Implications of the Mumbai Mayhem

What struck Mumbai on Wednesday night was no conventional terrorists attack. It had an entirely different dimension. As a matter of fact, the terrorists mounting an assault on different targets in Mumbai introduced a new phenomena in terrorists' warfare. Terrorism has produced a new state of the art doctrine in the realm this new warfare. By a well coordinated serial explosion and indiscriminate firing at hotels, hospitals, bus stands cinema halls including the crowded Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) Railway Station through a perfect blitz, the terrorists virtually took hostage certain posh areas of Mumbai, which is India's major port, financial capital and the worlds largest film producing bonanza second only to Hollywood in California.
Guests, including foreigners staying in two 5-star and one 7-star hotel were taken hostage many of them could not be rescued in spite of special anti-terror squads that had been flown in from New Delhi. According to latest reports (as I write this scribe), 130 people, including an unspecified number of foreigners were killed and nine hundred received injuries of multiple nature. This type of terrorism and crossfire in urban areas or metropolitan's by terrorists is unheard of. This implies assault by trained group of terrorists fighting to the extent of last man, last round and causing maximum destruction of property and killing of innocent people till the end. This is different from a single suicide bomber blowing himself up and causing death and destruction in the limited area around him. Those fighting the war against terror in Iraq, Afghanistan and the tribal belt of Pakistan, have still not found the answer to deal with this growing menace.
This war, with its new dimension, has brought to the forefront, in South Asia, not only the military aspect of countering the threat, but more importantly, the political aspect as to the cause of it. Whereas the issue in Pakistan is, "who's war is it?" How to counter it; is a debate going on both inside and outside the Parliament.