IMHO it is useful to recall certain features of an even worse attack than 26/11 by terrorists based in Western countries - the 1985 Air India bombing.
Here are some excerpts:
[quote]
Ontario Lt Governor James Bartleman, who was director general of External Affairs' intelligence bureau in 1985, testified at the public inquiry that he saw an intelligence document warning of an attack on Air India aircraft just days before the bombing.
He said he personally delivered the document to a committee meeting on Sikh extremism that was going on at the same time.
When he showed the document to the senior Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer at the meeting, Bartleman said, he was "startled" by the reaction he got.
"He flushed and told me that of course he'd seen it, and that he didn't need me to tell him how to do his job," he said. "That confirmed that he had seen it and that the RCMP would take that into consideration and do what was necessary. The next thing in my memory is the downing of the aircraft."
Bartleman was in charge of the intelligence analysis and security branch of the Department of External Affairs when the plane blew up on June 23, 1985, killing all 329 people on board.
Bartleman said he found the document in his daily package of intelligence briefings in the week of June 18.
"I saw in there a document that indicated Air India was being targeted that weekend, specifically the weekend of the 22-23," Canadian Broadcasting reported quoting Bartleman.
"It was raw, unevaluated information. There had been so many alarms raised over the previous year about potential attacks that I suppose it would be possible for someone to say this is just another one of these cry wolf events."
When asked why he recalled that incident so clearly, Bartleman said he had never been "hissed at" in such a way during his career and that it made a "searing impression."
http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullst ... wsid=85939
[/quote]
The tragic Kanishka bombing killing 329 people in 1985 could have been averted had the Air India plane not been allowed to leave Canada before a bomb-sniffing dog could search the luggage, a former police officer has told a probe commission looking into terror attack.
The Air India Flight 182, which exploded off the Irish coast, was not alerted of the bomb threat and allowed to leave Canada before a bomb-sniffing dog could search the plane and its luggage, Serge Carignan, a former dog handler with Quebec's provincial police, submitted on Wednesday before the inquiry Commission presided over by Justice John Major.
Carignan believed he could have found the explosives but the plane had already left the Montreal airport by the time he arrived to check it.
"I've always wondered why, if I was called to search an airplane and some luggage, why did they let the airplane go before I arrived there," said Carignan. "I did not have a chance to search that airplane. I believe that if I had a chance to search it, things might have turned out differently," he said, adding, "I believe we would have found the explosives."
Carignan testified in Ottawa that he was called to Mirabel airport on June 22, 1985, hours before a bomb blew up the plane. "I was not told it was a bomb threat. I took it upon myself when I received the call that it was a bomb threat," Craigman said.
Carignan said he was told officials needed help searching a plane and luggage, and that the airport's regular Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) dog squad was out of the region on that date. By the time he arrived at the airport, roughly 45 minutes later, the plane had already taken off, Carignan said.
http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullst ... wsid=86250
In a startling revelation, an inquiry has been told that the Canadian police was not informed in the days after the 1985 Air India bombing about the recorded phone conversations of the main suspect, evidence that could have led to the conviction of some of the accused had they not been erased.
As the public inquiry resumed its hearing after a three-month break, a former member of the task force claimed the central intelligence agency denied him access to the tapes even after he had learnt about them almost a month after the Kanishka flight bombing that killed 329 people, mostly of Indian origin.
Former Superintendent of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Lyman Henschel said senior officials from RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service liaison held a top- level meeting shortly after the bombing to setup a task force.
He said that despite the presence of the CSIS official at the meeting, he was not told that the intelligence agency had been recording Talwinder Singh Parmar's phone conversations for three months before the disaster.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news ... ct/218250/
Lots more evidence
here including
[quote]CSIS agents followed Talwinder Parmar and Inderjit Reyat to a test bombing on Vancouver Island.[/quote]
So we see how the law-enforcement machinery worked at the lower levels. However, it appears that there was a decision taken at a high level that the plot should be allowed to proceed.
This kind of pattern can be found in many terrorist attacks (including 9/11).
On the other hand, there are several recent cases which indicate that patriotic elements of western law-enforcement agencies may be pushing back against their superiors. One such incident is the entrapment of the scientist Stewart Nozette by an FBI agent posing as an Israeli spy.
Now as regards regards the Headley-Rana case, there are several possible scenarios:
1. There could be a commitment at a high level that terrorist attacks on India will be foiled insofar possible, in keeping with the improved relations between India and the US.
2. It could be that Headley and Rana were busted by lower level staff, operating on their own initiative.
3. It could be that the Headley-Rana duo were busted because they over-reached by targeting Denmark.
4. This could be a gesture intended to lull India into believing that the US is serious about acting against anti-India terror, and it is not indicative of what might happen in the future.
It is good to keep in mind that there are still several unexplained features of 26/11, including the phone call to Zardari by someone claiming to be Pranab Mukherjee, and the original sources of the funding coming from the Gulf. The phone call, in particular, appears to have been intended to trigger open hostilities in the subcontinent, which might solve a lot of problems for many different parties.
It's true that the overall tenor of relations between India and the Western powers has been improving. The atmospherics surrounding the recent visit of the Indian President to the UK royals were positive, as are those for the upcoming visit of MMS to the US. The arrest of Rana and Headley is a positive gesture. Nevertheless, the US may not allow access to any evidence that implicates any US allies or assets. Anyway, even if there were a larger conspiracy behind 26/11, it certainly would not reduce culpability of the people who were doing the planning and killing - a useful idiot cannot escape culpability for his idiocy.
