In his younger days General Yatom was part of the Sayeret Matkal commando team that took 90 seconds to free a hijacked airliner after it landed in Tel Aviv in 1972. Respected by fellow generals and former Israeli prime ministers, such as the late Yitzhak Rabin, he says in an exclusive interview with Shyam Bhatia of asianaffairs that what happened in Mumbai should ring a warning bell for government officials and concerned members of the Indian public.

AA: For many Indians the Mumbai attacks were an extension of the historic Pakistan-India conflict. Why were Israelis and other foreigners targeted?
DY: Mumbai was not just a question of Pakistan versus India. The issue of conflict between Arabs and Jews hovers above everything else, whether it is in Chechnya, Algeria, Egypt or India.

Always in addition to what they do, these terrorists also want holy war against infidels. It was a kind of symbol to the world. Maybe they also wanted sympathy from other organisations who would give them extra credit for fighting the Israelis and Jews on their behalf.

AA: What are the security lessons that you would draw from Mumbai?
DY: I cannot put myself in the shoes of Indian experts and I don't want to be in a position of knowing everything. The Indian authorities know their own country much better.

But in general terms what I want to tell our friends in India is that the struggle between the free world and terrorists will last and continue. To combat global terrorism you need to unite the democratic forces of the world and, although there is cooperation between many national security agencies, it is not deep enough.

We should be more transparent between intelligence organisations, we should share information and we should be ready to share the price.
If I have information I would like to share my source and share information. Cooperation should be much more intensive and should include meetings, visits to each others' units and mutual drills.

Also in a big country like India, you should have forces to face such attacks on a local basis. It takes too long to bring Special Forces from far away. They should be dispersed in many places. The U.S. has swat teams in many places who know how to deal with hostages and other terror victims.

AA: Could you elaborate a bit more on these swat teams?
DY: These units should be of the highest quality and consist of the best people with the best equipment and training and they should be on a high state of alert for 24 hours.

Intelligence must be of the highest parameters to foil attempts at deep penetration. You need access to HUMINT, SIGINT, VISINT and open source intelligence of all kinds. There should be special concentration on following terrorists for 24 hours. We could not have run our (recent) operation in Gaza without accurate intelligence. That was the failure of our previous war in Lebanon.

Intelligence is also useful long after a terrorist attack — and you need to collect real time intelligence while an attack is continuing. For example how many terrorists are involved, what is going on behind the walls etc? You can also deploy preventive measures, such as the use of guards, magnetic frames at entrances to big commercial centres and so on. Preventive measures can help save lives.

What's also required is a state of mind to educate people to be more conscious, to look around and to report anything suspicious immediately to the local authorities.

AA: Is there any specific security assistance you have in mind for India?
DY: We can train forces, build forces and hand over tools to help you recruit the right people after psychological and physical tests. When I was with Sayeret Matkal (Israel's commando force), I remember some very good people were not accepted. That's because even if you pass the tests there are people who fall down while training goes on.
You need to guard the coast if you follow the steps of the Mumbai terrorists. They came by ship, perhaps murdered the captain, then they transferred to rubber boats. The usual radar cannot detect rubber boats; we have the radar to detect rubber boats. We in Israel have faced such attacks in the past.

AA: Tell us something about the security consultancy you have started in Tel Aviv.
DY: This is a young company that has been set up after my years in the Knesset (parliament). I have 20-30 years left and I want to do something else. We are looking forward to entering the Indian market.
Basically, we have three arms. The first is in oil and gas. We help big companies win contracts for drilling and exploration in Africa and the Middle East.

Then we have a strategic and security consultancy that I run with my son, a former para commando with the most prestigious anti- terror police unit called Amam. They are one of the best in dealing with hostage issues.
We also have an arm that invests in real estate funds in the U.S. We will buy property assets from banks and manage them for two, three or four years.

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