My friend and colleague Bruce Schneier asked me about the Mumbai attacks — in particular, the "low" number of casualties per terrorist. Based on current information, the ratio of fatal casualties per terrorist seems to be in the range of 10 to 30 per terrorist (at the high end, assuming 10 terrorists and 300 fatalities). Given that the siege lasted a long time, that the venues of the attacks were undefended, and that the victims were unarmed, wouldn't we expect more causalities? (See slide 15 in this presentation; a complex attack such as the Mumbai attack can have much higher fatalities per terrorist.)
The answer to this question is two-fold. First, the limits on the amounts of ammunition each terrorist carried. Second, the difficulties in actually inflicting fatal casualties.
First, let's ask how much ammunition each terrorist carried. Assuming that each terrorist carried eight hand grenades and a pistol, we can make the following approximate calculations:
| Item | Weight (grams) |
|---|---|
| Glock 17 Pistol | 650 |
| Two loaded pistol magazines | 560 |
| Eight hand grenades | 2400 |
| 1 liter of water | 1000 |
| 1 kg of food | 1000 |
| Cellphone, maps, cash, knife, etc. | 500 |
Assuming that the terrorists each carried 22 kg — perhaps on the high side given the size of the bags the terrorists are shown wearing — then they could each carry an additional twenty-seven Kalashnikov (AK-47) magazines of 30 rounds each (576 grams each) for a total of 810 rounds of ammunition. While my numbers may be off, they do give us an idea of how many rounds each terrorist could expend: 810 from his assault rifle and 34 from his pistol.
It's hard to tell, but there doesn't seem to have been much in the way of pitched gun battles between the terrorists and the security forces; pitched battles could consume ammunition very rapidly while resulting in low casualties. Even so, one reason for the "low" casualty count is that the terrorists probably weren't carrying as much ammunition as one might expect — not thousands of rounds — and they probably reserved a good part of that ammunition for firefights with police and the military.
The next reason for the "low" fatality count is that in order to kill someone, you must arrange for your bullet to intersect with one of the victim's vital organs or to cause them to bleed to death. This isn't as easy as it may seem. After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Israeli Army determined that they expended 10,000 bullets per enemy fatality. As a result the Israeli Army changed their doctrine to require that all weapons be fired in single-shot mode and that all fire be aimed fire — no shooting from the hip.
The terrorists, however, did shoot from the hip. Furthermore, the hotels were not high-density kill zones: while many people may be present in a restaurant, the people are dispersed and fire towards one side of the room allows people at the other side time to move, evade, and escape; many did. After the initial attacks the terrorists did use their weapons as threats, which allowed the terrorists to force their victims to move into small hotel rooms with no exits — high-density kill zones. As for the railroad stations: again, despite firing into a potentially high-density kill zone, while a bullet may hit someone it does not necessarily create a fatal wound, and unaimed fire even at short ranges wastes ammunition. This, by the way, explains why the terrorists carried hand grenades; fragmentation grenades are very effective weapons which can kill any person standing within 4 to 10 meters and inflict casualties at much further distances.
Finally, a word about the response of the Indian forces to the attacks. Please remember that the terrorists hold a huge advantage: they want to inflict harm on innocent bystanders, and if the terrorists can arrange for civilian casualties to occur during a police or military rescue attempt, those casualties will create even further harm to the government — a win-win situation from the terrorists' perspective. The police and military face a tough problem: avoid casualties to their own forces; avoid casualties to innocent bystanders and hostages; neutralize the terrorists. These tasks have inherent contradictions, and a major incident such as this one strains the limit of the police and military to plan and execute a response.
Topics: · military · terrorism
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Moshe Yudkowsky wrote at 2008-12-01 19:20:
@Kavan, Interesting thought. In the early stages they killed at random, in the restaurants, to spread terror, rivet attention, and trigger a vulnerable first-responder police response; in later stages they targeted Americans and UK citizens.
You'll note that they did not issue any demands -- the message of their actions is that there were no demands to meet.
Joel Rosenberg wrote at 2008-12-02 11:22:
Depends on what their goals were. In a country with more than a billion people, of which a negligible percentage are Jews, the terrorists managed to torture and kill a preposterously large number of Jews.
Neighborcat wrote at 2008-12-02 19:04:
In a country with more than a billion people, of which a negligible percentage eat in restaurants, the terrorists managed to torture and kill a preposterously large number of restaurant patrons.
NC
Moshe Yudkowsky wrote at 2008-12-02 23:12:
@Neighborcat, I don't agree with your calculations. The question isn't what proportion of people eat in restaurants -- it's not relevant if someone in another city wasn't in a restaurant that evening.
The question is how many people were in the restaurants at the time of the attacks (density) and how many patrons were killed and injured per round fired.
Neighborcat wrote at 2008-12-03 21:54:
Mr. Yudkowsky,
Indeed that is the question presented in your post, and you continue with an insightful analysis. My post admittedly has little to do with your writing, but instead was in response to Mr. Rosenberg's post which appeared to me to suggest anti-semitic motive in the attack. Mr. Rosenberg's own observation that the percentage of Jews in the population of India is low raises the question of why the attackers chose a location in India if anti-semitism was the motive.
Regarding your writing, I personally consider the fatality per attacker to be fairly high, indicating more than a minimal amount of planning and training. I also think it unlikely that the attackers developed their skills and plans themselves. If this is the case, an analysis of the tactical details may provide clues to the background or even possibly the identity of the trainers.
NC
Moshe Yudkowsky wrote at 2008-12-03 22:31:
@NeighborCat, thanks for clarifying.
I agree with you that the terrorists showed discipline and training; in particular, they were able to successfully engage policemen wearing "bulletproof" vests, and their tactics when confronted by a police roadblock showed that they'd practiced the maneuver.
I do believe that the terrorists deliberately targeted the Jewish Center. Not only does it beggar belief that they picked that location at random, but their deliberate torture and execution, and their direct beeline to the obscure unmarked location, shows deliberation. (There's apparently a claim floating through the media that the intrusion was random or accidental.) Of course it also beggars belief that the entire operation was motivated by antisemitism.
The "low" number of casualties is highly debatable. At some future date, we may be able to discover the casualties per team.
Regardless, the operation was a resounding success. They've succeeded in terrorizing India, and even more amazingly they have succeeded in scuttling the emerging rapprochement between India and Pakistan.
Neighborcat wrote at 2008-12-04 18:22:
It is apparent that the Jewish Center was deliberately targeted, and yet, as you likely recognize, this is still not evidence that anti-semitism played any role in the attackers motive.
Any serious analysis of asymmetric warfare recognizes that the goal of the actions is not to change government policy by direct force or depletion of resources, rather it is to generate the maximum amount of publicity for whatever agenda is being pursued. It follows that given a range of possible targets, those with the highest probability of generating publicity will be the ones selected.
(A Note: I avoid the term "terrorism". An attack is an act largely beyond our control. Terror is a response within our control. I also avoid it due to it's misapplication by the U.S. government as a means of distracting the U.S. public, and as justification for reducing civil liberties. Civil disobedience, theft, and even murder are not terrorism. The success of the American colonists in overthrowing British rule was due in large part to adopting the tactics of asymmetric warfare, yet we do not consider our country to have been founded by terrorists. In this denial we are hypocritical.)
Rural villages are not targets. Homeless shelters are not targets. Infrastructure is typically not a target unless the loss will cause serious physical or economic harm to a population.
Any "Center" is a high value target. Government Centers, Jewish Centers, Athletic Centers, Educational Centers, Healthcare Centers, etc. are all high value targets because of their connection to a larger organization with the resources to publicize the act or directly affect government policy.
"Centers" also tend to have a high human density, hence their name. By definition they are places where people gather. I would argue that the specific charter of a given Center, such as advocacy of the Jewish faith, is unimportant. The economic and political connections of the the parent organization are important.
In closing, I am encouraged by the vocal refusal to be "terrorized" displayed by at least a small portion of the people of India. To gather and stand in the aftermath of an attack and demonstrate "We will not be moved." is a show of true strength. It is sad their numbers are so small.
To allow a small group of attackers to reverse the rapprochement between two nuclear powers may be the end of us all. This is a choice that can still be unmade.
Retaliation in kind, such as that pursued by the US after the destruction of the WTC, lowers the attacked to the level of the attackers, and gives the attackers evidence of their strength.
If bitten by a mosquito, we do not dedicate our lives to their elimination. We brush it off. The bite hurts, but is forgotten in a moment. The mosquito remains an insignificant pest.
(As long as it does not transmit a disease. Here, the analogy admittedly breaks down.)
NC
Moshe Yudkowsky wrote at 2008-12-14 07:52:
@Neighborcat,
Thank you for your response and analysis. I do not agree with all of your points, but they certainly merit discussion.
One item, however, I cannot leave unchallenged. The Mumbai metropolitan area, one of the world's largest five, contains over 20 million human beings. As Mark Steyn points out, "In a well-planned attack on iconic Bombay landmarks symbolizing great power and wealth, the 'militants' nevertheless found time to divert 20 percent of their manpower to torturing and killing a handful of obscure Jews in a nondescript building... why kill the only rabbi in Bombay?"
I dispute your contention that the Jews were chosen at random, merely because they had a "center" among many other centers. This was a deliberate act of Islamist terror directed deliberately against the Jews <em>qua</em> Jews; while one can speculate at length as to its purpose, one cannot deny that it was purposeful.
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Kavan Wolfe wrote at 2008-12-01 19:13: