The Sea Passage Of The 26/11 Terrorists

[Capt M Kumar]

<!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> off the topic
je Menon, it's right in start of ur name; so, u need not worry! <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[ramana]

ji is a mark of respect and not a marker of Indic identity. Its ok to be optional with it.

Meantime looks like the Mumbai Terrorist Attack had one good thing come about. the integration of IN and Coast Guard.


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->From Pioneer 10 june 2009

OPED | Wednesday, June 10, 2009 | Email | Print |


Modernising the Navy

Hiranmay Karlekar

It’s importance cannot be minimised

<b>The massive exercise being conducted at the time of writing by the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard along the entire length of the western coast from Jakhau in Gujarat to Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, is aimed at further strengthening the country’s defences against unauthorised entry.</b> While such exercises are held every year, the one this year has become specially significant because of the sea-borne terrorist attack on Mumbai in November last year. It might have been prevented but for chinks in the coastal defence set-up and a glaring lack of communication among the Navy, the Coast Guard, the Research & Analysis Wing, Mumbai Police and domestic intelligence agencies.

Understandably, there was sharp criticism of the country’s coastal security system and demand for prompt remedial action. Considerable progress has doubtless been made in this direction. <b>Particularly important has been Defence Minister AK Antony’s announcement on February 28 of a new and comprehensive plan to ensure coastal security as a part of a restructuring exercise that put the Indian Navy in overall charge of the country’s maritime security and placed the Coast Guard, with all its assets, under it. The Director-General of the Coast Guard, the Minister stated, will be designated Commander Coastal Command and will be responsible for overall coordination between Central and State agencies in all matters pertaining to coastal security.</b>

<b>The plan </b>envisioned the Coast Guard having its regional headquarters in Gujarat, headed by a Commander Coast Guard, to look after the surveillance of the State’s coast, a matter which has a special significance given the location of some of India’s major energy assets off its coast and the fact that it is the only State with a common maritime boundary with Pakistan. <b>There will be nine additional Coast Guard stations at Karwar, Ratnagiri, Vadinar, Gopalpur, Minicoy, Androth, Karaikal, Hutbay and Nizampatnam.</b>

<b>The Navy, which will be assisted by State marine police establishments and Central and State intelligence agencies, will have a specialised force, Sagar Prahari Bal, with a personnel strength of 1,000 to protect its own installations along the eastern and western coasts and island territories like the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Eighty fast interception crafts will be procured to ensure seafront security.</b>

<b>Joint Operation Centres, manned by the Navy and the Coast Guard, will be set up in Mumbai, Kochi, Vishakhapatnam and Port Blair to ensure round-the-clock surveillance over India’s 7,500-km coastline. Mr Antony further said that there would be a national command, control, communications and intelligence network, linking the operations rooms of the Navy and the Coast Guard, both at the field and apex levels for real-time maritime domain awareness. It is a comprehensive scheme which includes the installation of Vessel and Air Traffic Management Systems for all offshore development areas and considerable increase in the number of ships, boats, aircraft and helicopters for surveillance and interception.</b>

But while it is important to defend India’s coast and offshore assets, one needs to remember that there can also be terrorist attacks on the country’s merchant marine and also naval ships which, for example, could be targeted the way the US Navy’s vessel Cole was attacked. This, China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean, and the Navy’s involvement in anti-piracy operations off the Somalian coast, once again <b>underline the urgent need to make it a powerful blue water force capable of coping with its expanding task.</b>

This will require both funds, political will and public support. Unfortunately, public awareness of the Navy’s importance is relatively low. This is because it has virtually no presence on land and its role in the country’s wars has been none or minimal except during the 1971 India-Bangladesh conflict. Nor does it play the kind of role the Army plays in counter-terror and counter-insurgency operations. <b>People need to know more. In this context, one needs more publications like Baldeo Sahai’s Indian Navy: A Perspective brought out by the Publications Division. Published in 2006, it does not dwell on the more recent developments. But it gives a scholarly and comprehensive account of the history of India’s naval and maritime activities that go back to 7,000 BC, the cultural and environmental factors that conduced to these, as well as its evolution in modern times and the challenges it faces.</b>

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[ramana]

Hindustan Times:



Headley's Ex-Wife confessed to friend



According to this report she told an American tourist in May 2008 that DCH was wanted by Mumbia Police and was a terrorist. The tourist decided not to tell anyone!



Also new name surfaces in Bollywood. I havent heard this one before.

“My ex-husband (David Coleman Headley) is a man wanted in Mumbai by the police and other authorities... He is also a drugs dealer and mixed up with the mafia in Mumbai.” This is what Moroccan national Faiza Outalha (29), estranged wife of Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley (50), who had scouted targets for the 26/11 attacks for the Lashkar e Tayyeba (Let), had told her American companion George Alexander Mapp Junior, six months before the attacks would begin. Outalha, said Mapp, had said this when they were at a Manali guesthouse in May 2008.



At that time, the Lashkar operative and his reconnaissance activities in Mumbai were unknown to the Maharashtra police. Mapp said: "I was shocked by her revelation for she rarely spoke about her ex-husband, who I later came to know was Headley."



"I did not alert the authorities as I thought that would be intruding into her private matters, or she might be exaggerating due to her then bitter relations with him," Mapp said.



He added, "She also revealed to me that she and Headley had stayed at the Taj Mahal hotel near Gateway in April and May 2007. In retrospect, now, I think she was alerting about what Headley had been doing in Mumbai for his LeT controllers."



Mapp (44), a former stock trader has been questioned by the FBI and NIA due to his "friendship" with Headley’s wife. Outalha had also introduced Mapp to a woman with Bollywood links, Nickey Chua, :?: as Headley’s friend in Mumbai.



Outalha also sent Mapp a farewell text message, saying, "I am religious person, but i did sins and inshalla i would be forgiven after repenting a lot..."

Two things: What DCH did is not a religous crime but a huma n cirme. So Outalha is also an accessory to the crime. And she will pay in this life.



Same with this stock trader for not having alerted the police/people atleast in US if he didn't trust the Indians. Evenif he doesn't care for the Indians who died at a minimum the lives of those six citizens and the Israelis are on him. This rascal should never be allowed again into India. If the MEAhas any conscience.



Third who is this Nicky Chua? Is she Rahul Bhatt circle or Dawood Ibrahim's circle?



Is she a parody of Minnie Mouse?



Can folks do some research?