From 26/11 to 10/7: Comparing India’s and Israel’s Responses to State-Sponsored Terrorism

• The Lashkar e Taiba terrorist group is believed to have close links with Pakistan’s army and intelligence services.
• The 2016 post-Uri attack surgical strikes by Indian army special forces commandos across the LOC were a dramatic departure from the previous UPA government’s policy of restraint against Pakistani cross border terrorism.
• Interestingly, not a single major Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attack has taken place so far in other parts of India outside Jammu and Kashmir since the NDA government came to power in 2014.

On November 26^th 2008 ten terrorists from the Pakistan based Islamist terrorist group Lashkar e Taiba attacked India’s financial capital Mumbai.  The terrorists from Pakistan reached Mumbai via the sea by hijacking an Indian fishing vessel. For over three days from November 26^th to November 29 2008 the ten Lashkar e Taiba terrorists attacked important landmark locations in Mumbai such as the Leopold Café, The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, The Oberoi Trident Hotel, A Local Jewish Community Centre and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Railway Station. The terrorists killed an estimated 174 people and injured another 300 people. 

During the three-day terrorist siege in Mumbai Indian security forces killed 9 of the Lashkar e Taiba terrorists and captured one of the terrorists Ajmal Kasab alive. India under diplomatic pressure from the US and lack of a clear policy on how to respond to cross border terrorism refrained from a military strike on Lashkar e Taiba headquarters in Muridke Pakistan due to concerns of collateral damage which could result in high casualties among Pakistani civilians living in the Muridke area. 

On October 7^th 2023 the Palestinian Islamist terrorist group Hamas based in Gaza launched the largest ever terrorist attack on Israeli soil. In the early morning hours of October 7 2023 Hamas terrorists stormed through the security fence separating Israel and Gaza killing 1, 189 people, including 815 civilians, wounding 7,500 and taking 251 Israelis with them as hostages to Gaza. 

Israel has responded militarily to this terrorist attack by launching a military campaign in Gaza against Hamas which has resulted in heavy casualties both among Hamas terrorists and Palestinian civilians. In recent months Israel has also escalated the war in Gaza to Lebanon where Israel is now fighting the Lebanese group Hezbollah

Both the November 26 2008 (also known as 26/11) and the October 7 2023 terrorist attacks were carried out by terrorist groups who are believed to have the backing of foreign nation -states. The Lashkar e Taiba terrorist group is believed to have close links with Pakistan’s army and intelligence services. The Pakistani state’s links to the 2008 Mumbai attacks were confirmed by the sole surviving   terrorist Ajmal Kasab as well as by one of the 26/11 plotters David Coleman Headly when he was arrested by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation for planning terrorist attacks in Europe.  Israeli officials have accused Iran of backing the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023 however unlike in the case of 26/11 Israel has not been able to comprehensively prove Iran’s role in supporting the Hamas attacks as the Hamas terrorists responsible for the attack were either killed or fled back to Gaza with their Israeli hostages. 

Another striking similarity between these two terrorist attacks has been that both the Indian and Israeli governments failed to prevent these attacks inspite of them receiving intelligence alerts about potential terrorist attacks. According to the Ram Pradhan Enquiry committee set up by the Maharashtra government the Mumbai police received several  intelligence alerts from 2006-2008 from central intelligence agencies  about a possible terrorist attack on landmark locations in Mumbai in the months prior to the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. While the Israeli government has not set up an inquiry so far to investigate the reasons for its intelligence failure in the case of October 7^th 2023 media reports reveal that Israel’s intelligence agencies had sent several alerts to the Israeli government in the months prior to the attack  about a possible attack by Hamas against Israel 

India’s policy towards Pakistani cross border terrorism from 2004-2014

During the Congress led UPA government’s tenure in power (2004-2014) Indian cities such as Delhi, Varanasi , Mumbai , Ajmer  , Hyderabad   Malegaon , Bangalore and Ahmedabad   witnessed a series  of  terrorist attacks  carried out by Pakistan-based terrorist groups such as the Lashkar e Taiba and Harkat Ul Mujahedeen as well by local Indian Islamist  terrorist groups such as the Indian Mujahideen which had close links with Pakistan based terrorist groups such as the Lashkar e Taiba. These terrorist attacks killed and injured hundreds of Indian civilians.

The worst terrorist attack carried out during the UPA government’s tenure was the November 26, 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks carried out by the Pakistan based terrorist group Lashkar e Taiba. The scale of the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks was such and the subsequent public outcry against Pakisyan forced the then UPA government to consider military retaliation against the Lashkar e Taiba 

In his article “Why didn’t India strike Pakistan after 26/11”, India Today journalist Sandeep Unnithan makes startling revelations about the debte within the UPA government about the various military options it had to respond to the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. The military options came from India’s then National Security Advisor MK Narayanan who presented before the UPA government a diverse range of military options that fell short of full-scale war. The alternatives ranged from surgical air strikes to covert action and special forces raids which are illustrated in the image given below  : 

From above it can be surmised that the UPA government lacked the intelligence capabilities and also political will to execute either a covert or overt military strike against the Lashkar e Taiba (LeT ) in the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks. India lacked any covert action capability or deeply embedded intelligence assets within Pakistan. Former Prime Minister IK Gujral had ordered India’s external intelligence agency the Research and Analysis Wing ( RAW ) to shut down its covert operations inside Pakistan in 1997 as part of his Gujral Doctrine which aimed to foster friendly relations with India’s immediate neighbouring countries in South Asia including Pakistan. Subsequent Indian prime ministers had turned down requests by RAW chiefs to revive India’s covert action capabilities inside Pakistan.

Another important factor which constrained the UPA government from responding militarily to the 26/11  Mumbai attacks was diplomatic pressure from the United States which viewed Pakistan as an important counter terrorism partner in its fight against Anti American Islamist terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in the Afghanistan- Pakistan region.

Shivshankar Menon who was India’s foreign secretary at the time of the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks argues in his book ‘ Choices : Inside the Making of India’s Foreign Policy ’ ( 2018 ) that India had much greater success dealing with those connected with the attacks when they travelled outside Pakistan. According to media reports, Sheikh Abdul Khwaja, one of the planners of the 26/11 Mumbai attack and Harkat ul Jihad al Islami ( HuJI ) chief of operations for India , was subsequently picked up in Colombo, Sri Lanka and brought to Hyderabad and formally arrested in January 2010. Zaibuddin Ansari another planner of the 26/11 Mumbai attack was arrested at Delhi airport on June 25, 2012, after he was deported from Saudi Arabia.

Thus, the real success of the UPA government in the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks was in making international counterterrorism cooperation against the LeT effective. India began to get unprecedented counterterrorism cooperation from Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf countries , and China , too, began to respond to India’s requests for information on Pakistan based terrorist groups like the LeT. 

Internally, there was a need to tighten laws and build institutions against terrorism. The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was passed unanimously by the Indian Parliament in December 2008 and the National Investigation Agency ( NIA ) was established to investigate terrorism related crimes. Other steps to ensure coordinated use of intelligence and counterterrorism actions were also undertaken particularly in the area of coastal security. 

However, inspite of these measures following the UPA government’s relection to power in 2009 Indian cities continued to witness terrorist bomb attacks such as Pune ( 2010 ), Mumbai ( 2011 ), Delhi ( 2011 ) , Hyderabad ( 2013 ).The UPA government’s failure to effectively  address the  challenge of Pakistani cross border terrorism can be attributed to two factors : 

1. The Karachi Project : The Pakistani army’s  Karachi project has been directly responsible for the deaths of over 500 Indians in bomb blasts since 2005. Indian youth recruited for the Karachi Project were indoctrinated using propaganda videos showing the Babri Masjid demolition and Gujarat riots. As a proxy of the Karachi project the Indian Mujahideen Group ( IM ) was responsible for a series of bomb blasts in Indian cities. Although Indian police forces were able to successfully crackdown on IM terrorist sleeper cells Pakistan was able to deny its involvement in sponsoring terrorist attacks in India due to the Karachi project and also due to then ruling UPA government’s propagation of the politics of Saffron Terror.
2. Politics of Saffron Terror: Terrorist attacks targeting Muslims like the 2007 Samjhauta Express bombing, 2007 Ajmer Dargah blast and 2008 Malegaon blasts were linked with Hindu organisations like the RSS and Abhinav Bharat by members of the Congress led UPA government and Indian investigating agencies.  

The then UPA government put pressure on Indian law enforcement agencies to investigate only the so called  “Hindu Right Wing Saffron Terror angle ” in these incidents in order to cultivate certain sections of the Muslim community as a votebank inspite of  information  from Indian and US agencies indicating the possible involvement of Pakistan based terrorist groups and their Indian proxies such as the Indian Mujahideen in many of the blasts.

Indian investigating agencies failed to legally prove the existence of a nationwide Hindu Right Wing Saffron Terrorist network as Indian courts acquitted many of the Saffron terror accused such as Swami Aseemanand, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur  and Lieutenant Colonel Srikant Purohit in many of these blast cases on the grounds that the criminal confessions of the accused  were obtained under torture although Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur is still an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case and is currently released from jail on bail . 

The Indian army had carried out its own court of enquiry against Lieutenant Colonel Srikant Purohit which exonerated him of all charges. Despite constant political pressure from the then UPA government the army neither put Purohit under suspension nor terminated his service during his detention in jail. After his release on bail as an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case Purohit was reinstated in service with the consequential benefits. 

The politics of Saffron Terror greatly weakened India’s case against Pakistani cross border terrorism as it enabled the Pakistani state to deflect international attention from its role in sponsoring terrorist attacks in India and instead falsely blame these attacks on Hindu organizations. 

India’s policy towards Pakistani cross border Terrorism since 2014 

The current BJP led NDA government’s “Defensive Offense” doctrine has brought about a significant change in India’s response towards Pakistani cross border terrorism. India’s current National Security Advisor Ajit Doval set in motion the Defensive Offense Doctrine with a terse but eloquent warning to Pakistan: “You do one more Mumbai, you lose Balochistan”.

 At the beginning of Narendra Modi’s prime ministership, we have witnessed Defensive Offense in motion. The 2016 post – Uri attack surgical strikes by Indian army special forces commandos across the LOC against Jaish e Mohammed Terrorist (JeM) training camps in POK and the Balakot airstrike of 2019 against a JeM camp in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were a dramatic departure from the previous UPA government’s policy of restraint against Pakistani cross border terrorism. 

It also signalled that India had rebuilt it’s covert action and intelligence collection capabilities inside Pakistan since the 26/11 Mumbai attacks as the targets for the 2016 and 2019 surgical strikes were based on collated human and spatial intelligence from the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the National Technical Research Organization (NTRO). Interestingly not a single major Pakistan sponsored terrorist attack has taken place so far in other parts of India outside Jammu and Kashmir since the NDA government came to power in 2014.

But lately another angle has been added to India’s response to Pakistani cross border terrorism which is Covert Action.  The UK  Guardian report which came out in September 2024 alleged that India’s external intelligence agency RAW ( Research and Analysis Wing ) had carried out assassinations of more than 20 terrorists on Pakistani soil since 2019. 

References:

• _{The Wire ( 2019 ). Full Text : What the High Level Inquiry Committee on the 26/11 Attacks Had to Say. Retrieved from https://thewire.in/security/26-11-mumbai-terror-attack-inquiry-committee}
• _{Gupta, S (2014).  Indian Mujahideen: The enemy Within. Hachette India Local} 
• _{Mani, RVS (2018). The Myth of Hindu Terror: Insider Account of Ministry of Home Affairs 2006-2010. Vitasta Publishing} 
• _{Kishwar, M ( 2020 ). The Incarceration of Military Intelligence Officer Lt Col Purohit for Cracking SIMI Terror Groups. Retrieved from  https://www.manushi.in/the-incarceration-of-military-intelligence-officer-lt-col-purohit-for-cracking-simi-terror-groups/}
• _{Menon, S (2018). Choices: Inside the Making of India’s Foreign Policy. Penguin India} 
• _{Chaulia, S (2022). Crunch Time: Narendra Modi’s National Security Crisis. Rupa Publications India} 
• _{Petersen, H; Hassan, A; Baloch, S. ( 2024 ). Indian Government ordered killings in Pakistan , intelligence officials claim. https://www.manushi.in/the-incarceration-of-military-intelligence-officer-lt-col-purohit-for-cracking-simi-terror-groups/}
• _{Majumdar, A ( 2023 ). Is R&AW the new Mossad ? India’s image turns from ‘ soft State ’ to hard under Modi and Doval. Retrieved from https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/is-raw-the-new-mossad-indias-image-turns-from-soft-state-to-hard-under-modi-and-doval-13144392.html}
• _{Eiran, E., Guterman,O; Simantov, D. ( 2024 ). Israel’s Oct. 7 Early Warning Failure  : Who is to Blame ?. Retrieved from https://warontherocks.com/2024/10/israels-oct-7-early-warning-failure-who-is-to-blame/#:~:text=Prime%20Minister%20Benjamin%20Netanyahu%20and%20his%20intelligence%20chiefs,The%20short%20answer%20is%20that%20both%20are%20responsible.}
• _{Unnithan, S (2015). Why India didn’t strike Pakistan after 26/11. Retrieved from https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/the-big-story/story/20151026-why-india-didnt-strike-pakistan-after-26-11-820634-2015-10-14}

Dhruv Ashok

Dhruv Ashok is a PhD research scholar from Christ (Deemed to be University), Bangalore. He writes on current affairs and international politics. His areas of interest include conflict resolution and historical narratives. Views expressed are the author’s own.