Mumbai Attack Plan Used Google Earth

[katharnak]

[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Washington, May 16: Citing the example of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, a top US military commander has warned of the dangers posed by "democratisation" of technology in future warfare.[/font]

[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]"Now, in many ways, technology has been democratised," Marine Corps Lt. Gen. George J. Flynn said at the sixth annual 2012 Joint Warfighting Conference at Virginia Beach Tuesday.[/font]

[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Referring to the greater availability of information potentially empowering conventional and non-traditional state actors, he cited a Harvard Business Review article detailing the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack as an example.[/font]

[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]"All the mission planning was done via Google Earth," he said. "There was no investment in technology of [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] platforms or anything like that."[/font]

[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Flynn said the terrorists used cellular phone networks as command and control and social media to track and thwart the efforts of Indian commandos. [/font]

[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]"How much technology or how much investment was made to create that terrorist capability?" he asked.[/font]

[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]The future operating environment -- both the technology and the threat -- will continue to increase at greater rates of change due to the accessibility of information, Flynn said.[/font]

[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]"Space and cyber will continue to play an increased role in events, with each becoming increasingly contested domains -- so it's a new domain that we're going to have to contest." [/font]

[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]"Security challenges will have both local and global aspects, we think, with events occurring across the globe,"he said. "So the bottom line [is that] if you liked the past challenges of the past 11 years, you will like the future." [/font]