Still Early in the Mumbai Terror Attacks

It is still way too early to offer any analysis of the Mumbai terror attacks. Like most incidents, early reporting is often inaccurate in regards to what happened, and it takes time for investigators to sort of fact and fiction, and adding speculation and rumor never helps. All we can really do is continue to observe news reporting like this video from the Telegraph, which gives a good summery.

With that said, there does appear to be a maritime interest in this attack that I intend to follow closely. The details are sketchy at best, but news reports like this one, this one, and this one give some hint that the Indian Navy and Coast Guard are very active off the coast of India near Pakistan investigating a couple of maritime aspects to the attack.

While it is still unclear, it looks like there may be two specific maritime aspects of this story to watch for, an act of piracy and a possible amphibious assault terrorism style. There is a lot to think about, but if there was indeed a maritime aspect to the attack there will be important lessons for both the Navy and the Coast Guard in tweaking our own homeland security against potential terrorist attacks of this nature.

Something else that might be interesting to keep an eye on. If you recall, text messaging made a big impact during Hurricane Katrina. Well, it appears Twitter has had a significant impact on the information flow in real time during the attack (see here and here).

Real time, Open Source Intelligence during a terrorist attack on a major city... There is something significant in that statement worth pondering, and worth local responders to consider very carefully regarding the dissemination of information in real time during future crisis. After all, just like text messages to specific people, a cell phone can be a Twitter client to the masses.