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What it takes to fight a war inside skyscrapers
Published on Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 19:37, Updated on Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 19:48 in 
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The Taj Mahal hotel, with its combination of Moorish and Florentine architecture, is a wonderful place to hang out in, sipping coffee in the Sea Lounge or having a relaxed drink in the Apollo Bar on a nice clear November day. But the same inviting structure became a nightmarish catacomb when it turned into a war zone on November 26.
“The art of urban warfare itself is new and fighting inside a large skyscraper is newer still,” says Captain Raghu Raman, a former army man and now an intelligence consultant. Conventional battles are normally fought in plains, jungles or hills. Over time, thumb rules have evolved on how many people it would take to defeat an entrenched enemy in such terrains. “Typically, in the plains or a jungle you would need three men for every enemy person already entrenched there. On the hills the ratio changes and you need five men to take out one person from the enemy side,” says a Major in the Indian Army on the condition of anonymity. He has seen commando action in Kashmir.
In a high-rise like the Oberoi Trident hotel or the Taj Mahal Tower, these calculations go out of the window. “A small group of people can engage a force that may be ten times larger than them,” says the Major. A hotel with 27 floors like the Oberoi or as many rooms as Taj—565 in all—offers the enemy immense space to manoeuvre,” says a Lieutenant Colonel in the Indian Army who has served in Africa and in North East India. This poses huge challenges for the Indian Army to take on the terrorists who are holed up in the Taj or the Oberoi. To understand this, consider a situation from Kashmir that has a minor resemblance to what has unfolded in Mumbai.
“In Kashmir, we would get a tip off in a place like, say Kupwara, that militants were holed up in a house. We would just go and surround a wider area. Then we would make announcements to get the civilians out of the area. Since the houses there are maximum two or three floors, we would then lay a siege and then we would exchange firepower. In due course, we would enter the house from the top through a helicopter lift to get the militants. Because the houses were of a smaller area it was easier to do this than in Taj or Oberoi,” says the Major.
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I have just read this article. It is certainly heart rending to learn what all our brave men have done
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My question is: The nsg is sweeping every room in every floor, by blowing off stun grenades and storming inside.
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What is beyond comprehension is how the huge cache of arms and ammunition has got into these 5 star hotels.
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