Terrorists reportedly being trained to attack from the sea, warns Navy Chief

Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba warned on Tuesday that there were reports of terrorists being trained to carry out operations by sea. He was speaking at the Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue in New Delhi, weeks after the Pulwama terror attack.

The warning

Addressing an audience of international experts, Admiral Lanba said terrorists were reportedly being prepared to operate in different ways, including through the sea. The 26/11 attack on Mumbai was carried out by 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists who arrived by sea after hijacking an Indian fishing trawler.

He said the Pulwama attack had been carried out by terrorists backed by a country that seeks to destabilise India, without naming Pakistan. In the February 14 attack, a suicide bomber of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a CRPF bus in Pulwama district, killing more than 40 personnel.

The Navy chief said this part of the world had seen many forms of terrorism in recent years and few countries in the region had been spared. Terrorism had become global in nature, which had widened the threat, and India faced a clearly more serious form of state-sponsored terrorism. Terror groups could spread quickly across the globe, he said, warning that a particular brand of terror could become a worldwide problem in the near future. Indian security agencies were constantly working on the threat, and he called for international cooperation to contain and eliminate terrorism in all its forms.

Focus on the Indo-Pacific

Admiral Lanba also stressed the importance of the Indo-Pacific region, saying the world had renewed its focus on the seas because of the geo-economic and geopolitical importance of the maritime domain. India is a maritime nation, he said, and there had been growing attention to using the sea for national growth and regional development. The dialogue, he said, aimed to identify challenges and opportunities in the waters and build a strategy for shared benefit.

Background

The Pulwama attack took place on 14 February 2019, and the Indian Air Force struck at Balakot on 26 February 2019.

See also: more news

Originally published on 5 March 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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