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Their gadgets included satellite phones, mobile phones with Internet connectivity and global positioning system equipment. The terrorists, alleged to have come from Karachi, Pakistan, hijacked a fishing trawler off Porbandar port in the Indian state of Gujarat, killed the four-member crew and navigated their way to their entry point in Mumbai using their GPS equipment and a satellite phone. The trawler, along with the slain crew and the high-tech equipment, was found abandoned about four nautical miles from Mumbai.
A close examination of the GPS gadget revealed that it was programmed with a return route, and security forces say the satellite phone was used to communicate with the terrorist outfit Laskhar-e-Taiba in Pakistan, which is believed to be behind the attacks. Having reached Mumbai, the terrorists split into groups and headed toward their targets, also using technology to navigate their way through the intricate lanes of the city.
J.K. Dutta, head of India’s National Security Guard, the crack commandos who eventually managed to free Mumbai from the terrorists, told the media, “The terrorists were well-trained and were capable of communicating with each other even as they were holed up in different places and surrounded by security forces.”
According to the NSG, all the terrorists carried mobile phones with Pakistani SIM cards. Two satellite phones were also found in their possession.
While the terrorists were taking hostages in two luxury hotels in Mumbai and a Jewish residential building, local authorities disconnected power supplies to the buildings and cable TV connections in the hotels to block access to information from the outside. These measures also allowed security forces to keep the terrorists in the dark as to their strategic movements, even though they were constantly being reported by the media.
However, according to the NSG, the terrorists managed to access some of that information through the Internet on their mobile phones. The NSG suspects that the gunmen’s ability to access the Internet while holed up in the hotels was one reason they could maintain their siege for so many hours.
Using their mobile phones to access information and communicate with each other, four terrorists at the luxury Taj Hotel managed to keep hundreds of security men at bay for hours. In contrast, the Indian commando group was found to be woefully lagging behind in its technology use. In reply to a question as to whether the NSG had wireless Internet connectivity within its force, Dutt said, “We are not given wireless equipment; we were using our cell phones.”
“One of the fallouts of the Mumbai attacks is a realization that terrorists are now a new breed that is not only using technology as weapons, but is also using it to exploit security loopholes,” a source from one of India’s security agencies said.
He added that the attacks had given India the impetus to take a fresh look at global technological advancements that had been worrying India’s security forces for a while. One such technology is Blackberry’s revolutionary “push email” service, invented by Canada’s Information technology company, Research in Motion.
For the past year the Department of Telecommunications, which monitors and controls telecom operations in India, has been struggling with the Canadian company to get access to the keys of the encryption code for emails that flow out of RIM servers.
RIM has commercial arrangements with mobile telecom operators in India to protect the privacy of subscribers, and does not allow security agencies to monitor the flow of data from its servers. The agencies consider this a threat to national security, since terrorists could use this service for their communications. While the Telecom Department wants RIM to share the encryption code with security agencies, RIM says its privacy policy does not allow it to make such arrangements with any government.
The other technology irritant for security experts is Google Earth, which provides detailed and unhindered views of “sensitive” Indian establishments. Although some of the problems associated with Google Earth pictures have been addressed by considerable blurring of images of sensitive military and scientific establishments, security agencies say the service continues to be a “ready reckoning for terrorists.”
The Home Ministry of Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital city, said the terrorists had used Google Earth to familiarize themselves with the city. Sources said that New Delhi has decided to take a fresh look at how to tighten controls on communication channels, including these technology issues.
Meanwhile, a new technology that has come under the scanner is satellite phones. The Telecom Department said it is formulating policies for monitoring and intercepting satellite phone communications in India. Mobile phone calls can be monitored since such calls pass through base stations within a country. But operators of satellite phone services do not interconnect with local operators, which makes it impossible, at least for India, to trace the origins and termination points of satellite phone calls.
The terrorists in Mumbai used satellite phone services offered by Thuraya in the United Arab Emirates and a consortium led by Inmarsat.
