Mumbai-Style Terror Poses Threat to Western Cities

Counter-terror officials say they fear for Western cities after analyzing the Mumbai terror attack, the Guardian reports. The strike was far more sophisticated than the self-radicalized, self-selected suicide attackers seen in London. “The Mumbai operation was planned, premeditated and executed under a command and control apparatus,” said one terrorism expert. The attackers also prepared well, carrying large supplies of food and ammunition.

London terrorists slowly gathered bomb-making equipment, making them vulnerable to surveillance techniques. But the Mumbai attackers used relatively easy-to-acquire rifles and grenades. “It is a mode of attack that has fallen out of fashion,” said one analyst who compared it to attacks in the 1970s. “If you are going to be martyrs anyway, why not go in firing AK-47s?”
(More Mumbai stories.)