Now it's on HBO-- Terror in Mumbai

Now that it is showing on HBO, with Fareed Zakaria presenting, maybe Dan Reed's documentary "Terror in Mumbai" will actually be seen. When it was first aired on Britain's Channel 4 this summer, no one in the United States seemed to know or care.

For those who still don't know what "Terror in Mumbai" is: it is a brilliant, gripping documentary about the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. In the words of director Dan Reed:

Of all the material which I acquired in the course of making my documentary, Terror in Mumbai, it is the phone intercepts - recordings by Indian intelligence of mobile phone traffic between the young gunmen and their handlers back in Pakistan - which I found the most chilling.

The close-up rustling, the tense silences, the gunshots, the amazement at the luxury of the five-star hotels which continued to amaze me every time I played back the recording during the edit. And above all the horrifying, dead-pan practicality of the preparations for taking the lives of innocents.

(Link to his notes at Channel 4 web site).

HBO adds a presentation by Fareed Zakaria, who says,

Much as the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. did in 2001, the events that unfolded last November in Mumbai served as a terrifying wake-up call, not just to India but to the rest of the world. It broadened the spectrum of our enemies and brought attention to the number of different terrorist groups that exist, who may be bigger and better organized than we ever imagined. The fact that a small group of gunmen was able to inflict so much pain, and the government of the second most populous nation on earth was unable to stop them for three days, should change our sense of the dangers out there.

Here are the schedules for the HBO showings. Happy Thanksgiving.