Jaipur, Jan 20

The 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks grabbed worldwide headlines and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had succeeded in everything they wanted to do, said an author who has written on the attacks.

Replying to a question from the audience on why the terrorists chose to attack and kill people instead of kidnapping them and seeking ransom or other concessions from the Indian government, Adrian Levy, who has written "The Siege: Three Days of Terror Inside the Taj" along with co-author Cathy Scott-Clark, said the event made it to the "global headlines".

"The fourth largest city in the world was hijacked on television for three days. This grabbed worldwide headlines, and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had succeeded in everything they wanted to do. In fact, this event led to the manifestation of their many other global attacks," he added.

Around 166 people, including 26 foreign nationals, were killed in the terror strike which lasted around 60 hours.

Levy also felt the attack was a "watershed" moment for India and a benchmark for the next government to safeguard its people.

"It wasn't just any other event in the history of India, it was a watershed moment," he said.

"And looking at the state of affairs now, I would say India hasn't learnt from this attack," he added.

Levy, along with his partner, interviewed over 1,000 people for their book and married powerful narrative with facts and observations to compile it.

And during the course of conversation they could sense "frustration" of Indian security personnel.

"There is a feeling of huge frustration and anger among security personnel in India. There has to be some structuring in the system because what outside perception is doesn't really match with the reality," he said.

Levy also discussed in detail about Headley's initial struggle to join hands with the LeT as he was an "unsuitable candidate".

"You just can't be a part of LeT as they follow a certain procedure. They have enormous control over education and teaching their ideology, and then comes military training," he said.

"He was wriggling to get into LeT. But they had declared him an unsuitable candidate who was old," he added.

But then he secured meetings with people who had a different agenda and slowly things fell in place.

by:IANS