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Pakistan Admits Link To Mumbai

10:29am UK, Friday February 13, 2009

The Mumbai terror attacks which killed 164 people were partly planned on Pakistani soil, a top official has conceded.

Pakistan official Rehman Malik shows evidence gathered on the Mumbai attacks

The admissions is an about-face by Islamabad, which had strongly denied the terrorists had any connection to the country.

Last November, 10 gunmen besieged a number locations in India's financial capital including two luxury hotels and a Jewish centre.

India blames the attacks on terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), a militant group considered to have been founded by Pakistani intelligence in the 1980s.

New Delhi also says the gunmen - only one of whom was captured alive - were Pakistanis and their handlers in Pakistan were in communication with them during the three-day assault.

"I want to assure the international community, I want to assure all those who have been victims of terrorism, that we mean business," interior ministry chief Rehman Malik said at a news conference.

"Some part of the conspiracy has taken place in Pakistan and ... according to the available information, most of them (the suspects) are in our custody."

[Image: 15170580.jpg]
The Grand Taj Hotel during the attack

Mr Malik added their investigations had determined three boats were used by the attackers to sail from southern Pakistan to India.

A copy of Pakistan's findings would be handing over to India and they would begin criminal proceedings against eight suspects, six of which were in custody, according to Mr Malik.

Two of those in custody are senior LET leaders.

All the suspects are Pakistani citizens and face charges of "abetting, conspiracy and facilitation" of a terrorist act.

India welcomed Pakistan's comments and said it would take a look at their investigation report and "share whatever we can" with authorities there.
"For the first time it has been recognised officially by Pakistani authorities that the elements are emanating from Pakistan who are responsible for the terror attacks in Mumbai," India's Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said.
The US investigators believe some elements in Pakistan's ISI could be linked to American terror suspect David Headley

by Ajay Kaul


Global Research, December 10, 2009
Press Trust Of India - 2009-11-22



Pakistan"s Inter Services Intelligence hisotrically has acted in close coordination with the the CIA.


The US investigators believe some elements in Pakistan's ISI could be linked to American terror suspect David Headley, who is currently in FBI custody for trying to plot attacks in India.




The investigators made this assessment on the basis of the arrest of "two key persons" in Pakistan, sources said. Illyas Kashmiri, a former Pakistani military officer who has become a militant commander associated with both Al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), is one among them.



They have also zeroed in on a Pakistani national who is suspected to be a key link between LeT handlers and Headley and his Pakistani-Canadian associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana, the sources added.



The sources said India is expected to know in a week from the US whether Headley and Rana, who are operatives of LeT, were involved in Mumbai attacks. Agencies in India have been suspecting that the duo could have been involved in 26/11.



The sources said there is no evidence so far to link the duo with the Mumbai attack.



India and the US are in constant touch on the Headley case and Washington has conveyed that within a week there could be "authentic" information whether they were involved in the attack, the sources added.



A Pakistani national believed to be a common link between the LeT handlers like Zaki-ur Lakhvi and the two terror suspects detained by the FBI has been identified and probe on him is expected to reveal whether Headley and Rana had any role.



The national, whose identity has been kept secret, is believed to have been in Pakistan at the time of Mumbai carnage.
Some of what follows is older material by now. From my blog:


India: Was Mumbai suspect a double agent for US?

The Indian press is abuzz with news that Indian Home Ministry officials are investigating whether a terror suspect in the Mumbai attacks, David Headley from Chicago, was working as a 'double agent' with the US.

The US has not allowed Indian authorities to interrogate Headley over the Mumbai attacks, much to India's consternation.

Read the article here:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-s...le-agent-for-US

#

The extensive use of terrorist tradecraft by Pakistani American terror suspect David Headley makes it evident that he "was not merely a low-level cannon fodder-type operative", according to US strategic think tank Stratfor.

The December 7 indictment of Headley, charged with scouting targets for the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, shows that he reportedly attended Lashkar-e-Taeba (LeT) training camps in Pakistan in February and August of 2002 and in April, August and December of 2003.

"This indicates that Headley progressed far beyond basic militant training, and it is likely that he was taught during his later training sessions the tradecraft required to conduct preoperational surveillance for terrorist attacks and to participate in the operational planning for such attacks," Stratfor said.

"One element of terrorist tradecraft that was evident in the indictment and the October 11 criminal complaint is Headley's careful use of language and of multiple methods of communications, including the use of cell phones and using long-distance calling cards, e-mail communication (using a variety of accounts) and face-to-face briefings," the global intelligence company said.

According to the December 7 indictment to conduct surveillance for the Mumbai attacks, Headley made five extended trips to Mumbai: one in September 2006, two in February and September of 2007 and two in April and July of 2008.

Referring to Headley's alleged work as a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and FBI informant, Stratfor said: "Given the demonstrated - and considerable - nexus between heroin trafficking and terrorism funding for the jihadist groups operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan, such a crossover of an informant from narcotics to terrorism is no surprise."

If Headley were reporting to the FBI, it could also explain the very specific warnings that the US government gave to the government of India about plans to attack hotels in Mumbai in Sep 2008, it said.

More here:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/americas/Hea...le1-487521.aspx

#

December 17, 2009
Mumbai terror suspect David Headley was ‘rogue US secret agent’

“A key terror suspect who allegedly helped to plan last year’s attacks in Mumbai and plotted to strike Europe was an American secret agent who went rogue, Indian officials believe.

David Headley, 49, who was born in Washington to a Pakistan diplomat father and an American mother, was arrested in Chicago in October. He is accused of reconnoitring targets in India and Europe for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Pakistan-based terror group behind the Mumbai attacks and of having links to al-Qaeda. He has denied the charges.

He came to the attention of the US security services in 1997 when he was arrested in New York for heroin smuggling. He earned a reduced sentence by working for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) infiltrating Pakistan-linked narcotics gangs.
Indian investigators, who have been denied access to Mr Headley, suspect that he remained on the payroll of the US security services — possibly working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) — but switched his allegiance to LeT….”

More here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle6960182.ece

#

Headley visa mystery deepens

“… Headley’s alleged wife, a Moroccan woman, flew in from Pakistan and spent a night with him at Mumbai’s Taj hotel during one of his 2008 visits for the 26/11 recce, home ministry sources said. “She came separately and stayed with him for just one night,” an official said. Investigators suspect that the findings of the recce mission were conveyed to Headley’s Lashkar-e-Toiba handlers in Pakistan through her.

The possibility emerged on a day the CIA said it had never engaged Headley, the denial following media reports suggesting the Pakistani American may have been a “double agent”. CIA spokesperson Marie E. Harf said: “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, but any suggestion that this individual worked for the CIA is flat wrong.”

But a home ministry official said: “He had an American connection, whatever it may have been, the CIA or the FBI or something else.”

Indian officials cited how the FBI had failed to tell Delhi about Headley’s visit to India in March this year.”

More here:
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091218/jsp/...ry_11879189.jsp

## ## ## ## ##

The only explanation that fits is this: he was an American agent all along.'
Did America keep mum on 26/11?
By Vir Sanghvi

20 Dec 2009

Did the Americans have detailed advance information about the 26/11 plot which they did not share with India, only passing on a watered-down warning? And was there an American spy within the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba who kept Washington (or Langley) informed of terror acts planned against India -- even if this information was never handed over to us? It is certainly beginning to look that way... The terror suspect, we were told, was a US citizen of Pakistani origin. He had some links with the LeT. He had visited India. He may have been part of an advance team for 26/11... These papers showed that Headley had been convicted and sent to jail. But after 9/11, he had been set free and sent to Pakistan to work as an undercover agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). According to US journalists, Headley had been given a new passport in the American name of David Headley (his American mother’s maiden name is Headley) rather than his original name of Daood Gilani. He flew around the world, entering and leaving the US at will, avoiding the sort of attention that a convicted drug criminal was certain to attract at US airports. Further, suggested US journos, the DEA assignment may have been a cover... Why would the US treat a 26/11 suspect with such consideration? The only explanation that fits is this: he was an American agent all along. The US arrested him only when it seemed that Indian investigators were on his trail. He will be sentenced to jail, will vanish into the US jail system for a while and will then be sprung again -- as he was the last time.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/vi...le1-488533.aspx

See also the Rigorous Intuition thread
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/vi...hp?t=25970

See also The Saudi Connection to the Mumbai Massacres and Headley interrogated more than one Mumbai suspect and the Stratfor report Tactical Implications of the Headley case.
Feds Confirm Mumbai Plotter Trained With Terrorists While Working for DEA

http://www.propublica.org/article/feds-c...ng-for-dea

[Image: avatar_8096.jpg]
by Sebastian Rotella
ProPublica, Oct. 16, 2010


Federal officials acknowledged Saturday that David Coleman Headley, the U.S. businessman who confessed to being a terrorist scout in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was working as a DEA informant while he was training with terrorists in Pakistan.
Federal officials, who spoke only only on background because of the sensitivity of the Headley case, also said they suspect a link between Headley and the al Qaeda figures whose activities have sparked recent terror threats against Europe.

[Image: ap_headley_300x200_101008.jpg]Courtroom drawing of David Coleman Headley, left. Dec. 9, 2009. (Verna Sadock/AP Photo)

The revelations came after a report Friday [1] by ProPublica and the Washington Post that the FBI had been warned about Headley’s terrorist ties three years before the Mumbai attacks. Headley wasn’t arrested until 11 months after the attack. After Headley was arrested in a 2005 domestic dispute in New York City, his wife told federal investigators about his long involvement with the terrorist group Lashkar-i-Taiba and his extensive training in its Pakistani camps. She also told them he had bragged about being a paid U.S. informant while undergoing terrorist training.
Despite a federal inquiry into the tip, Headley spent the next four years doing terrorist reconnaissance around the world. Between 2006 and 2008, he did five spying missions in Mumbai scouting targets for the attack by Lashkar that killed 166 people, including six Americans.
On Saturday, the New York Times reported [2] that another of Headley’s wives – he apparently was married to three women at the same time – had also warned U.S. officials about his terrorism involvement. In December 2007, the Moroccan woman met with officials at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan and told them about Headley’s friendship with Lashkar members, his hatred of India and her trips with him to the Taj Mahal Hotel, a prime target of the Mumbai attacks, the Times reported.
On Saturday federal officials said the women’s tips lacked specificity.
“U.S. authorities took seriously what Headley's former wives said,” a senior administration official said. “Their information was of a general nature and did not suggest any particular terrorist plot."
Similarly, a federal official described the 2005 tip from Headley’s U.S. wife to the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York City as “general in nature.”
“The JTTF could not link the information to a specific threat, plot or terrorist group,” the official said.
A different picture emerges from a law enforcement document describing the New York tip and from interviews with anti-terror officials and a person close to the case. Headley’s U.S. wife described her husband’s frequent trips to Pakistan, his training stints at a Lashkar camp near Muzaffarabad, and his recruiting and fund-raising for Lashkar.
Although the claims of an angry spouse might be suspect, the wife’s in-depth knowledge of Lashkar would have reinforced her credibility, because the Pakistani extremist group is not well known to the average American.
Headley is the son of a Pakistani father and an American mother. He became a DEA informant in the late 1990s, after he was arrested on heroin charges. His U.S. wife told investigators that he told her that he started training with Lashkar in early 2002 as part of a secret mission for the U.S. government. On Saturday, a federal official said Headley’s work as an informant appears to have lasted until sometime between 2003 and 2005.
Another federal official said Headley was a DEA informant in “the early 2000’s.”
“I couldn’t say it continued into 2005, but he was definitely an informant post-9/11,” the official said.
Although Lashkar has not been involved in major drug activity, the terrorist group could offer an informant access to the terrain where Islamic extremism intertwines with South Asian drug mafias.
Because of the difficulty of spying in Pakistan, Headley could have been valuable to U.S. intelligence services. In late 2001, some drug informants moved into anti-terror operations. The DEA also sometimes shares informants with other law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
“After 9/11, a lot of guys who had been closed down for some time came forward offering their services,” a former senior law enforcement official said. “They were passed off to the FBI or CIA unless it was mainly drug work.”
Headley’s relationship with the U.S. government is especially delicate because the investigation has shown that he also had contact with suspected Pakistani intelligence officials and a Pakistani militant named Ilyas Kashmiri, who has emerged as a top operational leader of al Qaeda.
Last year, Kashmiri worked with Headley on a plot against a Danish newspaper that had angered Muslims by publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed, according to court documents. To advance the plot, Kashmiri put Headley in touch with al Qaeda operatives in Britain, according to a senior anti-terror official.
British intelligence detected the meetings between the operatives, who were under surveillance, and Headley, who surfaced as a figure known as “David the American,” the senior official said. That led to Headley’s arrest by the FBI last October.
In March, Headley pleaded guilty to charges of terrorism in the Mumbai attacks and to a failed plot to take and behead hostages at a Danish newspaper. He is cooperating with authorities.
Kashmiri’s network has played a central role in sparking the recent U.S. alert about intelligence that al Qaeda is plotting “Mumbai-style attacks” in Europe, U.S. officials told ProPublica.
“Kashmiri is directly linked to those threats, especially involving Britain and British Pakistanis,” the federal official said Saturday. “There is some linkage to Headley.”
For weeks, U.S. anti-terror officials have been alarmed about intelligence that Kashmiri has a network in Europe of about 15 operatives with Western passports, according to two U.S. law enforcement officials. Headley had contact with Kashmiri’s network, but it is not clear if he met with the same European operatives involved in the recent plots, the officials said.
:bath:
Ah.
While DemocracyNow! seems to miss the possibility that Headley was most likely an agent provocateur and a US rooted one, based at the time out of Pakistan, there is much of interest in their report here
Who Was Actually Using David Headley?

This US DEA agent was used by terrorists and intelligence agencies to mastermind Mumbai Attacks


by Shahid R. Siddiqi

November 17, 2010




Indo-Pak relations jeopardized
With the all important dialogue between India and Pakistan derailed and relations having suffered a set back, the root cause of it — the Mumbai terrorist attack — continues to cast a shadow on Pakistan-India relations two years down the road. As if this was not enough, the Indian establishment and the media continue to lay unsubstantiated blame for the tragedy at Pakistan’s doorstep while they themselves continue to struggle to find answers to the bloody drama played out in Mumbai.
Just as the Bush coterie blamed Al Qaeda within a couple of hours for the 9/11 attack, Indians lost no time in blaming Pakistan for what they called their “26/11 attack”. And just as the US insists to this day that Al Qaeda leaders from Tora Bora caves in the wilderness of Afghanistan directed the attack on WTC, the Indians also insist that Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) masterminded the Mumbai attack.
Indian leadership refused to understand that not only was such an act out of character with Pakistan but also against its interests. With Pakistan going through a difficult political transition and its military engaged with the fallout of Afghan war and in its fight against terrorist forces that threatened internal security, Pakistan could not commit the monumental blunder of involving itself in anything like ‘Mumbai’ at the risk of further complicating its relationship with India and initiating an unwanted military conflict in a difficult security environment.
Pakistan cooperated by investigating and prosecuting elements of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) that India blamed. LeT denies involvement, but it is possible that some rogue elements within LeT might have undertaken this adventure.
With the arrest of David Headley, a US citizen, by FBI and his confession that he assisted perpetrators of Mumbai attack, the Indian propaganda machine again went into overdrive, dubbing Headley as ISI agent, financed and directed by ISI. Why? Simply because Headley had a Pakistani connection.
Who is David Headley?
[Image: davidcolemanheadley-300x160.jpg]A courtroom drawing from December 2009 depicting David Headley pleading not guilty to charges of conpsiracy to commit acts of terrorism. (AP)

David Coleman Headley (50) was born Daood Sayed Gilani in Washington, D.C., to Sayed Salim Gilani, a Pakistani broadcaster seconded to VOA, and an American woman Serrill Headley, who worked as secretary in the Pakistan Embassy. Young Headley was raised in Pakistan by his father, studying in a military college, until his mother took him to Philadelphia years after she had divorced Gilani. Product of a broken home and torn between the contradictions of conservative lifestyle of his father and the libertine lifestyle of his mother, Headley initially found it difficult to blend the two, but then learned to move freely between both the worlds, even though his eyes – one brown, the other green – gave away the diversity of his roots.
Influenced by the negative environment of the bar his mother owned and where he spent his youth, he slipped into drug addiction and then into drug smuggling.
A paid informant for US DEA
After his arrest in Germany in 1988 for smuggling drugs to the US, Headley landed with US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), for which he worked as paid informant in exchange for a lighter sentence. With his outreach in the drug underworld, he helped bust several big drug deals. But he was again arrested in 1999 for drug smuggling, ended up in jail, and was again taken under its wings by DEA.
Between 2001 and 2005, he travelled to Pak-Afghan tribal areas multiple times to conduct DEA’s undercover surveillance. The DEA agents with whom he worked as an operative described him as an “opportunist,” someone who knew how to forget about loyalty, cut his losses, and get the best deal.
With a changed identity
In 2006, he changed his name to David Coleman Headley, using his mother’s family name, to make travel to Pakistan, India and other countries easier. Between 2006 and 2008, he is reported to have done five spying missions to Mumbai, scouting targets for the 2008 Mumbai attacks on behalf of some rogue elements of Lashkar-e-Taiba. In 2009, Headley travelled to Britain to help plan an attack against a Danish newspaper that had published cartoons of Prophet Muhammad. On being tipped by the British intelligence about his activities in Europe, the FBI arrested him in October 2009 while on his way to Pakistan.
Who else was he working for?
In his article in ProPublica, a newsroom of investigative journalism, Sebastian Rotella says that after 9/11 Headley told associates that he planned to train with LeT as part of a secret mission for the U.S. government, according to the person close to the case. “The FBI and DEA have joined forces and I am going to work for them,” this person quoted him as saying. “I want to do something important in my life. I want to do something for my country.”
Within two months Headley was training with LeT, which had been designated a terrorist organization by the US and Pakistan. The unusual ease, with which he was released from prison in the US and dispatched to Pakistan’s tribal region, reinforces the belief that he was working with the government in some capacity.
Besides developing excellent connections with drug mafia, he befriended and trained with different outlawed terrorist groups using his old-boy network in Pak-Afghan tribal areas. These groups found him useful because of his acceptability everywhere and ease of undetected travel between the US, India, Pakistan and elsewhere. A chameleon-like figure with a taste for risk and a talent for deception, he could successfully alternate between an American David Headley and a Pakistani Daood Gilani, depending on the setting.
All this could not be happening without prompting by DEA handlers and knowledge of other US agencies such as CIA and FBI, because such valuable assets are invested into and shared.
Both these agencies deny using Headley. But then how does one explain the extended scope of his activities and the deep knowledge that US counterterrorism officials have about him? One official described him “as a mercenary, not ideologically driven”. Another said, “He’s not an Islamic terrorist in the classic sense.” Yet another said Headley was “dangerously engaging”, someone “who knew how to manipulate the system to get what he wanted”.
Was Headley good for ISI to use?
An Indian report, leaked in October 2010 after Headley’s interrogation by Indian investigators in Chicago, again accused ISI for having planned and financed some of Headley’s scouting trips to Mumbai. Pakistan rejected these allegations, arguing that if such a statement was indeed made by Headley it might have been done to deflect the pressure on his American handlers due to Indian investigators breathing down Headley’s neck and that its veracity should be determined in the light of Headley’s character, credibility and past record.
Dismissing the Indian propaganda, ISI says it faces such allegations quite frequently, because the Indian agencies suspect an ISI agent under every rock in the region – whether it Kashmir, Afghanistan or India.
While the murky world of intelligence is too complex to fathom, it is a norm for intelligence agencies not to compromise their information by inducting an agent who works for another agency and pursues divergent interests. Even if ISI was to stage the Mumbai saga, would it be so naïve as to share such top secret information with Headley when he is known to be a dubious and slippery customer and a paid agent for DEA, and possibly CIA and FBI?
It is important to note that US officials are quoted by the US media as having admitted that the US has no evidence to counter the denial by ISI.
Warnings by Headley’s wives go unheeded
In a highly sensitive security environment in the wake of 9/11, when even a whisper of words like terrorist, jihad, explosives, etc. in any corner of the world is picked by the electronic espionage network of NSA in the US and raises red flag for American security agencies, two of Headley’s wives failed to attract the attention of the FBI when they warned it about their husband’s involvement with terrorist organizations and his suspicious activities.
Quoting officials and sources close to the case, ProPublica writes that in August 2005, when Headley was arrested in New York for domestic violence his then wife, whose identity is withheld for security reasons, told federal agents in three interviews that Gilani was an active militant of Lashkar-e-Taiba for which he had been shopping for night-vision goggles and other equipment.
ProPublica reports that she also told agents that Headley had bragged of working as a paid US informant while he worked with the terrorists in Pakistan’s Wild West. Federal officials said later the FBI “looked into” the tip, but they declined to say what, if any, action was taken.
Faiza Outalha, Headley’s Moroccan ex-wife claimed having accompanied Headley thrice to Mumbai in 2007 and 2008 and staying with him in the Taj Mahal Hotel and Oberoi Trident, both of which came under attack in 2008. She said that in her two meetings with US embassy officials in Islamabad she informed them about her husband having friends among members of Lashkar-e-Taiba and that he was plotting a terror act in Mumbai. She claimed she even showed them photographs of the two hotels where they had stayed.
“I told them, he’s either a terrorist, or he’s working for you,” she recalled having told the American officials at the US embassy in Islamabad. “Indirectly, they told me to get lost,” she was quoted as saying.
“Despite those warnings by two of his three wives, Mr. Headley roamed far and wide on Lashkar’s [LeT] behalf between 2002 and 2009, receiving training in small arms and counter surveillance, scouting targets for attacks, and building a network of connections that extended from Chicago to Pakistan’s lawless northwestern frontier,” said New York Times.
There are several questions that continue to intrigue analysts. Was FBI aware of the David Headley’s activities? Was Headley acting as the go-between for DEA/CIA and rogue elements of Lashkar-e-Taiba? Is that why FBI stonewalled those who were trying to expose him?
Did the US fail to share information with the Indians?
News reports in October 2010 revealed that despite having received plenty of advance knowledge about David Headley’s terrorist associations and activities for several years, the U.S. intelligence agencies failed to prevent him from proceeding with his designs. This has caused the Indians to complain that the US kept them in the dark about the impending attack.
Mike Hammer, spokesman of the National Security Council, White House, responding to the investigative report by ProPublica told PTI : “The US ‘regularly provided threat information’ to Indian officials in 2008 before the attacks in Mumbai”.
ProPublica and the Daily Beast claim that US anti-terrorism officials had warned Indian counterparts at least thrice in 2008 about a possible attack on Mumbai. According to an anti-terrorism official with knowledge of the warnings, the first warning about LeT plans was given in early 2008. In May, U.S. officials warned that the attack should be expected in September and also identified potential targets such as the Taj Mahal hotel and nearby sites frequented by foreigners. Then came the warning in September.
No link has been established between Headley and these warnings, but based on the knowledge that DEA and CIA had close relationship with Headley, anti-terrorism officials conclude that the US got this information by monitoring Headley, either as an informant, an ex-informant or a suspect. It is doubtful if any other source could regularly give such precise information from within the ranks of LeT.
Why were these warnings not heeded by Indian intelligence agencies?
Despite the US claim about information sharing, the 3-day slaughter in Mumbai caught Indian security forces unprepared. This is quite intriguing.
There are several theories floating around. According to one, since the strike did not occur in September as per the warning, the Indian security forces lowered their guard.
Another theory comes from secular elements, particularly from within the ruling Congress party. According to them there are linkages between the Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB), which they claim, is heavily infiltrated by RSS (a communal organization that opposes improvement of relations with Pakistan and targets Indian minorities) and the ‘Mumbai conspiracy’. They claim this had a twofold objective: one, to sabotage Indo-Pakistan relations and scuttle the ongoing dialogue by slapping the blame for the incident on Pakistan, and two, using this tragedy as a pretext unleash a wave of Muslim massacre in Maharashtra, as was done several times in the past. The threat warnings were therefore simply swept under the carpet.
Amaresh Misra, a historian and chief of the Anti-Communal Front of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), in his article “Headley Saga: Mumbai attack was a joint IB-CIA-Mossad- RSS project”, says “…basically Headley and the CIA cannot be de-linked. “
He writes: “The IB knew about Headley – this is proved by the fact that the SIM cards used by the ten 26/11 terrorists were purchased by an IB informer. Till date, the investigations into the 26/11 case, which the IB is handling, have been unable to state as to how the ten terrorists got hold of the SIM cards. “
He goes on to say: “It beats one’s imagination as to how the IB did not know about Headley and his movements. There can only be two scenarios: that the IB is totally incompetent–or that the IB is heavily infiltrated by RSS, CIA and Mossad: the agency knew about 26/11 and did nothing to stop it.”
Misra points out that the Headley saga also had links to Abhinav Bharat and pro-Hindutva terror groups which are widely believed to be behind the Pune blasts. This, according to him, was also corroborated by the Maharashtra state home secretary.
The mystery surrounding the assassination of police officer Hemant Karkare, who was close to unraveling the role of these terrorist groups in Samjhota Express and the Pune blasts, also appears to be part of this conspiracy and hence has remained unresolved.
The US keeps its mole under wraps
Meanwhile, the US authorities have refused to extradite Headley to India, citing plea bargain with him as the reason. They were initially reluctant to even allow India’s National Investigation Agency to interrogate Headley in the US. This gave rise to suspicions in India about the U.S. government’s motives in keeping Headley under wraps. Indian officials suspected that US agencies declined to share intelligence to avoid compromising other secret operations and to be able to deny any link with Headley.
“The feeling in India is that the US has not been transparent,” said B. Raman, a former counter-terrorism chief in the Indian foreign intelligence service, the RAW. “That Headley was an agent for the DEA is known. Whether he was being used by the CIA as well is a matter of speculation, but it is almost certain that the CIA was aware of him and his movements across the subcontinent.”
What about the truth?
With such a large numbers of players involved in varying degrees and with too many overlapping internal and external interests, the truth behind the Mumbai saga will perhaps never come out. If he chooses to speak the truth, perhaps David Headley will have the last word.
http://www.thehackernews.com/2011/05/isi...nt-of.html

Monday, May 16, 2011
ISI (Pakistan) hack email account of Indian Army Major !
Posted by The Hacker News on 2:07 AM 0 comments

ISI (Pakistan) hack email account of Indian Army Major !

A serving Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officer Major Sameer Ali hacked an Indian Army major's e-mail account in 2010 and extracted many sensitive documents, intelligence sources said. Ali has been named by India in the list of 50 'most wanted' terrorists sheltered by Pakistan for involvement in the Mumbai attacks conspiracy.

The news of the hacking was given to Indian probe agencies by the FBI, which was then interrogating Mumbai attack accused David Coleman Headley. The US agency told the CBI Ali had been accessing an Indian Army officer's rediffmail account from the ISI headquarters.

The hacked account was traced to Major Shantanu De of 21 Bihar Regiment, who was at that time posted in the Andamans. De's computer was seized and scrutinised jointly by the Intelligence Bureau, National Investigation Agency and the Military Intelligence.

What was baffling was that his computer and e-mail had more than 4,000 sensitive documents - some of them marked 'secret' and 'top secret'-which he was not supposed to be in possession of, leading to suspicions of espionage on part of Major De.

While the joint investigation cleared De, it came to light how an innocuous posting of his own photograph in uniform in the social networking site Orkut with his various details made him the ISI's target.

He had collected the documents out of interest and also to prepare for his departmental exams that were slated for September 2010.

De has since been demoted after being held guilty of violating the Army's Standard Operating Procedures on cyber security.

Another of Ali's colleague in the ISI, Major Iqbal, who also figures in India's "most wanted" list, was Headley's handler for the ISI.

On April 26, a US court had also chargesheeted Major Iqbal for conspiracy in the 2008 Mumbai terror strike. Iqbal's role has also been confirmed by Headley during his confessions.

Source : Hindustan Times
The MSM in the West state [sic] that Headley is an American 'businessman'....Spy :what: Well, I guess one could call intelligence 'monkey business'. :mexican:
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