The Curious Case of Daood Gilani alias David Headley & co

[ramana]

Frame is still there. The bars might be different alloy.

[shyamd]

First it supports the motto; "Satyame jayate!"
Second it helps to unDIE the elite. Makes them more circumspect.
Third its indirect action will be reduce the fake shine of American do goodness.

Now based on what you just said. Ask yourself this question: what has changed in US designs? What is India getting by shutting up? Have these strategists had amnesia?

Remember, why develop Agni range? The target will and always be the real devil imo.

There is news and then there is the truth.

[ramana]

By shutting up India is playing moral poltick as Bharat Karnad said long ago.

Goal two is being achieved as more and more Dil Chata Hain crowd is wondering.

[shyamd]

Ramanaji, I am not sure if thats the answer. I don't think the strategists who have been there all the way through are this naive to be doing moral politicking. India is getting something in return. What we are seeing is just noise, and perhaps 10% of the truth.

Is it trade, is it the fact that MMS wanted to be in big boys club.... Not sure... Whatever it is, even nationalists (the ones in the know) have kept quiet and calmed down.

Remember when DCH had his US intel credentials released by the press? US said there was an agreement not to talk about it with India, India should not release to press his US credentials. I dont think India released everything. Strategists know whats going on. The rest is just to lead aam aadmi on.

[Sanku]

Whatever it is, even nationalists (the ones in the know) have kept quiet and calmed down.

I think the reality is about 180* Opposite.

The nationalists are firing salvo's after salvo's through media and other places (the govt itself speaks in many voices now in different functionaries)

I think the nationalists have realized the order of problem is as follows

DIE >> (US of A + Pak + China)

And are operating on that principle.

[shyamd]

Remember the nuke deal. Yes, A few spoke up. But what about people like KS guru and why did BJP allow it to be passed after being briefed by US ambassador?

The world knows about 98 failure.

[somnath]

Remember the nuke deal. Yes, A few spoke up. But what about people like KS guru and why did BJP allow it to be passed after being briefed by US ambassador?The world knows about 98 failure.

Because most people in the strategic establishment felt that the deal was essentially good on balance...

The point on test moratorium is a bit of a red herring...Even without the nuke deal, the BJP govt had announced a voluntary moratorium on testing..The nuke deal says that if India tests again, they will essentially need to revisit the entire deal...The beauty of the thing however is that even if the US decides to revert to pre-deal treatment of India because we tested, it cannot force others in NSG to do so...And just as the deal with India required NSG to unanimously approve the esception for India, any rescinding of the same will also require a similar consensus..Will Russia and France go along with the US in that scenario? Fat chance...In some time soon, we ourselves are likley to become members of the NSG..the only issue will be spares and maintenance of any US-supplied reactor - going by trends, the number of Us reactors is hardly going to make a huge difference to our power scenario in the next 20-30 years!

In essence, India has virtually given up nothing on the strategic side (barring decommissioning that reactor in Tarapur), it has bought a free option retaining all the flexibility it had "pre-deal" with the advantages of coming back into the "system" as a full member...

The Americans know this only too well, and hence were taken aback by the opposition in India..

Its going OT here, but really nation states dont operate on simple equations of "enemies" and "friends"..As far as the nuke deal is concerned, it has to go down as the single biggest piece of diplomatic success in independent India' history (save Bangladesh, but that included a military domension as well)..No point IMO abusing either Indian politicos or the US on that...

[merlin]

What is India going to do once it finds out the truth? Lets say it is the US, it won't change whats going on in the background and the bigger picture.

Second it helps to unDIE the elite. Makes them more circumspect.

Can you really wake up people pretending to be asleep? Really?

[Sanku]

Remember the nuke deal. Yes, A few spoke up. But what about people like KS guru and why did BJP allow it to be passed after being briefed by US ambassador?

The world knows about 98 failure.

Yes, the world knows that 98 didnt quite pan out as "suggested" (cant say claimed, since the claims were very amorphous)

However, I would not say that only a "few" spoke up during the Nuke deal, BJP put (and lost) a lot of political capital on resisting the deal (and seen as 'leftist' by the middle class, a view encouraged by DiE)

Yes KS Guru is one person whose support to Nuke deal is a little unclear since all his Shishya's at IDSA have been fighting the New Clear deal quite bitterly.

We see the follow up on the Nuke deal in the current Nuclear Liablity issue where a bunch of people working against Indian intrests, and going to the level of changing pages of tabled bills were thwarted.

Consider the "sudden" leaks, now with Bofors, etc etc.

[ramana]

KS garu thinks that getting India out of the NSG regime and be recognised as a de-facto if not de-jure nuke state is worth the effort.

As for what was going on in 1998 is upto debate. S-1 wasn't the only knife in the block. That is supported by the Adm Arun Prakash statements after Santy's revelations and the payload fractions of the A-III and A-II+.

And those who think India polity and opionion makers are divided and its zero sum game then they are mistaken.

* Despite all his chelas in official places, its this forum that reads his mind clearly.

[somnath]

KS garu thinks that getting India out of the NSG regime and be recognised as a de-facto if not de-jure nuke state is worth the effort.

Not just KS, pretty much the entire strategic establishment thought that the deal was a fantastic one (rather, using Narasimha Rao's lines, there was a consensus minus Brahma Chellaney! - PVNR once said that ther eis a consensus on economic reforms minus Somnath Chatterjee and Gurudas Dasgupta)...One has to simply look at the responses of the NPA industry in the US - the Michael Krepons, the Strobe Talbot's et al..

As far as BJP is concerned, from the very begining, it was clear that they were simply being intellectually dishonest about their opposition...Brajesh Mishra, with no political axe grind anymore, came around - and no one in the BJP barring maybe ABV and Jaswant singh would have a greater apreciation and knowledge of strategic realities than him..Certainly not the mediocre ex-babu Yashwant Sinha (whose opinion about himself is so much higher than his accomplishments/talents) who seemed to spearhead BJP's oposition to the deal..

The fruits of the effort are still to be maxed out..The next stage will be when India joins the NSG as a full member..That will be sayonara for any Chinese efforts to officially offer Pakistan a similar nuke deal..

Longer term, trends on Indo-Us relations are quite clear..tere will only be greater convergence of interests, David Headley notwithstanding..

[ramana]

somnath all that is OT for this thread. Post it in the nuke thread and will reply.

[Sanku]

KS garu thinks that getting India out of the NSG regime and be recognised as a de-facto if not de-jure nuke state is worth the effort.

Ramana Guru; without getting into the Nuclear debate once again I wish to make two points in the context of the discussion in this thread.

1) It is important to note that the opposition from nationalist quarters has ALWAYS been to the form and content rather than the idea of the deal. So those shills who join the opposition to the idea of the deal to the way it was actually done are being deliberately dishonest.

2) There was (and continues to be) tremendous opposition to the WAY the nuclear issues have been handled, so I would like to say that shyamd's point on "why there is no opposition" is actually well answered by, "there is tons of opposition" Some look like clear opposition, some conditional and some "support" that the Govt gets on, "this is good, lets do it this way" was actually major opposition since the suggested "this way" went against the "that way" govt is trying to make things work.

The above points are not restricted to merely Nuclear deal but extend to all aspects of GoI international interactions.

[krisna]

Mumbai police silent on Headley's role in 26/11 attacks

If Mumbai Police is to be believed, American-born terrorist David Headley, who has confessed to conducting a recce of all 26/11 targets in the city, may have played no role in the carnage. The assessment by the Mumbai Police is reflected in its appeal before the Bombay High Court in which its elite Crime Branch is silent on the role of the Pakistan-origin LeT terrorist while contesting the acquittal of Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin in the November 26, 2008 attack that left 166 people dead.

While the Ministry of Home Affairs burnt midnight oil over getting access to Headley after his role in the brazen attack emerged, the focus of Mumbai Police through its Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal D Nikam was that the terrorists intruded into the country's financial capital with the help of hand-written maps drawn by Ansari.

A response was also sought from Joint Commissioner of Mumbai's Crime Branch Himanshu Roy to comment on role played by Headley in 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. However, there was no immediate response from him.

[ramana]

Pioneer Op-Ed...

OPED | Wednesday, February 2, 2011 |

26/11 story takes a curious turn

February 02, 2011 12:26:55 AM

Shashi Shekhar

A lawsuit has been filed in the US against the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage by Pakistani jihadis in which American citizens also died. It remains to be seen what happens next in the case. Meanwhile, Hafiz Saeed, the chief of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, has demanded that the Government of Pakistan should represent him in the US courts. Which way will Islamabad decide?

While the death sentence awarded to Amir Ajmal Kasab in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks case does the rounds in the Bombay High Court, the wheels of justice on 26/11 seem to have pretty much stalled in Pakistan. Interestingly, a curious controversy has arisen in Pakistan in relation to a lawsuit filed in the US on behalf of the victims of 26/11 who were American citizens. In the dock over that lawsuit in the US are Shuja Pasha who is the head of the ISI and also Hafiz Saeed who is the head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h, the front organisation for the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba. In what must be seen as a mockery of the international ban on JuD and the global designation of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba as a terrorist outfit, you had Hafiz Saeed petitioning the Lahore High Court for the Pakistani state to defend him in the lawsuit that has been filed in the US.

It is anybody’s guess at this time if the lawsuit in the US would actually see either Shuja Pasha or Hafiz Saeed standing in the dock. However, the judicial activity in the US has had a side effect in the US media. ProPublica, a US based new age media outlet, has over the last few months published some of the most extensive accounts on the background events leading up to the November 26, 2008, Mumbai attacks. The details published by ProPublica are noteworthy for two reasons. They highlight the role played by ISI officers at various stages during the planning and execution of the Mumbai 26/11 attacks. Second, they also describe for the first time the key personality in Pakistan — Sajid Mir, who was handling David Headley, the American Pakistani quadruple agent who has been charged by a Federal Court in the US with coordinating the logistics for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

ProPublica’s profile of Sajid Mir is significant for a variety of reasons. Before the Headley arrests in 2009, little was known of Sajid Mir beyond the scanty revelations by a French court in a case involving a Lashkar-e-Tayyeba recruit, Willie Brigette. Before the Headley arrests much of the Indian narrative on key Lashkar-e-Tayyeba personnel was limited to two kinds of profiles. The first was of individuals who were above the ground and identified publicly like Hafiz Saeed and Abdul Rehman Lakhvi. The second kind was of individuals who were known mostly by what appear to be aliases with no details of their real identity. These aliases included amongst others most notably Azam Cheema, Abu Al Qama and Yusuf Muzammil. The name Sajid Mir was mostly absent in the Indian narrative on key Lashkar-e-Tayyeba personnel.

ProPublica describes Sajid Mir to have born sometime in the mid to late-1970s. He is also described as having been born of an Indian Muslim who migrated to Pakistan. Sajid Mir is believed to have spent his formative years in West Asia and to have taken to militancy during his late teens. The profile in ProPublica is quite indepth on Sajid Mir’s role in the planning of 26/11 and on the events after 26/11 leading up to David Headley’s arrest. It describes his various aliases as Abu Bara (Father of Bara), Uncle Bill, Sajid Bill, Wassi and Ibrahim. A recurring question through ProPublica’s account on Sajid Mir is the ambiguity on whether he was an ISI officer and consequently a Major in the Pakistan Army.

There is, however, an intriguing gap in ProPublica’s narrative on Sajid Mir from the time of his initiation in to the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba at the age of 16 to the events after 9/11 when he began recruiting foreigners for the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba. The ProPublica report talks of an undated arrest of Sajid Mir by the Dubai police and a subsequent thanks to an intervention by the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba. ProPublica also quotes a report compiled by India’s National Investigation Agency of the Headley interrogation that Sajid Mir was born in Lahore and had two brothers and two sisters.

The reference by ProPublica to the arrest in Dubai is intriguing for the parallels with another narrative of a similar arrest in Dubai and a subsequent release after Lashkar-e-Tayyeba intervention.

On May 20, 2003, the Indian Express in New Delhi carried a story by Tushar Srivastava titled ‘Ansari wanted to eliminate Delhi ACPs’. The story was about Aftab Ansari who is currently on death row in India for the 2002 terrorist attack on the American Center in Kolkota. In that story Aftab Ansari who was then in prison in Kolkota was accused of having sent SMSs to his associates in Dubai directing them to carry out targeted assassinations of specific Delhi Police officers. In the same story is an account of an arrest in Dubai of Aftab Ansari’s brother-in-law Tahir by the Dubai Police. Aftab Ansari is quoted in that story as having told interrogators that his brother-in-law Tahir was subsequently released by Dubai Police after an intervention by Lashkar-e-Tayyeba’s Azam Cheema upon the payment of a certain sum of money.

Little is known of Aftab Ansari’s brother-in-law Tahir beyond two scanty reports and several stray references to him. The most definitive account of Tahir comes from a story in The Hindu dated September 21, 2008 by Praveen Swami titled ‘Indian Mujahideen linked to organised crime’. In this story are details of how Aftab Ansari travelled to Pakistan on a fake passport after his release bail from Tihar Jail in the late 1990s. Aftab Ansari is described as having married a Pakistani Citizen whose brother Tahir it is said was with Ansari in Tihar Jail on terrorism related charges in Jammu & Kashmir. Other stray media references to Ansari’s matrimony and Tahir refer to Ansari’s wife being based in Karachi, her family’s base in Rawalpindi, her brother Tahir as Aftab Ansari’s cell mate during the 1990s. Praveen Swami also writing in The Hindu on Aftab Ansari’s arrest in 2002 had referred to his brother-in-law Tahir as serving time in Tihar, in the present tense.

It cannot be definitively said if Sajid Mir of 26/11 was Aftab Ansari’s brother-in-law Tahir who participated in jihad in Jammu & Kashmir during the 1990s. However the Karachi Project has always been described as the ISI’s project to leverage underworld elements of Indian origin based in Karachi. No individual signifies the nexus between the underworld, ISI sponsored Islamist terror and Indian origin terrorist outfits better than Aftab Ansari. Amir Raza Khan, who has been described as Indian Mujahideen’s point man in Pakistan, was closely associated with Aftab Ansari. If indeed the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba’s Sajid Mir is Ansari’s brother-in-law, it could complete the picture on the Karachi Project.

As ProPublica concludes, it is likely none of those who really sponsored 26/11 will ever be brought to justice. But it is important to know the whole truth. It is unfortunate that to date the most extensive accounts of the background events to 26/11 come from the American media. A full accounting of all the facts related to Pakistan sponsored Islamist terror events in India must come from the Indian state. It is never too late for a commission along the lines of the 9/11 Commission to go into 26/11 and all the events leading up to it. The partisan political atmosphere in New Delhi, however, does not offer much hope of that happening anytime soon.

So DCH and Ind Muj are linked!

[shyamd]

^^Re- the dubai arrests. They were arrested for planning strikes on a western country. It was subsequently hushed up.

[negi]

Headley filmed Bhabha atomic facility for ISI

David Headley videotaped the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and its large residential colony in Mumbai for the ISI. This video, Headley revealed, was not given to the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

During his interrogation by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Chicago, Headley said, "(in March 2008) Major Iqbal (who he described as his "handler" in the ISI) asked me to explore BARC in Mumbai and specially its staff colony as a target. He gave me the mobile phone camera (and) some counterfeit money." After he returned, Headley gave the video to Iqbal but did not give it to his LeT colleague, Sajid Majid.

This is alarming indeed, I can understand him slipping through the main gate and filming the residential colony but the main facility is further inside behind the hills and it is out of bounds for outsiders. Btw the security is still pretty lax at the main gate they do not ask for ID proof from everyone.

[abhishek_sharma]

Headley trail hot again, NIA puts 4 Mumbai men through polygraph test

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/headl ... st/755370/

[ramana]

I get thsi odd feeling that RD activities in TSP are related to DCH past association with L-e-T.

Pioneer Op-Ed....

CIA Rambo Runs Amok

CIA's Rambo runs amok
March 03, 2011 4:33:33 AM

G Parthasarathy

With tensions mounting between Pakistan and the US over the Raymond Davis affair, the flaws in America's AfPak policy have become more glaring than before.

It could well have been a scene from a Sylvester Stallone ‘Rambo’ thriller. The ‘good guy’ is ‘Rambo’ Raymond Davis, a Special Forces sharpshooter-turned-CIA agent, sent to eliminate ‘bad guy’ terrorists in ‘major non-NATO ally’ Pakistan. ‘Rambo’ Raymond Davis is followed by two ‘bad guys’ through the shady areas of Lahore on January 27. The ‘bad guys’ are actually ISI agents assigned to trail ‘Rambo’ Raymond Davis, who has been eliminating the agency’s jihadi and Taliban assets in Pakistani terrorist badlands, including in the tribal areas straddling the AfPak border. The ISI stalkers draw their pistols and move towards ‘Rambo’ Raymond Davis’s car. He draws his trusty six-shooter and brings down the two ‘bad guys’. He then radios for help and an American Consulate car rushes to the scene, with the rescuers running over a pedestrian while driving the wrong way on a one-way street. ‘Rambo’ Raymond Davis is overpowered and jailed. All hell breaks loose between the two ‘major non-NATO allies’.

The American version of the status of Mr Davis is that he holds a diplomatic passport and was issued a visa after being designated a ‘regional affairs officer’ — an euphemism for his being a CIA operative — with his background known to the hosts. He was also listed as ‘administrative and technical staff’ which entitles him to diplomatic immunity. According to the Pakistanis, Mr Davis is actually an employee of the private security agency, Hyperion Protective Consultants. Oddly, while the Americans insist Mr Davis is an embassy employee, the US State Department spokesman has described him as a “(Lahore) Consulate employee”. Amid these flip-flops by the Obama Administration, former Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureishi, who had avoided a scheduled visit to Munich, evidently fearing that he was on the verge of being fired, joined issue immediately after he lost his job. Mr Qureishi claimed his Ministry had carried out a detailed study and concluded that Mr Davis was not entitled to diplomatic immunity.

These developments have come just when Pakistan’s politics is becoming increasingly volatile. The Zardari Government in Islamabad does not want hassles in Pakistan’s relations with the US. The issue would have been settled and Mr Davis quietly repatriated to the US if the incident had taken place in the Federal Capital Area, where President Asif Ali Zardari controls the police. But, Lahore is not the federal capital. Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has shown no inclination of making life easy for Mr Zardari. After easing Mr Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party out of the ruling coalition in Punjab, moves will be initiated to get his brother, Mr Nawaz Sharif, back as Pakistan’s Prime Minister. Mr Nawaz Sharif knows that his PML(N) will sweep the polls in any national election. The Sharif brothers also have no inhibitions in being seen to be supportive of the growing anti-Americanism in Pakistan. Mr Shahbaz Sharif has funded Hafiz Saeed’s Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h after it was declared an international terrorist organisation. The Punjab Police has swiftly arrested and charged Mr Davis with murder, knowing that the judiciary headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry is virulently anti-Zardari. The Lahore High Court has deferred the case till March 14. In the meantime, Mr Davis sleeps in a Lahore jail despite assertions by US President Barack Obama that he enjoys diplomatic immunity and should be released.

Stirring this boiling cauldron is the all-powerful Pakistani Army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and his ever-loyal ISI chief, now under extension, Lt General Ahmed Shuja Pasha. There has been no love lost between the CIA and the ISI in recent days. The CIA is furious that its base in the Khost Province of Afghanistan, near the AfPak border, was attacked and destroyed by jihadis from across the Durand Line. Tensions between the two intelligence agencies escalated when the ISI leaked the identity of the CIA Station Chief then working undercover in Pakistan. Moreover, Mr Davis was undermining the ISI by establishing his own links to eliminate the jihadis in the Pashtun tribal areas along the AfPak border. Worse still, he was evidently attempting to undermine and infiltrate the citadel of the ‘holiest of the holies’ the Lashkar-e Tayyeba and the Patron Saint of the ISI, the redoubtable Hafiz Mohammed Saeed. The Pakistani Army quietly joined the chorus seeking to push the Americans into a corner and force them to offer concessions, even though Gen Kayani does not exactly love fellow Punjabi Nawaz Sharif. What the Americans, like some in South Block, have failed to acknowledge is that Gen Kayani believes that the US needs Pakistan just now more than Islamabad needs Washington, DC. He evidently feels that the Americans will blink first, which they show every inclination of doing, in this standoff.

The Davis affair is a manifestation of the larger malaise affecting the transactional US-Pakistan relationship. Thanks to some adept diplomacy by India, the Obama Administration soon gave up the thoughtless proposal mooted by Pakistani author Ahmed Rashid that the US should actively involve itself in meddling in the issue of Jammu & Kashmir by appointing Mr Bill Clinton as a Special Envoy. Moreover, its initial honeymoon with China soon led to estrangement, accentuated by the global economic downturn. The realisation dawned in Washington that New Delhi would be a useful partner in fashioning an inclusive Asian architecture for security and cooperation. While Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and his bureaucrats have been constantly moaning that the Americans are not treating them ‘equally’ with India and denying them a nuclear deal, Gen Kayani appears hell bent on giving the US a difficult time by providing support and haven to the ‘Quetta Shura’ headed by Mullah Omar and to the Taliban’s Haqqani network.

American diplomacy in Afghanistan also needs review. Afghan President Hamid Karzai disagrees with American policies and is meeting Lt Gen Shuja Pasha regularly, seeking Pakistani cooperation for ‘reconciliation’ with the Taliban. The Americans have not evolved a coherent strategy of how to get the Taliban to renounce violence and abide the Afghan Constitution. Nor is there confidence that the Afghan National Army will develop the capabilities to overcome Taliban depredations by 2014. The realisation has to dawn that terrorist safe havens in Pakistan cannot be eliminated unless the US reduces its dependence on Pakistani logistical support and fashions alternative logistical arrangements with Russia and Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbours. Only then can the international community evolve viable policies for governance within Afghanistan and ensure that the AfPak border is no longer what Admiral Mike Mullen has called “the epicentre of global terrorism”.

[shyamd]

^^ The realisation has arrived, the Northern Distribution Network has expanded significantly and is continuing to expand.

[abhishek_sharma]

Arrested ISI spy reveals Headley-handler link

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Arrested- ... 73901.aspx

[SSridhar]

Arrested ISI spy reveals Headley-handler link

We should have made a sketch of this elusive Maj. Sameer with the help of DCH
.

[JE Menon]

Blood money paid, RD released...

[ramana]

One way to look at DCH-RD case is the US gave DCH to TSP for use against India, while running R-D inside TSP.

[svinayak]

One way to look at DCH-RD case is the US gave DCH to TSP for use against India, while running R-D inside TSP.

US is able to insert itself between India and Pakistan and do what it wants. If one sees that India does not have any say on what goes around and what are the kind of information is getting passed around. But India being an open country keeps passing information to US about itself , society and its view of the world.

[Ravi Karumanchiri]

X-POSTED - India-US Strategic News and Discussion

^^^^Rakshaks,

It occurs to me – in light of the recent US Supreme Court ruling in ‘Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_U ... Commission that an opportunity has arisen for Rakshaks to hopefully influence the dynamic in the United States vis a vis Pakistan. The USSC ruling opened the door for non-profit organizations and even foreign interests to run election ads in the United States.

Imagine the potential impact if Americans saw a TV commercial that laid bare the full implications of America’s support for the TSP, including all the dirty business going on in Afghanistan, terrorist plots around the world, nuclear weapons proliferation, narco-trafficking, and the full-flavoured ugliness of the ISI, etc. Then the lines; “Why does Congressman/Senator/Presidential Candidate [insertname] continue to support military aid to Pakistan? Isn’t it time that America stops arming her enemies?........... This ad has been brought to you by ‘Indo-Americans for Peace and Security”.

As much as many of us (including me) here on BRF slog America for supporting the TSP – I can guarantee you that it only happens because the American public is handled like a crop of mushrooms – kept in the dark and fed sh_t.

I say, turn on the lights and give the American public the whole truth – it might just change the entire dynamic.

[g.sarkar]

Blood money paid, RD released...

Menonji,
Payment is always made. Sometimes it is money, blood or otherwise. Sometimes it is wine in expensive bottles. Sometimes it is flesh. Only old timers like me remember Christine Keeler, who was also linked with the Great Pakistani Warlord F.M. Ayub Khan. There was a picture of them together in a swimming pool party, with Ms.Keeler in a swimsuit. Could not find it, but found these.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... tures.html
Enjoy.

[Ravi Karumanchiri]

X-POSTED - Rana Trial
X-POSTED - Pakistani Role in Global Terrorism
X-POSTED - India-US Strategic News and Discussion


Canadian’s trial in Mumbai terror case could link Pakistan, terror group
Sophia Tareen, Associated Press

CHICAGO—A Chicago courtroom could become the unlikely venue for revealing alleged connections between the terrorist group blamed for the 2008 rampage that killed more than 160 people in Mumbai and Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, which has come under increased scrutiny following Osama bin Laden’s killing.

Jury selection begins Monday in the case against businessman Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian national who has lived in Chicago for years.
He is accused of helping a former boarding school friend serve as a scout for the militant group that carried out the three-day attack in India’s largest city. Though the accusations against Rana are fairly straightforward, the implications of the trial could be enormous.

<snip>

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/artic ... group?bn=1


&


NIA to finalise charges against Rana after US trial
New Delhi, May 16, (IANS):

India's main terror probe wing, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), would soon file charges against David Headley and Tahawwur Rana after the latter's trial concludes in a US court for his alleged role in the 26/11 Mumbai carnage, sources said Monday.

Pakistani-born Rana is set to appear in for the trial in Chicago that India is closely monitoring because it may unmask the links between Pakistan's spy agency ISI and terrorists.

The court proceedings, which Indian investigators expect could throw more light on the Mumbai attack conspiracy, could come handy for the NIA in finalising its chargesheet against the Headley and Rana, sources said.

<snip>

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/161 ... -rana.html


&


Tahawwur Rana's trial to begin in Chicago today, could expose ISI role in 26/11
PTI | May 16, 2011, 11.00am IST


CHICAGO: The trial of Pakistan-born Canadian citizen Tahawwur Rana, co-accused with David Headley in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, could reveal ISI's links to terrorists and any evidence of spy agency's "malfeasance" would worsen US-Pakistan relations.

<snip>

"What he discloses could deepen suspicions that Pakistani spies are connected to terrorists and could potentially worsen relations between Washington and Islamabad," New York Times reported.

<snip>

"Any new evidence of ISI malfeasance that emerges from the trial will reverberate in Washington," the daily said.

<snip>

A growing chorus on US Capitol Hill argues that the discovery of bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad and the evidence in Headley's case leave no doubt that the ISI and its Pakistani military overseers have played a cynical double game with the United States, the Times said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl ... 354267.cms



&


Terror suspect Tahawwur Rana in Chicago court
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Chuck Goudie

May 11, 2011 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- A Chicago man accused of committing terrorist crimes 8,000 miles away was in federal court Wednesday in Chicago.
In this Intelligence Report: The government is gearing up for the most significant terrorism trial ever in Chicago.
Wednesday's court appearance by Tahawwur Rana was intended to smooth some legal wrinkles in a contentious and complicated case. This trial has far-reaching implications, not only in the U.S. war on terror, but also in relations between the United States, Pakistan and India-- and between those two nations themselves, a relationship already frayed and on edge.
<snip> INCLUDES TV VIDEO REPORT

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?sectio ... id=8125933



&


Trial Raises Questions On Pakistan's Terrorism Ties
by Dina Temple-Raston
May 13, 2011
A terrorism trial set to begin in Chicago next week could end up further inflaming tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan. The case involves Tahawwur Rana, who was arrested two years ago and charged with conspiring with others in the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. Jury selection in his case begins Monday, but the question of Rana's guilt or innocence has taken a back seat to a bigger issue: Pakistan's role in the deadly attacks.

<snip>

"I can't remember a case in terms of either its substance or timing that has such potential grave political impact," said Juan Zarate, a terrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former member of the Bush administration. "In a very real way, you have the Pakistani intelligence services, and perhaps the military, on trial here for its potential complicity in the 2008 attacks — and that's in the wake of all the questions that have arisen about Pakistan complicity in harboring bin Laden. This is a volatile mix coming at a volatile time."

<snip>

"I think people will be left wondering why the United States not looked closer at the ISI and everything that is going on in Pakistan," said Charles Swift, Rana's defense attorney.

<snip>

"For the first time, America has confirmed what India has been saying all along: That the 10 men that came onto Mumbai shores were not acting alone; they were trained and tutored by the ISI — that the entire operation was monitored from Islamabad," said the anchor of the Indian news channel TimesNow. "We knew it."

Swift, the defense lawyer, says he expects the courtroom will be filled with Indian reporters, and now, in the wake of the bin Laden raid, the U.S. media are going to be there in force, too. All of that attention might explain something prosecutors have just done: NPR has learned that a couple of days ago, they asked for a special hearing — something called a Section 6, SIPA hearing, in which the prosecution and the defense hash out what can be safely said in court without revealing classified information.

Calling a SIPA hearing this late in a case is an unusual maneuver. Those kinds of details are usually settled months in advance. Amid all the sturm und drang of the past two weeks, prosecutors may have had some second thoughts about what they want to reveal in court.

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/13/136254210 ... orism-ties


&


Perfidious Pakistan
By Jed Babbin on 5.16.11 @ 6:09AM [Jed Babbin served as a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush. He is the author of several bestselling books including Inside the Asylum and In the Words of Our Enemies.]

Last weekend, Pakistan's parliament... <snip> ... was called to debate "the situation arising from unilateral U.S. action in Abbottabad." The Pakistanis declared that continuation of the U.S. drone attacks was "unacceptable" and resolved that, "Such drone attacks must stop forthwith, failing which the government will be constrained to consider taking necessary steps including withdrawal of [the] transit facility allowed to NATO."

<snip>

What to do about Pakistan? There may be little we can do, and what little there is we must undertake without delay. To understand why Pakistan is so committed to terrorism requires the observation of one key fact: terrorism is, and has been for decades, the weapon of choice Pakistan uses against India in the dispute over Kashmir. The large, rich province of Kashmir has a Muslim majority and was left in India's hands when the British pulled out in August 1947. The two nations have repeatedly fought conventional wars over Kashmir and two years ago came to the brink of nuclear war.

Unable to wrest Kashmir from India, Pakistan chose terrorism as its strategy to undermine India in Kashmir and force its withdrawal. Pakistan-based terrorists have committed assassinations, airline hijackings and many bombing attacks against Indian targets. When India confronts Pakistan, the latter denies its obvious complicity and refuses to take action against the terror networks it harbors.

<snip>

Last March, India gave the Pakistani government a list of fifty terrorists operating from Pakistan believed to have been involved in attacks, some going back twenty years. Among them reportedly were Dawood Ibrahim (wanted in connection with bombings in Mumbai in 1993), LeT chieftain Hafiz Saeed and LeT commander Azam Cheema as well as Illyas Kashmiri, one of the leaders of the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistan has not, and certainly will not, surrender the men because they are protected by the Pakistani military and/or the ISI. Their value to Pakistan as weapons against India outweighs, in Pakistani terms, the damage Pakistan may suffer from America and other nations for doing so. That judgment is right, because President Obama isn't likely to hold Pakistan accountable.

<snip>

Just as the Pakistani commitment to terrorism results from the Kashmir dispute, so does the long-term solution to it. And here's what some Republican presidential aspirant should say about it.

We have sacrificed too many American lives at the altar of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has failed in Iraq, and is failing in Afghanistan. We need to withdraw from both nations as quickly as we can and focus on forcing the nations that sponsor terrorism -- Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia -- to cease doing so.

Pakistan is a natural enemy of the U.S., not a friend. Their cooperation in Afghanistan -- which has been vital to the war in Afghanistan -- comes at too high a price. Pakistan depends on our aid -- now over $3 billion a year -- to keep up the pretense that their government is stable and that they cooperate with us in the war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. That aid should be stopped forthwith.

India, Pakistan's blood enemy, is a natural American ally. To deal with Pakistan's terror-sponsorship, we should -- quietly and slowly -- re-engage with India.

They need to know that America understands Pakistan's terror war against them and doesn't object to Indian rule in Kashmir so long as Pakistan's aggression continues. We should ask for permission to covertly base our forces in India to operate against Pakistani terrorism, and for them to join our covert actions against that threat.

<snip>

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/05/1 ... s-pakistan

[JE Menon]

>>We should ask for permission to covertly base our forces in India to operate against Pakistani terrorism,

Bases in Afghanistan will do just fine. As for joint covert ops, according to the Paks we are alread doing it, with the Yehudis involved in the bargain..

[harbans]

They need to know that America understands Pakistan's terror war against them and doesn't object to Indian rule in Kashmir so long as Pakistan's aggression continues.

Again the American is not understanding the issue. They seem to have internalized the fact that India will lose in a plebiscite on Kashmir. Little realization is their in policy making circles in US, that India would have won a plebiscite easy way back in the 50's too. Specially one where 3 choices were given, India, Pak, Independence. Pakistan has done everything in the book to make a plebiscite impossible. THey still believe that Hindu's are occuppying some Muslim land. However i think give it some more time and the reality of this issue too will dawn on them.

[ramana]

Patni,
We have a Rana trial thread.

[Patni]

Patni,
We have a Rana trial thread.

Thanks for pointing out. Can you please move last few posts to Rana Trial thread.

[anmol]

Star Witness in Terror Trial Could Heighten U.S.-Pakistan Tension
by Sebastian Rotella
ProPublica,

May 22, 2011, 6 p.m

Versions of this article appeared in the Washington Post and the Guardian.

CHICAGO -- The life of David Coleman Headley, a confessed American terrorist and Pakistani spy, has moved from a soap opera to a crime story to an espionage thriller embroiling the elites of India, Pakistan and the United States.

Monday begins the most revealing chapter yet: The courtroom drama.

Headley, a Pakistani-American businessman and former DEA informant, will be the star witness against Tahawwur Rana of Chicago, his boyhood friend and alleged accomplice in the 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai. Opening arguments are set for Monday in a trial that has drawn international attention because Headley's testimony could reinforce allegations that Pakistan plays a double game in the fight against terrorism.

The prosecution will depend largely on how the jury views Headley, one of the most intriguing figures to surface in a U.S. terror case. The burly, smooth-talking 50-year-old has a swashbuckling personality and a knack for juggling relationships with multiple wives, terrorist groups and law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

"Sometimes he'd tell my husband, 'Oh, I want to be in movies,' a movie star or something like that," Rana's wife, Samraz, told ProPublica and PBS FRONTLINE in her first-ever interview. "So it looks like he wants to be famous."

Headley has gotten his wish. He pleaded guilty last year to conducting reconnaissance for the Mumbai attacks, which killed 166 people, and for a plot against Denmark. His confessions painted a devastating portrait of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), because he says ISI officers helped the Lashkar-i-Taiba terrorist group plot the commando-style attacks on Mumbai.

Rana's defense will center on the ISI links. His lawyers say Headley duped Rana into thinking he was helping an ISI espionage operation in India, then betrayed him to escape the death penalty. Rana, the defense will argue, had no idea Headley was plotting mass murder.

"They are using a whale to catch a minnow," said defense attorney Charles Swift. He called Headley "a master manipulator."

Federal prosecutors recently raised the political stakes by indicting a suspected ISI officer for the murders in Mumbai of six Americans, whose deaths are the basis for the U.S. trial. The officer, identified only as Major Iqbal, allegedly oversaw Headley's scouting in India and then helped launch him on the Lashkar plot against Denmark, although Iqbal is not charged in the Denmark case.

The decision to indict Iqbal was made at high levels in Washington. It sent a tough signal from the Obama administration, which had expressed frustration about Pakistan's reliability even before Osama bin Laden was found in a military town near Islamabad.

"I think [the indictment] shows the government believes Headley when he says his handler was an ISI officer," said James Kreindler, a former federal prosecutor who is suing the Pakistani spy agency in New York on behalf of the Mumbai victims and their families. "At some point in time there is not going to be any doubt whatsoever that the ISI coordinated the attack with Lashkar."

The indictment refrains from mentioning the ISI, part of a calculated low-key approach, according to an Obama administration official who requested anonymity because of the pending trial. But the prosecutors will likely address the allegations about the ISI, especially because the defense has emphasized them.

"The decision not to name the ISI does not reflect second thoughts about the evidence," the official said. "There are no second thoughts about the evidence."

Pakistan Questions Headley's Credibility

The prosecution's case is based on a secretive international investigation by the FBI and some 30,000 pages of court documents, most of them sealed. Headley's testimony is backed by corroborating evidence from other witnesses, communications intercepts, travel records, reconnaissance videos and the contents of his computer. If there is strong evidence that ISI personnel helped kill Americans, it would inflict further damage on an endangered alliance with Pakistan into which Washington has poured billions.

Pakistani officials deny any links to terrorism and question Headley's credibility because of his past as a double agent and criminal.

The Pakistani major and five of the six other masterminds charged in Chicago remain at large. The FBI has photos of some of them, intercepts of their voices and emails, and information about their whereabouts, but Pakistani authorities have done little to pursue the fugitives, U.S. officials say. Pakistan's prosecution of several Lashkar chiefs arrested in 2009, including one now under U.S. indictment, has stalled.

Rana, a doctor by training, is the lowest-ranking suspect and the only defendant in Chicago. He is charged with material support of terrorism for letting Headley use his immigration consulting firm as a cover overseas.

Rana has known Headley since they attended an elite military school in Pakistan. Rana's wife, who also has a medical degree, met Headley in the 1990s after she emigrated to the United States. Although he was a convicted heroin dealer and recovering addict, he charmed her conservative family, she said during the interview in their bungalow near Devon Avenue, the heart of Chicago's South Asian community.

The bespectacled 48-year-old mother of three teenagers smiled wearily as she recalled Headley's relationship with her children.

"He was like a gateway to American culture for us," she said. "He was like a second father for my kids...My kids would say, he's cool, this guy. He was taking them to the movies, Chuck E. Cheese, all this fun stuff...He talked to me like a brother. He knows what I liked. He knows what my husband liked. He knows what my children like...He has different faces."

Headley's mother came from a rich Philadelphia family and his father was a renowned, politically influential Pakistani broadcaster. Headley told investigators that he has a distant Pakistani relative who was a former deputy director of the ISI and Army general, according to Indian and U.S. officials. If that link is confirmed, it could help explain why the agency later recruited Headley and how he had access to senior officers and militant chiefs.

At 17, Headley returned to the United States, where he managed bars and owned a video rental store. Multi-lingual and gregarious, he has shown a con man's gift for winning over accomplices, investigators and romantic conquests.

"He was a tall, handsome guy," Samraz Rana said. "He was wearing very expensive clothes and, I mean, he was really impressive."

After a 1997 arrest for heroin smuggling, Headley became a prized DEA informant who targeted Pakistani traffickers. Immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, the DEA directed him to collect intelligence on terrorists as well as drugs. In December 2001, the U.S. government ended his probation three years early and rushed him to Pakistan, where he began training in Lashkar terror camps weeks later, according to court documents, officials and his associates.

Some federal officials say he remained an informant at least three more years, but the DEA disagrees.

"David Headley was sent to Pakistan for approximately three weeks to further a drug investigation in 1998," said a DEA official familiar with his work as an informant. The DEA official declined to comment on Headley's mission in late 2001, but said: "He was deactivated in early 2002."

That assertion only deepens the contradictions and mysteries about Headley's missions overseas. Between 2001 and 2008, federal authorities were warned six times by his wives and associates that he was involved in terrorism. None of the resulting inquiries yielded anything. The FBI and CIA say he never worked for them.

Headley’s Personality: Charming and Chaotic

Headley's personal life has been melodramatic. He has four children, including a son named Osama with a Pakistani wife from an arranged marriage in 1999. But he has been married to three other women and several of those relationships overlapped.

At times, Headley has worn a full beard and traditional garb and expressed warlike beliefs, quoting the Koran, praising al Qaeda and declaring his hatred for India. But he has often gone clean-shaven and behaved like a high-rolling entrepreneur with a taste for champagne and luxury.

After he began training with Lashkar, he joked with his third wife, a New York makeup artist, that their pet dog could be a good "jihadi dog," according to a close associate. Hard-core extremists shun dogs because they see them as un-Islamic and unclean.

Despite Headley's guilty plea, Rana's wife finds it difficult to believe that her jovial, playful family friend helped plan the carnage of Mumbai. She recalled an anecdote her husband told about their military school days, when Headley would avoid morning prayers.

"Dave, he knocks on all the doors of students and he says, 'Get up, get up, it's time for prayer'," she said. "And then when everybody gets up, he went to his room and went to sleep, you know. So he was laughing. He was like that."

When the DEA busted Headley in 1988 and 1997, Rana put up his house as bond. When the Ranas ran into financial trouble in 2005, Headley came to the rescue with a loan of more than $60,000, Rana's wife said.

"We were like almost at the border of bankruptcy," she said. "So my husband, he became more close to him. And he said: 'Oh, he is my true friend because he helped me at this time when I really need money'."

Still, Headley had traits that made her uneasy. Her husband told her he had once used an elderly aunt to smuggle drugs on a flight overseas, hiding the package in her pocket without her knowledge, the wife said.

In 2006, the ISI recruited Headley in Pakistan, according to his confession to Indian investigators. In addition to Major Iqbal, his trainer and hander, he said he met ISI officers named Major Samir Ali, Lt. Colonel Hamza and Colonel Shah. After specialized ISI training, he did two years of missions in India directed by Iqbal and Sajid Mir, a Lashkar chief who is the suspected project manager of the plot.

Mir's voice was caught on wiretaps overseeing the three-day slaughter in Mumbai by phone. Some U.S. and European anti-terror officials believe Mir once belonged to the military or ISI; others say he only had close ties to the security forces.

Both Mir and Major Iqbal concentrated on terror targets, but Iqbal assigned Headley to gather military intelligence as well. He gave Headley about $28,000 to establish an office of Rana's firm in Mumbai as a cover and for other expenses, the indictment says.

The Ranas Took Care of Headley’s Wife and Children

Rana's wife insists that her husband had no idea about the plot. The Ranas traveled to Mumbai, where she has family, days before the attack in November 2008.

"It's a zero percent chance that my husband is involved in this thing," she said. "My relatives are there...I was there. My husband was there. We [could have been] killed in that attack ."

The defense, however, will have to explain wiretaps in which Rana appears to praise the Mumbai masterminds. Evidence indicates he communicated with Major Iqbal. And he helped Headley maintain his cover in Denmark in January 2009 by sending an email to an advertising representative at the Jyllands Posten newspaper, which Lashkar targeted because it had published caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed, according to the indictment.

Major Iqbal met at least twice with Headley about the Denmark plot, expressing enthusiasm about attacking the newspaper, according to Headley's account. The officer cut off contact with Headley when Mir, the lead plotter, backed away from the operation in March 2009, documents say. But Headley continued meeting and communicating with Col. Shah and Major Samir Ali as the Denmark plot was taken over by al Qaeda, according to officials and an Indian court document.

Shortly before the Mumbai attack, Headley had brought his Pakistani wife and children to Chicago. They lived with the Ranas for 20 days before moving into a nearby apartment.

"They become very close to my kids," Samraz Rana said. "And the wife was nice. And we have like sort of family relationship at that time... Dave was not here, he only sent his family. So we were taking care of his family."

During this period, documents show, Headley was spending most of his time in Pakistan, where he had a Moroccan wife. The Ranas paid rent for Headley's family as part of the strict conditions he had imposed for repaying the money he had loaned them, she said.

The FBI arrested Headley and Rana in October 2009. A DEA agent who had handled Headley when he was a drug informant was present when investigators brought Headley in, perhaps in a strategy to induce cooperation. Headley quickly did what he had done in the past: he changed sides. He spent weeks detailing his role in the Mumbai massacre.

"If you see him, you cannot even imagine that he can do things like that," Samraz Rana said. "I mean he talks so good. He's so polite."

Now, though, Rana's wife sees Headley as a predator.

"He just thinks about himself," she said. "I think he [studies] human beings...more as compared to the ordinary person. He can understand what [someone] likes and he changes himself according to that...Now I realize what intention he had."

p.s.: In the article there are pictures of Headley with beard and another one of him with him and Rana taken probably at their school in Pakistan.

[Muppalla]

Colin Freeze
It was also expressed that an attack on National Defence College in India would "kill more brigadiers" than in 4 Indo-Pak wars. #Ranatrial
4 minutes ago
Colin Freeze
Headley was overheard mulling list of targets. Temple in Gujarat. Shiv Sena. Bollywood. Copenhagen. #Ranatrial
4 minutes ago
Colin Freeze
Sept09 No one seems to be able to get in touch with Illyas Kashmiri in Waziristan Headley tells Rana in car. #Ranatrial
10 minutes ago
Colin Freeze
By Sept 09 police have bugged Rana's car in Chicago. Headley caught saying 2 men he met in England are missing amid drone strikes in Pak.
11 minutes ago
Colin Freeze
Headley's ISI handler, Major Iqbal,broke contact in March."I have yet to come across a coward like him,"Headley gripes in email.#Ranatrial
13 minutes ago
Colin Freeze
When prosecutor asked Headley why he wanted to do this, Headley said "I wanted a lot of reward from God." #Ranatrial
15 minutes ago
Colin Freeze
"I like option B. I can do it on my own. I can do it easily," Headley emails his Pakistani initimates. #Ranatrial
16 minutes ago
Colin Freeze
Plan B Headley wrote was "more economical, more effective since we were having trouble w/ manpower and weaponry." #Ranatrial
17 minutes ago
Colin Freeze
Instead of terrorists storming newspaper, Headley considers "Plan B" -- asassinating cartoonist/cultural editor. #Ranatrial
17 minutes ago
Colin Freeze
Headley mulled scalin down Denmark ambitions. #Ranatrial
18 minutes ago
Colin Freeze
Headley can't get promised help from jihadis in Denmark/UK. Low funds. Doing recce on bicycle. #Ranatrial
19 minutes ago
Colin Freeze
In Summer 09 Headley frustrated with Lashkar for not approving plot to attack Denmark."Esprit de corps is screwed up" he writes. #Ranatrial
19 minutes ago
Colin Freeze
Bala = Maj. Iqbal Bala's Co. = ISI "They" = Lashkar e Taiba. #Ranatrial
48 minutes ago
Colin Freeze
Gem of a coded msg from Headley. "They will never do business without Mr. Bala's company ... Mr. Bala's co. will beat them up." #Ranatrial
49 minutes ago
Colin Freeze
Guess this means that FBI/NSA was up on Headley's phones in Aug 09. H being made to read tscripts of his own (eliptical) convos. #Ranatrial
1 hour ago
Colin Freeze
Jury has been handed book of 26/11 trancripted conversations to follow along. Headley being made to read from some of them. #Ranatrial
1 hour ago
Colin Freeze
Sajid Mir was in Karachi with LET's Abu Qadafa on 26/11 coaching attackers by phone."He was watching what was going on in India."#Ranatrial
1 hour ago
Colin Freeze
Rana alleged to reply Sajid Mir was tactically a "KhalidbinWhalid" -- reference to prophet's general. #Ranatrial
1 hour ago
Colin Freeze
Headley says Sajid told him this personally and he relayed it to Rana. #Ranatrial
1 hour ago
Colin Freeze
Sajid, watching on TV,advised gunmen to use matress as cover and meet Indian forces in stairwell.The Indians "Scampered" H says. #Ranatrial
1 hour ago
Colin Freeze
Headley testifying how LET's Sajid Mir coached Chabad House gunmen to resist Indian commandos trying to rescue hostages. #Ranatrial
1 hour ago
Colin Freeze
"Pasha's" full name is Abdurahman Hashim Syed -- Pak Army-turned-LET operative arrested briefly by ISI in 09. #Ranatrial
1 hour ago
Colin Freeze
Headley duped LET handler Sajid Mir who told him "that (MMP)project was on hold he didn't want me to do it any longer." #Ranatrial
2 hours ago
Colin Freeze
Oct. 20-29 Headley in Copenhagen. Returns to Atlanta.Customs asks him purpose of visit."I said I was an immigration consultant." #Ranatrial
2 hours ago
Colin Freeze
Headley testimony begins with blow by blow of MMP, plot assassinate those "I felt to be directly responsible for the cartooons" #Ranatrial
2 hours ago
Colin Freeze
WikiLeaks: Intense US monitoring of Pak nuke program http://is.gd/icdxUX
13 hours ago
Colin Freeze
The #Ranatrial has me thinking about a talk I had two years ago with a rather candid ex-ISI officer Khalid Khawaja. http://bit.ly/melnNV
13 hours ago
Colin Freeze
"We used to call him "Agent Headley" because we suspected him to be CIA"-- Rahul Bhatt (LET/ISI told H to cozy up to a 'Rahul') #Ranatrial

[ramana]

X-Post....

The UK‘s Daily Mail drawing on testimony provided in the ongoing trial of alleged Islamic Terrorist Tahawwur Hussain Rana reports the involvement of the ISI / ISID, the Intelligence Agency of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, in the Islamic Terrorist attack on Mumbai:

Pakistan’s intelligence agency was involved in planning of the Mumbai terror plot, conspirator claims

Doesn"t it strike one that Agent Deadly is more motivated to escalate the attacks than his 'handlers"?

[ramana]

Don't know if it came out clearly that it was Headley that suggested that an attack on NDC would kill more Indian Brigadiers than the four wars that Pakistan started.

He also wanted to attack the Somnath Temple.

Looks like ISI is very sure that nothing will happen to them that they let LeT carryout attacks around the world.

The evidence shows that its a classic spy case. Headley has direct contact with Rana. Rana has little contact with Headley's handlers. All along its Headley and the handlers who also work with the terrorist squad. Headley never gets to meet them.

So taking the model at higher level, ISI controls LeT as its Pakjabi terrorists to use the world over. The Taliban are Afghan specific. The AlQ are US and West specific cells modules of the ISI. JEM is another India specific cell or module.

All these ae ISI run modules. They have non-military, mullah heads for plausible deniability/cover of religious groups to fool US purposes, but no mistake they are all ISI and in turn TSPA run outfits.

[Muppalla]

Here is the link of pdf
http://beta.images.theglobeandmail.com/ ... 79194a.pdf

read from 19th page.

[chaanakya]

Janet Napolitano is on a visit to India and not covered by MSMs

here is few statements reported by D awn
Pakistan-based LeT ‘in same rank’ as al Qaeda: US

Janet Napolitano, speaking on a trip to New Delhi where she met top Indian security officials, was asked about the threat posed by the group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed.

“It is is one that seeks to harm people and the US perspective is that the LeT is an organisation which is in the same ranks of al Qaeda-related groups,” Napolitano told reporters after day-long talks in New Delhi.

“The United States has given India full access to the witness and once the case (trial) is over more access will be given. It is an example of how our two countries operate,” she said.

[Mahendra]

Read it somewhere( perhaps on TOI-let) that Daood Gilani had warned Rah-ullu Butt not to go to South Mumbai on the 26th. Surely the Butt household merits another visit by Mumbai's finest

[Sushupti]

^^^
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl ... 606991.cms

also from above

Tahawwur Hussain Rana, Mumbai attacks co-accused, had an ambitious plan to enter Bollywood by launching Rahul Bhatt, son of film director Mahesh Bhatt, in a movie that he wanted to make.

This was said by David Coleman Headley, prime accused in the Mumbai case, before a Chicago court during questioning by Rana's attorney Patrick W Blegan.

Rana, a Pakistani Canadian, was not able to go ahead with his plans as it was against the ideals of Lashkar-e-Taiba, who opposed such a move.