India, USA and Britain had been tracking the activities of Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists behind the 26/11 Mumbai attacks before they went on rampage in India's financial capital Mumbai killing 166 people including a few foreigners.
Several weeks before the ten Lashkar terrorists landed in Mumbai, intelligence agencies of the three countries had enough information about a big strike in India, yet they failed to piece together the complete picture and avert the attack.
According to The New York Times, ProPublica and the PBS series 'Frontline', technology chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba Zarrar Shah used Google Earth to show terrorists the routes to their targets in Mumbai. They are said to have used an Internet phone system to disguise his location by routing his calls through New Jersey. He even searched online for a Jewish hostel and two luxury hotels where he could play the carnage.
The classified documents reveal that days before the attack, the British were spying on many of his online activities and tracking his Internet searches and messages. Indian intelligence agencies too, had inputs about such an operation.
Though unaware of a simlar operation by the two countries, the United States too are said ti have picked up signs of a plot. They are also said to have warned Indian security officials several times months before the attack.
Despite the clues, the intelligence agencies of the three nations could not pull together all the strands gathered by their spyteams which could have busted the plot of teh terror attack.
Though details of the operation were revealed, some of the classified information had been withheld by intelligence agencies for security purposes.
After the assault began, the countries had disclosed their intelligence to one another and monitored a Lashkar control room in Pakistan from where the terror chiefs supposedly directed their men, in the Taj and Oberoi hotels and the Jewish hostel.
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