New Terror Architecture in South Asia 26/11 Mumbai Attacks Inquiry Saroj Kumar Rath Abstract Mumbai attacks remain a mystery for long despite the capture of a ‘Lashkar-e-Taiba’ terrorist on the night of 26 November 2008. Pakistan took 77 days to admit its citizen’s involvement, Mumbai police consumed 90 days to file the chargesheet and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) spent a year to arrest a couple of conspirators. The plotters of the attacks belong to five countries (US, Canada, Italy, Pakistan and India) involving three continents. Presently nearly a dozen courts across the world are hearing the case. ‘LeT’ is now considered as the most dangerous terror group in recent time after al Qaeda. Unravelling the Mumbai conspiracy and the new terror architecture in South Asia is chal- lenging as with each passing day mysterious but fresh facts related to the attacks are trickling. The new terror architecture employed in South Asia in recent time is a shift in tactics from suicide bombs to a commando-style military assault with small teams of highly trained, heavily armed operatives launching simultaneous, sustained attacks. Keywords Terrorism, security, Mumbai attacks, ISI, LeT Introduction The article analyses the operationalisation of the Mumbai terror attacks looking primarily into the planning, design, execution and investigation of the attacks. Empirically the article examines the declassi- fied documents and information about the Mumbai attacks and endeavours to connect the dots in the whole structure of the crime. The study provides complicated but specific information about the terror module employed for the attack. Efforts are made to test empirically the notion of new terror archi- tecture in South Asia through the incriminating indictment materials produced by the Government of India and the Government of US. The analysis includes a brief examination of the lengthy judgment pronounced by the special session court. With the interest in terrorism increasing, the findings of the study will be immensely useful in understanding terrorism in South Asia. In the beginning the article presents a brief review of the terror attacks in Mumbai. Subsequent section describes about the involved Article India Quarterly 66(4) 359–381 © 2010 Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) SAGE Publications Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC DOI: 10.1177/097492841006600403 http://iqq.sagepub.com NOT FOR COMMERCIAL USE