Saturday, November 29, 2008

Mumbai: Don’t buy the “only 10 attackers” claim

The NYT Company owned International Herald Tribune self-describes as “The Global Edition of the New York Times.”

It’s much worse (read more leftist) than the NYT, but that’s for another post.

The IHT’s latest story on the Mumbai terror attacks got one thing right that many news orgs are getting wrong.

ITH reported, but didn’t swallow, the claim that only 10 (or in some stories only 12) men were responsible for all the killings, hostage-taking and other carnage.

The IHT reported:

…Perhaps the most troubling question to emerge Saturday for the Indian authorities was how, if official estimates are accurate, just 10 gunmen could have caused so much carnage and repelled Indian police officers, paramilitary forces and soldiers for more than three days in three different buildings. …
But then, in the following paragraph,the ITH let readers know it wasn’t swallowing the “just 10” claim:
As the investigation continued, it was unclear whether the attackers had collaborators already in the city, or whether others in their group had escaped. All told, the gunmen struck 10 sites in bustling south Mumbai (emphasis added)….
As we learn more about these attacks, we’ll learn there were many more than 10 terrorists directly involved in the Mumbai killings, hostage-taking and other carnage as well as many dozen more who supported them from the initial planning through the attacks and were no doubt ready to aide those terrorist who might survive the attacks.

The entire IHT story’s here.

More tomorrow.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

10 or 12 men with guns and grenades against unarmed victims - why not? What do you imagine the victims had to defend themselves with?

Anonymous said...

Another media issue: I noticed many in the mainstream media refer to the terrorists as "militants." Yeah, and a guy who hacks your arm off with a machete is an "aggressive personality?"
The media is oh, so careful not to hurt anyone's feelings; it's enough to make one retch.
Tarheel Hawkeye