 30 November 2008. Tags: Chabad House, Israel critisizes India, Mumbai terror, Naraman House

The chopper hovering over a two story building makes great news feed, however it adds no value to the any hostage rescue. The choppers are too noisy and give ample warning to the hostage taking criminals. Security analysts believe that a better approach would have been to try to engage the hostage takers and then storm the small building by stealthily and silently climbing on to the roof of the building. It took the commandos 12 hours to strom the building. Why did it take so long?

Shin Bet is Israel’s general internal security agency, while more famous Mossad handles overseas intelligence. Haaretz, another major Israeli newspaper, noted how in the first several hours after the Mumbai incidents, the response of the Indian authorities was “slow, confused and inefficient”. As a result, the first forces sent to the scene were “inexperienced local police officers, who suffered many casualties”.
Israeli counterterrorism experts are critical of how Indian security forces handled last week’s terror attacks in Mumbai, especially their raid on the local Chabad center, Nariman House. Haaretz
Above all, the attack is a “huge failure of the Indian defence establishment, surprised in the heart of their financial capital Jerusalem Post
“In hostage situations, the forces are supposed to first assemble at the scene and begin collecting intelligence. In this case, it appears that the forces showed up at the scene and immediately began exchanging fire with the terrorists instead of first taking control of the area,” noted a former official in the Shin Bet’s security unit in The Jerusalem Post.

Masked Indian commandos dropped from helicopters Friday onto the roof of a Jewish centre in Mumbai where Muslim militants were holed up, possibly with hostages, as sharpshooters kept up a steady stream of fire. (Siddhartha Babaji/Associated Press)

The picture above is very revealing. To the untrained eye, the soldier is showing professionalism by hangin on to the rope. In actuality, the picutre displays total incompetence.

1) The chopper should not be used in a situaion where the soldiers can get to the top of the building by other means.

2) The man is literally hanging on to the rope. It is not a controlled descent.

3) Coming down the rope is a complex matter which requires intensive training. This commandos who dropped on the top fo the Chabad House were untrained. Please note the dangling feet of the commandos. They are supposed to be tightly wrapped aound the boot of the commando so that he controls his fall not only with his hands but also wit his feel.

4) After repeatedly watching the video of the commandos dropping on the roof of the Chabad House we saw the India commandos literally drop by force of gravity and were literally hangin on to the ropes without any control.

5) An experienced commando has stop his fall on the rope at any time. These commndos just dropped showing a total lack of training.

This PR exercise was very revealing not only about the state of the Indian nation, but also about the readiness of the Indian armed forces, particularly the commandos who are supposed to the elite.

Mumbai Terror: Israel security experts in the Shin Bet and the press call Indian forces lackadaisical, unprofessional, incompetent, untrained, slow, confused and inefficient

Why were helicopters used to storm the building of the Narmian House? The noise of the chopper would have given the terrorists a clear indication of the arrival of the SWAT team. The way they fell on the rooftop thud, thud, giving the terrorists enough time to execute their evil plans.

JERUSALEM, Israel – Israeli counterterrorism experts are critical of how Indian security forces handled last week’s terror attacks in Mumbai, especially their raid on the local Chabad center, Nariman House…. the Indians failed to contain the attacks and raided Nariman House too lackadaisically.

Maj. Gen. (ret.) David Tzur, a former commander of the police’s counterterror unit Yamam, who now runs a security consulting firm, acknowledged that when terrorists attack more than seven sites simultaneously, “it’s very hard to handle.”…However, he said, this excuse did not apply to the much smaller Nariman House. The 12-hour battle to liberate the building was “unreasonable,” he said, because “there’s no chance in the world that captives will survive an incident that doesn’t end within minutes of the break-in.”

The Indians, he added, apparently assumed the hostages had already been killed.

Col. (res.) Lior Lotan, formerly a senior officer in the army’s elite Sayeret Matkal unit, said the Indians had operated as if there were no hostages.

“When you’re rescuing captives, you enter fast, with maximum force, and try to reach the hostages as quickly as possible, even at the price of casualties,” he said. “Here, they operated much more cautiously.”

Television pictures from Nariman House also raised questions about the professionalism of the Indian forces. For instance, it is not clear why the area was not cleared of bystanders, or why the comparatively risky option of a helicopter-borne assault was chosen.

Moreover, the explosion that blew in the ground-floor door occurred before soldiers landed on the rooftop, whereas for maximum effect, they should have occurred simultaneously, the Israelis said. Crown Heights and haaretz

Israel is apparently furious at the handling of the Chabad House. In carefully crafted messages the Israelis have lambasted the Indian establishment.

On Thursday afternoon, events at Mumbai Chabad House took a dramatic turn. Indian security forces, in a strategy reminiscent of Russian operations in the face of similar kidnappings, are not allotting time to negotiate with the terrorists. Against a challenge of these proportions, the Indians opted to immediately storm the target sites, even at the price of the lives of hostages.

Israel has traditionally handled hostage situations differently. Frequent use of negotiations has not led to surrender to terrorist demands, but to their weakening, and the acquisition of valuable intelligence for rescue units. In the Mumbai hotels, the scenario was very different. Elite Indian commando forces battled dozens of hostage-takers in urban territory with the bodies of the victims lying on hallway floors.

But at Chabad House, maybe because it was a smaller site, the Indians opted to delay storming the building.The delay in storming the building apparently allowed time for Israeli involvement in analyzing the tactical conditions and exploiting expertise in negotiating with hostage-takers. The Israeli army has a detailed plan for rescuing hostages abroad, but it is unlikely India would have allowed it. Why did the attackers also choose a Jewish target? A senior researcher at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Lior Lotan, says that Chabad House was a secondary target, a hit on the “Smaller Satan” while attacking the “Great Satan,” the “Crusaders,” Western tourists and relations between the West and Indian authorities…

The delay in storming the building apparently allowed time for Israeli involvement in analyzing the tactical conditions and exploiting expertise in negotiating with hostage-takers. The Israeli army has a detailed plan for rescuing hostages abroad, but it is unlikely India would have allowed it. Why did the attackers also choose a Jewish target? A senior researcher at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Lior Lotan, says that Chabad House was a secondary target, a hit on the “Smaller Satan” while attacking the “Great Satan,” the “Crusaders,” Western tourists and relations between the West and Indian authorities.

Dr. Yoram Schweitzer of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies says Al-Qaida’s interest in Israel has increased over the years. Since 2002, there have been a series of attacks on Jews and Israelis, from the attack in Mombasa, Kenya, to Katyusha rockets fired into Israel from Jordan and Lebanon. Also the broad security cooperation between Israel and India increased motivation for the attack. ANALYSIS / Israel cannot defend against attacks such as one at Mumbai Chabad house
By Amos Harel

There have been conflicting reports about the Israeli involvement. Many military analysts are claiming that after the fiasco at the Chabad House, the Isrealis sent in commandos which helped the incompetent Indian commandos. Apparently the terrorists were running circles around the Indians. The Terrorists knew the hotels inside out, while the commandos did not even have the floor plans of the hotels.

MUMBAI: Israel is known for its uncompromising response to terror. Some of its security experts were quoted in media reports as saying that Indian counter-terrorism forces failed to gather sufficient intelligence before engaging the terrorists. The criticism may intensify, with the death of the five Jewish hostages inside Nariman House.

“In hostage situations, the forces are supposed to first assemble at the scene and begin collecting intelligence. In this case, it appears that the forces showed up at the scene and immediately began exchanging fire with the terrorists instead of first taking control of the area,” noted a former official in the Shin Bet’s security unit in The Jerusalem Post.

Shin Bet is Israel’s general internal security agency, while more famous Mossad handles overseas intelligence.Haaretz, another major Israeli newspaper, noted how in the first several hours after the Mumbai incidents, the response of the Indian authorities was “slow, confused and inefficient”. As a result, the first forces sent to the scene were “inexperienced local police officers, who suffered many casualties”.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak spoke to Indian National Security adviser MK Narayanan and offered help “in an advisory capacity and in any other way, humanitarian or professional”. The Haaretz reports says that the Indian government was not interested in high profile security assistance from Israel. “Throughout the day, the (Israel’s) Homefront Command prepared to send an aid delegation to India, but efforts were halted when it became clear that India was not enthusiastic about the prospect,” it said.

The paper goes on to note that the attack “indicates careful planning, effective implementation and control over a large number of subcells”. Above all, the attack is a “huge failure of the Indian defence establishment, surprised in the heart of their financial capital and apparently missing the terrorists’ arrival by boat from Pakistan,” it added.

Paying rich tributes to the brave police officers who died while attempting to stop the attack, the paper says that when the dust settles, the higher-ups in Indian intelligence will have a lot of explaining to do. Israelis fault approach of local forces, 30 Nov 2008, 2357 hrs IST, Girish Kuber, ET Bureau. Economic Times India Times

Publicly the Israelis are a bit shy about criticizing the Indians. Privately they are absolutely furious. The Indians, stung by the Israeli criticism and media bad mouthing reacted angrily to the Israel’s negativei commentary of the Indian operations.

Indian media have reacted angrily to criticism from Israeli defense officials of the Indian commando operation against the terrorists who took control of Chabad house in Mumbai.

Eight hostages inside the center were killed, including Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka. All of the victims were Jewish, Israeli or both. They accuse Israel of casting doubt on the effectiveness of their “brave” Indian commandos, and claim that Israel has a bad record in hostage-rescue operations, aside from the successful Operation Entebbe in 1976.

Eli Blotserkovski, the political envoy to the Israeli embassy in New Delhi, told Haaretz, “This emphasizes the need for all the international community, not just India and Israel, to act in a coordinated manner against terrorism.”

Another Israeli diplomat in India said Israel needs to be careful not to criticize India.

“Particularly in the present situation we have an important strategic relationship with them and we stand with them in a shared struggle against terrorism,” he said.Indian media react angrily to Israeli criticism of Chabad rescue operation By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Correspondent

India: Why are Hindus violently assaulting Christians? Rupee News for the past several years has been discussing the Indian support for terrorists in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. India has been playing with fire. Goyem: India support for Frankensteins will create blowback. it appears that the analysis of Rupee News was correct.

One Response to “Mumbai: Israel calls Indian forces lackadaisical, unprofessional, incompetent, untrained, slow, confused and inefficient”

irfan khan says:

December 18, 2008 at 12:46 pm

Well it looks as if israel invested in loosers. If it takes 12 hours for locally trained pathetic black cats to rescue dead israeli citizens i believe israel was much better off sending her own security apparatus to take charge of the situation. Black cats behaved like drunk zombies ! but then they are always efficient in covert operations , comes day light and they would just not perform.

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