Mumbai Terror Attack could have been Prevented if Spy Agencies solved the Digital Puzzle

According to an investigative report the Mumbai terror attacks of 2008 in India might have partly been due to intelligence agencies of major countries being unable to put together the pieces of a digital puzzle.

It is believed that the spy agencies of the United States, as well as those of Britain and India were able to pick up data during digital surveillance which may have been linked to the terror attack, however, they were not able to link their findings to form a coherent picture of the terrorists plan.

The report published by New York Times and other publications stated, “…hidden history of the Mumbai attacks reveals the vulnerability as well as the strengths of computer surveillance and intercepts as a counter-terrorism weapon.”

An excerpt of the report, published by the Press Trust of India, read, “What happened next may rank among the most devastating near-misses in the history of spycraft. The intelligence agencies of the three nations did not pull together all the strands gathered by their high-tech surveillance and other tools, which might have allowed them to disrupt a terror strike so scarring that it is often called India’s 9/11.”

The report also revealed that Zarrar Shah, the person leading the technological side of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group which carried out the Mumbai attack, was under surveillance and his online activities were being monitored by several intelligence agencies.

However, failure to connect the dots and link the gathered data to the actual plan resulted in the agencies’ inability to prevent it. This report comes as a reminder of how technology can be used positively and negatively and may necessitate moderation and surveillance to prevent such incidents from taking place in the future.

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Posted by Hunain Naseer on Dec 23 2014. Filed under Latest News, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.