U.S. Warned India About Mumbai Attacks

Neil Richard Leslie | December 03, 2008

The U.S. warned India about the recent attacks in Mumbai according to unnamed officials. BBC:

On Tuesday, a US official told the Associated Press that the Indian authorities had been told of an apparent plot to launch an attack on Mumbai from the sea. Mumbai police chief Hassan Gafoor later appeared to confirm the report by saying that there had been a known threat to at least some of the locations targeted, including the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. Security authorities had "had an alert that hotels like Taj could be exposed to such danger", he told a news conference.
ABC News also quoted Indian officials as saying that after receiving the US warning, they also intercepted a satellite phone message on 18 November warning of a seaborne attack on Mumbai. The city had been on high alert, but security measures at the targeted hotels had recently been relaxed, the US television network said.

Lashkar-e-Toiba, the group believed to be behind the Mumbai terror was involded in previous attacks in India, although they have denied responsibility for the most recent tragedy. The U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell said:

"The same group that we believe is responsible for Mumbai had a similar attack in 2006 attack on a train and killed a similar number of people [. . .] Go back to 2001 and it was an attack on the parliament."

He is the first U.S. official to publicly declare a belief that Lashkar-e-Toiba was behind the Mumbai attacks. Additionally, correspondents say the alleged U.S. intelligence warning is likely to add to growing public anger that they were not prevented. Meanwhile India's home minister and the chief and deputy chief ministers of Maharashtra state have all resigned.