An Indian soldier aims his weapon toward The Taj Majal Hotel in Mumbai, Nov. 29, 2008. Indian commandos killed the last Islamic militants holed up inside the hotel, ending the more than two-day terror assault on India's financial capital. Pedro Ugarte/AFP/Getty Image.

News reports claim that the attackers carried handheld GPS navigators, the tool that probably guided the speedboats to their insertion points and then would get the teams very quickly to their targets.

The recent attacks in Mumbai, India, may have opened a chilling new chapter in terrorism and guerrilla warfare. John  R. Sutherland, senior analyst and division chief at the Joint Center for Operational Analysis, explains in this article for Armchair General.

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We introduced the iGuerrilla in the May ‘08 issue of Armchair General as the New Model Techno-Insurgent, a high-tech guerrilla motivated by religious fanaticism. We stated that the terrorist Hizballah paramilitary force that fought the ‘06 Lebanon War was the modern-day embodiment of the new wave warrior / iGuerrilla. Hizballah had made the leap from boonie-hopping bands of AK-toting, would-be revolutionaries pulling off the occasional raid or ambush to a well-trained force consisting of semi-professional troops executing a well-conceived elastic defense while armed with anti-tank missiles, computers, night vision, and long range rockets. These guys ran Lebanon from the shadows, built bunkers, established an extensive network of caches, took on the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and, all the while, managed to retain their non-state actor status. The fighters of the 2006 Lebanon War were highly trained, well equipped, and even better armed with modern weapons and technology than any non-state guerrilla force we’ve ever seen … but they were still guerrillas.

As if the rise of the iGuerrilla wasn’t enough, the threat has morphed yet again. Like a virus, the iG has reorganized its DNA in order to form a new and more lethal variant. The latest version of the iG has taken on a more terrorist-like flavor while preserving its original guerrilla foundations. It can now strike at a new host. iG v 2.0 has exploited technology just as the original did in order to facilitate its attack. The new virus doesn’t fight with state armies; rather, it prefers to commit a sort of prolonged and theatrical suicide that maximizes media exposure, generates massive societal disruption, and inflicts maximum mayhem, violence, and destruction. The iG 2.0 employs guerrilla tactics, techniques, and procedures while in pursuit of terrorist effects and objectives. For this to make sense, we’ll have to initiate the discussion by paraphrasing a few sources that address some basic definitions and descriptions.

What is a Guerrilla? According to The American Heritage Dictionary, a guerrilla is a member of an irregular, usually indigenous, military or paramilitary unit operating in small bands in occupied territory to harass and undermine the enemy, as by surprise raids. Guerrilla is the diminutive form of the Spanish word for war (Guerra). One can envision in the mind’s eye a group of plotting, armed, Robin Hoods who seek the overthrow of the Sheriff of Nottingham and his replacement by their own exalted leader.

What is Guerrilla Warfare? For this description, we’ll rely on the definition from the International Relations Program at University of California, Davis. Guerrilla war is unconventional warfare (not army against army) and combat with which a small group of combatants use mobile tactics such as ambushes and raids to fight a larger and less mobile formal state army. Guerrilla war includes certain kinds of civil wars and is warfare without front lines or boundaries. The irregular forces that fight guerrilla wars operate among the civilian population and are often hidden or protected by them. The purpose of guerrilla war is not to engage the state army directly but rather to conduct continuing operations to harass and punish it so as to gradually limit its operation, liberate territory from its control, and erode its support.

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