26/11 attacks shows limitations of high-tech surveillance: Report

NEW YORK: The 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks are a "tragic case study" in the strengths and limitations of high-tech surveillance, according to a report which attributed the three-day siege on India's financial capital in 2008 to "hidden intelligence breakdown."

The report 'Hidden Intelligence Breakdowns Behind the Mumbai Attacks' by journalist Sebastian Rotella in Frontline said that access to classified materials leaked by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed a "new, previously hidden layer" in the story behind the 26/11 attacks and Pakistani-American LeT operative David Headley.

This hidden layer "revealed Mumbai as a tragic case study in the strengths and limitations of high-tech surveillance - a rare look at how counterterrorism really works," said the report, done along with investigative portal ProPublica.

It said with past failures to prevent terror attacks, more aggressive analysis and better intelligence-sharing could have made a difference in the Mumbai attacks but "high-tech spying has its limits."

The report quoted former CIA counterterror chief Charles (Sam) Faddis as saying that it is a mistake to rely heavily on bulk surveillance programs in isolation to detect and prevent terrorist attacks.

"I'm not saying that the capacity to intercept the communications is not valuable," Faddis said.

"Clearly that's valuable" but it is a mistake to rely heavily on bulk surveillance programs, he said. "You're going to waste a lot of money, you're going to waste a lot of time."

"At the end, you're going have very little to show for it," he said.

The revelations have been made in the documentary 'American Terrorist', a major update of the 2011 film on Headley produced by Frontline and ProPublica.

It details the story of Headley's eventual capture as well as the secret surveillance of Mumbai plotters that took place before and during the attacks.

According to the report, the Snowden documents show that months before Mumbai, British intelligence began spying on the online communications of Zarrar Shah, a key plotter who was the technology chief for the Pakistan-based terror group LeT.

Britain's General Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, had the ability to monitor many of Shah's digital activities, including web searches and emails, during weeks in which he did research on targets, handled reconnaissance data, and set up an internet phone system for the attack, the report said.

"But based on documents and interviews, it appears that the British spy agency did not use its access to closely analyse data from Shah until a Lashkar attack squad invaded Mumbai on November 26, 2008. Nor did the British tell the Americans they were watching Shah beforehand, despite the close alliance between GCHQ and the NSA," it added.