The Curious Case of Daood Gilani alias David Headley & co

[abhishek_sharma]

Another Headley wife also warned of his terror and India links http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 762623.cms
...
"Had we known about the timing and other specifics related to the Mumbai attacks, we would have immediately shared those details with the government of India," he said.

They did not know the timing and specifics related to the Mumbai attacks because they were not keeping an eye on him. Did they interrogate him before 26/11? Had they interrogated him, they would have known "timing and other specifics" related to 26/11. Their nonchalance is clear from the fact that Headley traveled to India after 26/11 and we were kept in the dark. Why care for LeT operations when it is attacking only India? US is not guilty just as Mullah Omar is not responsible for 9/11.

[jiteshn]

Obviously, the US knew what he was upto. They told his wives to shut up and mind their own business.

There are two reasons why this was being pursued:
1) They were collecting data. They were keeping an eye on him. They wanted him to execute his mission and hence chose not to interfere. They wanted to know about the people who interact with him in the act - people from the PA/ISI or any militant groups. Headley probably knows the entire process of conceiving, planning and execution of a terrorist attack and the degree of involvement of the ranks of those "professional bodies" that collaborate in this operation.

2) The US wanted to test india's thresholds of war.

[ramana]

SSridhar, Eventually someone will confess/point out which agency is the real employer of Daood Gilani. Minor agencies can't have such clout.

PS: I recall Forum eminent members leaped on another member for suggesting this very situation we are seeing confirmed.

[abhishek_sharma]

Headley was working with US while training in Pak

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/headl ... ak/698905/

By letting Headley maintain contacts with Lashkar-e-Toiba and other al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan — as reflected in the court papers submitted by the FBI — US authorities said that they hoped to reach the top al-Qaeda leaders. But Headley went rogue and slipped out of their hands.

Those handling Headley’s account in the American intelligence agencies said that a decision to arrest him was taken only after he shifted his attention from India to Europe and Headley’s Pakistani handlers started using him for a Mumbai-type attack in European cities.

[Patni]

US never gave us alert on Headley: Mumbai Police

Krishna Kumar
Mumbai, October 18, 2010
Updated 09:46 IST

Even a non-specific or vague intelligence input on Daood Gilani alias David Coleman Headley from the US could have landed him in an Indian jail, Maharashtra Police officers said. They refuted the US claim that it had alerted Indian agencies about Headley.

"Had the US alerted us about Headley, we would have detained him when he landed in India and the 26/11 plot could have been nipped in the bud," a senior police officer said. Union government sources also confirmed that there was a US alert in September 2008 about a terror attack on Mumbai. But it wasn't specific.
"The Intelligence Bureau warned the Mumbai Police on September 24, 2008 that the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) was showing interest in certain targets like the Taj Mahal hotel. The security was beefed up, but the attack was conducted a couple of months later," a source said. Later, 26/11 convict Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman aka Qasab also confessed that the Mumbai attacks were planned for September, but had to be aborted because of rough seas.

Almost three years before the Mumbai attack the US knew that one of its citizens was hobnobbing with the LeT. But the information was never passed on to Indian authorities. Even one of Headley's three wives, Faiza Outalha, met US officials in Islamabad to inform them about his LeT connections. But the Moroccan woman was shooed away.

However, the US has been saying that it did give out a 'terror alert', albeit of a 'general nature', to India. But Indian agencies, including the Mumbai Police, have strongly denied it. "The US is trying to confuse - the point here is whether they passed on information about Headley, the LeT operative, or about the attack. These are different issues," the police officer said.

"They had information on Headley's terror links and activities while he was travelling to India. But no Headleyrelated information came to us. Instead, they are talking about a general alert passed on to India about a terror attack," the officer added. It was ironical that the US was talking about a 'general' alert while the man who recced Mumbai and other places visited India at least five times after the US got its first warning, the officer said.

According to several policemen, 'general' terror alerts don't have much practical value as they are vague and can't be acted upon. A country like India, with hostile neighbours, gets terror alerts by the dozen every week. Lawyer and former IPS officer Y.P. Singh said 'general' terror alerts were meaningless.

"In the police force, we used to get such alerts almost every day. All of them can't be verified. Unless they are specific, they don't serve any purpose." Singh said. "The US committed a sin of omission, which is unforgivable," he added. Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad (ATS) officers said they had claimed all along that when it comes to terror the US plays a double game with India.

"The US just gives us alerts and we are happy. But when it came to interrogating Headley, we weren't given much leeway. We still don't know how the attack was planned, which Pakistani military officers were involved and how they put it in place," an ATS officer said.

"People are afraid of a repeat of 26/11 because there are several unanswered questions. The US isn't cooperating and those who question Headley also have their hands tied. "The issue needs to be taken up at a higher level between the Indian and US governments. But it's not being done." the officer added.

Looks like an effort to put pressure on GoI to take more public and hardened stand to come out with facts on US double game in trying to gloss over and hide the deep link few of US agency has with headley. It was clear at very start some wheels within wheels in Headley's case and it sure has vindicated the suspicion about US game by many members on this thread.

The spotlight is back on Headley thanks to good investigative work by Sebastian Rotella of ProPublica in tracking his ex-wife!! Headley was already inside a witness protection cover of a sort when his arrest was first announced! If not for raised risk of mumbai style attack somewhere in Europe, and subsequent exposes by Propublica, the whole Headley saga would have been quietly buried by GoI as per wishes of US establishment.

[saket]

I have some questions, first of all it is very surprising to note that the Moroccan wife of Headley was able to approach US officials in Islamabad, why was she allowed to do so and remain alive after she did by the pakis?

More importantly, did she also come in contact with Indian authorities, maybe after a rebuff by US she might have tried to get in touch with Indians. Was our intelligence aware that the Moroccan had approached US officials with info about LeT?

What about the American wife - was Indian intelligence aware of her red flag to the FBI.
I mean there was sufficient background noise for an alert intelligence network to pick up the Headley thread prior to 26/11. Was our intelligence completely unaware?

[Philip]

Why talk of the Pakis "hunting with the hounds and hiding with the hares".The US has been equally duplictous all along.In fact,for decades the CIA hads adopted this policy,to be able to influence both sides to achieve its own selfish interests.It used the mafia in worlwide operations where there could be no trace of US involvement and today are using the so-called "contractors",contract-killers in reality like Blackwater,where no signature or fingerprint of US involvement can be found for kidnapping of terror suspects,their "rendition,torture and ultimate disposal.Wikileaks,EU investigations,etc. have all revealed the sordid story of US chicanery and duplicity,with new leaks about to hit the standsgiven below.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/

latest world news
Pentagon braced for release of 400,000 Iraq files
Pentagon braced for its biggest-ever security breach of classified information as Wikileaks prepares to release 400,000 Iraq war intelligence files.

But what is even more sordid is the pathetic response of the GOI ,meekly accepting all these criminal acts against the Indian state,as if it is an India's fate to be so subjected to.To the GOI of the dsay,Indian lives are cheap and of little consequence.Tamashas like the CWG are more important to it,so that they can bask in their "international reputations".WE have neither paid back pakistan for all its perfidy,neither have we even protested to the US about its withholding of evidence that Headley/Gilani was plotting a massive terror attack at Bombay with the ISI and other anti-Indian Paki entities.It is an unforgivable act of the US and exposes the sheer hypocrisy of the US establishment when it comes to India's security.

In fact,who wants Obama the "Mess-iah" to come to India at all? All he is coming here for is to scoop out DR.Singh's pocket even more lucrative defence deals for the US,saving US jobs at exorbitant cost to Indian taxpayers and given an opportunity to preach to us "peace" with Pakistan!
In my book he is most unwelcome.

[SSridhar]

US never gave us alert on Headley: Mumbai Police

Even a non-specific or vague intelligence input on Daood Gilani alias David Coleman Headley from the US could have landed him in an Indian jail, Maharashtra Police officers said. They refuted the US claim that it had alerted Indian agencies about Headley.

. . . "The US is trying to confuse - the point here is whether they passed on information about Headley, the LeT operative, or about the attack. These are different issues," the police officer said.

"They had information on Headley's terror links and activities while he was travelling to India. But no Headley related information came to us. Instead, they are talking about a general alert passed on to India about a terror attack," the officer added. . . ."The US just gives us alerts and we are happy. But when it came to interrogating Headley, we weren't given much leeway. We still don't know how the attack was planned, which Pakistani military officers were involved and how they put it in place," an ATS officer said.

"People are afraid of a repeat of 26/11 because there are several unanswered questions. The US isn't cooperating and those who question Headley also have their hands tied. "The issue needs to be taken up at a higher level between the Indian and US governments. But it's not being done." the officer added.

I liked the forthrightness with which this officer ripped apart the double standards of not only the US, but shamefully, the GoI as well.

[SSridhar]

Obviously, the US knew what he was upto. They told his wives to shut up and mind their own business.

They did not rebuff the two wives. They simply seem to have pretended to them that they would act on their complaints but never intended to do so.

There are two reasons why this was being pursued:
1) They were collecting data. They were keeping an eye on him. They wanted him to execute his mission and hence chose not to interfere. They wanted to know about the people who interact with him in the act - people from the PA/ISI or any militant groups. Headley probably knows the entire process of conceiving, planning and execution of a terrorist attack and the degree of involvement of the ranks of those "professional bodies" that collaborate in this operation.

Sure, they were collecting data, but they chose to act on the collected data only when Western interests - in the form of Operation Micky Mouse on Jyllands Posten - were threatened. While they chose to stop the terror attack on the office of this newspaper, they chose to let the PA/ISI/LeT unleash urban warfare on a heavily populated Mumbai. Again, after having been an intimate part and parcel of PA/ISI since the 1950s, and having known the LeT since the late 1980s, I doubt if the US needs to 'collect' extensive data about these outfits. What are they going to do with these data ? Threaten Pakistan ? The Terrorist State of Pakistan is beyond all reproach.

2) The US wanted to test India's thresholds of war.

More precisely, the US wanted the PA/ISI to understand the Indian redlines. While India's pain threshold is peripheral to the US, it is certainly very important for its ally, Pakistan and the latter cannot get a good handle on that without the support of the former. The US also probably wanted to understand how much India would trust the US of its 'good intentions' whenever it chooses to intervene on behalf of Pakistan. Or, in other words, the US influence and hold on GoI. They should be pretty satisfied especially after Sharm-el-Sheikh and Thimphu.

The US efforts to protect Headley and the PA officers, even after truth has been tumbling out relentlessly, is an unfriendly act of the highest order by that country.

[abhishek_sharma]

In fact,who wants Obama the "Mess-iah" to come to India at all? All he is coming here for is to scoop out DR.Singh's pocket even more lucrative defence deals for the US,saving US jobs at exorbitant cost to Indian taxpayers and given an opportunity to preach to us "peace" with Pakistan!
In my book he is most unwelcome.

+1.

[Patni]

U.S. Embassy Didn’t Pass Along Tip About Headley’s Ties to Mumbai Terrorists

by Sebastian Rotella
ProPublica, Oct. 17, 2010, 3:18 p.m

More questions are being raised about how federal law enforcement officials handled two tips they received about David Coleman Headley, the U.S. businessman and former DEA informant who has confessed to helping plot the 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai. The first tip came in 2005 and the second in 2007, just a year before the attacks that killed 166 people, including six Americans.

NBC News correspondent Michael Isikoff reported Saturday night that the second warning, given by one of Headley’s wives to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, was never passed along to the FBI in New York, according to a U.S. official who spoke with NBC. Isikoff also reported that officials didn’t consider the earlier tip sufficient enough to put Headley on the “no fly” list or to trigger a full-scale probe at the time.

ProPublica reported on Friday that the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York had been warned in 2005 by another of Headley’s wives that he was training in Pakistan’s mountains with the terrorist group Lashkar-i-Taiba, which carried out the Mumbai attacks. She also told them that he shopped for night vision goggles and other equipment.

On Saturday law enforcement officials confirmed to ProPublica that while Headley was training with Lashkar he was also working with the DEA. Headley is the son of a Pakistani father and an American mother. He became a DEA informant in the late 1990s, after he was arrested on heroin trafficking charges.

Headley was apparently married to three women at the same time. The FBI arrested him last October, 11 months after the Mumbai attacks. In March, he pleaded guilty to charges of terrorism in the Mumbai attacks and to a failed plot to take and behead hostages at a Danish newspaper. He is cooperating with authorities.

[CRamS]

SSridhar:

Absolutely. In any other self respecting country, MMS and his gang would have been fired from their job by a a furious public for soft pedlling Mumbai and resuming love making to those evil b#$%^ds at the behest of US. In India though, MMS is beyond fault, he is conferred a sainthood and can do no wrong. (Even the CWG mess for which he should be fist & foremost responsible is being passed on and being blamed on the lower goats who can be sacrificed, but he cannot be tainted). So much for the colonial hold on India's mind. The US-led west confers infallibility on MMS, even hoists him, and Indian public go along.

[chetak]

Timothy Roemer US ambassador to India is claiming on Headlines today ( scrolling News ) that India was warned at least three times about 26/11.

[Lalmohan]

^^^ yes but relatively vague, and in each case nothing happened so the guard was dropped (probably)

[chetak]

^^^ yes but relatively vague, and in each case nothing happened so the guard was dropped (probably)

Saar, they are clearly and emphatically trying to put the ball in India's court before the obama visit.

This is the very first time that the amrekis have articulated such a premise publicly.

[Sumeet]

Why is opposition silent over this ? No news on this on IBN and NDTV ? Normally this would have generated explosive talk shows on both channels.

[SSridhar]

Headley revelation will further dent credibility of FBI in India - B.Raman

The general public may not care about the FBI, but they certainly know that US is not a credible friend.

[Rangudu]

Can't figure out what is more galling/outrageous - (a) MMS and co's ineptitude before 26/11 and weakness after it or (b) Unkil sitting on 26/11 warnings and still continuing to use Headley after 26/11.

It is clear that GoI is not making a big noise about Unkil's peridy partly because they don't want too much scrutiny on their own role.

[Lalmohan]

i suspect that this is one that slipped through the net on both sides... unkil was watching india and india was watching unkil and the paquis snuck one down the middle to score a touch down and poke ungli at both... increases the hypothesis that this was done very specifically to start a war like situation with india so that pressure would be relieved off the afghan front

as such the unglis belong to kiya-nahin

[ramana]

Headley revelation will further dent credibility of FBI in India - B.Raman

The general public may not care about the FBI, but they certainly know that US is not a credible friend.

More than that the credibility of Indians who tout/push the US line.

[ramana]

Can't figure out what is more galling/outrageous - (a) MMS and co's ineptitude before 26/11 and weakness after it or (b) Unkil sitting on 26/11 warnings and still continuing to use Headley after 26/11.

It is clear that GoI is not making a big noise about Unkil's peridy partly because they don't want too much scrutiny on their own role.

Most likely GOI is not making noise to let the US reveal more and more of its own actions.

I think the GOI knows what the US role was and by chosing to be inactive it is making the US reveal more. Till now all revelations about Dil Chata Hain have come from the US only in order to pressure the GOI to do something. I don't know what. And GOI doesn't want to do that and hence the steady drip of more and more info.


I think the three vague warnings not coming thru brought about complacency in the operatoional side of GOI. It was case of crying wolf too often. By same token by not taking preventive measures they let fate spring a trap.

Lets hear from TSP what was the DCH and US doing with L-e-T.

[ramana]

i suspect that this is one that slipped through the net on both sides... unkil was watching india and india was watching unkil and the paquis snuck one down the middle to score a touch down and poke ungli at both... increases the hypothesis that this was done very specifically to start a war like situation with india so that pressure would be relieved off the afghan front

as such the unglis belong to kiya-nahin

Lalmohan you are thinking in linear left brain fashion. Let (!) the mind be free as Tagore said and the right side also think. You will find the solution.

[shyamd]

What a shock! The US screws us over once again....! Is anyone really that suprised by this act?
How many times will we have to fall for the US trap? 1971, The grenade's in 1991, support for tsp in general and now this. Rabinder Singh and the many others. Maoist and other civil protestor ties to the US state, who's interest it is to slow down the growth of the republic of IndiaI am sure there is more in between that I forgot.

I guess the lives of the 166 people who died outweigh the economic relations with the US. .

You dance with the devil and this is what happens. And we are still interested in buying weapons etc from the US?

[Lalmohan]

ramana-ji, my brain is actually fairly well balanced
seriously, whilst unkil actively pampers paquistan, being caught actively abetting the killing of americans or israelis is not going to go down well with joe sixpack
somewhere along the line, control was lost

[Rangudu]

Joe sixpack has little say in these policies nor does he even know LeT from lasagna.

[ramana]

No control was lost. That is where the left brain has to be suppressed. DCH was still actively on Uncle's duty till the plot turned towards Copenhagen.* So he was rogue when he turned towards Denmark. Even after 26/11, his role was not told to India. He even visited India after the 26/11 attack. If he was rogue, they would have informed India by then. But they didn't. Its highly incredulous that they didn't connect him to the 26/11 attack even after it happened.

Question is how many more DCH's are still in India?

Or is their case they didn't know about his other side till the British informed them! If so James saves them again!

Did the Brits inform them because they knew he was undercover or was it because they stumbled on a case?

Karan Dixit where is your timeline?

* Also the myth of low cost operation is being touted from the US. This propaganu confines the attention on TSP Non State actors only while the they subsist on TSP Sate Support. And who was paying for DCH's trips to US and back to TSP?

The formulation ignores the ISI planning and logistics, the L-e-T being supported by ISI/TSPA, the training camps, the ship from Karachi, the numerous trips by Daoud Gilani and Rana to scout the locations in India. All this costs plenty.

[Lalmohan]

in the absence of facts, all that we can do is hypothesize
hopefully i'll be alive when the official papers are released at some point

[Sumeet]

Can't figure out what is more galling/outrageous - (a) MMS and co's ineptitude before 26/11 and weakness after it or (b) Unkil sitting on 26/11 warnings and still continuing to use Headley after 26/11.

It is clear that GoI is not making a big noise about Unkil's peridy partly because they don't want too much scrutiny on their own role.

Precisely why I am asking how come opposition is silent on this. How come this hasn't become an issue as of yet ? As such there is nothing else important going on these days like Kashmir agitation [from new coverage point of view], even CWG are over.

Interactive TV Media, Opposition [especially BJP and CPI-M] all are silent. Has everyone been sold out ?

[ramana]

Something to note about India. When there is a real threat they gather together and give their council over informal chai and biskoot.

IOW the silence is the worrisome thing.

[shyamd]

Just a thought: Both parties probably don't want to make a big issue of it due to economic relations with the US outweighing everything/UNSC seat or because Obama is coming? And perhaps after he visits there will be some drama?

Really what should happen is that, GoI should get to the bottom of it and deliver a kick in the gonads of the US govt and embarrass them. Or maybe GoI did that when US Govt said don't release anything to do with Headley and India released some of the transcripts of Headley interrogation. Which the US govt did say on record that they weren't exactly happy with.

[ramana]

Did Hindu ever cover in detail the DCH case?

[arun]

Excerpt dealing with a question by Raghubir Goyal about the Pakistani origin Islamic Terrorist Daood Gilani aka David Coleman Headley at the US State Department Daily Press Briefing:

Philip J. Crowley
Assistant Secretary
Daily Press Briefing
Washington, DC
October 18, 2010 ………………………….


QUESTION: P.J., another topic. There is a New York Times story about the – one of the wives of David Headley, who was involved in the Mumbai attacks, that apparently a year before that attack, she went to the American authorities in Pakistan to warn them that she thought that he was involved in some type of plotting for an attack, but it was never followed up on. And this was not the first warning – that there was another wife who did it years before. Is this a communications breakdown? Do you know anything about this? Number one, can you confirm that that is the case and –

MR. CROWLEY: Well, let me – I will respond in the context of two meetings that we did have with one of Mr. Headley’s spouses in late 2007 and early 2008. She did provide us some information. We followed up on that information and provided it to relevant agencies across the U.S. Government.

QUESTION: Just to follow up on – P.J., as far as – I’m sorry, you want – as far as these training camps are concerned which Mr. David Headley told U.S. and Indian officials when they interviewed him. And also, in an interview General Musharraf also told a German magazine that 22 terrorist camps were in Pakistan. One, are they closed now? Can you make sure that those camps are now closed, if you have told the Pakistani authorities or if you are going to tell them here when they meet during this coming meeting?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, there’s a lot to your question, Goyal. We have cooperated extensively in investigating the tragic Mumbai attacks, including giving Indian officials access to Mr. Headley. Beyond that, I’m not going to comment about any alleged particulars in those discussions. We have been pressing Pakistan to take more aggressive action inside its borders to deal with a threat that is of concern to us, a concern to the region, and a threat to Pakistan itself.

We – as we’ve noted many times, Pakistan has taken aggressive action within its own borders. But clearly, this is an ongoing threat and more needs to be done. That will be among the issues talked about during this week’s Strategic Dialogue.

QUESTION: And P.J., when President and Secretary visits Mumbai in November first week and they will be staying at the same hotel which was the target of the terrorist bombings from Pakistan, what message do you think they are carrying for the people of Mumbai?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, we continue to cooperate extensively with Indian officials. We were doing so prior to the Mumbai attacks. We have done so since the Mumbai attacks. Security is an area of significant dialogue between our law enforcement and intelligence agencies and those of the Indian Government. We will continue to cooperate with India on the security front, but even as we expand our dialogue and our cooperation with India on many, many fronts. And obviously, this will be part of the President’s visit to India next month.

QUESTION: Can we get back to the wife’s –

QUESTION: Yes, you said that you had this input from them. So did you follow up on that input? Was that input from Islamabad reach Washington? Did you share it with any other countries – India, Pakistan? Because allegations in the articles are coming out you did not do anything on it.

MR. CROWLEY: Well, let’s go through those. Did we follow up? The answer is yes. Have – did we share information with our security partners, including India, prior to the Mumbai attacks? The answer is yes. We have cooperated with India since then. I think Ambassador Roemer put out an extensive statement in Delhi over the weekend that highlighted both the – our cooperation with India in – prior to and after.
Needless to say, I will just say that going back over some of the information provided to us, there was concern expressed by both spouses at the same time; the information was not specific. I think everyone should understand that if we did have specific information on this, we would have absolutely provided it to the Indian Government beforehand. The fact is that while we had information and concerns, it did not detail a time or place of the attack.

QUESTION: Did – have you noticed has there been any change or uptick in cooperation between India and the U.S. on intelligence matters like this since the – everything you’re talking about now happened under – not – it was not on your watch; it was under the previous Administration. Has there been an increase in cooperation now?

MR. CROWLEY: It’s – I mean, the short answer is yes. We have an extensive dialogue with India, and as we build a strategic partnership with India and security is one of those areas, and I would say that yes, our cooperation with India has expanded.

QUESTION: So can you say if anything would have been done differently – if this administration would have done anything different than what the last one did?

MR. CROWLEY: It’s an impossible question to answer.

QUESTION: A follow-up on the same issue? You said that the information which was provided by the wives of Headley was taken seriously and further investigated upon. Then why wasn’t he arrested during or soon after Mumbai? Why it took so many years – more than one and a half years to arrest him?

MR. CROWLEY: I – that’s –

QUESTION: You had some credible information about Headley.

MR. CROWLEY: That’s not – I can’t – I can’t make – I can’t answer that question.

QUESTION: So what are you --

QUESTION: Same issue, same issue. You said the information was not specific enough to be followed; did I get that right? The wives’ information?

MR. CROWLEY: In the contacts that we had with his spouses, there was not specific information as to who he was associated with or what they were planning to do.

QUESTION: But didn’t she say Lashkar, she was training at the Laskhar?

MR. CROWLEY: Again, I’ll just say there was not specific information provided


US State Dept

[ramana]

Wonder at the timing of the NYT report. NYT is so deep in with govt types its not funny. So why this leak to vititate the visit? Its main objective is to roil the Indian side.

[arun]

Speaking of leaks the UK‘s Guardian claims to have got hold of a “109-page report into the interrogation of key suspect David Headley, a Pakistani-American militant arrested last year and detained in the US, makes detailed claims of ISI support for the bombings” :

Pakistan intelligence services 'aided Mumbai terror attacks'

[Karan Dixit]

Ramana,

Here is the timeline:

http://karandixit.wordpress.com/2009/12/19/headley/

It needs some serious updates:

- Kiyani
- Headley's wives
- British intelligence services

I am going to get on it this Saturday.

[Patni]

Mumbai spy says he worked for terrorists – then briefed Pakistan

David Headley 'helped Lashkar-e-Taibar prepare the Mumbai attacks while reporting to the ISI about the militant group'

Jason Burke
guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 October 2010 21.24 BST

Late in the evening of 26 November 2008, David Headley, a 48-year-old American living in Lahore, received a text from a man he knew as Sajjid, a senior militant in the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba organisation. "Turn on the television," it said.

Headley, a member of the group since 2002, did so and saw footage of carnage in Mumbai. He forwarded the text to another militant. Then he sat down, watched the scenes of mayhem and exchanged emails with his wife.

Headley, of mixed Pakistani and US parentage, had played a central role in preparing the operation he was watching. Over the previous two years, he had made nine trips to India to scout out targets. The tall, pony-tailed, multilingual US graduate was the perfect spy for the militant organisation, particularly after changing his name from Daood Gilani.

On one trip, he had stayed with his Moroccan third wife at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, where 31 would die. On another he had videoed the Chhatrapati Shivaji train station, where 58 would be gunned down. In April, he had spent five days taking boat trips off Mumbai, bringing back fish for his landlady – and finding the perfect location for the attackers to put ashore before fanning out across the city. On his final trip, in July, he had looked over a Jewish centre, and a cafe popular with tourists.

On his return to Pakistan he had met his militant associates in a safe house and handed them a memory stick with images and photographs of the targets. But this was not the only post-mission debrief the smooth-talking former video shop owner from Philadelphia had. According to the 106-page transcript of Indian investigators' interviews with Headley earlier this year, even before meeting Lashkar-e-Taiba commanders, Headley had sat down with "Major Iqbal", an officer in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), the main military intelligence agency. Nor was this the first meeting with the man he called his handler. Before and after almost every visit to India, Headley told his questioners, he had met Iqbal to receive instructions or brief him.

When on a mission, Headley said, he usually recorded images of potential targets on two memory sticks, one for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the other for the ISI. And one reason that he had been able to avoid detection was because in 2007 Iqbal had trained him in clandestine techniques. The skills learned on the streets of Lahore and put to use in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune and other cities across India only took Headley so far, however. Eleven months after the attacks, now involved in plots for attacks in the west, he was arrested in Chicago on his way back to Pakistan.

Headley's testimony, recorded in 34 hours of interviews with Indian investigators in the presence of FBI officials in June this year, does not just detail relations between the ISI and the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks. It also provides a glimpse of the workings of one of the world's most secretive militant organisations. The attacks, his testimony suggests, grew out of the pressure on commanders of Lashkar-e-Taiba to wage a wider war against the west.

Lashkar-e-Taiba was formed in the early 1990s to send Islamist militants across the de-facto border which separates Indian from Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Since 2005, Headley says, splinter groups had been breaking away from the group, the biggest militant organisation in Pakistan and the closest to the security establishment. These dissidents were close to radical groups such as al-Qaida or those that were to become the Pakistani Taliban. Senior commanders "had a serious problem holding the LeT [together] and convincing them to [only] fight for Kashmir and against India," Headley told his interrogators. The ISI, he told his interrogators, was equally concerned and under "tremendous pressure to stop the integration of Kashmir-based outfits with Jihadi-based outfits" and hoped "to shift … the theatre of violence from the domestic soil of Pakistan to India".

However, despite detailing close contacts with his handler, the picture that emerges from Headley's interrogation is of a chaotic and complex relationship between the ISI and the militants, with the former not always fully aware of developments. Headley told his questioners that Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the director general of the ISI, visited Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi, the operations chief of LeT, in prison after the attacks in an attempt to "understand" the operation, implying that top level officers were not fully informed. Pasha replaced General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani as head of the ISI just over a year before the attacks. Security sources have told the Guardian that they believe the ISI command lost "ownership" of the operation around that time.

Stephen Tankel, the author of a forthcoming book on LeT, said: "The ISI had more control over the LeT than they admit publicly, but probably less than they'd like to have privately."

The ISI denied any links to the Mumbai attacks yesterday.

Headley told his interrogators that he had formally joined Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2002 after seeing a banner advertising a fundraising drive by the group at the mosque where he prayed, and after attending lectures given by its founder and leader, Hafiz Saeed. Headley's ambition was to fight in Kashmir, and he had military training at camps in north-east and north-west Pakistan.

By January 2006, he had still not been given a combat mission and was feeling demoralised. When detained by the Pakistani police after travelling close to the Afghan border, Headley was interviewed by an ISI officer called "Major Ali" to whom he recounted his involvement in Lashkar-e-Taiba and "ongoing plans to go to India".

He was soon freed and was contacted on his return to Lahore by Major Iqbal. After a two-hour meeting with Iqbal and his immediate superior, a "Lieutenant Colonel Hamza", Headley travelled to America, where he changed his name and then returned to Pakistan where Iqbal arranged for his training.

In June 2006, Headley said, he returned to the US to get an Indian visa and then, in December, having received $25,000 from Iqbal, he travelled to India with the cover story of opening a visa facilitation agency in Mumbai. On his return, he gave a 2GB memory stick containing images of a variety of locations in Mumbai to Iqbal. Headley did not have the impression that any definite plan for attacks yet existed, he told his interrogators. In a safe house, Headley did, however, spend several hours viewing images of potential targets in India with Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi, the LeT military operations chief, before returning to Lahore to continue training with the ISI.

Over the next year, Headley was to make a series of trips to Mumbai.

Tensions within Lashkar-e-Taiba were building, with one senior militant insisting that the group abandon its focus on India and Kashmir for a broader agenda. Lakhvi, the operations chief, argued that the "jihad" in Kashmir was more legitimate and important.

By September 2007, Headley's instructions from "Sajjid", his immediate handler in Lashkar-e-Taiba, were more precise, and he made an extensive study of the entries and exits of the Taj Palace. But the operation still involved only one or two militants who would try to make their escape after their attack, Headley said.

One meeting of four top militants he attended, he remembered, took place in Rawalpindi on the day when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, just a mile or so away. All present expressed their fervent desire that the former prime minister might die of her wounds, he remembered. Hours later, she did.

By the spring of 2008, the plan Headley heard his fellow militants discussing involved "multiple locations and multiple attackers" who would be sent by sea. In April, Headley scouted the landing sites, returning to give the images to Major Iqbal of the ISI and the GPS co-ordinates he had logged to Lashkar-e-Taiba high command.

In June, he was told a new target had been added, another consequence of the fierce internal debate within the group. It was a Jewish centre, the Chabad House.

There was also the Leopold Cafe. The attackers were still supposed to escape after their strike, so Headley said he was told to scout Chhatrapati Shivaji station, from where trains headed north.

By August, after further rows about attacking the Jewish centre, it was decided by Lashkar-e-Taiba commanders that the strike would become a suicide mission and the station became a target, not an escape route.

The training of the 10 attackers was adapted to include indoctrination on martyrdom, Headley said.

On the first attempt, the boat carrying the attackers to Mumbai foundered. On the second, it were nearly discovered by Indian coastguards. On the third, the attackers reached Mumbai, guided by the GPS co-ordinates Headley had provided. Hours later, Headley received the text telling him to turn on the TV.

Headley infiltrated drugs gangs for American authorities in the late 1990s after being jailed for heroin trafficking, and went on after the Mumbai attacks to become involved with a plot by Pakistani militants linked to al-Qaida to attack in Europe. He faces the death sentence. He has agreed to talk to authorities about his previous life in an attempt to avoid the death penalty.

[shyamd]

Debka thinks the following reasons for why the FBI would say that they had an early warning about Headley:
1) A lot of people in europe were pissed off at the recent intelligence warnings for europe. So this is a message to show that they have learned from the mumbai massacre and will not disregard any intelligence it gets.

[Patni]

It could have been Delhi after Mumbai, Headley admits (Lead)

Tue Oct 19 2010 18:29:35 GMT+0530 (India Standard Time) by IANS

New Delhi, Oct 19 (IANS) Pakistani American terror suspect David Headley has told Indian investigators that he had scouted Delhi just four months after the 26/11 Mumbai attack and surveyed potential targets, including the prime minister’s residence and key defence complexes.

Headley, who has confessed his role in plotting the 2008 Mumbai attack with Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders and was arrested last year in the US, told a team of Indian interrogators in a US prison that he was in the Indian capital in March 2009, said sources who did not want to be identified.

During his Delhi trip — four months after 10 terrorists sneaked into Mumbai from the sea and killed 166 people over three days — Headley videographed 7 Race Course Road, the prime minister’s official residence, Raksha Bhavan and the National Defence College (NDC) in the heart of the capital, the sources disclosed.

A four-member team of Indian investigators interrogated Headley in June this year after he entered into a plea bargain with the US government offering to be available to foreign investigators for any questioning related to terror plots he was scheming with the LeT and Al Qaeda.

The 49-year-old Pakistani-born revealed that he found “minimal security” at the NDC that appeared a “vulnerable target”.

The security cover at the prime minister’s residence appeared too tough to break through and his Pakistani handlers were not interested in striking at the Raksha Bhavan, an office-cum-residential complex for defence personnel, Headley is believed to have told the investigators.

He later spoke to his co-conspirator, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, another Pakistani terrorist who is also in a US prison.

He said his Pakistani handlers were more interested in attacking the NDC and had even started working on the idea with a help from an unknown person in Nepal, the sources said.

[shravan]

Wonder at the timing of the NYT report. NYT is so deep in with govt types its not funny.

CIA chief in India, met top officials
Oct 03 2010

Sources added that discussions also touched the subject of Pakistani-American terror accused David Coleman Headley.

[SSridhar]

CIA chief in India, met top officials

He is here in connection with the upcoming Obama visit. Do not read too much into side comments on Headley.