BBC: Six Shot at New Delhi Airport

Michael C. Moynihan | December 4, 2008

According to a BBC report, six gunmen were shot and killed at New Delhi's "main international airport" today. The BBC report is here, with few details thus far, though the AP is on the story too.

Update: The BBC has amended their original story, now calling the incident in India a "shooting scare."

The police force in charge of security at Delhi's main airport has denied reports that people have been shot and injured there.

Police are investigating "two sharp sounds that were heard at the airport", the force told the BBC's Delhi bureau.

Earlier, airport officials said shots had been fired, and that several gunmen had been killed or injured.

Security has been strengthened at Indian airports after warnings of possible attacks.

Comments

BDB|12.4.08 @ 4:11PM|#

How the hell can we ask them to refrain from attacking Pakistan without looking like rank hypocrites?

|12.4.08 @ 4:12PM|#

According to a BBC report, six gunmen were shot and killed at New Delhi's "main international airport" today.

From the link:

The police force in charge of security at Delhi's main airport has denied reports that people have been shot and injured there.

There's an itchy trigger finger/quick on the draw joke in here somewhere.

LGF Fan |12.4.08 @ 4:18PM|#

"joe | December 4, 2008, 4:12pm | #
There's an itchy trigger finger/quick on the draw joke in here somewhere."

What you are referring to is what we call a "terrorgasm".

|12.4.08 @ 4:19PM|#

What you are referring to is what we call a "terrorgasm".

Wouldn't it be awesome if the Maryland sniper turned out to be a threefer?

H/t to the first person who idenfies the source.

EJM|12.4.08 @ 4:24PM|#

"Delhi airport normal despite shooting report"

|12.4.08 @ 4:25PM|#

Individuals who have been through life and death violence become "hypervigilant" i.e. reacting strongly to any sudden stimulus. (This is why police officers are put on desk duty after they have to use their weapons. Their reflexes are over-primed.)

Terrorist attacks seem to provoke the same phenomenon on a social scale. The unpredictable nature of the attacks makes it worse I think.

We've got to get terrorism under control or we'll find ourselves in a de facto security state.

ed|12.4.08 @ 4:25PM|#

Update: The BBC has amended their original story,
now calling the incident in India a "shooting scare."

But just to be safe, schools in NYC are under lockdown,
by order of Commandant Bloomberg.

|12.4.08 @ 4:29PM|#

BDB

I think we'd better hope that the Indians don't attack Pakistan. That would be a disaster.

While it is true that Pakistan has many groups that are hostile to India, there's little evidence that the government is involved. It's true that the Pakistani government has been behind hostile acts against India before but I think we can be fairly sure that except for some rogues in the military that's all in the past. Naturally Pakistan needs to brought to account if any such individuals are not dealt with if they are exposed.

One also needs to take note of the fact that India itself is full of its own subversives and terrorists. With Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Tamils all having groups with grievances it's surely premature to lay this one off on the Pakistanis.

Especially since it seems to be a false alarm. :)

BDB|12.4.08 @ 4:31PM|#

"Isaac Bartram | December 4, 2008, 4:29pm | #
BDB

I think we'd better hope that the Indians don't attack Pakistan. That would be a disaster."

I agree. That was kind of my point. Our policy re:, preemptive war, makes it hard to do this without looking like assholes, though.

rightfiti|12.4.08 @ 4:42PM|#

We've got to get terrorism under control or we'll find ourselves in a de facto security state.


It seems like under the pretense of getting terrorism under control we are finding ourselves in a de facto security state.

Plaxico|12.4.08 @ 4:43PM|#

Shouldn't be carrying those Glock .40s in the swearpants w/o a holster.

Naga Sadow|12.4.08 @ 4:44PM|#

BDB,

Hypocrites? Us? Refer to Euphemus of Athens my friend.

"To an imperial city nothing is inconsistent which is expedient"

rightfiti|12.4.08 @ 4:45PM|#

I have four pet squirrels and they are NUTS!

lde|12.4.08 @ 5:02PM|#

It's beginning to look like India is going to beat the US to the punch of attacking India

|12.4.08 @ 5:24PM|#

Update: The BBC has amended their original story, now calling the incident in India a "shooting scare."

*Never* go with the first report of an event. It will always be wrong in one way or another.

|12.4.08 @ 5:25PM|#

H/t to the first person who idenfies the source.

Charles Moose?

You can say that again|12.4.08 @ 5:29PM|#

*Never* go with the first report of an event. It will always be wrong in one way or another.

EJM|12.4.08 @ 5:45PM|#

As AFP now reports...

"We have combed the airport inch by inch and we have found nothing. The same is for the domestic airport. Nothing has happened," said K. R. Singh, an official at the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) airport control room.

[...]

"All our men are still searching but have found nothing. We have no incident," he added, rejecting unconfirmed media reports of a shooting incident at Indira Gandhi International Airport.

|12.4.08 @ 5:46PM|#

Shouldn't be carrying those Glock .40s in the swearpants w/o a holster.

Swear Pants?

F*ck!

|12.4.08 @ 5:47PM|#

Charles Moose?

Nope. I'll give a hint: "threefer" referred to the possibility that he might be black, Muslim, and gay.

BDB|12.4.08 @ 5:49PM|#

"You can say that again | December 4, 2008, 5:29pm | #
*Never* go with the first report of an event. It will always be wrong in one way or another."

Also, you might draw the "B" backwards.

rhywun|12.4.08 @ 5:53PM|#

We've got to get terrorism under control or we'll find ourselves in a de facto security state.

You haven't visited NYC lately, have you. Especially the Wall Street area.

thoreau|12.4.08 @ 5:58PM|#

rhywun-

Given how Wall Street is doing, is there even anything worth protecting there? Or are the cops just there to serve the eviction notices and assist the repo men?

rhywun|12.4.08 @ 6:07PM|#

is there even anything worth protecting there?

Barricades that prevent vehicle access in a 2 to 3 block radius, guard "kiosks" guarding the barricades, dudes with machine guns, and SWAT-type vehicles have been a constant presence in the vicinity of the NYSE since about December 2001.

Oh, and the bag searches everywhere.

libertarian democrat|12.4.08 @ 7:01PM|#

Individuals** who have been through life and death violence become "hypervigilant" i.e. reacting strongly to any sudden stimulus. (This is why police officers are put on desk duty after they have to use their weapons. Their reflexes are over-primed.)

Terrorist attacks seem to provoke the same phenomenon on a social scale. The unpredictable nature of the attacks makes it worse I think.

We've got to get terrorism under control or we'll find ourselves in a de facto security state.

**many for a limited time, a far smaller number for any period > 3 months.

Just sayin'

Heinrick|12.5.08 @ 12:31AM|#

"the possibility that he might be black, Muslim, and gay."

I'm pretty sure that would tear a hole in reality.

Ebeneezer Scrooge|12.5.08 @ 4:42AM|#

Isaac,

I think we'd better hope that the Indians don't attack Pakistan. That would be a disaster.

India surely knows this. But can their government restrain themselves, even if they want to? That's not yet clear.

While it is true that Pakistan has many groups that are hostile to India, there's little evidence that the government is involved.

And you know this how?

It's true that the Pakistani government has been behind hostile acts against India before but I think we can be fairly sure that except for some rogues in the military that's all in the past.

You didn't really mean this, did you? This was just some kind of "mis-typing incident", right?

I suppose the next thing you're going to do is try and tell us that the attackers weren't even Muslims. Because after all nobody should be prejudiced against Muslims.

Why, just the other day I saw a group of young, highly trained eskimos assaulting people in an urban downtown area. Rogue eskimos are a real and growing threat.

Bombing civilians in urban areas -- it's not just for Muslims anymore. Everybody does it, right?


The last thing, of course, is to demonstrate how all of this (including the attack in India) is somehow America's fault. Damn us Americans anyway, if it weren't for us the Muslims and eskimos would have no motiviation, and no mood, to kill innocent people.

See how bad America really is? The world would be a perfect idyllic place if only we could stamp out our own existence.

And at the rate our government is spending money, that may not be out of the question.

|12.5.08 @ 8:05AM|#

BDB | December 4, 2008, 5:49pm | #

"You can say that again | December 4, 2008, 5:29pm | #
*Never* go with the first report of an event. It will always be wrong in one way or another."

Also, you might draw the "B" backwards.

BDB--Have I ever told you that I can't read your handle without hearing Twiki talking to Buck?

|12.5.08 @ 9:26AM|#

Bombing civilians in urban areas -- it's not just for Muslims anymore. Everybody does it, right?

Any one of the groups I mentioned have been responsible for assasinations, bombings and other terrorist acts. Oh, and did you notice that I mentioned Muslims in that list? India has nearly as many Muslims living in it as Pakistan does so they don't really need to import Islamic insurgents.

And as for your rant in the last three paragraphs, WTF? If it's directed at me, I need an explanation. And if it's not you still need to get down off that cross.

|12.5.08 @ 9:31AM|#

Oh, and as for that "[b]ombing civilians in urban areas" bit, do you remember Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudolf? I wonder what mosque they went to.

|12.5.08 @ 10:01AM|#

There's usually some kind of rational jumping off point for a "hate the Muslims/you hate America" rant.

Writing that the attackers were probably from outside the Pakistani government, though? WTF?

Ebeneezer Scrooge|12.5.08 @ 7:55PM|#

While it is true that Pakistan has many groups that are hostile to India, there's little evidence that the government is involved.

To repeat myself, how is it that you know this? And do you know anything about Washington's beef with Pakistan? Do you realize that Obama may prove to be more of a hawk on Pakistan than Bush has been (and I wouldn't disagree with Obama for it a bit).

There's very good reason to put Pakistan high on the suspect list. Pakistan has shown zero willingness to actively suppress Muslim terrorists, beyond what the US has absolutely forced them to do.

Of course if Pakistan's government did try and clamp down on terrorist groups -- assuming they could muster a staff that had the will to do it -- it's not clear that the government would survive the effort. There is widespread popular support in Pakistan for Muslim terrorist groups.

All of which is a too-familiar story. Think "Saudi Arabia" up through 9/11 and even up through the Iraq invasion. Saudi fear of Iran (now that Iraq is no longer seen as Iran's counter-balance) is the only reason the US has been able to reel in the Saudis on supporting terrorist support.

The Saudis now need us to protect them from Iran and they know it. So they can no longer afford to piss us off too too much.

So when you then go on to say this

It's true that the Pakistani government has been behind hostile acts against India before but I think we can be fairly sure that except for some rogues in the military that's all in the past.

it tells me you have no clue what's really going on over there.

Which sums up my point.


More than anything else it was always Iran that made Iraq unstable, and it was a US-Iran deal that has settled Iraq down.

Coincidentally or not, Iran becomes our natural ally once we shift to Afghanistan, because they don't want Taliban or similar to control Afghanistan any more than we do.

In turn, more than anything else it is Pakistan that is making Afghanistan unstable. Once again, we need a lever that gets Pakistan serious about dealing with us and meeting our demands, the same way we did with the Saudis.

The bombing in India, horrible as it is, may give us such a lever. The first move is getting the fear into Pakistan, and who better to do that than India?

So when Obama basically said "India has the right to defend itself", he's going down the right road.

The problem here is that things in Pakistan are less stable than they were in Saudi Arabia. India knows they need to scare the hell out of Pakistan before Pakistan is going to do anything constructive about solving the problem. But at the same time, Pakistan can't take as much pressure as Saudi Arabia could before the Pakistani government is going to collapse. Pakistan's collapse is not in India's interests, and India surely knows this.

In the long run, I'm afraid we'll find that getting out of Iraq was much easier than getting out of Afghanistan is going to be.

Ebeneezer Scrooge|12.5.08 @ 8:15PM|#

Isaac,

I'm not up on a cross. But there is a criticism I'm leveling here.

It continues to astound me that Americans in general seem to know even less about foreign affairs then they know about economics. This is not a good thing.

Libertarians may have better ideas to offer on the economics front, but I'm still waiting for their ideas about foreign policy to grown out of diapers.


Let's get real about what's going on in the Islamic universe. Someone I read recently (sorry, forgot who it was) summed it up nicely: Muslims got all worked up about Dutch cartoons. But you never saw them turn out a grass roots, masses-of-people-taking-to-the-streets kind of protest over 9/11, the Bali bombing, or now the India massacre.

People can babble all day about "Islam is a religion of peace", but Muslim actions belie a different story. Maybe they aren't all ready to become suicide bombers. But in the vast majority of Muslim countries, the will is clearly lacking to reign in groups that do make suicide bombings happen.