Boomed - Mumbai

[sasguru]

You can be 100% sure those gunmen who took hostages wanted to negotiate (that's the idea of taking hostages and some of them called TV stations) - Indian Govt didn't, so they stormed it for long time without any regard for hostage life, the calculation is simple there - loss of face for terrorist attack already happened could be compounded if it lasts longer due to negotiations, adding a few dozen extra dead hostages to already high list is not a factor in such high level decision making in countries where human life does not mean much (unless it's big official or their family).

And you know all this from the rather poor and contradictory news reports that have emerged so far?
You, sir, have emerged as CUK's number one twat by a long margin.

Your comments and conclusions are like some some not very bright teenager.

[AtW]

And you know all this from the rather poor and contradictory news reports that have emerged so far?

48 hours spent to deal with 20 attackers in a huge city using your best commandoes is a pretty good objective metric that only reinforced my initial view that Indian armed response had no clue because I did not see any APCs blocking the known locations when terrorists were hiding such as those hotels.

So far it looked like terrorists were armed with light firewarms only - no machine guns, RPGs, proper explosives (meaning lots of it brought in by trucks like in Beslan) - 48 hours to clear up a few hotels is ridiculous (if it did not include negotiations as it clearly is the case).

Indian Govt is lucky they did not deal with professionals like chechens who took Beslan or Nord Ost, but I fear such thing is yet to come to India and other places very soon.

That's why public should be armed - the only way to deal with such attacks is when plenty of people are armed and can defend themselves.

[AtW]

Your comments and conclusions are like some some not very bright teenager.

On the basis of what you have seen so far who would you prefer to deal with hostage crisis if your family was involved:

1) SAS and British Govt
2) Indian "SAS" and Indian Govt
3) Russian FSB and Putin

I'd take 1 any time knowing that negotiations will start and if SAS attacks it will be a well planned and well executed last resort measure.

[sasguru]

On the basis of what you have seen so far who would you prefer to deal with hostage crisis if your family was involved:

1) SAS and British Govt
2) Indian "SAS" and Indian Govt
3) Russian FSB and Putin

I'd take 1 any time knowing that negotiations will start and if SAS attacks it will be a well planned and well executed last resort measure.

I rest my case. An autistic response if ever there was one. Have you been assessed by a qualified and experienced mental health professional recently?
I really would if I were you.

[AtW]

An autistic response if ever there was one.

I measure responses as correct and wrong ones, or something in between. Your classification makes no sense to me as it in no way relates to correctness of conclusions.

[Doggy Styles]

The only way to deal with hostage situations is to act as though the hostages were already dead. This is what the Israelis did, and why the PLO et al., stopped hijacking their planes.

Hostage taking suddenly becomes a lot less attractive to terrorists.

Tough for the particular hostages, their families and friends, but in the long run a whole lot better off for far more people.

( I expect a response a long the lines of "well, what if it was your wife". To which the answer is, I'd like her to be rescued. But it would still be the wrong course of action for the the authorities to take ).

Sorry AtW but the proof seems to be in NotAllThere's pudding.

[AtW]

Sorry AtW but the proof seems to be in NotAllThere's pudding.

Proof of what? If you stop negotiating with terrorists (at least go gain time to kill them cleanly - something Israelis do if they can) they will just start blowing themselves up to hit civilians, this is exactly what Israel got in response to their strategy. So they "solved" one problem but got totally different.

Talking of airplane highjackings I think they just got too complex to implement, security is much tighter now so terrorists just switched to software targets.

Say if those terrorists took school with 700 children hostages, would you not negotiate with them and just storm outright?

[NotAllThere]

You go in specifically with a strategy to kill all the terrorists and rescue as many hostages as you can. If Russia had had an established policy of that, fewer kids would have died. So long as hostage takers think they can negotiate, they'll keep doing it. ( It could be said that all those wussy negotiaters are directly responsible for the death of those kids ).

Biut I'll agree. You go in as soon as you can. Don't give the smeggers time to prepare. ( Pretend to negotiate while your planning ).

Now, a causal link between not negotiating with hostage takers and suicide bombers? No way. Suicide bombers were around long before the Israeli started their "no-hostage" policy, and "9/11" (suicide bombing with planes) happened precisely because everyone thought hostage takers would negotiate.

[AtW]

If Russia had had an established policy of that, fewer kids would have died.

You don't know jack about Russia and terrorist do you? Russia established policy to kill terrorists and negotiations were only used as delay and preparation tactics. They also used gas (which killed 100+ hostages in Nord Ost), after that terrorists switched to taking school but even there Putin decided to storm and got 200+ children killed in process.

It plays into hand of terrorists actually if a lot of hostages die, negotiations are always a good tactic to start with - it allows attack to be timed and prepared thus minimising casualty rates, not in case of Russia where hostages are expendable though, something that seems to be the case in India as well.

[AtW]

Here is what Israel got to say about it:

"The Israeli officials said that Indian counter-terrorist forces were well trained but failed to gather sufficient intelligence before engaging the terrorists.

"In hostage situations, the first thing the forces are supposed to do is assemble at the scene and begin collecting intelligence," said a former official in the Shin Bet's security unit. "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."

---

Israelies will used negotiation if they can - this does not mean they won't storm it at the right time.

How do you take control of the area? You create proper isolation of it and this should involve APCs (or other types of armoured vehicles), that's why when I saw first pictures showing lack of APCs it became clear to me that Indian forces simply did not know how to handle it well, events of the last 48 hours only reinforce this point of view.

Source: http://www.nowpublic.com/world/mumba...tage-situation