Gunman, aka terrorist, trained to 'elite' standards by Pakistan?

Sunday Times:

THE 10 terrorist commandos who shot dead more than 160 people in Mumbai last month were among 500 trained to elite standards by Pakistan army and navy instructors, according to an Indian intelligence report seen by The Sunday Times.

Details were leaked as Indian officials accused Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) of directly supporting the attack. They claimed to have the names of the gunmen’s ISI trainers and handlers and to have intercepted internet phone calls between them.

Last week Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, and Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, flew to Pakistan to intensify pressure on President Asif Ali Zardari and General Ashfaq Kayani, his army chief of staff, to appease Indian anger and stop tension between Delhi and Islamabad from escalating into war.

Mullen is understood to have told his Pakistani counterpart that America had proof that the attacks were launched from its soil by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, which has close links to the ISI.

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The Indian intelligence report claims the Mumbai gunmen were among a large group of volunteer “fedayeen” trained in commando tactics by Pakistan army and navy instructors over 18 months from December 2006.

“The training of these 500 men was in three phases. The first was basic physical fitness and firearms training. The second was marine navigation and swimming. The third involved training to sabotage underwater installations such as oil rigs, ships and submarines,” said one official.

“They were trained to a level of US Seals or Pakistani marine commandos. They were elite. Ten of these men were the ones who attacked Mumbai.”

If true, this training would have been in addition to later preparation said to have been given by LeT, the Al-Qaeda-linked group allegedly behind the attacks. The group was created with ISI support in the 1990s to fight in Afghanistan and Indian-administered Kashmir.

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I am skeptical.

First SEALs are not trained to murder noncombatants. Second, although my knowledge is limited to reports in the news, there are some that suggest that while fit, these terrorist were not especially skilled.

They are described as "shooting from the hip," which is something trained troops never do. That could account for them getting a casualty toll well below their goal of 5,000. To reach that goal each of the ten terrorist would have had to average 500 kills. That seems like an improbable amount even for noncombatants. In fact they killed well below a tenth of that number.