India- interesting timing

[Paul Rigby]

....and there is the interesting little detail of disappearing 'terrorists'/patsies/whatever-they-were:

http://www.infowars.com/?p=6253
...and this Pakistani expert on security issues [url]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F4_qwtM5...r_embedded[/url]

Yup, Mumbai was just another inside job…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081206/ap_o...a_shooting

Indian police arrest 2 men in Mumbai investigation

By AIJAZ HUSSAIN, Associated Press Writer

AP – A man with his face covered, identified by the police as Mukhtar Ahmed, appears at a court in Calcutta, … SRINAGAR, India – One of the two Indian men arrested for illegally buying mobile phone cards used by the gunmen in the Mumbai attacks was a counterinsurgency police officer who may have been on an undercover mission, security officials said Saturday, demanding his release.

The arrests, announced in the eastern city of Calcutta, were the first since the bloody siege ended. But what was touted as a rare success for India's beleaguered law enforcement agencies, quickly turned sour as police in two Indian regions squared off against one another.

Senior police officers in Indian Kashmir, which has been at the heart of tensions between India and Pakistan, demanded the release of the officer, Mukhtar Ahmed, saying he was one of their own and had been involved in infiltrating Kashmiri militant groups.

Indian authorities believe the banned Pakistani-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has links to Kashmir, trained the gunmen and plotted the attacks that left 171 people dead after a three-day rampage through Mumbai that began Nov. 26.

The implications of Ahmed's involvement — that Indian agents may have been in touch with the militants and perhaps supplied the SIM cards used in the attacks — added to the growing list of questions over India's ill-trained security forces, which are widely blamed for not thwarting the attacks.

Earlier Saturday, Calcutta police announced the arrests of Ahmed and Tauseef Rahman, who allegedly bought SIM cards by using fake documents, including identification cards of dead people. The cards allow users switch their cellular service to phones other than their own.

Rahman, of West Bengal state, later sold them to Ahmed, said Rajeev Kumar a senior Calcutta police officer.

Both men were arrested Friday and charged with fraud and criminal conspiracy, Kumar said, adding that police were still investigating how the 10 gunmen obtained the SIM cards.

But the announcement had police in Srinagar, the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir, fuming.

We have told Calcutta police that Ahmed is "our man and it's now up to them how to facilitate his release," said one senior officer speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information. Other police officials in Kashmir supported his account.

The officer said Ahmed was a Special Police Officer, part of a semiofficial counterinsurgency network whose members are usually drawn from former militants. The force is run on a special funding from the federal Ministry of Home Affairs.

"Sometimes we use our men engaged in counterinsurgency ops to provide SIM cards to the (militant) outfits so that we track their plans down," said the officer.

Police said Ahmed was recruited to the force after his brother was killed five years ago, allegedly by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants for being a police informer.

About a dozen Islamic militant groups have been fighting in Kashmir since 1989, seeking independence from mainly Hindu India or a union with Muslim-majority Pakistan.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over the Himalayan region, which is divided between them and claimed by both in its entirety.

The Calcutta police denied the claims from Srinagar. "This is not true," said Kumar.

The bungling and miscommunications among India's many security services comes as police said they were re-examining another suspected Lashkar militant who was arrested nine months before the attacks carrying hand-drawn sketches of Mumbai hotels, the train terminal and other targeted sites.

Rakesh Maria, a senior Mumbai police officer, said the man, Faheem Ansari, was being transported to Mumbai from northern India where he has been in custody for further questioning, hoping he could shed more light on the attacks.

Maria said there was a definite connection between Ansari and the Mumbai attacks. "Ansari was trained by Lashkar and sent to do reconnaissance," he said.

And a day after India's top law enforcement official apologized for security "lapses" that allowed the gunmen to rampage through Mumbai, there were new embarrassments — this time with holes in the prime minister's security.

Police preparing for a visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh near Calcutta hired high-school children for the equivalent of $2.50 each to sit in trees for the day and look out for suspicious people.

Local police chief L.N. Meena defended using children in the prime minister's security detail, saying there were too many trees in the area and not enough policemen.

"The area is full of trees, so to check them to see if there were any anti-social elements or anyone making mischief, we employed the youths," he said.

Television footage showed dozens of the youngsters perched in trees, with yellow paper badges that read "security pass" pinned on their chests.

Meanwhile police continued the interrogation of the lone surviving gunman from the Mumbai attacks, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, 21, who revealed that the gunmen had detailed pictures of the locations, Maria said.

"They were pretty elaborate photographs," he said, adding that they had also used maps from Google to study the targets.

Kasab has told interrogators he had been sent by Lashkar and identified two of the plot's masterminds as being involved, two Indian government officials familiar with the inquiry said. Police had earlier identified the prisoner as Ajmal Amir Kasab.

Lashkar changed its name to Jamaat-ud-Dawa after it was banned in 2002 amid U.S. pressure, according to the U.S. State Department. The U.S. lists both groups as terrorist organizations.

Kasab told police that a senior Lashkar leader, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the group's operations chief, recruited him for the attack, and that the assailants called another senior leader, Yusuf Muzammil, on a satellite phone before the attacks.

In Pakistan, the Interior Ministry chief told reporters he had no immediate information on Lakhvi or Muzammil.

According to the U.S., Lakhvi has directed Lashkar operations in Chechnya, Bosnia and Southeast Asia, training members to carry out suicide bombings and attack populated areas. In 2004, he allegedly sent operatives and funds to attack U.S. forces in Iraq.

Associated Press writers Ravi Nessman, Muneeza Naqvi and Ramola Talwar Badam in Mumbai, Sam Dolnick and Ashok Sharma in New Delhi, and Manik Banerjee in Calcutta contributed to this report

[Paul Rigby]

Yup, Mumbai was just another inside job…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081206/ap_o...a_shooting

Now for the bigger picture. A long, very excellent piece from Gobal Research:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11313

Creating an "Arc of Crisis": The Destabilization of the Middle East and Central Asia

The Mumbai Attacks and the “Strategy of Tension”

By Andrew G. Marshall

Global Research, December 7, 2008

Introduction

The recent attacks in Mumbai, while largely blamed on Pakistan’s state-sponsored militant groups, represent the latest phase in a far more complex and long-term “strategy of tension” in the region; being employed by the Anglo-American-Israeli Axis to ultimately divide and conquer the Middle East and Central Asia. The aim is destabilization of the region, subversion and acquiescence of the region’s countries, and control of its economies, all in the name of preserving the West’s hegemony over the “Arc of Crisis.”

The attacks in India are not an isolated event, unrelated to growing tensions in the region. They are part of a processof unfolding chaos that threatens to engulf an entire region, stretching from the Horn of Africa to India: the “Arc of Crisis,” as it has been known in the past.

The motives and modus operandi of the attackers must be examined and questioned, and before quickly asserting blame to Pakistan, it is necessary to step back and review:

Who benefits? Who had the means? Who had to motive? In whose interest is it to destabilize the region? Ultimately, the roles of the United States, Israel and Great Britain must be submitted to closer scrutiny.

The Mumbai Attacks: 11/26/08

On November 26, 2008, a number of coordinated terrorist attacks occurred across India’s main commercial city of Mumbai, which lasted until November 29. The attacks and three-day siege that ensued left hundreds dead, and roughly 295 others injured. Among the dead were a Briton, five Americans and six Israelis.[1]

Asserting the Blame

The 60-hour siege that engulfed Mumbai was reportedly undertaken by just ten, well-trained “commando killers.” Most blame has fallen on the heels of the group known as Lashkar-e-Taiba.[2]

At first, a previously-unheard of organization, known as the Deccan Mujahideen, took responsibility for the terror attacks when it sent emails to several news outlets a mere six hours after the fighting began. However, much skepticism remained about whether the group actually even exists.[3]

British intelligence then claimed that the attacks had the “hallmarks” of Al-Qaeda as it was undertaken in an effort to target westerners, similar to the 2002 Bali Bombings. British intelligence officials suggested the attacks were in “retaliation” for the recent US air attacks of suspected Al-Qaeda camps in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, and that India was chosen as the target because that is where Al-Qaeda has “sufficient resources to carry out an attack.”[4]

On November 28, India’s foreign minister said the attackers were coordinated “outside the country,” in a veiled reference to Pakistan.[5] India’s Prime Minister also blamed the attacks on militant groups based in Pakistan, which are supported by the Pakistani government.[6]

Then, the focus was put directly on the group, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant Pakistani-based organization responsible for past attacks in India. American intelligence early on pointed the finger at this group, as well as identifying the Pakistani ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) as its supporter.[7]

The Lashkar-e Taiba (LeT)

It is important to identify what the LeT is and how it has operated historically. The group operates out of the disputed territories between India and Pakistan, Jammu and Kashmir. It has close ties with the Pakistani ISI, and is largely known for its use of suicide attacks. However, aside from its links to the ISI, it is also closely allied with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The LeT is even referred to as the “most visible manifestation” of Al-Qaeda in India. It has branches across much of India, Pakistan, and in Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, South East Asia, and the United Kingdom. It primarily gets its funding from Pakistani businessmen, the ISI and Saudi Arabia. The LeT also took part in the Bosnian campaign against the Serbs in the 1990s.[8]

All the above-mentioned connections make the LeT the most desirable outfit to blame for the Mumbai attacks, as its Al-Qaeda connections, international presence and historical precedents of terror attacks set it up as the perfect target. Much like with Al-Qaeda, the LeT’s international scope could serve as a basis for taking a “war against LeT” to the steps of many countries, thus further serving the interests of the Anglo-American “War on Terror.”

Militant Islam and Western Intelligence – The Case of Yugoslavia

The LeT has not operated independently of Pakistani influence and finances. It’s close relationship with the ISI must be viewed in context: the ISI has a close relationship with Western intelligence agencies, primarily those of Great Britain and the United States. The ISI has effectively acted as a conduit for Anglo-American intelligence operations in the region since the late 1970s, when the Afghan Mujahedeen were created in collusion with the CIA. Out of this collusion, lasting throughout the 1980s until the end of the Soviet-Afghan War in 1989, Al-Qaeda was created, as well as a series of other militant Islamic organizations.

It is often stated that the CIA then discontinued its relationship with the ISI, and in turn, that the militant Islamic organizations broke off from their Western intelligence sponsors to declare war against the West. However, the facts do not support this. The ties remained, but the strategy changed. What changed was that in the early 1990s, the Cold War ended, and Russia no longer was the “Evil Empire,” and thus the excuse for an exacerbated defence budget and imperialist foreign policy receded. As George H.W. Bush declared, it was during this time that we would see the formation of the “New World Order.” And with that, there was a need for a new, elusive enemy, not in the form of a nation, but a seemingly invisible enemy, international in scale, thus taking the war to an international arena.

So in the early 1990s, Western intelligence maintained its ties to these Islamic terrorist groups. Yugoslavia is a very important case to analyze in relation to current events. The break-up of Yugoslavia was a process undertaken by Anglo-American covert interests with the aim of serving their imperial ambitions in the region. In the early 1980s, the IMF set the stage in Yugoslavia with its Structural Adjustment Programs, which had the effect of creating an economic crisis, which in turn created a political crisis. This exacerbated ethnic rivalries, and in 1991, the CIA supported the Croat move for independence.

In 1992, with the start of the Bosnian War, Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists began operating with the ethnic Bosnian Muslim minority in fighting the Serbs. In turn, these Al-Qaeda affiliated groups were supported with training, arming, and finances by German, Turkish, Iranian and US intelligence agencies; with additional financial support from Saudi Arabia. In 1997, the Kosovo War began, in which the militant-terrorist-drug trafficking Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) began fighting against Serbia, with training, arms and financial support from the US and other NATO countries. The CIA, German intelligence, the DIA, MI6 and British Special Forces (SAS) all provided training and support to the KLA.

Yugoslavia - Before and After Balkanization

The aim was in breaking up Yugoslavia, using ethnic rivalries as the trigger for regional conflict and ultimately war, leading to the dissolution of Yugoslavia into several countries, justifying a permanent US and NATO military presence in the region. [See: Breaking Yugoslavia, by Andrew G. Marshall, Geopolitical Monitor, July 21, 2008]

The Lashkar-e Taiba’s participation in the Bosnian War against Serbia would have in turn been financed and supported by these various Western intelligence agencies, thus serving the interests of Western Imperialist states; primarily those of Great Britain and the United States.

The LeT and Western Intelligence

The LeT has a sordid history of involvement with Western intelligence agencies, primarily those of Great Britain.

With the London 7/7 bombings [July 7, 2005] in which three underground stations and a double-decker bus had bombs explode on them; many of the suspected terrorists had interesting connections to Pakistan. For example, one of the suspects, Shehzad Tanweer, had apparently “attended a religious school run by the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)” while in Pakistan. Due to the LeT’s ties with Al-Qaeda, this allowed for the conclusion to be drawn that Al-Qaeda may have played a part in the London bombings, which were initially blamed on the international terrorist organization. The LeT also has close ties with the Jemaah Islamiyyah (JI),[9] an Indonesian terrorist organization, which was blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings, which also targeted tourists in Indonesia.

The Bali Bombings

Interesting to note, however, is that in the early 1990’s, when the Jemaah Islamiyyah (JI) was officially formed into a terrorist organization, it developed close ties with Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Further, the organizations founders and leaders played a significant role in recruiting Muslims to join the Afghan Mujahideen in the war against the Soviets during the 1980’s, which was covertly directed and supported by US, British and various other Western intelligence agencies. The JI wouldn’t exist “without the CIA’s dirty operations in Afghanistan.” A former Indonesian President stated that one of JI’s key individuals was also a spy for the Indonesian intelligence agency, and that Indonesian intelligence played a more central role in the Bali bombings than the JI itself.

Bali Bombings

The JI itself, had reportedly been infiltrated by the CIA, Israeli Mossad, and that “the CIA and the Mossad, assisted by the Australian Special Action Police (SAP) and the M15 of England, are all working towards undermining Muslim organizations in an attempt to weaken the Muslims globally.” Further, one of JI’s key planners of the Bali bombings, Omar al-Faruq, was reportedly a CIA asset, and even senior Indonesian intelligence officials believed the CIA was behind the Bali bombings. The CIA subsequently “guided” Indonesia’s investigation into the bombings, which found the JI, and the JI alone, responsible for the attacks. [See: Andrew G. Marshall, The Bali Bombings. Geopolitical Monitor, November 15, 2008]

London 7/7

Much of the focus of the London bombings of July 7, 2005 (7/7), was focused on the “Pakistani connection.” The suspected bombers had all visited Pakistan, and apparently developed contacts with groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashkar-e Taiba. However, a less known and less publicized connection yields some very interesting information. The suspected mastermind of the London bombings, Haroon Rashid Aswat, had visited all the suspected bombers leading up to the attacks. Phone records revealed that there were “around 20 calls between him and the 7/7 gang, leading right up to those attacks.” Why is this significant? Because Haroon Rashid Aswat, apart from being an Al-Qaeda operative, also happened to be an MI6 agent, working for the British intelligence. Haroon also made his appearance on the scene of Islamic terrorism when he was in Kosovo in the 1990’s, where he “worked for British intelligence.”[10]

The Liquid Bomb Plot

Another event which brought to the forefront a “Pakistani connection” was the August 2006 London liquid bomb plot, in which terrorists supposedly were plotting to blow up nearly a dozen Atlantic airliners bound for major US cities.

The Pakistani ISI apparently helped in “uncovering” the liquid bomb plot, aiding the British in their roundup of suspects, and “tipped-off MI5.” One of the Pakistani groups accused of some involvement in the liquid bomb plot was the Lashkar-e Taiba.[11]

However, again, the suspected terrorists had been “infiltrated” and spied on by British intelligence for over a year. Further, the supposed ringleader of the bomb plot, Rashid Rauf, a dual British-Pakistani citizen, was pinpointed as the ringleader by both British and Pakistani intelligence, and was the link between the plot and Al-Qaeda. Rauf also has close ties with the ISI, and apparently had the plot approved by Al-Qaeda’s number two in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who formerly worked for the CIA during the Soviet-Afghan war. The ISI had arrested Rashid Rauf following the “exposure” of the liquid bomb plot, yet, in 2006, the charges against him were dropped, and in 2007, he amazingly escaped Pakistani custody, having “managed to open his handcuffs and evade two police guards.” [See: Andrew G. Marshall, Liquid Bomb Plot. Geopolitical Monitor: October 27, 2008]

Clearly, if the LeT is discovered to be responsible for the Mumbai attacks, its connections to Western intelligence agencies should be more closely examined and subject to investigation. The ISI, throughout its history, has not been the key player in supporting various terrorist organizations, rather, it can be more accurately described as a conduit for Western intelligence agencies to covertly fund and support terrorist organizations in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Terrorizing India

We must examine the current attacks with a backdrop of reviewing recent terror attacks in India.

1993 Bombay Bombings

March 12, 1993, Bombay (today, Mumbai) experienced a coordinated attack of 13 explosions, which killed over 250 people. A man with close connections to Osama bin laden and Al-Qaeda, Dawood Ibrahim, was believed to have been the mastermind of the attacks. He has also financed several operations of the Lashkar-e Taiba, and was believed to be hiding out in Pakistan, and receiving protection and support from the Pakistani ISI, which in 2007, reportedly arrested him. [See: Andrew G. Marshall, Political Destabilization in South and Central Asia: The Role of the CIA-ISI Terror Network. Global Research: September 17, 2008]

Mumbai Bombings, July 11, 2006: 7/11

Over 200 people were killed in Mumbai when seven bombs exploded within 11 minutes of one another on several trains. Blame for the attacks was placed with the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Lashkar-e Taiba (LeT), both of which have close ties with the ISI. The ISI was subsequently blamed for organizing the attacks, which were then carried out by the LeT and SIMI. The bombings led to the postponement of India-Pakistan peace talks, which were set to take place the next week. [Ibid]

Indian Embassy Bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan: July 7, 2008

On July 7, 2008, a bomb exploded at the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing over 50 people, and injuring over 100 others. The Afghan government and the Indian intelligence agency immediately blamed the ISI, in collaboration with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, of planning and executing the attack. Reports on the bombing suggested that the aim was to “increase the distrust between Pakistan and Afghanistan and undermine Pakistan's relations with India, despite recent signs that a peace process between Islamabad and New Delhi was making some headway.”

Indian Embassy in Kabul

In early August, American intelligence agencies supported the claim that members of the ISI helped plan the attack, which they based upon “intercepted communications,” and that, “American officials said that the communications were intercepted before the July 7 bombing, and that the C.I.A. emissary, Stephen R. Kappes, the agency’s deputy director, had been ordered to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, even before the attack.” Interestingly, “a top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled to Pakistan [in August] to confront senior Pakistani officials with information about support provided by members of the ISI to militant groups.” However, the CIA knows of these connections, as it has actively supported and financed these covert ISI connections with terrorist organizations. So, what was the real purpose of this top CIA official’s visit to Pakistan?

Days after the CIA released this information to the New York Times, the US accused Pakistan of undermining NATO’s efforts in Afghanistan by supporting Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and further, “Mike Mc-Connell, the director of national intelligence, and [CIA director] Hayden asked Musharraf to allow the CIA greater freedom to operate in the tribal areas,” and was threatened with “retaliation” if he did not comply. [See: Andrew G. Marshall, Political Destabilization in South and Central Asia: The Role of the CIA-ISI Terror Network. Global Research: September 17, 2008]

The ISI and the CIA

Again, if the ISI is to be blamed for the recent Mumbai attacks, as it has played a part in several attacks and support of terrorism throughout its history, it is important to identify its relationship with the CIA.

The CIA developed close ties with the ISI in the late 1970s, as the CIA used the ISI as a “go-between” for CIA support of the Afghan Mujahideen. This relationship was also pivotal in supporting the Afghan narcotics trade, which again is rampant. The relationship between the two agencies continued throughout the 1990s, in areas such as Chechnya, Yugoslavia and India. [See: Michel Chossudovsky, Al Qaeda and the "War on Terrorism". Global Research: January 20, 2008]

A week prior to the 9/11 attacks, the head of Pakistan’s ISI was on a visit to Washington, D.C., where he met with several key policy figures, such as Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage; Senator Joseph Biden, who is going to be Obama’s Vice President; and with his counterparts in the CIA and Pentagon, and several other officials. He was in Washington right up to and after the 9/11 attacks, and was engaged in several key consultations with US officials, pledging support for the US War on Terror instantly. However, the very same Chief of the ISI also happened to have previously approved of wiring $100,000 to the lead 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed Atta, which was also confirmed by the FBI. Thus, the ISI suddenly became a financier of the 9/11 attacks. Yet, no action was taken against the ISI or Pakistan, apart from the ISI Chief being fired upon this revelation making it into the media.

ISI Chief Lt.-General Mahmoud Ahmad

Of important significance is that this ISI Chief, Lt.-General Mahmoud Ahmad, was approved as head of the ISI by the US in 1999. From then, he was in close contact and liaison with top officials of the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the Pentagon. [See: Michel Chossudovsky, Cover-up or Complicity of the Bush Administration? Global Research: November 2, 2001]

Collaboration between the ISI and CIA did not end with these disturbing revelations. In 2007, it was reported that the CIA was arming and funding a terrorist organization named Jundullah, based in Pakistan’s tribal areas, with the goal of “sowing chaos” in Iran. Jundullah not only is funded and armed by the CIA, but has extensive ties to Al-Qaeda, and the ISI, as the CIA’s financial support for the group is funneled through the ISI, so as to make it more difficult to establish a link between the CIA and the terrorist outfit. [See: Andrew G. Marshall, Political Destabilization in South and Central Asia, op cit ]

As Michel Chossudovsky pointed out in his article, India’s 9/11, “In September, Washington pressured Islamabad, using the "war on terrorism" as a pretext to fire the ISI chief Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj,” and Pakistani “President Asif Ali Zardari had meetings in New York in late September with CIA Director Michael Hayden.” Following these meetings, “a new US approved ISI chief Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha was appointed by the Chief of the Army, General Kayani, on behalf of Washington.”

Anglo-American-Israeli Intelligence and India

In mid-October, American intelligence agencies warned Indian intelligence warned India about an attack “from the sea against hotels and business centers in Mumbai.” Even the Taj Hotel, which became the key area of fighting, was listed as a specific target.[12] In late November, “India’s intelligence services had delivered at least three precise warnings that a major terrorist attack on Mumbai was imminent.”[13]

Immediately following the attacks, it was reported that, “Unprecedented intelligence cooperation involving investigating agencies and spy outfits of India, United States, United Kingdom and Israel has got underway to crack the method and motive behind the Mumbai terrorist massacre, now widely blamed on Islamist radicals who appeared to have all four countries on their hit list when they arrived on the shores of India.” Specifically, “Investigators, forensic analysts, counter-terrorism experts and spymasters from agencies the four countries are converging in New Delhi and Mumbai to put their heads, resources, and skills together to understand the evolving nature of the beast.”

Further, “Washington suggested sending US Special Forces for on-the-ground operations in Mumbai but New Delhi declined the offer, saying its own forces could take care of the situation.” This unprecedented intelligence cooperation was based upon the understanding that, “the manner in which the terrorists who attacked Mumbai are reported to have singled out Americans and Britons, besides pointedly occupying a Jewish center, has revealed that their agenda was wider than just domestic discontent or the Kashmir issue.”[14]

Shortly after the attacks began, it was reported that FBI agents were quickly flown to Mumbai to help in investigating the Mumbai attacks.[15] Israel also offered to send in its “crack commandos to Mumbai to rescue Israeli hostages held in a Jewish centre,” which was refused by India, which led to Israeli media criticizing India’s response to the attacks as “slow, confused and inefficient.”[16]

The Terrorists

Hours after the attacks began on November 26, it was reported that two terrorists were killed and two others were arrested.[17] Later on, reports surfaced in which Indian police had killed four of the Mumbai terrorists and arrested nine of them.[18] The international media was full of this reported capture of nine terrorists.

Interestingly, by November 29, the story had changed. All of a sudden, Mumbai cops had only “nabbed” one terrorist. This person has effectively become the nail-in-the-coffin for laying the blame at Pakistan’s door. As soon as this person was caught, he began to sing like a canary, and said that, “all [the] terrorists were trained in marine warfare along with the special course Daura-e-Shifa conducted by the Lashkar-e-Taiba in what at once transforms the nature of the planning from a routine terror strike and into a specialized raid by commandos.” He also stated that the terrorists “were made to believe by their Lashkar bosses that they were not being sent on a suicide mission and that they would be coming back alive.” He also revealed the names of his fellow terrorists, all of them Pakistani citizens.[19]

Along the same lines, another very interesting mystery of the Mumbai massacre is the early reports of British involvement. Shortly following the outbreak of violence, Indian authorities stated that, “Seven of the Mumbai terrorists were British Pakistanis,” and that, “two Brits had been arrested and another five suspects were from the UK.” Further, Blackberry phones found on the suspects contained “a lot of content” connecting them with the UK.[20] The Chief Minister of Mumbai had early on reported that, “two British-born Pakistanis were among eight gunmen seized by Indian commandos who stormed buildings to free hostages.”[21]

On December 1, the Daily Mail reported that, “As many as seven of the terrorists may have British connections and some could be from Leeds and Bradford where London's July 7 bombers lived.” As a result of these revelations, Scotland Yard anti-terrorist detectives were sent to Mumbai “to assist in the investigation.” There was also speculation that one particular British Al-Qaeda suspect may have helped plan the assault, and just happened to be killed a week earlier in Pakistan by the CIA. That person was Rashid Rauf.[22] This is the same Rashid Rauf who was at first declared the mastermind of the London liquid bomb plot, who had close ties with the ISI and Al-Qaeda, who was subsequently arrested by the ISI, and then miraculously “escaped” from Pakistani custody. Barely a week before the Mumbai Massacre, Rauf was reportedly killed by a CIA drone attack on a militant Islamic base in Pakistan’s tribal region.

Early on, there was an incident in which a taxicab was blown up in Mumbai, with the driver and passenger killed. The taxi started moving through a red light when the car bomb exploded, which ended up saving the lives of “hundreds,” as opposed to if the car had moved when the light was green and intersection was full. This ensured that the only ones who died were those in the taxi.[23] This sparked an investigation into whether the driver “was aware that his car was loaded with explosives.”[24]

Why is this significant? Because this closely resembles tactics used in Iraq since the Anglo-American occupation of the country, employed by both US and British intelligence and special forces in an effort to sow chaos and create civil strife and war. [See: Andrew G. Marshall, State-Sponsored Terror: British and American Black Ops in Iraq. Global Research, June 25, 2008]

Means, Modus Operandi and Motive

Means

While the possibility that Pakistan and the ISI (or Lashkar-e Taiba) are responsible for the Mumbai attacks should be taken into consideration, given precedence and means, we must allow ourselves to contemplate other possibilities.

While India and the west are placing the blame for the attacks on Pakistan’s ISI and the Lashkar-e Taiba, the Pakistani press is reporting on another possibility.

On November 29, the Pakistan Daily reported that, with a stiff side of anti-Israel rhetoric, that the Mumbai attack would be used “as justification for a US invasion of Pakistan.” It reported that the Israeli Mossad “has mobilized since 2000 in the Jammu and Kashmir areas of India, where the Indian government has been pursuing a ‘security’ issue with regard to the Kashmiri people.” It quoted a Times of India article that reported, “Israeli counter-terrorism experts are now touring Jammu and Kashmir and several other states in India at the invitation of Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani to make an assessment of New Delhi’s security needs. The Israeli team, headed by Eli Katzir of the Israel Counter-Terrorism Combat Unit, includes Israeli military intelligence officials and a senior police official.” There was also a reported agreement on “closer India-Israeli cooperation on all security matters.”[25]

Modus Operandi

Shortly after the start of the attacks in Mumbai, a Russia counter-terrorism presidential envoy stated that, “The terrorists in the Indian city of Mumbai, who killed more than 150 people and injured over 300, used the same tactics that Chechen field militants employed in the Northern Caucasus.” He elaborated, “These tactics were used during raids by militant Chechen field commanders Shamil Basayev and Salman Raduyev against the towns of Buddyonnovsk and Pervomaiskoye. For the first time in history the entire towns were terrorized, with homes and hospitals seized. The Mumbai terrorists have learned these tactics well.”[26]

Shamil Basayev, one of the Chechen rebel leaders, as well as many of the other Chechen leaders, were trained by the CIA and ISI in Afghanistan, in CIA-run training camps during the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s.[27]

Motive

On December 2, former ISI Chief Hameed Gul, said that the “Mumbai incident is an international based conspiracy to deprive Pakistan of its atomic power. Talking to a private TV channel on Friday, he said that to involve Pakistan in the incident reflected that some forces wanted to declare Pakistan a fail[ed] state as somehow it had become necessary to make Pakistan kneel down in order to snatch its atomic power away.” He elaborated that the method of attacks, and how the militants executed them, “seemed impossible without internal support.” He continued in stating that the “US wanted to see [the] Indian army in Afghanistan to disintegrate the country,” and referred to recent US maps showing a divided Pakistan in four parts, and that making Pakistan “kneel down” before the IMF was “part of a pre-planned trick.”[28]

As astonishing and outlandish as these claims may seem, the US has a long history of turning on its allies when they seek to become self-sufficient and developed, such as with Saddam Hussein and Iraq in the early 1990s. Also, it is vital to note the role of the IMF and World Bank in creating economic crises, and thus, political-social-ethnic instability, which invariably has led to all out ethnic war, genocides and “international interventions,” in countries such as Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

The International Financial Institutions (IFIs) often create the conditions for political instability, while covert Western intelligence support to disaffected and radical groups creates the means for rebellion; which then becomes the excuse for foreign military intervention; which then secures an imperial military presence in the region, thus gaining control over the particular region’s resources and strategic position. This is the age-old conquest of empire: divide and conquer.

Interesting to note is that in 2008, “Pakistan was again seeking IMF help. On Nov. 25, it won final approval on a $7.6 billion loan package after foreign reserves shrank 74 percent to $3.5 billion in the 12 months ended on Nov. 8.”[29] This loan was approved a day before the Mumbai attacks began. On December 4, it was reported that, “Tough conditions of International Monetary Fund (IMF) have now started surfacing as IMF and the Government of Pakistan (GoP) agreed to discontinue oil import support, eliminate power subsidies and budgetary support of the government, public and private entities. IMF and GoP have agreed to phase out the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBPs) provision of foreign exchange for oil imports.” On top of this, “further steps will be taken during the remainder of the fiscal year to strengthen tax enforcement. Moreover, fuel prices will continue to be adjusted to pass through changes in international prices.” Further, “The programme envisages a significant tightening of monetary policy.”[30]

The results of these conditionalities are predictable: Pakistan will lose all subsidies; fuel prices will drastically rise, as will food and other necessary commodity prices. At the same time, a tightening of monetary policy and World Bank/IMF control over Pakistan’s central bank will prevent Pakistan from taking measures to curb inflation, and the cost of living will skyrocket as the currency value plummets. All this is going on while taxes are increased and expanded greatly, and public jobs such as bureaucratic positions, education, etc., are downsized or altogether disbanded. Money will likely continue to flow to the ISI and Army, which will create discontent among Pakistan’s deprived and disillusioned. A military coup would be likely, followed by rebellion en masse, which would in turn pit the various ethnicities against one another. This could lead to either a war against India, ultimately ending with a consolidated national security state to act as a conduit for Anglo-American imperial ambitions, such as in Rwanda; or, it could result in ethnic conflict and wars, ultimately ending up in the break-up of Pakistan into smaller states divided among ethnic lines, such as in Yugoslavia. Or, it could end with a combination of the two, a divided, warring, region engulfed in crisis.

The break up of Pakistan is not a far-fetched idea in terms of Anglo-American strategy. In fact, the plan for the destabilization and ultimately, balkanization of Pakistan has originated in Anglo-American-Israeli military strategic circles. As I previously documented in Divide and Conquer: The Anglo-American Imperial Project [Global Research, July 10, 2008], the destabilization and balkanization of the near-entire Middle East and Central Asia has been a long-held strategy for the Anglo-America-Israeli Axis since the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Divide and Conquer

This concept evolved in strategic planning circles in the late 1970s in response to regional nationalist tendencies in the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as a perceived threat of growing Soviet influence in the region. The central aim of these strategic thinkers was to secure Middle Eastern oil and Central Asian gas reserves and pipeline routes under the control of the Anglo-Americans. Control over these vital energy reserves is a strategic as much as economic concern, as most of the world gets its energy from this area; so those who control the energy, control who gets it, and thus, control much of the world. The economic benefits of Anglo-Americans controlling the regions energy reserves cannot be analyzed separately from strategic interests, as they are one and the same. Anglo-American oil companies gain control of the oil and gas, while the British and American governments install puppet regimes to look after their interests; and to act as proxies in creating conflicts and wars with countries of the region who act in their own national interest, as opposed to acting under the guidance of and submission to the Anglo-Americans.

Arc of Crisis

After the 1973 oil shocks, which were, in fact, promoted and covertly orchestrated by Anglo-American banking and oil interests, the oil producing nations grew very wealthy, such as Iran. As well as this, countries like Afghanistan were becoming increasingly leftist and progressive. Fearing possible alliances developing between Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries with the Soviet Union, as well as the even greater threat of these countries becoming truly independent, taking control of their own resources for the good of their own people; Anglo-American strategists turned to what is called the “Arc of Crisis.”

The “Arc of Crisis” describes the “nations that stretch across the southern flank of the Soviet Union from the Indian subcontinent to Turkey, and southward through the Arabian Peninsula to the Horn of Africa.” Further, the “center of gravity of this arc is Iran.” In 1978, Zbigniew Brzezinski gave a speech in which he stated, “An arc of crisis stretches along the shores of the Indian Ocean, with fragile social and political structures in a region of vital importance to us threatened with fragmentation. The resulting political chaos could well be filled by elements hostile to our values and sympathetic to our adversaries.”[36]

Anglo-American strategy in the region thus developed and changed at this time, as “There was this idea that the Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets. It was a Brzezinski concept.”[37] Bilderberg member, Bernard Lewis, presented a British-American strategy to the Bilderberg Group during the 1979 meeting, which, “endorsed the radical Muslim Brotherhood movement behind Khomeini, in order to promote balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. Lewis argued that the West should encourage autonomous groups such as the Kurds, Armenians, Lebanese Maronites, Ethiopian Copts, Azerbaijani Turks, and so forth. The chaos would spread in what he termed an ‘Arc of Crisis,’ which would spill over into the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union.”[38] Since the Soviet Union was viewed as a secular and atheist regime, having oppressed religion within its sphere of influence, the rise of radical Islamic influence and governments in the Middle East and Central Asia would ensure that Soviet influence would not enter into the region, as radical Muslims would view the Soviets with more distrust than the Americans. The Anglo-Americans positioned themselves as the lesser of two evils.

Bernard Lewis was a former British intelligence officer and historian who is infamous for explaining Arab discontent towards the West as not being rooted in a reaction toward imperialism, but rather that it is rooted in Islam; in that Islam is incompatible with the West, and that they are destined to clash, using the term, "Clash of Civilizations." For decades, "Lewis played a critical role as professor, mentor, and guru to two generations of Orientalists, academics, U.S. and British intelligence specialists, think tank denizens, and assorted neoconservatives." In the 1980s, Lewis "was hobnobbing with top Department of Defense officials."[39] Lewis wrote a 1992 article in Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, titled, "Rethinking the Middle East." In this article, Lewis raised the prospect of another policy towards the Middle East in the wake of the end of the Cold War and beginnings of the New World Order, "which could even be precipitated by fundamentalism, is what has of late become fashionable to call 'Lebanonization.' Most of the states of the Middle East - Egypt is an obvious exception - are of recent and artificial construction and are vulnerable to such a proc ess. If the central power is sufficiently weakened, there is no real civil society to hold the polity together, no real sense of common national identity or overriding allegiance to the nation-state. The state then disintegrates - as happened in Lebanon - into a chaos of squabbling, feuding, fighting sects, tribes, regions and parties."[40]

Bernard Lewis' Redrawn Map of the "Arc of Crisis"

A Foreign Affairs article of 1979, the journal put out by the powerful Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), discussed the Arc of Crisis: “The Middle East constitutes its central core. Its strategic position is unequalled: it is the last major region of the Free World directly adjacent to the Soviet Union, it holds in its subsoil about three-fourths of the proven and estimated world oil reserves, and it is the locus of one of the most intractable conflicts of the twentieth century: that of Zionism versus Arab nationalism.” It explained that US strategy in the region was focused with “containment” of the Soviet Union as well as access to the regions oil. [41]

It was in this context that in 1979, as Zbigniew Brzezinski later admitted, “According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.” He claimed that, “We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.” What a perfect example of what George Orwell would call “double-speak,” saying that the Americans “didn’t push the Russians to intervene” but rather, “increased the probability that they would.” In other words, they “pushed” them to intervene.[42]

This is when the Mujahideen were created, and through this, Al-Qaeda, and a variety of other radical Islamic groups which have come to plague global geopolitics since this era. Terrorism cannot be viewed, as it often is, in such a simple manner as “non-state actors” reacting to geopolitics of nations and corporations. In fact, many terrorist groups, particularly the largest, most well organized, extremist and violent ones, are “proxy state actors,” receiving covert support – through arms and training – by various state intelligence agencies. They are not simply “reacting” to geopolitics, but are important players in the geopolitical chessboard. They represent the perfect excuse for foreign militaristic adventurism and war; domestic tyranny in the form of developing police states to control populations, stifle dissent and create a totalitarian base of control.

As the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in September of 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, “The map of terrorist sanctuaries and targets in the Middle East and Central Asia is also, to an extraordinary degree, a map of the world's principal energy sources in the 21st century. The defense of these energy resources -- rather than a simple confrontation between Islam and the West -- will be the primary flash point of global conflict for decades to come.” Further, it stated: “It is inevitable that the war against terrorism will be seen by many as a war on behalf of America's Chevron, ExxonMobil and Arco; France's TotalFinaElf; British Petroleum; Royal Dutch Shell and other multinational giants, which have hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the region.”[43] Indeed, where Al-Qaeda is present, the US military follows, and behind the military, the oil companies wait and push; and behind the oil companies, the banks cash in.

Balkanizing the Middle East

In 1982, Oded Yinon, an Israeli journalist wrote a report for a publication of the World Zionist Organization in which he advocated, “The dissolution of Syria and Iraq into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon [which] is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front. Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run, it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel.”

In 1996, an Israeli think tank with many prominent American neo-conservatives, issued a report in which they advocated for Israel to “Work closely with Turkey and Jordan to contain, destabilize, and roll-back some of its most dangerous threats,” among them, to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

In 2000, the Project for the New American Century, an American neo-conservative think tank, published a report called Rebuilding America’s Defenses, in which they openly advocated for an American empire in the Middle East, focusing on removing the “threats” of Iraq and Iran.

Shortly after the US invasion of Iraq, prominent members of the Council on Foreign Relations had begun advocating the break-up of Iraq into at least three smaller states, using Yugoslavia as an example of how to achieve this.

In 2006, the Armed Force Journal published an article by retired Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters, which called for the redrawing of the borders of the Middle East. He first advocated the breakup of Iraq, and that, “Saudi Arabia would suffer as great a dismantling as Pakistan,” and that, “Iran, a state with madcap boundaries, would lose a great deal of territory to Unified Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan, the Arab Shia State and Free Baluchistan, but would gain the provinces around Herat in today’s Afghanistan.”

Describing Pakistan as “an unnatural state,” he said, “Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren,” and that it “would also lose its Baluch territory to Free Baluchistan. The remaining “natural” Pakistan would lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi.” He even made up a helpful little list of “losers” and “winners” in this new great game: as in, who gains territory, and who loses territory. Among the losers are Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the West Bank and Pakistan. And Peters made the startling statement that redrawing borders is often only achieved through war and violence, and that “one other dirty little secret from 5,000 years of history: Ethnic cleansing works.”

[See: Andrew G. Marshall, Divide and Conquer: The Anglo-American Imperial Project. Global Research, July 10, 2008]

Conclusion

Ultimately, the aims of the Mumbai attacks are to target Pakistan for balkanization. The question of who is responsible – either the ISI, largely rogue of Pakistan’s civilian government and under the authority of Anglo-American intelligence; or separate Indian terrorists, likely supported by the same Anglo-American intelligence community – while important, is ultimately a secondary consideration in comparison to the question of Why?

The Who, What, Where, and When is a show for public consumption; masked in confusion and half-truths, designed to confuse and ultimately frustrate the observer – creating a sense of unease and fear of the unknown. The WHY, on the other hand, is the most important question; once you discover the why, the who, where, what, and when begin to fall into place, and create a full picture.

If the Mumbai attacks were designed to be blamed on Pakistan – as they likely were – and thus, to possibly start a war between Pakistan and India – which is now a growing reality – what is the ultimate significance of knowing if it was the ISI or Indian elements responsible? Albeit, this is important to know, however, when it comes to understanding the motives behind the attacks, it pales in comparison.

Pakistan is a strategic lynch-point in the region. Pakistan borders Iran, Afghanistan, India and China. It lies directly below the Central Asian republics of the Former Soviet Union, which are rich in natural gas resources. With NATO’s war in Afghanistan, and the Anglo-Americans in Iraq, and American forces in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the occupation of Pakistan would position Western imperial militaries around Iran, the central Middle Eastern target. With the balkanization of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, destabilizing forces would cross the borders into Iran, ultimately creating the conditions for political and social collapse within the country.

A conflict between Pakistan and India would not only have the effect of dismantling Pakistan, but would also greatly deter India’s rapid economic and social development as the world’s largest democracy, and would force it to come under the influence or “protection” of Western military might and International Financial Institutions. The same is likely for China, as destabilization would cross Pakistan’s borders into the most populated country on earth, exacerbating ethnic differences and social disparities.

A large Anglo-American military presence in Pakistan, or, alternatively, a NATO or UN force, combined with the already present NATO force in Afghanistan, would be a massive military strategic position against advancement of China, Russia or India into the region. With China’s massively increasing influence in Africa threatening Anglo-American and European domination of the continent, a massive military presence on the border of China could act as a powerful warning.

The Mumbai attacks do not aid India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, or any nation within the region. The beneficiaries of the Mumbai Massacre are in London and New York, in the boardrooms and shareholders of the largest international banks; which seek total control of the world. Having dominated North America and Europe for much of recent history, these bankers, primarily Anglo-American, but also European, seek to exert their total control over the world’s resources, currencies, and populations. There are many concurrent strategies they are employing to achieve this end: among them, the global financial crisis, to reign in and control the world economy; and a “total war” in the Middle East, likely escalating into a World War with Russia and China, is the perfect tool to strike enough fear into the world population to accept an over-arching supranational governance structure – to ensure no future wars occur, to ensure stability of the global economy – a utopian vision of a single world order.

The problem with utopias is that they are “ultimate ideals,” and if humanity has learned anything in its history on this planet; it is that perfection is impossible, be it in the form of an “ideal person” or an “ideal government;” humanity is plagued by imperfections and emotion. Accepting our imperfections as a species is what can make us great, and understanding that a utopian ideal is impossible to achieve is what can allow us to create the “best possible” society we can have. All utopias attempted throughout history have always turned into dystopias. We must learn from humanity’s history of sordid flaws; and only when we accept that we are not perfect, and cannot ever become perfect, in person or in politics, are we free to become humanity at it’s most advanced and at its most noble.

Notes

[1] Damien McElroy and Rahul Bedi, Mumbai attacks: 300 feared dead as full horror of the terrorist attacks emerges. The Telegraph: November 30, 2008: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/3536220/...erges.html

[2] Andrew Buncombe and Jonathan Owen, Just ten trained terrorists caused carnage. The Independent: November 30, 2008: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...41639.html

[3] Maseeh Rahman, Mumbai terror attacks: Who could be behind them? The Guardian: November 27, 2008: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov...cks-india8

[4] Hasan Suroor, U.K. intelligence suspects Al-Qaeda hand. The Hindu: November 28, 2008: http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/28/stories/...481700.htm

[5] Press TV, India links Mumbai attackers to Pakistan. Press TV: November 28, 2008: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=767...=351020402

[6] Agencies, India blames Pakistan for Mumbai attacks. Gulf News: November 28, 2008: http://www.gulfnews.com/world/India/10263289.html

[7] Mark Mazzetti, U.S. Intelligence Focuses on Pakistani Group. The New York Times: November 28, 2008:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/world/...ml?_r=3&em

[8] SATP, Lashkar-e-Toiba: 'Army of the Pure'. South Asia Terrorism Portal: 2001:http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/..._toiba.htm

[9] Gethin Chamberlain, Attacker 'was recruited' at terror group's religious school. The Scotsman: July 14, 2005: http://news.scotsman.com/londonbombings/...2642907.jp

[10] Michel Chossudovsky, London 7/7 Terror Suspect Linked to British Intelligence? Global Research: August 1, 2005: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...va&aid=782

[11] Michel Chossudovsky, The Foiled UK Terror Plot and the "Pakistani Connection". Global Research: August 14, 2006: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...a&aid=2960

[12] Richard Esposito, et. al., US Warned India in October of Potential Terror Attack. ABC News: December 1, 2008: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6368013&page=1

[13] Praveen Swami, Pointed intelligence warnings preceded attacks. The Hindu: November 30, 2008: http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/30/stories/...981500.htm

[14] Chidanand Rajghatta, US, UK, Israel ramp up intelligence aid to India. The Times of India: November 28, 2008: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World...770950.cms

[15] Foster Klug and Lara Jakes Jordan, US sends FBI agents to India to investigate attack. AP: November 30, 2008: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/arti...gD94OA5A80

[16] IANS, Israeli daily critical of India’s ’slow’ response to terror strike. Thaindian News: November 28, 2008:
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/worl...24946.html

[17] IANS, Two terrorists killed, two arrested in Mumbai. Thaindian News: November 27, 2008: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/worl...24003.html

[18] Agencies, Four terrorists killed, nine arrested. Express India: November 27, 2008: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/...ed/391103/

[19] ToI, Arrested terrorist says gang hoped to get away. The Times of India: November 29, 2008: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Arres...771598.cms

[20] Mark Jefferies, Mumbai attacks: Seven terrorists were British, claims Indian government. Daily Record: November 29, 2008: http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-wor...-20932992/

[21] Jon Swaine, Mumbai attack: 'British men among terrorists'. The Telegraph: November 28, 2008: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...rists.html

[22] Justin Davenport, et. al., Massacre in Mumbai: Up to SEVEN gunmen were British and 'came from same area as 7/7 bombers'. The Daily Mail: December 1, 2008: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnew...mbers.html

[23] Debasish Panigrahi, Taxi with bomb jumped signal, saving many lives. The Hindustan Times: November 28, 2008: http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/...many+lives

[24] Vijay V Singh, Was taxi driver aware of bomb in car? The Times of India: November 29, 2008: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Citie...770989.cms

[25] PD, The Israeli Mossad False Flag Opperation Strikes In Mumbai. Pakistan Daily: November 29, 2008:
http://www.daily.pk/world/asia/8383-the-...umbai.html

[26] RT, Mumbai terrorists used Chechen tactics. Russia Today: November 29, 2008: http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/33921

[27] Michel Chossudovsky, Who Is Osama Bin Laden? Global Research: September 12, 2001: http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html

[28] PD, Former ISI Chief Mumbai incident international conspiracy to deprive Pakistan of atomic power. Pakistan Daily: December 2, 2008:
http://www.daily.pk/local/other-local/84...power.html

[29] Yoolim Lee and Naween A. Mangi, Pakistan’s Richest Man Defies Terrorism to Expand Bank Empire. Bloomberg: December 3, 2008:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=2...refer=home

[30] Sajid Chaudhry, Inevitable conditionalities of IMF start surfacing. The Daily Times: December 4, 2008:
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...2008_pg5_1

[31] Patricia Goldstone, Aaronsohn's Maps: The Untold Story of the Man who Might Have Created Peace in the Middle East. Harcourt Trade, 2007: pages 21-22

[32] Patricia Goldstone, Aaronsohn's Maps: The Untold Story of the Man who Might Have Created Peace in the Middle East. Harcourt Trade, 2007: page 22

[33] Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power. Perseus, 2002: pages 193-194

[34] Herbert R. Lottman, Return of the Rothschilds: The Great Banking Dynasty Through Two Turbulent Centuries. I.B. Tauris, 1995: page 81

[35] Patricia Goldstone, Aaronsohn's Maps: The Untold Story of the Man who Might Have Created Peace in the Middle East. Harcourt Trade, 2007: pages 22-23

[36] HP-Time, The Crescent of Crisis. Time Magazine: January 15, 1979:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articl...-1,00.html

[37] Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America. University of California Press: 2007: page 67

[38] F. William Engdahl, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order. London: Pluto Press, 2004: page 171

[39] Robert Dreyfuss, Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam. Owl Books, 2005: page 332-333

[40] Bernard Lewis, Rethinking the Middle East. Foreign Affairs, Fall 1992: pages 116-117

[41] George Lenczowski, The Arc of Crisis: It’s Central Sector. Foreign Affairs: Summer, 1979: page 796

[42] Le Nouvel Observateur, The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan. Global Research: October 15, 2001:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

[43] Frank Viviano, Energy future rides on U.S. war: Conflict centered in world's oil patch. The San Francisco Chronicle: September 26, 2001:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...N70983.DTL

Andrew G. Marshall is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), specializing on geopolitical issues. He is known for having contributed to breaking the Climate Change consensus in a celebrated 2006 article entitled Global Warming A Convenient Lie, in which he challenged the findings underlying Al Gore's documentary. He is currently studying political science and history at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia.

[Myra Bronstein]

...
According to the media, the enemy is Al Qaeda, the illusory "outside enemy " which has its operational bases in the tribal areas and North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. Washington's self-proclaimed holy mandate under the "Global War on Terrorism" is to take out bin Laden and extirpate Islamic fundamentalism.

America's right to intervene militarily inside Pakistan in violation of Pakistan's sovereignty is therefore upheld.
...

Great article Peter. I remain unconvinced, as I've stated before that there is any such thing as "al qaida" as an actual terrorist force independent of the US gov't. It's the boogieman du jour.

As Steven Colbert said about Bob Graham's book--World at Risk--on a recent episode, it fills "the fear vacuum."

The only thing the gov't has to fear is fearlessness itself.

[Dawn Meredith]

Great article Peter. I remain unconvinced, as I've stated before that there is any such thing as "al qaida" as an actual terrorist force independent of the US gov't. It's the boogieman du jour.

As Steven Colbert said about Bob Graham's book--World at Risk--on a recent episode, it fills "the fear vacuum."

The only thing the gov't has to fear is fearlessness itself.

Very well put Myra. I agree completely. And with David's post on the illusion of "democracy" in the US. (prior thread).

[Magda Hassan]

Role of Alleged CIA Asset in Mumbai Attacks Being Downplayed
Recent press reports on developments with regard to last month’s attacks in Mumbai, India indicate the role of Dawood Ibrahim, a wanted crime boss, terrorist, and drug trafficker, is being downplayed, possibly the result of a deal taking place behind the scenes between the governments of the US, Pakistan, and India, to have others involved in the Mumbai attacks turned over while quietly diverting attention from a man who some say could reveal embarrassing secrets about the CIA’s involvement in criminal enterprises.
December 10, 2008
by Jeremy R. Hammond
The role in the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month of an underworld kingpin that heads an organization known as D-Company, has known ties to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and who is alleged to have ties with the CIA is apparently being whitewashed, suggesting that his capture and handover to India might prove inconvenient for either the ISI or the CIA, or both.

It was Dawood Ibrahim who was initially characterized by press reports as being the mastermind behind the attacks. Now, that title of “mastermind” is being given to Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi by numerous media accounts reporting that Pakistan security forces have raided a training camp of the group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which evidence has indicated was behind the attacks. Lakhvi was reportedly captured in the raid and is now in custody.

At the same time Ibrahim’s role is being downplayed, Lakhvi’s known role is being exaggerated. Initial reports described him as the training specialist for LeT, but the major media outlets like the New York Times and the London Times, citing government sources, have since promoted his status to that of commander of operations for the group.

The only terrorist from the Mumbai attacks to be captured alive, Azam Amir Kasab, characterized Ibrahim, not Lakhvi, as the mastermind of those attacks, according to earlier press accounts.

Kasab reportedly told his interrogators that he and his fellow terrorists were trained under Lakhvi, also known as “Chacha”, at a camp in Pakistan. Indian officials also traced calls from a satellite phone used by the terrorists to Lakhvi.

But the phone had also been used to call Yusuf Muzammil, also known as Abu Yusuf, Abu Hurrera, and “Yahah”. And it has been Muzammil, not Lakhvi, who has previously been described as the military commander of LeT. It was an intercepted call to Muzammil on November 18 that put the Indian Navy and Coast Guard on high alert to be on the lookout for any foreign vessels from Pakistan entering Indian waters.

Kasab told his interrogators that his team had set out from Karachi, Pakistan, on a ship belonging to Dawood Ibrahim, the MV Alpha. They then hijacked an Indian fishing trawler, the Kuber, to pass through Indian territorial waters to elude the Navy and Coast Guard that were boarding and searching suspect ships.

Although the MV Alpha was subsequently found and seized by the Indian Navy, there have been few, if any, developments about this aspect of the investigation in press accounts, such as whether it has been confirmed or not that the ship was owned by Ibrahim.

Upon arriving off the coast near the city, they were received by inflatable rubber dinghies that had been arranged by an associate of Ibrahim’s in Mumbai.

The planning and execution of the attacks are indicative of the mastermind role not of either Lakhvi or Muzammil, but of Ibrahim, an Indian who is intimately familiar with the city. It was in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) that Ibrahim rose through the ranks of the underworld to become a major organized crime boss.

At least two other Indians were also connected to the attacks, Mukhtar Ahmed and Tausef Rahman. They were arrested for their role in obtaining SIM cards used in the cell phones of the terrorists. Ahmed, according to Indian officials, had in fact been recruited by a special counter-insurgency police task force as an undercover operative. His exact role is still being investigated.


One of the SIM cards used was possibly purchased from New Jersey. Investigators are looking into this potential link to the US, as well.

Dawood Ibrahim went from underworld kingpin to terrorist in 1993, when he was connected to a series of bombings in Bombay that resulted in 250 deaths. He is wanted by Interpol and was designated by the US as a global terrorist in 2003.

It’s believed Ibrahim has been residing in Karachi, and Indian officials have accused Pakistan’s ISI of protecting him.

Ibrahim is known to be a major drug trafficker responsible for shipping narcotics into the United Kingdom and Western Europe.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), most Afghan opium (or its derivative, heroin, which is increasingly being produced in the country before export) is smuggled through Iran and Turkey en route by land to Europe; but the percentage that goes to Pakistan seems to mostly find its way directly to the UK, either by plane or by ship.

Afghanistan is the world’s leading producer of opium, a trend that developed during the CIA-backed mujahedeen effort to oust the Soviet Union from the country, with the drug trade serving to help finance the war.

The principle recipient of CIA-ISI funding was Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, one of the major drug lords. Hekmatyar has since joined with the Taliban in the insurgency effort to expel foreign forces from the country – not the Soviet Union, this time, but the US.

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/arti...played.htm

[Magda Hassan]

The following extracts from the “mainstream” media should be enough to show the reality of the Nariman House and its involvement in the Nov 26 incidents in Mumbai.

BEFORE THE ATTACKS:
The drama started weeks before the terrorist attacks - at a Jewish residential complex In Mumbai run by the Chabad-Lubavitch ultra-orthodox movement.

From CBC News (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)






NSG commandos reach the top of Nariman House through a helicopter in Mumbai

[B][/B]
[B][B] [B]
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BC News from outside the centre, freelance journalist Arun Asthhana said there are reports that some of the militants had stayed at a guest house there for up to 15 days before the attacks.


“They had a huge mass of ammunition, arms and food there,” Asthhana said.
That some stayed there before the attacks seem no longer in question. Later news reports state that the terrorists came to Nariman House posing as Malaysian students and were given lodging. Why Ultra-orthodox Jews would give lodging to these unknown Malaysian Muslim students is baffling; they could have been ‘terrorists’. After all they did not know them.
However, it is well known that those housing quarters are rented only to religious Jews passing through Mumbai, so much so that the Indian Police wanted to know why they were rented to non-Jews in this instance.
From Times of India
“Police are trying to find out how Nariman House rooms were given to non-Jews. Police has taken all the records books of for verification”
Guardian of UK
“Locals said the owners of Nariman House was a Jewish Israeli family who rented out flats to other religious Jews.”
Food ordered in:
From Mid-Day News (MID-DAY is a 28 year old well respected media establishment in Mumbai):
“The role that Nariman House is coming to play in this entire attack drama is puzzling. Last night, residents ordered close to 100 kilograms of meat and other food, enough to feed an army or a bunch of people for twenty days. Shortly thereafter, the ten odd militants moved in, obviously, indicating that the food and meat was ordered, keeping their visit in mind, another cop added.”
DNA INDIA is another well-established, well-known Indian Media house.
They reported:
“The terrorists came to Colaba on Wednesday evening,” Mukund Shelke, who runs a grocery shop at Colaba Market, said. “Before barging into Nariman House, they had purchased adequate food to last them at least three days,” he said.
“They had purchased around two crates of chicken and liquor worth Rs25,000 from two shops in Colaba,” another resident Joseph D’Mello said.
Here the quote says that “they” had purchased the food, and from the text, which would be a translation of the eyewitness account, it would suggest that the terrorists did the shopping. But the policeman’s report and quote is more credible because any group of terrorists going to take over a place during a city-wide attack would not stop to do shopping first, selecting meat, and liquor and other items, unless of course they were right at home.
The Attacks Start:
According to a changing and shifting narrative all attackers came in by boats.
Why they did not stay in Mumbai after spending days scouting the place is unknown. That would have made much more sense. Maybe the commanders came in just in time for the operation.
It is now being reported that they landed and split into groups with two men going to the office of the ultra-orthodox Jewish group Chabad-Lubavitch which runs Nariman house. There they supposedly held an unknown number of persons hostage, while killing some.
However, eye-witnesses, and the earliest reports, state that all the men from the boat went straight to the Nariman House complex before dispersing to carry out attacks.
From Mid-Day News
“Mumbai: India’s financial capital, Mumbai seems to be going through its longest night for the last two days. Wednesday, 9.40 pm, the affluent south Mumbai was struck by terrorists, at 12 different locations, including the VT station, a hub for all railway trains, to two of the most luxurious hotels, Taj Mahal and Oberoi Trident.
24 hours later, the attention has riveted to these hotels, and a tiny nondescript building, barely a few meters away from the Taj Mahal hotel. Housing a five-storied guest house for Israeli nationals, this building is turning out to be the ‘den’ for the militants.
“I saw 6 to 7 boats coming in on Wednesday evening and about ten people unloaded many bags from these boats and then gradually took them into the building, Nariman House’, Vitthal Tandel, a fisherman in the area said. “The building has many rooms and these are used as guest houses by travelers, largely Israeli residents. None of us know what their names are”, he said.
“Virendra Ghunawat, a television journalist who has been tracking the Nariman House shootout since the time it took place Wednesday night, said even the cops have been cagey about details”.
[URL="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/27/mumbai-terror-attacks-terrorism2"]From the Guardian of UK
[/URL]“They came by sea, on a small skiff, and made their way in the dark through the narrow streets of old Colaba to the six-storey apartment building called Nariman House. There they stayed – an unknown number of mystery gunmen who besieged the building from the inside.”



From The New York Times
“When the terrorists landed in front of Mr. Dhanur’s boat, they were just three blocks straight down a narrow lane from Nariman House, a five-storey building housing a Jewish center run by a young Rabbi, Gavriel Holtzberg, and his wife, Rivka, who had moved from New York.
But the attack does not appear to have started there. According to India’s Home Ministry, the first shots were fired at the train station, and soon after that at the Leopold Café.”
The account of eyewitnesses and the earliest reports are very clear. The ‘terrorists’ went into Nariman House. Later reports keep insisting that they ’stormed’ the house.
What did they look like?
At least some of the terrorists were fair-skinned foreigners.


[URL="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/27/mumbai-terror-attacks-india4"]From the Guardian of UK
[/URL]“One police officer who encountered the gunmen as they entered the Jewish centre told the Guardian the attackers were “white”"
“I went into the building late last night,” he said. “I got a shock because they were white. I was expecting them to look like us. They fired three shots. I fired 10 back.”
Now, Indians know fair skinned Indians and Pakistanis. They meet them every day, especially in Mumbai, where all the upper class Indians congregate. Indians know foreigners and they call Americans and Europeans “foreigners” or “white”. It is easy for an Indian to tell the difference between a fair skinned Indian or Pakistani and a “foreigner”
Other eyewitnesses at other locations also describe the terrorists as “foreign” or fair skinned.
From the BBC
Then, the “foreign looking, fair skinned” men, as Mr Mishra remembers them, simply carried on killing.
“They did not look Indian, they looked foreign. One of them, I thought, had blonde hair. The other had a punkish hairstyle. They were neatly dressed,” says Mr Amir.
While at the Nariman House:
[B]Celebrations:
From DNA India[/B]
“Some residents claimed that the suspects were keeping track of the police’s movements through a television in Nariman House.
“When the news of top police officials getting killed flashed in the television, we heard loud noises from the flat. It seemed they were celebrating,” Anand Raorane, a resident in a building opposite Nariman House, said.”
Some in India claim that the terrorists were targeting some of India’s top anti-terrorist officers, and indeed a number of top officers including Hemant Karare, who were in the process of investigating an explosive case of terrorist activities by army officers and politicians, were killed. It is very strange that these exceptionally experienced men would so easily be killed. Some reports say they were ambushed. It was at the time that the news of these men’s demise was announced that sounds of celebration came from the Chabad office.
The Arrrest of Israeli Security Officer
While the standoff between the security forces and the terrorists in Nariman House was going on an Israeli ’security officer’ at the Israeli consulate close by was arrested while running to the scene.

[URL="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702378439&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FS"]From the Jerusalem Post
[/URL]“The security officer at the Israeli consulate in Mumbai was arrested by Indian police as he raced toward the Chabad House last Wednesday after Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg telephoned to say it was under attack.”
Was this ‘attack’ referring to attack by the terrorists or by security forces? It is not clear as yet. The officer was released from jail a few hours later according to the Jerusalem Post.
Also India continuously refused Israeli offers to help with the crisis:

“Jerusalem, Nov 28: India has turned down an offer by Israel to send its Crack Commandos to Mumbai, where a Jewish centre has been taken over in the terrorist attack which have claimed so far over 160 lives, media reports said here.”
The Nanny and the rescue of the two-year old Moshe Holtzberg.
As the standoff progressed, the nanny of the two-year old child of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, Sandra Samuel, came running out with the little boy. Whether he was the subject of a daring rescue or was sent out by his parents is unclear. The dizzying array of reports, many contradicting the others, that describe this incident leaves the question unanswered. Only when police question the nanny would this be resolved.
The number of hostages and terrorists at Nariman:
According to recent police reports there were fifteen terrorists in all who came by boat.

[URL="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5265938.ece"]From TIMES ONLINE
[/URL]“At least five terrorist gunmen might have escaped the carnage in Mumbai and could strike again, it emerged yesterday as a video surfaced showing the capture of the gang’s sole known surviving member.”
“However, a hijacked Indian fishing boat used by the gunmen had equipment for 15 men on board when it was discovered adrift – suggesting that several gunmen could still be at large.”
“Fifteen winter jackets were found, fifteen toothbrushes,” a police source said. “That more terrorists are loose is possible.”
Again there are conflicting reports on the number of terrorists and possible hostages that were in Nariman House. At the end of the seige by security forces, there were six bodies of hostages found. Some reports insist five bodies were found plus two alleged terrorists. This will remain unclear until Indian security personnel who conducted the raid tell their stories.
It would seem from many eyewitness reports and local media that as the standoff continued, there were only two ‘hostages’, the Rabbi and his wife, and the rest were terrorists.
[URL="http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1209852"]From DNA India
[/URL]“The six terrorists who have made an Israeli family hostage at Nariman House building in Colaba can battle with the security agencies for at least three days without having to worry about food, local residents claimed on Thursday.”
[URL="http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20081128/wl_time/08599186266100"]From Yahoo News
[/URL]“From the vantage point of three Black Cat snipers watching the building, I could see Nariman House’s shattered windows. The couple who own the building are Jewish, giving rise to rumors throughout the day that “Israelis” were somehow involved in the attacks. The other people in the building, including an infant wearing a pink bonnet and green blanket, were held as hostages but released early Thursday.
The last person to leave, a young woman, told authorities that the only remaining hostages were the couple, who had made no sound or movement since the night before. By 5 p.m. they were presumed to be dead, and the Black Cat commandos moved in half an hour later, unleashing a volley of gunshots into the building. By 9:30 p.m. local time, the firing was still going on, and it was not clear whether the four to five suspects inside had been killed or captured. “
India’s elite commando squad would surely have a very good idea about the number of people they were dealing with especially after speaking with the young woman and the nanny.
From Mid-Day News
http://www.mid-day.com/news/2008/nov/281108-Nariman-House-terror-hub.htm
” One of the militants called up a television news channel and voiced his demands today, but, interestingly, when he was asked where are they all holed him, he said at the Israeli owned Nariman House and they are six of them here”, one of the investigating cops said. Since morning, there has been exchange of gun fire has been going on and the militants seem well equipped to counter the cops fire. To top it, they have food and shelter. One wonders if they have the support of the residents, a local Ramrao Shanker said. “
Reports at the end of the siege

Fron the New York Times

“Jewish Center Is Stormed, and 6 Hostages Die”
“Israeli officials and Lubavitch elders confirmed later that six hostages were found dead inside. They were Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, of Brooklyn, and his Israeli wife, Rivka, 28, the Lubavitch emissaries in Mumbai who ran Nariman House; another rabbi from Brooklyn who was living in Israel, Leibish Teitelbaum; Bentzion Chroman, an Israeli with dual American citizenship; an unidentified Israeli woman; and another unidentified woman, according to Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, a Lubavitch spokesman in Brooklyn , and The Associated Press”.
Two unidentified “hostages” were women. But here is a strange co-incidence. A number of reports and eyewitnesses claim that at least one of the attackers was a woman.
FROM INDIA TIMES
Mystery woman had accompanied terrorists at Cama”
Quote – “”A man and a burqa clad woman entered from the gate opposite our quarters. The man started firing towards the hospital immediately after entering. Moments before, the woman, in a salwar kameez underneath her burqa, had even tried to enter the hospital by climbing a water pipe. As the man continued firing, the woman, who wasn’t armed, knocked on one of the houses”
also
“The shopkeeper’s friend said, “He told me that when he saw Azam’s picture in Mumbai Mirror on Thursday, he realised it was the same youth who had visited his shop with a woman, who was also young. He mentioned they had been like any other youths.”
“Hostages killed by ‘terrorists’ or by security forces in shoot-out?
The Indian security forces thought that the remaining people in the Chabad house with the possible exception of the Rabbi and his wife were terrorists, and they were in a shoot-out with all these people. Yet reports persist that the ‘terrorists’ killed the ‘hostages’, before they were themselves killed. Some say the hostages were killed the day before. Reports also insist that the security forces killed only two terrorists at Chabad House.
However more recent reports say that the Indian security forces may have killed some of the hostages:


[URL="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702371655&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull"]From The Jerusalem Post
[/URL]Haka Head: Indian forces may have killed some hostages:
“The Indian commando raid launched to save the lives of Jewish and Israeli hostages at Mumbai’s Chabad House may have inadvertently ended the lives of one or more of the hostages, the head of a six-man ZAKA team in the terror-stricken Indian city told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday”.
Any Terrorists Remaining?
Police insist that fifteen terrorists came ashore. Nine are dead and one is in custody. Where are the other five? Where is the woman terrorist?


From Times Online:
“At least five terrorist gunmen might have escaped the carnage in Mumbai and could strike again, it emerged yesterday as a video surfaced showing the capture of the gang’s sole known surviving member.”
Were the missing five the same persons who were killed at Chabad?

Conclusion – What really happened at Nariman House?
Time may eventually tell what really happen at the Chabad House, Mumbai. Indian security service officers may come forward with further information. More information may dispel rumors and speculation that the Israelis at Chabad house were part of the terrorist operation and that the non-white terrorists, all of whom were killed, with the exception of the poster-boy, Ajmal, were the usual patsies.
It will dispel rumors that the four or five ‘hostages’ killed in the center were actually part of the terrorist group and were killed by security forces in the shootout.
The only person who may be able to give an impartial report of what went on at Nariman House would be the Indian nanny, Sandra Samuel. Indian Intelligence would be looking forward to interviewing her when all the confusion ends and when she recovers from the ordeal. Lets hope that the trauma does not lead her to commit suicide or anything like that. Indian journalists are urged to dig into this story with their very lives, because the life of our nation is at stake. India could be dragged into a game on the grand chessboard, and possibly into war with Pakistan and then China, and maybe Russia. In the end there will be only one winner, the superpower which is on the verge of economic collapse, and which can avert complete disaster only by destroying its main competitors, or getting them to destroy themselves.
http://www.dictatorshipwatch.com/2008/12...-read.html

[Paul Rigby]

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/arti...played.htm

Role of Alleged CIA Asset in Mumbai Attacks Being Downplayed

Recent press reports on developments with regard to last month’s attacks in Mumbai, India indicate the role of Dawood Ibrahim, a wanted crime boss, terrorist, and drug trafficker, is being downplayed, possibly the result of a deal taking place behind the scenes between the governments of the US, Pakistan, and India, to have others involved in the Mumbai attacks turned over while quietly diverting attention from a man who some say could reveal embarrassing secrets about the CIA’s involvement in criminal enterprises.

December 10, 2008

by Jeremy R. Hammond

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11385

Organized Crime, Intelligence and Terror: The D-Company's Role in the Mumbai Attacks

by Tom Burghardt

Global Research, December 13, 2008
Antifascist Calling...

What do you call a "devout Muslim" who exerts considerable control over South Asia's heroin, gambling, prostitution and smuggling rackets? Why an intelligence asset, of course!

When Lashkar-e-Taiba ("Army of the Pure"--LET) militants slaughtered nearly 200 people in Mumbai during the November 26 siege in India's financial capital, one name stood out among a list of 20 fugitives the Indian government has demanded Pakistan extradite as a key suspect responsible for providing funds and logistical support to the Kashmir-based terrorist outfit.

Enter Dawood Ibrahim, the enigmatic Mafia don of Mumbai's D-Company whose far-flung organized crime empire stretches from Dubai through Pakistan to India and beyond. If anyone knows where the proverbial "bodies are buried," that man may very well be Ibrahim. Wanted by Interpol and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Ibrahim commutes between palatial homes in Dubai and Karachi where he enjoys the protection afforded by "friends in high places."

According to a report in Asia Times Online, "Ibrahim is...suspected of orchestrating the November 26 Mumbai terrorist strikes through a businessman in Saudi Arabia said to be his frontman." The Indian-born drug kingpin has been identified by journalists and investigators as a long-time asset of both the CIA and Pakistan's notorious Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI).

Asia Times Online investigative journalist Raja Murthy was told by Lahore-based journalist Amir Mir that "Dawood's underworld connects and business ventures are extensive. And he sublets his name in Pakistan, Thailand, South Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries, to franchises in the fields of drug trafficking and gambling dens."

Karachi-based reporter Ghulam Hasnain described to Murthy why Ibrahim was amongst ISI's most valued assets: "Dawood is Pakistan's number one espionage operative. His men in Mumbai help him get whatever information he needs for Pakistan. Rumor has it that sometimes his men in Karachi accompany Pakistani intelligence agents to the airports to scan arriving passengers and identify RAW [Indian Research and Analysis Wing] agents."

And what does this "number one espionage operative" get in return? According to Hasnain, "His home is a palatial house spread over 6,000 square yards, boasting a pool, tennis courts, snooker room and a private, hi-tech gym. He wears designer clothes, drives top-of-the-line Mercedes and luxurious four-wheel drives, sports a half-a-million rupee Patek Phillipe wristwatch, and showers money on starlets and prostitutes."

Pakistan's shadowy military intelligence bureau, with organizational and operational linkages to the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the CIA and Britain's MI6 has long been suspected of funding planetary-wide terrorist operations and nuclear smuggling in part, through "black money" derived from the drugs trade and other rackets. Despite this sordid history, the ISI and their organized crime-linked assets have long been viewed by Washington as allies in America's so-called "war on terror."

While American "counterterrorism officials" are now calling for the heads of Ibrahim, his associate Tiger Memon and former ISI Director, retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, described by the usual unnamed sources as--what else!--"rogue elements," the United States and their NATO partners have made liberal use of these jokers in a score of destabilization ops that span continents.

Indeed, after the Afghanistan operation during the 1980s, the CIA and ISI worked together in a score of global hot spots. From Bosnia to Chechnya and beyond, wherever the dirty work needed doing, a wide pool of disposable intelligence assets under cover of "Islamic fundamentalism" were ready, willing an able to fill the breech.

It should be noted that characters such as Dawood Ibrahim and others of his ilk have as much in common with Islam as former New York crime boss, the late, though unlamented, John Gotti did with Christianity.

Destabilization and Covert Ops in South Asia

Before his execution at the hands of the Taliban, Najibullah, Afghanistan's last socialist president told an American reporter:

We have a common task--Afghanistan, the USA and the civilised world--to launch a joint struggle against fundamentalism. If fundamentalism comes to Afghanistan, war will continue for many years. Afghanistan will turn into a centre of world smuggling for narcotic drugs. Afghanistan will be turned into a centre for terrorism. (Michael Griffin, Reaping the Whirlwind: Afghanistan, Al Qa'ida and the Holy War, London: Pluto Press, 2003, p. 4)

Little did the former president know, this was precisely the fate chosen for his country by the ISI and their American partners in crime over at Langley.

Though now on the outs with Washington, Hamid Gul was a staunch U.S. ally during the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad when the CIA made liberal use of billions of taxpayer dollars to fund the so-called mujahedin or "holy warriors" in a successful bid to bring down Kabul's socialist government.

During the war, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence assets linked to organized crime gangs and various smuggling rackets quickly learned the value of Afghanistan's number one cash crop, poppy. By the time the first phase of the war ended in 1989 with the withdrawal of Soviet combat troops, heroin production had morphed into a multibillion dollar industry along Asia's Golden Crescent, one that provided a limitless source of black funds--and hardened combat veterans--to enterprising intelligence agencies.

Occupying a prominent place in the spider's web, the D-Company certainly fit the bill. India's 1990s economic "reforms" bit hard into Ibrahim's former "cash crop"--gold smuggling. As the globalized market, rather than bureaucratic Indian regulations gobbled-up D-Company profits, Ibrahim's gang turned to another profitable source of income: the global drugs trade. As investigative journalist Misha Glenny points out, Ibrahim,

took the obvious plunge and started trafficking in drugs, chiefly in heroin bound for the European market and mandrax for South Africa. And in Dawood's part of the world, if you want to guarantee the success of a narcotics business, there is only one organization you need to cozy up to--the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Pakistan's secret service. (McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008, p. 135)

Ibrahim followed in the footsteps of a long line of CIA-ISI "best friends forever." As Alfred W. McCoy documented in his landmark study, The Politics of Heroin, another darling of dodgy intelligence agencies, the pathological killer Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who made his mark in the 1970s by throwing acid into the faces of Afghan university women, became the chief beneficiary of CIA largesse. McCoy writes,

...over the next decade, [the CIA] gave more than half its covert aid to Hekmatyar's guerrillas. It was, as the U.S. Congress would find a decade later, a dismal decision. Unlike the later resistance leaders who commanded strong popular followings inside Afghanistan, Hekmatyar led a guerrilla force that was a creature of the Pakistan military. After the CIA built his Hezbi-i Islami into the largest guerrilla force, Hekmatyar would prove himself brutal and corrupt. Not only did he command the largest guerrilla army, but Hekmatyar would use it--with the full support of ISI and the tacit tolerance of the CIA--to become Afghanistan's leading drug lord. (The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1991, pp. 449-450)

It would be a travesty however, to claim that Pakistan alone was responsible for launching Ibrahim along the path of international terrorism. India's own neofascist movement, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteers Organization--RSS), aligned with the Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), are intent on constructing a "pure" Hindu state purged of "alien" Muslims. As Indian socialist analysts point out,

It is no coincidence that the flourishing of fascism has accompanied the establishment of the neoliberal regime at the centre. The India to which neoliberalism has given birth, with one-fifth engaged in consumer excess as never before and four-fifths in deep misery, can only with difficulty persist alongside the maintenance of civil rights, democracy and periodic elections. If the fundamental social question, imperialist capitalism vs. socialism, were ever to be put at the centre of things, the continued existence of the landlord-big business regime that has ruled since independence would be in danger, and a truly explosive situation result. ("The Christian Pogrom in Orissa and the Growing Threat of Hindutva Fascism," Analytical Monthly Review, February 22, 2008)

This was tragically driven-home with a vengeance in the early 1990s. Indeed, the rise of Indian fascism coincides precisely with the rise of neoliberal globalization. As "market reforms" plunged tens of millions into abject poverty, the ruling elite cast about for scapegoats and, like European Jews in prewar Germany, the Muslim community became targets of religious intolerance and communalist fanaticism.

In 1992, during a 150,000 strong demonstration organized by Indian fascists, rampaging gangs destroyed the Babri Mosque in the city of Ayodhya. In the rioting that followed in a score of cities some 2,000 largely Muslim Indian citizens were murdered by Hindu supremacist mobs. Ibrahim, though nominally a Muslim, was greatly angered by the Mumbai pogrom and vowed revenge. It wasn't long in coming.

On March 12, 1993, a series of explosions wracked Mumbai in coordinated attacks believed to have been organized by the D-Company working in tandem with ISI who, like their nominal enemies in New Delhi, had their own communalist agenda. The largest blast occurred at the Mumbai Stock Exchange when a half-ton of military grade RDX was detonated in the underground parking garage and killed more than 50 people. By the time the smoke cleared, nearly 300 people lay dead and hundreds more wounded.

According to a 2002 report in India Abroad, Ibrahim organized the blasts "under pressure from the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan."

The ISI, which controlled the shipping routes from the Gulf to India's west coast, demanded that the mafia transport weapons and explosives into India in return for the use of Pakistani waters, the sources said quoting official information.

The Mumbai underworld's financial interests were under pressure as gold prices had crashed and the smuggling routes between the Gulf nations and the western coast of India had come under ISI control. ("ISI pressured Dawood to carry out Mumbai blasts," India Abroad, December 22, 2002)

It wouldn't be the first time nor the last that the dapper Mafia don would do ISI's bidding.

ISI: the Enforcement Arm of Pakistan's "Military Inc."

Hamid Gul's history as a beneficiary of state largesse in the form of plum contracts and other dodgy schemes that benefitted his family goes back decades. Nor is his hostility to civilian rule. As Pakistani scholar and investigative journalist Ayesha Siddiqa writes, Gul's maneuvering against Benazir Bhutto's first government, led to her ouster in 1990 through a "soft coup" engineered by the general and other top army officials.

Benazir Bhutto...replaced the head of the ISI, Lt. General Hameed Gul, with a general of her choice, Major-General Shamsul Rehman Kallu. This did not make her popular with the army, and hence the organization retaliated. Reportedly, the higher echelons of the army, who were extremely unhappy with her attempts to curb their power by interfering in internal matters, used the ISI to remove her from power. The army chief, General Aslam Beg, and the head of the ISI, Lt. General Asad Durrani, obtained a slush fund of approximately Rs 60 million (US$1.03 million) from a private bank, and used to execute the plan for Bhutto's removal. The money was given to the ISI to destabilize the civilian government. (Military, Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy, Ann Arbor: Pluto Press, 2007, p. 91)

And what "private bank" pray tell, did the coup plotters reach out to in order to remove Bhutto from power? Why none other than Agha Hasan Abedi's Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) of course! BCCI, a corrupt financial institution that stole billions from their depositors was a long time "friend" of both ISI and CIA in their dirty dealings--from drug money laundering to arms trafficking--that spanned continents, from the covert war in Afghanistan to the Iran-Contra affair.

Days after the 2007 Karachi bombings that greeted her return to Pakistan, and just two months before her assassination in Rawalpindi, Benazir Bhutto accused Gul and Intelligence Bureau (IB) Chief Ijaz Shah, among others, as the masterminds behind the savage attacks that left more than 140 people dead and 450 injured. After her assassination, although al-Qaeda commander Mustafa Abu al-Yazid claimed responsibility for her murder, reportedly on orders from al-Qaeda's number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bhutto's followers believe the plans for her assassination came from senior ISI officials formerly in the retinue of America's "friend," the dictator General Zia ul-Haq.

Since his 1989 "retirement" from ISI, Gul has been an outspoken proponent of utilizing proxies such as LET as witting or unwitting assets in Pakistan's conflict with India over Kashmir--and as a supporter of the Taliban and another "former" group of U.S. intelligence assets, al-Qaeda. According to The Washington Post,

Gul, 71, has acknowledged that he once was a member of a group of retired ISI officers, Pakistani scientists and others that was suspected by the United States of giving material support to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Gul said the organization, Ummah Tameer-e-Nau, was formed by a group of Pakistani businessmen to aid war-ravaged industries in Afghanistan.

The U.S. Treasury Department declared Ummah Tameer-e-Nau a terrorist group after a search of the group's offices in the Afghan capital, Kabul, unearthed documents referencing plans to kidnap a U.S. diplomat and outlining basic physics related to nuclear weapons. (Candace Rondeaux, "Former Pakistani Official Denies Links to Lashkar," The Washington Post, December 9, 2008, A12)

But what Gul (and The Washington Post) will not, cannot, reveal is that Ummah Tameer-e-Nau was also intimately connected--as was Dawood Ibrahim's D-Company--to the illicit nuclear smuggling ring of Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan. Allegedly run to ground after overwhelming evidence surfaced linking Khan and Pakistan's military government to the underground trade in nuclear technology and know-how, nuclear smuggling is the proverbial third rail of the Pakistani--and American--defense establishments.

Operating for decades with a wink and a nod from Washington and London, Khan was quietly released from house arrest in April according to a report by the McClatchy Washington Bureau. This despite the fact that international investigators found electronic blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon on computers belonging to Khan's smuggling network. According to The New York Times,

the latest design found on Khan network computers in Switzerland, Bangkok and several other cities around the world is half the size and twice the power of the Chinese weapon, with far more modern electronics, the investigators say. The design is in electronic form, they said, making it easy to copy--and they have no idea how many copies of it are now in circulation. (David E. Sanger, "Nuclear Ring Reportedly Had Advanced Weapon Design," The New York Times, June 15, 2008)

This closely tracks allegations made by whistleblower Sibel Edmonds earlier this year to The Sunday Times that a U.S. government official "warned a Turkish member of the [Khan] network that they should not deal with a company called Brewster Jennings because it was a CIA front company investigating the nuclear black market. The official's warning came two years before Brewster Jennings was publicly outed when one of its staff, Valerie Plame, was revealed to be a CIA agent in a case that became a cause celebre in the US."

Gul however, has a different take on Washington's newly-minted animus towards him and told the press on Monday, "I was quite a darling of theirs at the time. I don't know what this is about. It looks like they have a habit of betraying their friends."

While true as far it goes, Gul's disingenuousness is a cynical façade meant to conceal ISI's murderous policies. In an obvious appeal to dubious Western constituencies Gul declared, "I simply fail to understand what all the hullabaloo is about. It's simply because I speak loudly about the fact that 9/11 was a bloody hoax," he told the Post. "It was an inside job."

Mumbai: "Round Up the Usual Suspects!"

Though there is convincing evidence linking the D-Company to the Mumbai attacks, each new "revelation" by Indian and American authorities tend to erase Ibrahim from the picture. This subtle though noticeable reframing of the equation follows a predictable and well-known pattern. Independent press outlets such as Asia Times Online however, apparently haven't gotten the memo. According to investigative journalist Raja Murthy:

The Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists set sail from Karachi to Mumbai in the ship MV Alpha, allegedly an Ibrahim-owned vessel. After being warned of Indian navy patrols along the Indian coast, the LET terrorists hijacked an Indian fishing trawler, Kuber, and murdered its crew except for the navigator, Amarsinh Solanki.

The terrorists slit Solanki's throat five nautical miles off the Indian coast--the Indian Navy found his body aboard the abandoned trawler with his hands tied behind his back. Later, they linked up with an Ibrahim gang member in Mumbai who provided them motorized inflatable rubber dinghies in which they landed ashore after 9pm on November 26. Within 30 minutes, they struck pre-determined targets in South Mumbai starting with the Leopold Cafe in Colaba. ("India Wants its 'Osama' Back," Asia Times Online, December 9, 2008)

These attacks however, didn't come out of the blue. According to numerous reports, Mumbai police were given "solid information" from India's Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) that Mumbai was on a list of cities to be targeted by terrorists. India Abroad reports that

The first alert was sounded in February 2008 following the interrogation of a terrorist arrested in connection with the fidayeen (suicide) attack at the Central Reserve Police Force camp at Rampur, Uttar Pradesh. During the interrogation, the arrested terrorist had confessed that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba had planned on attacking Mumbai. He had specifically mentioned the Taj Mahal hotel during his interrogation.

Then came the various intercepts by both the IB and RAW, which both agencies claim had passed on to the Mumbai police. The first intercept of a satellite phone conversation was three months before the Mumbai attack. The conversation suggested that the next attack would be a hotel at Mumbai. The conversation also suggested that it would be better to take the sea route as it was safer. The final intercept was made on November 18, which was eight days before the attack. (Vicky Nanjappa, "Time & again, Mumbai cops had been warned: IB," India Abroad, December 4, 2008)

This report was echoed by The New York Times, which claimed,

Two senior American officials said Tuesday that the United States had warned India in mid-October of possible terrorist attacks against "touristy areas frequented by Westerners" in Mumbai, but that the information was not specific. Nonetheless, the officials said, the warning echoed other general alerts this year by India's intelligence agency, raising questions about the adequacy of India's counterterrorism measures. (Eric Schmitt, Somini Sengupta and Jane Perlez, "U.S. and India See Link to Militants in Pakistan, The New York Times, December 3, 2008)

Despite these suspicions, Indian authorities insist that the terrorists had no "local support" in carrying out the attacks. According to a report in the Economic Times however, "the don is ensconced safely in his plush bungalow in Karachi. Sources in security agencies told TOI [Times of India] on Wednesday that it is business as usual for Dawood. ... Mohammed Ali, who is the king of the docks and a key person of the Dawood gang, is continuing his operations with impunity. Even after the November 26 terror attacks his smuggling racket remains unchecked."

And Express India reported November 29 that "Ajmal Amin, the only militant arrested during the operation, told interrogators that the dozen ultras who sailed from Karachi had come to Sasool dock from where they were taken first to Cuff Parade and later to Gateway of India in boats arranged by a front man of Dawood, who runs several custom clearing houses in Mumbai, the sources claimed."

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported December 9, that the head of Russia's federal anti-narcotics agency, Viktor Ivanov, said that Ibrahim had helped the gunmen. "The information that has been received indicates that the well-known drug trafficker Dawood Ibrahim provided his logistics network for the preparation and implementation of the attacks."

But Ibrahim wasn't always the bête noire of U.S. intelligence agencies. According to Yoichi Shimatsu, a former editor of The Japan Times, during the CIA's Afghan campaign of the 1980s, Ibrahim "personally assisted" U.S. deep cover operations by diverting money from U.S.-owned gambling casinos operating in Kathmandu, Nepal. Shimatsu, commenting on India's demand for Ibrahim's extradition for his role in the Mumbai attacks wrote,

Washington and London both agreed with India's legal claim and removed the longstanding "official protection" accorded for his past services to Western intelligence agencies. U.S. diplomats, however, could never allow Dawood's return. He simply knows too much about America's darker secrets in South Asia and the Gulf, disclosure of which could scuttle U.S.-India relations. Dawood was whisked away in late June to a safe house in Quetta, near the tribal area of Waziristan, and then he disappeared, probably back to the Middle East. ("Did a Criminal Mastermind Stage the Mumbai Nightmare?," AlterNet, November 28, 2008)

But as time passes both India and the United States are downplaying Ibrahim's role while elevating that of alleged LET commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, reportedly captured by Pakistani authorities during a raid on a training camp and now in custody. Allegations of an international whitewash of the affair are now being leveled by journalists. Jeffrey R. Hammond comments, "The recent promotion of Lakhvi to 'mastermind' of the attacks while Ibrahim's name disappears from media reports would seem to lend credence to Shimatsu's assertion."

On Friday, according to a New York Times report, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the founder of LET, was detained in Lahore on Thursday by "Pakistani authorities."

Despite the appearance of Pakistani resolve, the detention of Mr. Saeed was orchestrated by the government in a way to minimize what many here expect to be an angry reaction from the public, and from a broad spectrum of Islamic militant groups sympathetic to Lashkar-e-Taiba. (Jane Perlez and Salman Masood, "Pakistan Detains Founder of Group Suspected in Mumbai Attacks," The New York Times, December 11, 2008)

Saeed, briefly detained in 2002 after an earlier "crackdown" on militant outfits, became the leader of the Islamic charity, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which is a recruiting arm for the LET.

Meanwhile, according to the Times, "There was still uncertainty on Thursday about whether Maulana Masood Azhar, the leader of Jaish-e-Muhammad, another militant group, had been placed under house arrest, and whether the Lashkar commander suspected of running the Mumbai operation, Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi, had been arrested."

So much for arresting Mumbai's alleged "masterminds." Sounds more like Captain Renaud's quip in Casablanca: "Round up the usual suspects!"

Indeed, a deal earlier this year to have Pakistan hand Ibrahim over to Indian authorities was scotched by the CIA. The Agency, fearful that too many dirty little secrets would come to light, including the criminal activities of high-level CIA personnel, nixed the proposal. According to this reading, the Mumbai attacks were a backlash for the proposed double-cross of Ibrahim and that any future arrangements along these lines would have serious consequences.

Why would India seek to downgrade Ibrahim's role? Hammond comments,

But while Lakhvi, Muzammil, and Hafiz Saeed have continued to be named in connection with last month's attacks in Mumbai, the name of Dawood Ibrahim seems to be either disappearing altogether or his originally designated role as the accused mastermind of the attacks being credited now instead to Lakhvi in media accounts.

Whether this is a deliberate effort to downplay Ibrahim's role in the attacks so as not to have to force Pakistan to turn him over because of embarrassing revelations pertaining to the CIA's involvement with known terrorists and drug traffickers that development could possibly produce isn't certain. But what is certain is that the CIA has had a long history of involvement with such characters and that the US has a track record of attempting to keep information about the nature of such involvement in the dark or to cover it up once it reaches the light of public scrutiny. (Jeffrey R. Hammond, "Role of Alleged CIA Asset in Mumbai Attacks Being Downplayed," Foreign Policy Journal, December 10, 2008)

And so it goes, on and on... Meanwhile, business as usual will continue and the bodies pile up. Which just goes to show, as investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker has reminded us on more than one occasion: "Being connected means never having to say your sorry."

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly and Global Research, an independent research and media group of writers, scholars, journalists and activists based in Montreal, his articles can be read on Dissident Voice, The Intelligence Daily and Pacific Free Press. He is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "