Religious head incited killers

(Compiler's note: Once again we have witnessed an Islamic terrorist attack incited and justified through appeals to Islam by its perpetrators. On one level it is understandable why so many in the West are unwilling or unable to connect the militant ideology of political Islam to the thousands of Islamic terror attacks that have been committed worldwide since 9/11. We extol the virtues of tolerance and pluralism and believe others in the world do so as well, so it is easy to dismiss such attacks as the work of a few “extremists,” rather than the product of adherence to an ideology.

The fatal flaw in this thinking is this: How can we successfully win a war on Islamic terrorism if we don’t correctly define the threat doctrine that motivates its adherents?

It is argued that most of the world’s Muslims are not terrorists. While true, this fact is irrelevant. Most of the world’s Muslims have never read the Qur’an or the Hadith in a language they can understand. They have not read the hundreds of passages that call for jihad against infidels, nor do they renounce such passages. They do not organize en masse to denounce the terrorist acts perpetrated by other Muslims in the name of Islam, nor do they denounce the frequent exhortations to world subjugation found in the holy books of Islam.

Yes, there are Muslims who have denounced the Mumbai attacks. But examine their denunciations closely and you will be hard-pressed to find renunciations of the supremacist doctrine of political Islam -- the foundation for jihad -- which emanates from its holy books. This is the justification commonly cited by terrorists for their actions. We in the West must come to grips with the uncomfortable fact that terrorism is a symptom of this militant, supremacist ideology. Terrorism is a means to an end, not an end in itself. And it is but one of many means used by those who are devoted to the supremacist ideology of political Islam.)

by Bruce Loudon

THE al-Qa'ida-linked Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists suspected over the Mumbai massacre were trained in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, and were incited by speeches from their leader in Lahore.

As the sole surviving terrorist was interrogated in Mumbai, security sources told The Australian that 10 terrorists were picked by LET for the suicide mission.

They were ordered to "kill until your last breath" and murder up to 5000 people.

They did so after provocative speeches by Hafiz Mohammed Saeed last month in Lahore, capital of the Punjab.

Saeed, described as LET's supreme religious and political head, declared in one speech: "The only language India understands is that of force, and that is the language it must be talked to in."

The email claiming responsibility for the Mumbai attack minutes after it started last Wednesday was generated on a computer based in Pakistan.

And a satellite telephone captured from the terrorists revealed calls made to numbers in Pakistan during the attacks, reports said.

Officials said the terrorists' route to Mumbai had been recorded on GPS co-ordinates contained in the satellite phones.

Sources said the 10 terrorists -- most of whom were believed to be Pakistanis -- were ordered to undergo training to attack Mumbai.

The captured gunman, Ajmal Amir Kamal, 21, reportedly told intelligence sources the group had trained openly in Muzaffarabad before heading to the nearby Mangala dam for lessons in marine commando techniques.

The group then visited Rawalpindi, which adjoins Islamabad, the Pakistan capital and site of the Pakistan army headquarters.

From there, the group took a train to the port city of Karachi, where, heavily armed, they boarded a freighter for the trip to Mumbai. Along the way, they became nervous about Indian coastguard activity and almost aborted the mission.

They "dragooned" a less conspicuous, passing fishing boat into service, shooting dead four of its crew members. The skipper of the fishing boat and another crew member took them closer to Mumbai before they, too, were killed. One was decapitated and the other had his throat slit.

Close to shore, they transferred to small speedboats for the run into the two landing points they had selected in Mumbai - Sassoon Docks and Badhwar Park, on Cuff Parade.

Conflicting evidence obtained by intelligence agencies suggests that the group may have had local support, and that one or more of its members may have been staying locally, possibly even in the Taj Mahal hotel.

A British link to the attacks was raised over the weekend when a senior Indian official claimed that Britons were among the militants.

Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra state, in which Mumbai lies, was quoted on an Indian television station as saying that British citizens had been detained.

British MP Patrick Mercer, a former Tory security spokesman, said he had been given information that at least two of the terrorists had credit cards and other identifying documents that linked them to Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, in northeast England.

The claims, however, were not substantiated by official British sources, who said there was no evidence "at this stage" that Britons had taken part in the attacks, although they acknowledged that events were "moving fast" and more information was emerging about the nationality of the terrorists.

MI5 and British counter-terrorist police are keeping in close touch with their counterparts in India and are alert to the possibility that Britons with Pakistani origins might have been involved. Significant numbers of young British Pakistanis have taken part in terrorist training in Pakistan.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that there was no evidence of Britons being involved, and the Foreign Secretary David Miliband said: "We obviously will want to work very closely with the Indians but it is too early to say whether or not any of them are British."

Malaysian police are investigating reports that Malaysian-issued credit cards were found in the belongings of the terrorists involved in the Mumbai attacks.

Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar said Malaysia had no links with the terrorists, responding to an Indian report that nine of the gunmen claimed to be Malaysian students when they travelled to Mumbai several months ago.

Terror analyst Praveen Swami said that at a meeting of key LET leaders in Lahore on October 19, LET leader Saeed, who insists he is only head of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa welfare organisation, made plain his view of Pakistan's neighbour.

"India, he claimed, was building dams in (Indian-controlled) Jammu and Kashmir to choke Pakistan's water supplies and cripple its agriculture," Mr Swami reported Saeed as saying.

"Earlier, in an October 6 speech, Saeed claimed that India had 'made a deal with the United States to send 150,000 Indian troops to Afghanistan' and that it agreed to support the US in its existential war against Islam.

"Finally, in a sermon to a congregation at the Jamia Masjid al-Qudsia (mosque) in Lahore at the end of October, Saeed proclaimed that there was an 'ongoing war in the world between Islam and its enemies'.

"He claimed that 'crusaders of the East and West have united in a cohesive onslaught against Muslims'."

US, British Reports Warn Bio-terrorism is a Growing Threat

by Anthony L. Kimery

The biological threat is greater than the nuclear'

Two new reports caution that terrorists are more likely to use biological weapons in the near future than they are nuclear weapons. Terrorists might even try to employ a pandemic-capable strain of avian flu, British homeland security authorities warned.

A new report from Britain’s Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) Commission on National Security in the 21st Century warned that terrorists’ use of biological warfare is one of the biggest emerging threats that’s posed by terrorists in the foreseeable future.

Similarly, the final report of the US Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism released today concluded that the United States more likely can expect a terrorist attack using biological weapons rather than nuclear weapons before 2013.

"The biological threat is greater than the nuclear; the acquisition of deadly pathogens, and their weaponization and dissemination in aerosol form, would entail fewer technical hurdles than the theft or production of weapons-grade uranium or plutonium and its assembly into an improvised nuclear device," the report concluded.

“The Commission’s report is an urgent call to action that should trigger strong, coordinated steps to improve our country’s ability to prevent proliferation and thwart terrorist attacks using nuclear and biological weapons," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA), senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and co-chair of the Congressional Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation, in an emailed statement Tuesday afternoon. "As the report notes, we must make it harder for terrorists to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction – the deadliest weapons on Earth - and we need to better prepare our communities to respond to any possible attacks.”

The IPPR report stated that "acts of bio-terrorism carried out not only by organized groups but by individuals with expertise and access to a laboratory, are a serious 21st century threat."

“The biggest danger may come from state weakness and the possibility that terrorists might gain access to state laboratories and facilities that are insufficiently secure,” the report noted.

"This in turn could allow a terrorist to buy genes for use in the engineering of an existing and dangerous pathogen into a new more virulent strain," the report said, stressing that while Al Qaeda remains the "most significant terrorist group of the current era … lone individuals with relevant experience can now be more dangerous than before."

The IPPR report warned that bio-security challenges must be treated "every bit as seriously as other, more traditional threats to security."

The report’s authors caution that terrorists might actually consider trying to genetically engineer a virulent avian influenza strain into a form that can be transmitted between humans, or even infect themselves with a naturally occuring pandemic capable strain once it emerges to become bio-martyrs.

HSToday.us reported several years ago that intelligence indicated that Al Qaeda had discussed infecting willing members with a pandemic flu strain as a method of terrorism. These bio-martyrs would then fan out, criss-crossing the world spreading the virus.

The March 2007 HSToday cover story, Viral Visions, further reported on the potential capabilities of terrorists and rogue states to develop hybrid, or designer, pathogens that could be used as terror weapons.

Click here for additional information.

Homeland Security: Turn to God in time of terrorism

To whom should Homeland Security officials turn when faced with terrorist threats?

They should turn to God, according to one state's law.

When Kentucky formed its state Office of Homeland Security in 2006, it listed the department's initial duty as "stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth."

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, Homeland Security must proclaim God's protection in its reports. The office also features a plaque at its Emergency Operations Center declaring, "The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God."

State Rep. Tom Riner, D-Louisville, included the stipulation to acknowledge God in an amendment to the legislation. Lawmakers overwhelmingly approved it, according to the report. ....

Inside As-Sahaab: The Story of Ali al-Bahlul and the Evolution of Al- Qaida’s Propaganda

Mr. al-Bahlul was no ordinary footsoldier or conventional military commander in the service of Al-Qaida. Rather, he had been personally chosen by Usama Bin Laden in order to help develop another key battlefront in Al-Qaida’s war on the United States: the “media jihad.” The story behind Mr. al-Bahlul and his personal recollections of serving as the chief of Al-Qaida’s As-Sahaab Media Foundation offer unprecedented insights into the history of As- Sahaab, its mission, and how it has evolved over time into the global phenomenon that exists today. ....

Click on the title above to read a most interesting investigation on the above individual.

World at Risk: The Report of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism

by Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, Bob Graham, Jim Talent

Synopsis

"The greatest danger of another catastrophic attack in the United States will materialize if the world's most dangerous terrorists acquire the world's most dangerous weapons." -- The 9/11 Report

On May 18, 2008, Congress established the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, a bipartisan committee charged with investigating the nation's approach to halting the spread of nuclear and biological weapons.

Recommended by the 9/11 Commission and mandated by Congress, the Commission's report will serve as a measure for the next Administration's national security strategy. Both Senators McCain and Obama have acknowledged that terrorist acquisition of a nuclear or biological weapon is the greatest threat to national security; this is the first Commission to examine how well the United States has prepared itself to prevent such a threat. The Report analyzes the current threat posed by WMDs, assesses how well our government is positioned to respond to WMDs, and makes recommendations on what the next President and Congress must do in order to better prevent this threat. Since May, the Commission has interviewed over 200 experts inside and outside of government. They have met with counterterrorism and intelligence officials at home and abroad who are working to stop proliferation and terrorism.

The report is expected to include information about U. S. counterproliferation efforts across the globe. Its findings might pressure the next administration to overhaul the government's national-security operations. It is also expected to identify bioterrorism as the nation's greatest threat. "My own assessment at this point is the more likely form ofattack is going to be in a biological weapon," said Graham, who adds that we are "very exposed" to biological attacks.

Several commissioners are focused on threats from countries that possess or aspire to make nuclear weapons, such as Pakistan, Iran and North Korea. Some urge U.S. counterproliferation efforts to pay stronger attention to Pakistan as the government grows more unstable. They identify the need to prevent others from emulating A. Q. Khan, who pioneered the development of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and traded in weapons technology.

Written as a clear, compelling narrative, the Report is poised to be a ground-breaking, headline-making event. This is a true benchmark in American foreign policy.

Biography

Established by House Resolution 1 in May 2008, the Commission of the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism is chaired by former Senator Bob Graham.
Members of this bipartisan committee include Vice-Chairman Jim Talent, Timothy J. Roemer, Wendy R. Sherman, Graham T. Allison, Richard Verma, Henry Sokolski, Stephen Rademaker, and Robin Cleveland.

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Vintage to Publish World At Risk "Instant Book" Tomorrow

By Dermot McEvoy -- Publishers Weekly, 12/2/2008 6:48:00 AM

Vintage will publish an "instant book" about the threat of WMDs to United States security. World At Risk: The Report of the Commission of the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism by Senator Bob Graham, chairman, and Senator Jim Talent, vice chairman, along with other commission members, will be published in a Vintage paperback original and retail at $10.95. Vintage will release the book tomorrow, the same day the commission will report its findings to President Bush, Vice President-elect Biden and the joint Congressional Leadership.

Recommended by the 9/11 commission and mandated by Congress, the Commission for the Prevention of WMD Proliferation’s report will serve as a measure for the next Administration’s national security strategy. This is the first commission to examine how well the U. S. has prepared itself to prevent such a threat. World at Risk analyzes the current threat posed by WMDs, assesses how well our government is positioned to respond to WMDs, and makes recommendations on what President-elect Obama and Congress must do in order to better prevent this threat. Since May, the commission has interviewed more than 200 experts inside and outside of government. "My own assessment at this point is the more likely form of attack is going to be in a biological weapon," said commission chairman, Senator Graham, who adds that we are "very exposed" to biological attacks.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6618836.html

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In an interview on FoxNews today, Senator Graham is concerned that such an attack will occur by 2013. He is concerned about anthrax & the flu as well as other bio-weapons.

Imaging guru: 'Certification' of birth time, location is fake

(Compiler's note: Another must read. This is not going to just go away.)

By Bob Unruh

A document expert contends the "Certification of Live Birth" Barack Obama's campaign posted online to rebut charges the president-elect fails the Constitution's natural-born citizen requirement is criminally fraudulent.

The Obama campaign has told WND such allegations are "garbage," but Dr. Ron Polarik, who holds a Ph.D. in instructional media specializing in computer technology such as printers, scanners and digital imaging, disagrees. His analyses have been posted online in a YouTube video, which also is embedded here:

Polarik explained to WND his four months of research on the images, including nearly 1,000 test images using actual scans and photographs of real certificates, indicate there are several "giveaways" on the image itself. For example, the document has gray and white between the lettering, not green pixels as the rest of the background document, suggesting someone cut-and-pasted or typed new information that was embedded on top of the background.

Where's the proof Barack Obama was born in the U.S. and thus a "natural born American" as required by Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution? If you still want to see it, sign WND's petition demanding the release of his birth certificate.

Also, Polarik said although the Obama form has a border like that used in Hawaii in 2007, the seal is like that used in 2006 or 2008, but not 2007. His full report is posted at Polarik.blogtownhall.com.

In Polarik's view, there has to be a significant reason for a political candidate and campaign to go to such lengths.

"Obviously, there's something very critical to hide, or they wouldn't have spent the million dollars in legal fees to prevent the release of his original birth certificate," Polarik told WND.

"There's absolutely something to hide," he said. "If he was born in Hawaii they would have had a luau that would be continuing today.

"Not that the people who voted for him would care," he said, "but they used this forged document to convince the American voters.

"It's a scary thought to have someone who essentially begins his presidency as a criminal," he said, because the use of a faked document as identification is, in fact, a crime, he noted.

"It would be hard to perform as president from behind jail cell door at Leavenworth," he said.

The video has Polarik's face and voice disguised, and he confirmed to WND he's using an assumed name because of the threats. Independent verification of his credentials was not immediately available.

Polarik said the issue of the birth location is a "chink" in Obama's armor, but the Democrat also has declined to release information about his college years, about his selective service and about his passports, including on what nation's passport he traveled to Pakistan two decades ago when it was illegal to go there as a U.S. citizen.

Polarik describes his findings and conclusions on the video.

Polarik's conclusions were disputed, however, by another blog, the Hackerfactor.com.

Writer Neal Krawetz argues the "missing green" is a result of the compression algorithm used to generate the image. He also insists there's no validity to alarms over the border, because "we don't know the history of the actual image (was this a scan converted to JPEG, resaved as another JPEG, etc.). What we do know is that the image is at a very low quality, and JPEG loses fine details when saved at a low quality."

"I and other analysts have been unable to identify any sign of digital manipulation," the blogger wrote.

He also said Polarik is just "wrong" about the seal issue, and he addressed the second-fold dispute.

"I must admit that I do not see the second fold. However, I have scanned many pieces of folded paper and not seen folds (scanners pick up color, not texture)," Krawetz wrote.

Meanwhile, Dan Purdy of Forensic Document Examination Services Inc. told WND that the origins of the Internet images aren't known. He raised questions over whether the "original" was a photocopy, the equipment used to create the digital image and the compression processes of the various formats.

Those factors, he wrote, "make it exceedingly difficult to properly interpret fine details in the image."

WND columnist Janet Porter has written extensively about the birth certification issue.

"Look, we're not asking for the world here. Neither is the Constitution. Some pretty basic requirements like being 35 years old, having 14 years residency in the United States, and being a natural born citizen. When Senator John McCain was questioned about it, he showed his birth certificate without hesitating. When Barack Obama was asked by courts including the U.S. Supreme Court, he ducked and hid behind the right to privacy," she writes.

"Ironically, when Obama was running for the State Senate, he won by disqualifying every candidate who ran against him in the primary, including a guy who had been through a nasty and salacious divorce. Even though he had a small child who could be hurt by the information being made public, a court decided that the public's right to know; outweighed this poor fella's right to privacy, and he backed out. Obama clings to the 'right to privacy' regarding his own qualifications, just not his opponents."

She also noted the issue won't go away, and recommended a visit to ObamaForgery.com to review what's happening.

"These are the facts," she wrote. "The Constitution requires the president to be a natural born citizen. Obama's grandmother said she was there when Barack was born in Kenya. Obama refuses to release his original birth certificate. Instead of a birth certificate, Obama's campaign posted a certification given to those born abroad. Experts have called even that document an 'obvious forgery.'"

"Our Constitution still matters," she said.

Her group, Faith2Action, is working on funding for the purchase of time for a new television ad on the issue.

In the Philadelphia Bulletin, constitutional lawyer Edwin Vieira said a multitude of problems could result.

"Let's assume he wasn't born in the U.S.," Vieira told the newspaper. "What's the consequence? He will not be eligible. That means he cannot be elected validly. The people and the Electoral College cannot overcome this and the House of Representatives can't make him president. So what's the next step? He takes the oath of office, and assuming he's aware he's not a citizen, then it's a perjured oath.

The "eligible" President-elect Obama

"He may have nominated people to different positions; he may have nominated people to the judicial branch, who may have been confirmed, they may have gone out on executive duty and done various things," said Vieira. "The people that he's put into the judicial branch may have decided cases, and all of that needs to be unzipped."

"Let's say we go a year into this process, and it all turns out to be a flim-flam," he told the newspaper. "What's the nation's reaction to that? What's going to be the reaction in the next U.S. election? God knows. It has almost revolutionary consequences, if you think about it."

He continued, "[The birth certificate], in theory, should be there. What if it isn't? Who knows, aside from Mr. Obama? Does Russian intelligence know it isn't there? Does Chinese intelligence know it isn't there? Does the CIA know that it isn't there? Who is in a position to blackmail this fellow?"

Vieira expressed confidence Obama eventually will be forced to produce documentation.

"Let's assume that an Obama administration passes some of these controversial pieces of legislation he has been promising to go for, like the FOCA (Freedom of Choice) Act," he told the newspaper. "I would assume that some of those surely will have some severe civil or criminal penalties attached to them for violation. You are now the criminal defendant under this statute, which was passed by an Obama Congress and signed by President Obama. Your defense is that is not a statute because Mr. Obama is not the president. You now have a right and I have never heard this challenged, to subpoena in a criminal case, anyone who has relevant evidence relating to your defenses. And you can subpoena them duces tecum, meaning 'you shall bring with you the documents.'"

WND founder and editor Joseph Farah has launched a program to allow concerned voters to express their desire directly to the U.S. Supreme Court for the issue to be resolved.

A conference among the justices is scheduled Friday on a New England challenge to Obama's eligibility.

"The case is brought by Leo C. Donofrio against Nina Wells, the New Jersey secretary of state, and questions whether Obama is a 'natural-born citizen' as required by Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution," Farah reported.

"It would seem a simple matter to resolve," he said. "Barack Obama could have put this issue to rest long ago by producing a complete birth certificate from Hawaii. Instead, he has chosen to stonewall the matter, citing a website post of what can only be characterized as a partial representation of a birth certificate – one that has been criticized as a forgery.

"Meanwhile, some of Obama's own Kenyan relatives claim to have been present at his birth in Mombasa. This controversy, which some have dismissed as frivolous, is as serious as the literal meaning of the Constitution itself."

The nation's Electoral College, the process through which Obama is to be formally voted as the next president, will meet Dec. 15, and his inaugural is scheduled Jan. 20.

Meanwhile, more than 125,000 have signed WND's petition seeking full disclosure of Obama's information.

The petition cites the U.S. Constitution's requirement that no one can be sworn into office as president without being a natural born citizen. It also asserts there are questions about Obama's reported Hawaii birth, that the Democrat has refused repeated calls to document his birth, that activist judges have declined to require him to shed light on the issue and that Hawaii – at the time of Obama's birth – allowed parents whose children were born in other locations to register the birth there.

WND's petition is available online, and more information is available at this link.

Listen to the Speakers at the Army Science Conference

Int'l force stops pirates hijacking cruise ship: Danish navy

The camps where militants learn to commit atrocities around the globe

By Kate Foster

PAKISTAN is a haven for terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba with dozens of training camps hidden across the region.

Muslim extremists from Britain and other countries have travelled to the camps to receive instructions on how to make bombs, shoot guns, kidnap and torture and plot atrocities against Westerners. ....

Mumbai attacks - city fears five terrorists are 'missing'

....a hijacked Indian fishing boat used by the gunmen had equipment for 15 men on board when it was discovered adrift off the city shore – suggesting that several gunmen could still be at large.....

Hillary to head State: Is it constitutional?

By Drew Zahn

Barack Obama, it has ... announce Sen. Hillary Clinton as his choice for secretary of state, an appointment America's Founding Fathers forbade in the U.S. Constitution.

The constitutional quandary arises from a clause that forbids members of the Senate from being appointed to civil office, such as the secretary of state, if the "emoluments," or salary and benefits, of the office were increased during the senator's

term.

The second clause of Article 1, Section 6, of the Constitution reads, "No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office."

During Clinton's current term in the Senate, the salary for Cabinet officers was increased from $186,600 to $191,300. Since the salary is scheduled to again be raised in January 2009, not only Clinton but all sitting Senate members could be considered constitutionally ineligible to serve in Obama's Cabinet.

James Madison's notes on the debates that formed the Constitution explain the reason for the clause. Madison himself argued against "the evils" of corrupt governments where legislators created salaried positions – or increased the salary of positions – and then secured appointments to the cushy jobs they just created. Others agreed that such tactics were evident in Colonial and British government

, and they wrote Article 1, Section 6 to prevent the practice.

Presidents in the past, however, have found a sometimes controversial way to skirt the clause and nonetheless fill their cabinet with constitutionally ineligible legislators.

In 1973, President Richard Nixon was able to appoint Sen. William B. Saxbe as his attorney general, despite the fact Saxbe was part of a Senate that nearly doubled Cabinet pay in 1969. Nixon convinced Congress to reduce Saxbe's pay as attorney general to its pre-1969 levels.

The sidestep, since known as the "Saxbe fix," was also used by President Taft in 1909, President Carter and President George H. W. Bush, who actually implemented the fix to enable Sen. Lloyd Bentsen to serve as treasury secretary for President Clinton's incoming administration.

The so-called "fix," however, has been criticized as perhaps honoring the spirit of the law but violating a clearly written statute of the Constitution.

In the 1973 case, the Washington Post reports, 10 senators, all Democrats, voted against Saxbe's appointment on constitutional grounds. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., the only one of them who remains in the Senate, said at the time that the Constitution was explicit, and "we should not delude the American people into thinking a way can be found around the constitutional obstacle."

"The content of the rule here is broader than its purpose," Professor Michael Stokes Paulsen, a constitutional law expert at St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, told MSNBC. "And the rule is the rule; the purpose is not the rule."

"A 'fix' can rescind the salary," Paulsen added, "but it cannot repeal historical events. The emoluments of the office had been increased. The rule specified in the text still controls."

And at least one administration, that of President Ronald Reagan, chose to avoid the controversy of the Saxbe fix by striking Sen. Orrin Hatch from a short list of potential Supreme Court nominees because of Hatch's ineligibility under Article 1, Section 6.

While questions remain about the constitutionality of the Saxbe fix in Clinton's case, some bloggers – such as Professor Eugene Volokh of the UCLA School of Law and Jack M. Balkin, professor of constitutional law at Yale – have pointed out that during her term of office, Clinton did not actually vote on an increase of Cabinet salaries. A 2008 executive order from President Bush created the increase, based on cost of living adjustments, leading some to argue that appointing Clinton doesn't violate the spirit of the law in Article 1, Section 6.

Andrew Malcolm, whose blog is featured by the Los Angeles Times, however, believes the Constitution needs to be strictly followed.

"We're not lawyers. But we do speak English," Malcolm writes. "And to our eyes that constitutional clause doesn't say anything about getting around the provision by reducing or not benefiting from the increase of said 'Emoluments.'"

Malcolm continues, "It flat-out prohibits taking the civil office if the pay has been increased during the would-be appointee's elected term. Period. Which it has."

Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security

By Spencer S. Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.

But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, dedicating 20,000 troops to domestic response -- a nearly sevenfold increase in five years -- "would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable," Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, said in remarks last month at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But the realization that civilian authorities may be overwhelmed in a catastrophe prompted "a fundamental change in military culture," he said.

The Pentagon's plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces to be ready for emergency response by September 2011. The first 4,700-person unit, built around an active-duty combat brigade based at Fort Stewart, Ga., was available as of Oct. 1, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of the U.S. Northern Command.

If funding continues, two additional teams will join nearly 80 smaller National Guard and reserve units made up of about 6,000 troops in supporting local and state officials nationwide. All would be trained to respond to a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attack, or CBRNE event, as the military calls it.

Military preparations for a domestic weapon-of-mass-destruction attack have been underway since at least 1996, when the Marine Corps activated a 350-member chemical and biological incident response force and later based it in Indian Head, Md., a Washington suburb. Such efforts accelerated after the Sept. 11 attacks, and at the time Iraq was invaded in 2003, a Pentagon joint task force drew on 3,000 civil support personnel across the United States.

In 2005, a new Pentagon homeland defense strategy emphasized "preparing for multiple, simultaneous mass casualty incidents." National security threats were not limited to adversaries who seek to grind down U.S. combat forces abroad, McHale said, but also include those who "want to inflict such brutality on our society that we give up the fight," such as by detonating a nuclear bomb in a U.S. city.

In late 2007, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed a directive approving more than $556 million over five years to set up the three response teams, known as CBRNE Consequence Management Response Forces. Planners assume an incident could lead to thousands of casualties, more than 1 million evacuees and contamination of as many as 3,000 square miles, about the scope of damage Hurricane Katrina caused in 2005.

Last month, McHale said, authorities agreed to begin a $1.8 million pilot project funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency through which civilian authorities in five states could tap military planners to develop disaster response plans. Hawaii, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Washington and West Virginia will each focus on a particular threat -- pandemic flu, a terrorist attack, hurricane, earthquake and catastrophic chemical release, respectively -- speeding up federal and state emergency planning begun in 2003.

Last Monday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates ordered defense officials to review whether the military, Guard and reserves can respond adequately to domestic disasters.

Gates gave commanders 25 days to propose changes and cost estimates. He cited the work of a congressionally chartered commission, which concluded in January that the Guard and reserve forces are not ready and that they lack equipment and training.

Bert B. Tussing, director of homeland defense and security issues at the U.S. Army War College's Center for Strategic Leadership, said the new Pentagon approach "breaks the mold" by assigning an active-duty combat brigade to the Northern Command for the first time. Until now, the military required the command to rely on troops requested from other sources.

"This is a genuine recognition that this [job] isn't something that you want to have a pickup team responsible for," said Tussing, who has assessed the military's homeland security strategies.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute are troubled by what they consider an expansion of executive authority.

Domestic emergency deployment may be "just the first example of a series of expansions in presidential and military authority," or even an increase in domestic surveillance, said Anna Christensen of the ACLU's National Security Project. And Cato Vice President Gene Healy warned of "a creeping militarization" of homeland security.

"There's a notion that whenever there's an important problem, that the thing to do is to call in the boys in green," Healy said, "and that's at odds with our long-standing tradition of being wary of the use of standing armies to keep the peace."

McHale stressed that the response units will be subject to the act, that only 8 percent of their personnel will be responsible for security and that their duties will be to protect the force, not other law enforcement. For decades, the military has assigned larger units to respond to civil disturbances, such as during the Los Angeles riot in 1992.

U.S. forces are already under heavy strain, however. The first reaction force is built around the Army's 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, which returned in April after 15 months in Iraq. The team includes operations, aviation and medical task forces that are to be ready to deploy at home or overseas within 48 hours, with units specializing in chemical decontamination, bomb disposal, emergency care and logistics.

The one-year domestic mission, however, does not replace the brigade's next scheduled combat deployment in 2010. The brigade may get additional time in the United States to rest and regroup, compared with other combat units, but it may also face more training and operational requirements depending on its homeland security assignments.

Renuart said the Pentagon is accounting for the strain of fighting two wars, and the need for troops to spend time with their families. "We want to make sure the parameters are right for Iraq and Afghanistan," he said. The 1st Brigade's soldiers "will have some very aggressive training, but will also be home for much of that."

Although some Pentagon leaders initially expected to build the next two response units around combat teams, they are likely to be drawn mainly from reserves and the National Guard, such as the 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade from South Carolina, which returned in May after more than a year in Afghanistan.

Now that Pentagon strategy gives new priority to homeland security and calls for heavier reliance on the Guard and reserves, McHale said, Washington has to figure out how to pay for it.

"It's one thing to decide upon a course of action, and it's something else to make it happen," he said. "It's time to put our money where our mouth is."

On Board the Navy's Lifeless Shoreline Ship

...."It's the Field of Dreams of warships," Doyle said. In other words, if you build the ship, potential "customers" ranging from the Marine Corps to humanitarian workers to battle groups sailing into a shooting war, will come.

Why We Must Pay Attention to the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks

(Compiler's note: The terrorist attacks last Wednesday in Mumbai, and the analysis below, remind us that, even during the holiday season, evil doesn’t sleep – nor does foolish “political correctness.”

While the analysis below warns us of an al Qaeda “aspirational planning” document outlining threats against America (see paragraph three), some are saying in the media that America’s foreign policies are the reason for the Mumbai terrorist attacks!!

The tragedy in Mumbai has touched many Americans who do not yet understand the depth of the threat of radical Islam – and this is an opportunity to educate them. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai remind us that we must be ever vigilant and we must continue to take action.

One of the ways you can do this by continuing to read this newsletter and helping others to know about it. I thank you helping us spread our important message and prepare to meet the challenges of 2009.)


By Sean Osborne, Associate Director

27 November 2008:
The Al Qaeda-inspired terrorist attacks in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) India may well be a bellwether for Western counter-terrorist operations, particularly in the United States. Given the 25 November FBI/DHS advisory regarding “a plausible but unsubstantiated report” on “discussions” within Al-Qa’ida communications channels, all things must be considered relevant in order to counter the threat of Islamic jihadist strikes in America.

There is no doubt that Al Qa’ida discussions half a world away in Mumbai evolved beyond the “aspirational planning.” I think it necessary at this point to reiterate that one of the primary forms of “aspirational planning” discussions among Al Qa’ida jihadists are found on the forums resident with internet websites. As Randy Taylor reported 18 days ago, an Al Qa’ida “aspirational planning” document was posted on one of their primary forums. Item number 9 in the 15-item “aspirational planning” list of desired targets is the subject of the current FBI/DHS advisory.

Based upon analysis of this communication, as well as other more recent communications, the Northeast Intelligence Network most certainly may be in possession of further information, as have you and every other entity which read Mr. Taylor’s report. This kind of information is known within the United States Intelligence Community (US IC) as Indications & Warnings (I&W). Moreover, the list in the communication we collected goes far beyond strikes in the manner of the London or Madrid suicide bombers on the transportation sector in the northeastern United States and Canada. This communication discussed strikes against nine different nuclear power stations located across the entire northeast region and the entire electrical grid. In multiple and overwhelming instances it references strikes against the financial infrastructure of the United States based in New York City. It discusses what can only be mass tactical assaults on seven passenger laden commercial airports. It discussed the financial impact upon the United States during a time of financial crisis as well as the minimal cost to the Islamic jihadists in executing the strikes, and that they will occur at some particular point in time without warning.

Let’s shift our focus to Mumbai. How do these multiple attacks in India compare to what I’ve just discussed? They are well-coordinated mass attacks across a single major Indian city. But more importantly I think it should be obvious that the tactical execution of these attacks evidences a significant departure from the previous template of broad-daylight terrorist strikes. These Indian jihadists utilized darkness as tactical cover for the execution of a major, multi-faceted terrorist operation by launching the entire operation at 10 PM local time in Mumbai.

This evident change in tactics begs some analytical questions. Was this change in tactics based upon an Al Qa’ida leadership operational directive, or was it left to the local cell leadership to determine? Is this what occurred in the attacks against the World Trade Center in New York City in February 1993 and again in September 2001? It would appear so – the local commander determined the timing of attack, Al Qa’ida’s central command merely approved the concept and targets of the strike, and was generally aware in advance that the strikes would occur. Al Qa’ida central was briefed on the plan of attack, it did not originate them.

All of this has brought about a change in my thinking about the execution of terrorist attacks. Al-Qaeda is a decentralized terrorist entity. It was years ago at the urging of Mustafa Setmariam Nasar (Abu Mus'ab al-Suri), the Al Qa’ida master tactician, theoretician and composer of the Al Qa’ida warfighting doctrine, who urged individual jihadists and cells worldwide to execute independent jihad operations on its behalf.

Since the Al Qaeda leadership places no constraints on the timing of attacks by its worldwide cells, there exists the distinct possibility that the leader of a given terrorist cell could choose an Islamic or Infidel date of significance or anniversary upon which to execute a strike. In this respect the "setting of dates" by individual jihadi posters on their forums cannot be completely ignored or discounted. Just because this "setting of dates" has not been the case in the past does not mean it won't be the case in the present or in the future. In fact, Islamic jihadists have repeatedly struck Israeli civilian targets on Hebrew dates of significance or holidays on many occasions over many years. The point here is that one additional and very recent jihadi forum post cites a specific date during the first week of January 2009 in which a “settling of accounts” with President George W. Bush will occur. We’ll see what actually transpires relative to these near-term threats, yet I believe it is prudent for all concerned to learn from past events as well as the recent.

SHADY ISLAND 'HOUSE' PARTY

Legislators ignore ethics rules, enjoy high life on Citibank's dime.

Mumbai terrorists were 'funded by cash raised in UK mosques'

from MailOnline.com

A banned Islamic terrorist group funded with cash raised in British mosques is believed to be behind the Mumbai attacks.

Kashmiri separatists Lashkar-e-Taiba, ‘The Army of the Righteous’, which has strong links to Al Qaeda, is accused of previous terrorist outrages in India.

And intercepted telephone and radio communications before and during the latest attacks apparently suggest a link.

Indian officials say at least one of the gunmen captured after the attacks is part of a Lashkar network.

The group last week denied any responsibility and the unknown group Deccan Mujahideen said it was behind the atrocity.

But earlier this year another group, the Indian Mujahideen, which has links to Lashkar-e-Taiba, sent an email to Indian police warning it was planning an attack in Mumbai.

The message read: ‘We are keeping a close eye on you and just waiting for the right time to execute your bloodshed...Let the Indian Mujahideen warn all the people of Mumbai...You are already on our hit list and this time very, very seriously.’

Lashkar-e-Taiba has been blamed for violence throughout India, including the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament building in New Delhi and a strike at an amusement park in Hyderabad in 2007.

It is accused of being behind a series of train bombings in Mumbai in 2006, which claimed almost 200 lives.

The group is outlawed in Britain and the US. In 2006, a Coventry man was sentenced to nine years in jail for conspiring to provide funds for its terrorist activities.

Mumbai photographer: I wish I'd had a gun, not a camera. Armed police would not fire back

.... But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."....

Major global trends: What will the world be like in 2025?

by Martin Henry with Jamaica Gleaner News

While we remain almost totally immersed in domestic concerns, others are busy monitoring major trends that are rapidly reconfiguring the world as we know it. Among the global futurists is the United States (US) National Intelligence Council (NIC), which coordinates analysis from all US intelligence agencies. The Guardian newspaper in Britain devoted its page one lead story and another couple of pages on November 21 to the latest four-yearly report of the NIC, 'Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World'.

This is something one is not likely to see in Jamaican media, although The Gleaner must be commended for carrying excerpts of the Chinese policy for Latin America and the Caribbean. The full NIC report can be found at www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html

"We prepared Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World," the NIC said, "to stimulate strategic thinking about the future by identifying key trends, the factors that drive them, where they seem to be headed, and how they might interact. (The report) uses scenarios to illustrate some of the many ways in which the drivers examined in the study (e.g., globalisation, demography, the rise of new powers, the decay of international institutions, climate change, and the geopolitics of energy) may interact to generate challenges and opportunities for future decision-makers. The study as a whole is more a description of the factors likely to shape events than a prediction of what will actually happen."

And what do they see? Drawing from The Guardian summary, the widely consultative report is warning that the world is entering an unstable and unpredictable period in which the advance of Western-style democracy cannot be taken for granted and the US will no longer be able to 'call the shots' alone as its power begins to wane. This view is not, of course, beyond challenge. The 2004 report for 2020 had confidently predicted continued US dominance, with most major powers forsaking the idea of balancing the US.

broken global financial system

The NIC is now seeing emerging big economies, such as China, India and Brazil, growing in influence, and doing so at America's expense. These countries, and others of 'influence', were participants in the G20 meeting in Washington two weekends ago, which was called by the US to fix the broken global financial system.

The European Union (EU) will be "losing clout", the report is predicting, and a 'democracy gap' separating Brussels from voters will help to make the EU a "hobbled giant" unable to translate its economic power into global influence.

"China," the report predicts, "is poised to have more impact on the world over the next 20 years than any other country," with the second-biggest economy, as the largest importer of natural resources and the biggest polluter, and as a leading military power having vast capacity for cyber warfare.

The world of 2025, a mere 17 years away, through the visioning eyes of the NIC, will be a fragmented world in which conflicts over scarce resources are on the rise and poorly contained by "ramshackle" international institutions, while nuclear proliferation, parti-cularly in the Middle East, and even nuclear conflict, grow more likely. But these, in my view, are precisely the conditions in which a world hungry for peace and safety above everything else will be desperately hunting for a superleader and a superstate. Global Obamamania is a sign of things to come.

The report, from its strong American angle of vision, is warning that the spread of Western democratic capitalism cannot be taken for gran-ted as it was by President George Bush and America's neo-conservatives. "The Western model of economic liberalism, democracy and secularism which many assumed to be inevitable, may lose its lustre - at least in the medium term." But, it is not just a failure of expansion of Western liberal democracy and capitalism that the world is now facing; it is its contraction - everywhere.

capitalist economies

The current financial crisis has seen a sudden and massive expansion of state intervention in and ownership of the commanding heights of capitalist economies and deepening public distrust of capitalism. And the world has been looking to America for leadership out of the crisis. So much for the decline of American power! "Today," the report says, "wealth is concentrating more under state control. In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, the state's role in the economy may be gaining more appeal in the world."

The earlier and ongoing 'War on Terrorism', plus fighting increasing internal lawlessness, had seen a progressive constriction of civil liberties in Western democracies. The citizens of Britain, for example, the home of modern parliamentary democracy and a liberty leader, are now the most watched in the world. Closed-circuit television is everywhere, a situation unmatched by any of the few remaining totalitarian states, and all in the interest of security and public order.

Of particular interest to Jamaica, the NIC report is predicting more failed and lawless states, like Somalia, by 2025. There will be a shift in some places from the state to non-state actors, such as corporations, tribes, religious groups and criminal gangs. "Several countries could even be taken over and run by criminal networks. While the eyes of the NIC are focused on 'backward' Africa and South Asia for this kind of meltdown of the state, they may be reminded that the disintegration of the state has played out in recent times in the Balkans in Europe and America itself, and much of the rest of Europe is facing 'fragmentation' into conflicting factions of various sorts. The solution will be more and more draconian anti-liberty measures for cohesion and order."

The world of 2025, just around the corner, will see conflicts over scarce resources, from oil to water. Scarcity of land, water, oil, food and 'airspace' for carbon emissions, with a global population of eight billion, will be the hallmarks of the times.

multi-polar world

The NIC's 2025 report fails to reconcile its predictions of weak international institutions like the United Nations being unable to handle the mega-problems of the planet and the declining power of the US, with a multi-polar world emerging. Where is that going to come from? "While the NIC's conclusions are in accord with President-elect Obama's stated preference for multilateralism," The Guardian says, "they suggest that it could become harder for Washington to put together 'coalitions of the willing' to pursue its agenda."

A far likelier scenario for 2025 is that the USA and the EU, with their shared histories, culture, ideo-logy - and old religions - and their new problems in a decaying and chaotic world, will form a North Atlantic axis of power aimed at driving a new world order whose primary goals will be peace and order.

India Security Faulted as Survivors Tell of Terror

from The Wall Street Journal

MUMBAI -- As waiters started setting dinner buffets in Mumbai's luxurious hotels, the killings that would ravage this Indian metropolis began out of sight, in the muddy waters of the Arabian Sea.

In the dusk hours of Wednesday, fisherman Chandrakant Tare was sailing his boat about 100 yards from a fishing trawler when he spotted young men killing a sailor on board. He says he saw them toss the body into the engine room. Assuming he had stumbled upon pirates, Mr. Tare says, he sped away.

Hours later, at least 10 terrorists, having arrived by small craft on the shores of Mumbai, began to sow death and destruction at will across India's financial capital.

View Full Image

European Pressphoto Agency

AFTERMATH: Cafe Leopold was the first scene of trouble.

Pieced together from interviews with dozens of witnesses and officials, this account of the three days of the battle for Mumbai shows just how a small but ruthless group of skilled militants, attacking multiple targets in quick succession, managed to bring one of the world's largest cities to its knees. The human toll -- currently at 174 fatalities, including nine terrorists -- was exacerbated by the Indian authorities' lack of preparedness for such a major attack. But the chain of events also points to just how vulnerable any major city can be to this type of urban warfare.

Authorities are still questioning the one captured terrorist, a 21-year-old Pakistani named Ajmal Qasab, who they say has confessed to training with outlawed Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. The investigation remains in its very early stages, and the identities of the killed militants remain unclear.

Around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, one dinghy with half a dozen young men landed at a trash-strewn fishing harbor near the southern tip of the Mumbai peninsula, witnesses say; a second arrived nearby shortly after. Mostly in their early- to mid-20s, the men came ashore wearing dark clothes and hauling heavy bags and backpacks, according to fisherman Ajay Mestry, who saw one of the landings. The group he saw split up and raced toward the shimmering city.

Tracking the Terrorists

View Interactive

Arriving by boat, a small team of terrorists spread out across Mumbai, instilling terror in India's largest city for three days.

When one young man with a bulging bag jogged up from the beach, Anita Rajendra Udayaar, the keeper of a roadside stall full of recycled plastic bottles, asked where he was heading. "Mind your own business!" he shouted back, she recalls.

Mumbai's attention that night was focused on one of the country's favorite sports: cricket. India was playing against England, and beating its old colonial master. In the open-air Cafe Leopold, a popular people-watching spot near the landing site, customers -- many of them foreign backpackers -- were watching the match.

At about 9:30 p.m., two gunmen with assault rifles appeared on the sidewalk, witnesses said. One stood at the entrance, the second to his left. Then they started firing.

Minutes later, they walked away, leaving more than a dozen casualties behind amid upturned, bloodied tables.

View Full Image

Landov

A shopkeeper near the Chabad House, a Jewish center attacked by the militants, cleans up.

At about the same time, two other gunmen arrived at a Bharat Petroleum gas station at the corner of a small alley that leads to Chabad House, also known as Nariman House, the local headquarters of the Brooklyn-based Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish movement.

With its small, faded sign, the five-story Chabad House -- which served as a guesthouse and source of kosher food for the many Israeli backpackers who travel through India -- is so hard to find that most visitors ask for directions at the gas station. But the militants knew their way, a station attendant says: Without stopping, they threw a hand grenade into the gas station, and walked into the alley.

Alarmed by the explosion, Chabad House's rabbi, Gavriel Holtzberg, called the Israeli consulate. The two gunmen burst into his building, taking a number of Israelis, a young Mexican Jewish woman, and the rabbi and his family hostage. It appears that they quickly shot dead one of the guests, an Israeli kosher ritual inspector, whose body would be found badly decomposed at the end of the siege.

The explosion and gunfire attracted the attention of neighbors. Some young men started throwing stones toward the building. Manush Goheil, a 25-year-old tailor, stepped outside the family's shop to get a better view. His brother Harish watched from the shop as a gunman shot him dead with a well-aimed bullet fired from the Chabad House's top floor.

View Full Image

Associated Press

Inside the center, terrorists executed hostages.

Around the same time about one mile north at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai's monumental colonial-era train station, two gunmen in dark T-shirts and hauling heavy backpacks walked down Platform 13, which opens into a large hall fringed by Re-Fresh Food Plaza, a fast-food outlet.

Throwing a hand grenade into the crowd of travelers, they unloaded volleys of gunfire. Bullets flew through the window where the station's manager, D.P. Chaudhari, observed the hall; he ducked down and survived. A colleague, S.K. Sharma, was cut down as he crossed the concourse. One bullet lodged in the stomach of Re-Fresh Plaza manager Mukesh Aggarwal. The gunmen peppered a bookstand at the back of the hall with bullets, shattering the glass next to a copy of "Complete Wellbeing" magazine, according to vendor Sarman Lal, who quivered on the floor saying his last prayers.

The two gunmen moved along two separate paths toward the station's main entrance, firing as they walked. They met virtually no resistance, even though several dozen police officers are usually deployed at the station. "They were killing the public, and the police just ran away," says Ram Vir, a coffee vendor whose stand is near Platform 8.

B.S. Sidhu, head of the Railway Protection Force for the Mumbai region, says that while some officers tried to fight back, there was little his force could do. Most police officers at the station -- as they are throughout India -- were unarmed or carried only bamboo sticks known as lathis. More than 40 people, including three police officers, were killed in just a few minutes, authorities said. The wounded survivors screamed for help amid acrid smoke, piles of slumped, bloodied bodies and spilling suitcases.

By then, shooting had begun in two other spots: Mumbai's most luxurious hotels, symbols of the city's prosperity that were packed with tourists, visiting executives, and the local elite out for dinner. The historic Taj Mahal Palace & Tower and a complex housing both the Oberoi and Trident hotels rise high above the sea on opposite sides of the southern tip of Mumbai.

Video

In the aftermath of bloody attacks, Mumbai residents raised questions about how they could have occurred and how a handful of terrorists could hold off waves of Indian commandos.

• Pakistani Link Boosts Tensions
• Attack Coverage Tests India's Media
• Attacks Linked to Pakistan Group
• Attacks to Speed Business Exodus
• Tata Chief Speaks Out After Attacks
• Attackers Likely Had Help Outside India
• Bush Statement: Terror Won't Have 'Final Word'
• Live Earth India Canceled
• For the Family of Victims, a Day of Waiting
• A Tragic End at Chabad House
• U.S. Victims Followed Spiritual Callings to India
• Fighting Rages On at Taj Mahal Hotel
• Shaken Mumbai Tourists Return Home
• Footage of the attacks from New Delhi TV
• Attacks Were Brutal and Well Organized
  

• Complete Coverage: Terror in Mumbai

At about 9:45 p.m., two gunmen, slender and in their mid-20s, ran up the circular driveway at the entrance to the Trident. They shot the security guard and two bellhops. The hotel had metal detectors, but none of its security personnel carried weapons because of the difficulties in obtaining gun permits from the Indian government, according to the hotel company's chairman, P.R.S. Oberoi. The gunmen raced through the marble-floored lobby, past the grand piano into the adjoining Verandah restaurant, firing at the guests and shattering the windows.

At the end of the lobby, they burst into a bar called the Opium Den, shooting dead a hotel staff member. Then they ran after a group of guests who tried to escape through a rear service area. They killed them, too.

The gunmen returned to the Verandah, climbed a staircase, dashed down a corridor lined with jewelry and clothes shops, and stopped in front of the glass doors of Tiffin Restaurant, a swanky restaurant with a sushi bar in the Oberoi hotel.

They killed four of six friends who live in south Mumbai and had just settled down at a table near the front door. One member of the group, a mother of two, threw herself to the ground and shut her eyes, pretending to be dead. The men circled the restaurant, firing at point blank range into anyone who moved before rushing upstairs to an Indian restaurant called Kandahar.

Restaurant workers there ushered guests closest to the kitchen inside. The assailants jumped in front of another group that tried to run out the door. "Stop," they shouted in Hindi. They corralled 16 diners and led them up to the 20th floor. One man in the group dialed his wife in London and told her he'd been taken hostage but was OK. "Everybody drop your phones," one of the assailants shouted, apparently overhearing. Phones clattered to the floor as the three women and 13 men dug through their purses and pockets and obeyed.

On the 20th floor, the gunmen shoved the group out of the stairwell. They lined up the 13 men and three women and lifted their weapons. "Why are you doing this to us?" a man called out. "We haven't done anything to you."

"Remember Babri Masjid?" one of the gunmen shouted, referring to a 16th-century mosque built by India's first Mughal Muslim emperor and destroyed by Hindu radicals in 1992.

"Remember Godhra?" the second attacker asked, a reference to the town in the Indian state of Gujarat where religious rioting that evolved into an anti-Muslim pogrom began in 2002.

Where the Attacks Took Place

Gunfire was reported at luxury hotels, a restaurant, police headquarters and a train station.

"We are Turkish. We are Muslim," someone in the group screamed. One of the gunmen motioned for two Turks in the group to step aside.

Then they pointed their weapons at the rest and squeezed the triggers.

A few minutes later they walked upstairs to the terrace. Unbeknownst to the terrorists, four of the men were still alive; one of the survivors later provided the account of the shooting to The Wall Street Journal.

At the vaunted Taj hotel across the peninsula, two terrorists arrived from their attack on Cafe Leopold by about 9:45 p.m., broke down a side door and entered the building, according to a police officer investigating the attacks.

Two others entered the hotel's modern lobby, opened fire and threw grenades. As guests dashed for cover, the two pairs united. They would keep Indian police and commandos at bay for another 60 hours as they rampaged through the building.

Uptown, the two gunmen who had attacked the train station -- recorded by the station's surveillance cameras -- reached the nearby Cama Hospital for women and children, authorities said, shooting dead two unarmed guards at the entrance and racing up the stairs. By then, news of the attacks had spread in the neighborhood. A number of policemen ran into the hospital as nurses herded expectant mothers into one room and locked themselves inside, a duty doctor says.

Hotline Numbers

• The U.S. State Department has established a Consular Call Center for Americans concerned about family or friends who may be visiting or living in Mumbai, India. The number is (88....
• The U.K. government has set up hotlines for people worried about the safety of friends and family. The U.K. number is 44 .... The number in India is (0091) 1124192288.

On the top floor, the terrorists and the police traded fire near a poster that reads "Mother's Milk is Best for Babies." The policemen were badly outgunned. The gunmen killed one officer and escaped down the stairs, into a narrow alley that separates Cama Hospital from another hospital called GT.

In the alley, the state of Maharashtra's antiterrorism chief, Hemant Karkare, sat in a police SUV packed with fellow officers, trying to coordinate a response to the mayhem engulfing the city. Creeping up, the two militants sprayed the vehicle with gunfire.

The officers appear to have died before any of them had a chance to fire back. The wall and metal blinds behind the van's spot are riddled with bullets. Not a single bullet mark could be seen by a reporter in the area from which the terrorists fired.

Dumping three of the officers' bodies on the ground and taking the others with them, the two militants jumped into the SUV and sped towards the Metro Big Cinemas multiplex. As they passed a crowd of journalists and onlookers, the SUV slowed down, a gun barrel emerged from the window, and bullets started to fly. Then, the vehicle sped on, with another police vehicle in hot pursuit. At one point, the gunmen ditched the SUV and hijacked a Skoda, police said, cruising through southern Mumbai -- possibly looking for an escape route. Two hours later, they ran into a large police roadblock erected on a key road leading out of south Mumbai, at Chowpatty Beach.

Skidding to a halt 30 feet away from the roadblock, the Skoda's driver blinded the police with high beams and, flipping wipers, began spraying fluid on the windshield so that officers couldn't see into the car, said sub-inspector Bhaskar Kadam, one of the officers manning the roadblock.

The three policemen armed with guns drew them. The nine others waved their bamboo sticks. Revving the engine, the car tried to U-turn but got stuck on the median. The man in the passenger seat rolled out and started shooting, killing one officer and wounding another. The surviving baton-wielding officers jumped on him, knocking him unconscious. Policemen with guns shot the driver dead.

This pair's killing spree was over. Police later identified the gunman taken alive as Mr. Qasab, from the Punjab region of Pakistan, who they say is providing details of the plot.

Back at the Taj Mahal Palace, staff members had been calling room after room, advising hundreds of guests to lock the doors, switch off all the lights, and hide, guests and staff said.

At about 11 p.m., K.R. Ramamoorthy, the 69-year-old nonexecutive chairman of ING Visya Bank, heard men in the corridor knock on his sixth-floor room, he says. "Room service," one of them called out in English.

Silence.

"Shoe polish," the same voice called out.

Mr. Ramamoorthy moved to the bathroom, accidentally banging the door. The two gunmen blasted the room door's lock open and entered. They tied Mr. Ramamoorthy's hands and feet, he says, using his long Indian top known as a kurta, and his pajama bottoms. Then they ordered him to kneel on the ground. "I'm 69 years old. I have high-blood pressure. Please let me go," he recalls begging.

"We'll leave you, we'll let you go," one of the men replied, he says. They turned him over so he lay face down on the floor.

Over the next hour or two, the two men spoke on their mobile phones in his room, seeming relaxed and happy, Mr. Ramamoorthy says. He couldn't tell much of what they said but made out the word "grenade" several times, he says. They ate some snacks from the minibar. Then, two more gunmen showed up in the room, dragging four other hostages -- all uniformed hotel staff.

"What are your names and occupations?" the men asked the five hostages.

"I am Ramamoorthy from Bangalore," Mr. Ramamoorthy says he replied.

"What is your work?" one of the assailants asked in Hindi.

"I am a teacher," he replied.

"No way can a teacher afford to stay here," shouted the gunman, he recalls. "You better tell us the truth."

"I work for a bank," Mr. Ramamoorthy admitted.

The assailants were distracted by calls on their mobile phones. Minutes later, pushing the five hostages in front of them, the gunmen descended the staircase to a fifth-floor room. They shoved the hostages inside, laid them face down on the floor, and left.

Mr. Ramamoorthy says he managed to free his hands and untied the others. By now, a fire possibly started by a grenade explosion was spreading through the sixth floor of the Taj hotel. As the choking smoke from the blazing fire enveloped the room, one of the four hotel staffers ripped off curtains and bedsheets, creating an improvised rope. The staffers used the rope to shimmy down the balcony outside to the third-floor ledge.

Certain he didn't have the physical strength to follow suit, Mr. Ramamoorthy backtracked and descended via the smoke-filled staircase to the third floor. Some time later, he noticed the glare of searchlights. He opened the window and waved and shouted. Firefighters saw him and lifted a ladder to the window. "You are safe," he says they told him. He looked at his watch. It was 6 a.m. Thursday.

As the fires set by the militants burned through the hotel during the night, the general manager, Karimbir Kang, was busy shepherding hotel residents like Mr. Ramamoorthy to safety. Mr. Kang didn't manage to rescue his own wife, Neeti, and two young children: They died in the blaze.

In the other hotel complex taken over by the militants, the Oberoi-Trident, gunmen returned to the 20th floor at around 6 a.m. Thursday. They pulled out their mobile phones and filmed the sprawled bodies of executed diners. The four injured men who survived the firing line there -- one squashed under two bodies -- were still playing dead, trying not to move.

"We'll booby-trap the bodies with bombs," one of the gunmen said into the phone. As soon as the two terrorists left, the four injured men crept out to a terrace and hid behind a cooling tower, says one of the men. For more than 24 hours, they didn't move from their hiding place, drinking small amounts of red liquid inside the cooling system to soothe their thirst, the man says.

Authorities had asked the Mumbai-based Marine Commandos to help at the Taj in the first hours after the takeover of the hotels. But the so-called MarCos struggled to figure out the entrances and exits in the hotel and found it hard to match the gunmen who moved with ease through the building and seemed to know the structure inside out. The gunmen also were accustomed to operating in darkness, a commander on the force said.

At 6.30 a.m. Thursday, commandos from India's National Security Guard finally arrived -- after they first waited for hours while authorities located a plane to pick them up at New Delhi, then waited for transportation from Mumbai's airport to the hotels under attack. The NSG commandos had proper equipment and training. They surrounded both the Taj and the Oberoi complex and a prolonged siege began.

The terrorists moved frequently through both buildings to confuse their pursuers and create the impression of greater numbers. Still, two of them found time on Thursday to call a local TV station to rant about India's mistreatment of Muslims.

As the fighting went on, new fires broke out at both the Taj and the Oberoi in the evening, sending plumes of smoke into the sky. "Every time the terrorists were in a corner and under stress...they set fire to the curtains," said J.K. Dutt, director general of the NSG.

By Friday morning, the NSG began to achieve real progress. At roughly 9 a.m. that day, Bill Bakshi heard a knock on his 19th-floor room in the annex section of the Taj. A diabetic who was running low on insulin, he peeked through the eyehole in hope of rescue and saw three uniformed men with assault rifles, he says. "They wouldn't say who they were," says Mr. Bakshi, a 63-year-old who owns a textile company. "They were scared, too -- they didn't know who was inside, either."

Mr. Bakshi opened the door. The next thing he knew, he says, he had three gun barrels thrust in his face. It took a couple minutes to convince the NSG men that he was not a terrorist, he says.

By late Friday morning, the NSG cleared out the annex section of the Taj, freeing hostages there. It also succeeded in storming the Oberoi, killing one gunman in a corridor and another in a bedroom. As they combed the hotel room by room, bringing out to safety the four injured men hiding behind the cooling system, the commandos found 32 other bodies inside.

At the Taj and the besieged Chabad House, the fighting continued. Two militants holed up inside the Jewish center had blown off the doors of the elevator on every floor, and used the shaft to hide whenever NSG commandos fired back.

It appears that they executed their hostages one by one as the commandos closed in. Two young women guests, their wrists tied with white plastic rope, lay on the same bed, bullet holes in their heads, according to a photograph taken later at the scene. The terrorists shot Rabbi Holtzberg and his wife, who fell next to each other. As darkness fell, NSG commandos blasted a wall with explosives and finally penetrated the building. They killed the gunmen.

At the Taj, the battle raged into Friday night, with one of the gunmen opening fire from a window and shooting at the hundreds of journalists who gathered to cover the siege on the plaza outside. None were hit.

By Saturday morning, however, the commandos had taken over most of the building. They set a fire to smoke out three surviving terrorists, cornered in a restaurant called Wasabi, up a spiral staircase from the lobby. Two of the gunmen were shot dead. The third was hit with bullets as he tumbled backwards out of a window and onto the plaza outside. "After that," said Mr. Dutt, the NSG chief, "There was no more shooting."

—Niraj Sheth in Mumbai and Krishna Pokharel in New Delhi contributed to this article.

Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com, Geeta Anand at geeta.anand@wsj.com, Peter Wonacott at peter.wonacott@wsj.com and Matthew Rosenberg at matthew.rosenberg@wsj.com