Israel to send experts to India

Israel is sending a team of anti-terror experts to India to help in the investigation of the terror attacks in Mumbai which claimed 183 lives, including those of eight Israelis.

The experts will examine whether the attack was part of a new global terror tactic and if there is a need to adapt coping mechanisms in Israel to the new threat, Ynetnews reported.

The delegation will be leaving for India in a special Israeli Air Force jet and will be accompanied by a team of forensic experts and people from the military to handle the repatriation of Israelis killed in the attacks.

The forensic team headed by Chief Superintendent Itzik Koroniois composed of seven experts on the identification of human remains, two DNA experts and a doctor. Anti-terror experts in Israel have been taken by surprise over the fact that the terrorists did not plan to negotiate over the release of the hostages.

Israeli officials are also trying to figure out which country is behind the attack, what websites the attackers used to plan the operation, where they got their instructions from and where was their training held, the news portal said.

The Western look of some of the terrorists has baffled experts and westerners converting to Islam and joining the global Jihad poses a relatively new security challenge, it said.

Israeli defence officials said that until information is collected on the content of the bags, the computers and the electronic devices found on the terrorists' bodies, it could not be determined for certain whether the Chabad house in Mumbai was a pre-planned target, it said.

Warnings of possible attacks on Chabad houses around the world have been received in the past, but this time there was no such indication, the portal said.

Israeli representatives and business representatives of major companies in India have been told to be on high alert.

PTI