NEW DELHI: A top intelligence official who was part of India’s assessment team evaluating possible responses after Pakistan staged the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks has said that New Delhi missed a rare operational window to eliminate the top Pakistan-based terror leadership, even as domestic intelligence evaluations had concluded that Islamabad was in no position to wage a full-scale war and was willing to “sacrifice” the leadership of Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba to avoid escalation.
The official said Indian intelligence agencies had given complete operational clearance and conveyed that the threat of escalation from Pakistan’s side was extremely low. “We gave the entire clearance from our side. We provided the necessary inputs that we are required to gather. As per our assessment, based on high-grade human intelligence, Pakistan was not prepared militarily, resourcefully or financially for a conventional conflict. They were mentally prepared for an Indian retaliation and wanted to avoid a war”. According to the official, high-grade human intelligence had confirmed Pakistan’s military, financial and diplomatic weakness. New Delhi, he said, had full operational clearance to act, with assessments indicating that Islamabad was bracing for limited retaliation not escalation.
According to him, Pakistan’s own internal assessment, picked up through secure and proven channels, reflected a willingness to absorb limited damage in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attack rather than risk full confrontation. “They were ready to take some damage in the wake of Mumbai. They wanted India, if it must, to take out the terror leadership not to go into a full-blown confrontation”.
The official recalled that in the days immediately following the attack, Indian intelligence tracked unusual movements of several top terrorist leaders linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. “They immediately moved Masood Azhar to another location as if they wanted to show us his movement and location. They knew we were watching, and the movement was carried out in a relatively open manner. They were scared of escalation, and hence were ready to ‘sacrifice the terror leadership,” he said. To the intelligence community, this behaviour appeared to be deliberate signalling a message that Pakistan’s security establishment would accept the neutralisation of some of its terrorist assets if that helped contain the international fallout.
The assessment that Pakistan was militarily and financially stretched was not a casual observation, the official said, but a high-grade internal conclusion shared across key agencies. “Our intelligence assessment showed Pakistan was not in a position to engage in a full-scale war. Their economy was weak, their army was overstretched, and their global image after the Mumbai attack was shattered”.
He said these findings, along with operational options, were regularly relayed to senior figures within the Indian political setup. He also recalled what he described as an unusual practice: that daily classified intelligence briefs were shared beyond the government, including with senior political figures such as Congress leader Ahmed Patel, then political secretary to Sonia Gandhi. The late Patel served as the political secretary to the then Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
The official maintained that India’s intelligence apparatus “did its job” and left the decision to act on it to the political leadership. “Our job was to present the facts. The political call was theirs. Ultimately, they were the ones to decide on whether to respond, and how. No doubt there was international pressure, most probably from the United States to not to retaliate. Other friendly countries too didn’t want escalation”.
According to him, there was a sense of disappointment within intelligence circles once it became clear that the government had decided including on the advice of relevant ‘holy cows’ institutions that a military response should not happen. At the time, the United States publicly praised India’s restraint, even as its own military campaign in Afghanistan depended heavily on cooperation with Pakistan.
The official also claimed that intelligence inputs, both before and after 26/11, indicated the attack had been “pre approved” at the highest levels of Pakistan’s establishment. “This was not a rogue act. Brigadiers and major generals could plan smaller operations. This was bigger it had state clearance. Musharraf and Kayani were aware”, he said. Despite such assessments, India chose not to make Pakistan’s political or military leadership accused in its official investigation, focusing instead on Lashkar operatives and their handlers.
By late 2008, when the attacks occurred, Musharraf had stepped down, but the system he built and the officers he promoted remained intact under Kayani. The military’s control over covert operations, including ties to groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, was already institutionalised.
According to the official, India’s decision not to launch a military operation meant it lost not just an operational moment but a strategic one. “We had clarity. We had visibility. Pakistan’s own fear gave us leverage. But we blinked,” he said. The missed opportunity, he believes, allowed terrorist networks to rebuild and signalled that India, even after an attack of that magnitude, would avoid immediate punitive action.
Subsequent years would see India recalibrate that posture with limited cross-border strikes in 2016, air raids in 2019 and Operation Sindoor this year , but the official said those came long after the deterrence window had closed. “After Mumbai attack, everything was aligned intelligence, timing, the adversary’s vulnerability, even global sympathy. That kind of alignment doesn’t come twice”.
