US learnt lessons from 26/11 Mumbai attacks

Washington, Feb 27: India is not the only country which was forced to learn some tough lesson following the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks as United States has now revealed that the Barack Obama administration has undertaken several measures to fortify soft targets and thwart a similar attack on US cities.

Speaking on this, Homeland security secretary Janet Napolitano said that there were several steps in intelligence gathering

and security infrastructure taken to ensure that soft targets were not attacked by terrorists.

"On the soft target issue, you'll find most of that under the NPPD (National Protection and Programmes Directorate) and also

in the private sector office. We've had a lot of outreach, we've had outreach with the hotel associations and the hotel

operators in the past months," Napolitano said.

"Over the holiday season, we met with the representatives of the 700 largest shopping malls in the country, and we also prepared and had online training for shopping mall employees on what to watch out or, what to look for, and the like," she told a key Congressional panel on Friday, Feb 26.

Napolitano's comments came when when Benny Thompson, chairman of the Committee raised a question on how the focus on the soft targets had increased post 26/11.

Even thought the focus reduced, the threat remains, he noted.

"That's the kind of thing that provides direct assistance in the soft target environment that I think is very, very useful," Napolitano added.

OneIndia News