Bharat Rakshak

vera_k wrote:Headley’s girlfriend crossed Wagah into India

I am a Moroccan origin who is currently in Pakistan. I want a job in Quebec or as family assistance, aid attendant, nanny ... I speak several languages. For a copy of my resume, contact me . I have a passport.

The FBI has politely turned down India's request for extradition . . . Indian officials were told there was no realistic possibility of the Pakistani-American being handed over since the sentence could range between 200 and 300 years of imprisonment.

Gagan wrote:pgbhat,
where did you find that ad? That is superb work, akin to an intel chap! Are you a really Raa agint? Looks like the mohterma wants to melt away.

pgbhat wrote: From Google translate for the query "Faiza Outalha"

I am a Moroccan origin who is currently in Pakistan. I want a job in Quebec or as family assistance, aid attendant, nanny ... I speak several languages. For a copy of my resume, contact me . I have a passport.

ArmenT wrote:She could ask Mush to provide a "canadian visa". Sorry, couldn't resist.

The NIA is investigating terror suspect David Coleman Headley’s links with a US national residing in Goa on a tourist visa for the last nine years. The American — who has been illegally running a business in Goa — was introduced to Headley by his Moroccan girlfriend after she befriended him and his wife during a short visit to Manali in 2008.
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The American couple has already been interrogated by the NIA in Goa and their statements recorded. They have admitted to having known the Moroccan girlfriend of Headley. The probe will now establish how frequently had Headley met or got in touch with the Goa-based US national, and for what purpose.

Though found to be illegally carrying out business here on a tourist visa, the immigration authorities have decided against initiating any action against the US national, as they would need him for further investigations. In fact, any cancellation of his tourist visa would result in the American returning to his home country, which could hamper the investigations here. As it is, the NIA probe is going slow due to FBI’s reluctance to give direct access to Headley or Rana or respond without delay to India’s request for voice samples of Headley and for other crucial details of his network.
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The US national and his wife were befriended by Headley’s girlfriend as she toured Manali, apparently as part of a terror reconnaissance. She is suspected to have surveyed a local Jewish centre there. The agencies believe the Moroccan woman returned to Pakistan after her short visit to India.

What has really baffled the investigators is how the Goa-based US national, known to Headley, had exploited the loopholes in the tourist visa regime to extend his stay in Goa for a whole nine years, during the course of which he also went about conducting multiple businesses. In fact, it is in the backdrop of this discovery that the Union home ministry recently decided to tighten the tourist visa rules, making a two-month break mandatory between a stay of 180 days here.

While she claimed that she had since been divorced as Headley was having relations with several women, the investigators also found from her about the terror suspect’s relations with some upcoming Bollywood actors, prominent party-hoppers of Mumbai and socialites.

A careful perusal of Headley's visa application form by the ministry has confirmed that Headley had used the name of his foster father, William Headley, in the form and since his US passport didn't carry his parents' names, it helped him hoodwink Indian officials.

Highly placed government sources told TOI that there was absolutely nothing in the visa form to suggest either his links with Pakistan or even his Muslim background. There was no way also to establish that he previously had another passport in his original name of Daood Gilani. "He also was not in the list of any blacklist available with the consulate. It was just one among hundreds of applications received and there was no reason to summon him for a separate interview,'' said a source. The place of birth in the application form was also mentioned as Washington.

SSridhar wrote:Headley's estranged Moroccan wife spills more details

While she claimed that she had since been divorced as Headley was having relations with several women, the investigators also found from her about the terror suspect’s relations with some upcoming Bollywood actors, prominent party-hoppers of Mumbai and socialites.

The Toyota Land Cruiser having number plate that read L 992 WYZ and a sticker of Islamabad attached to it, was parked illegally in front of the Bible Society of India in the New Market area on Saturday night.

A trail that followed led to identification of the owner as Alexander Henry Porcell of London, a student of Anthropology in Oxford University, who was traced by the police to a hotel on Sudder street in the vicinity.

Tamang wrote:MEA not to hold an inquiry into Headley visa issue
So no one is held responsible for the blunder and what about Counsel General's role, aal izz well!

Raja Ram wrote:Usually, the application form for Indian visas used to have some questions such as:


If none of the above questions were there, then it is indeed strange. It used to be there for all applications at least in the past. I have seen it when I was in service.

Security agencies have been able to get an insight into the personal life of American terror suspect David Headley, with his estranged Moroccan wife telling investigators about connections he had in Mumbai, including with some socialites.

Faiza Outalha, who, the security agencies suspect had carried out reconnaissance of certain installations that were targeted by the Lashker-e-Taiba terrorists in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, told National Investigation Agency (NIA) that she was married to 48-year-old Headley but had a divorce later, official sources said.

vijayk wrote:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34687312/ns ... tral_asia/
Jordanian double-agent killed CIA officers
Officials: Perpetrator of Afghan attack was supposed to infiltrate al-Qaida

The suicide bombing on a CIA base in Afghanistan last week was carried out by a Jordanian doctor who was an al-Qaida double agent, Western intelligence officials told NBC News.

Initial reports said that the attack, which killed seven CIA officers, was carried out by a member of the Afghan National Army.

According to Western intelligence officials, the perpetrator was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, 36, an al-Qaida sympathizer from the town of Zarqa, which is also the hometown of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant Islamist responsible for several devastating attacks in Iraq.

Al-Balawi was arrested by Jordanian intelligence more than a year ago. However, the Jordanians believed that al-Balawi had been successfully reformed and brought over to the American and Jordanian side, setting him up as an agent and sending him off to Afghanistan and Pakistan to infiltrate al-Qaida.

So what happened to the reformed man? He smelled Pakistani air and caught terrorism virus....

OPED | Tuesday, January 5, 2010 | Email | Print |


The Karachi Project

Shashi Shekhar

The unfolding Headley-Rana saga continues to expose how the Pakistani establishment, the military-jihadi nexus and Islamists of various shades have been working in tandem to plan and execute terrorist attacks in foreign lands, especially India. The US can’t claim to have been ignorant of the sinister alliance at work to promote cross-border jihad and export death and destruction

In recent months, much of what we have known about the circumstances and events leading up to the 2008 fidayeen attacks on Mumbai has changed. The alleged death of Ilyas Kashmiri, an Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist, in a drone strike in Pakistan started unravelling myriad threads which now include US and Canadian citizens and multiple Government and terrorist agencies.

Overlaying developments in the sub-continent with the latest revelations in the Chicago conspiracy case helps us piece together a narrative highlighting four distinct yet interlinked dynamics within the Pakistani military-jihadi complex that led to the 26/11 attacks and subsequent planning for future attacks.

First, the Pakistani military establishment continued to patronise Lashkar-e-Tayyeba — as a counterweight to anti-establishment jihadi groups — even after officially banning it in December 2001. Second, the ISI’s Karachi front office came to be the focal point of this strategy even as it collaborated with American agencies to expose pro-Al Qaeda elements with the outfit. Third, a game of deceit within the Pakistani establishment saw ostensibly pro-establishment ISI-Lashkar elements collaborate with pro-Al Qaeda elements on terrorism directed outwards, against India and other countries. Fourth, anti-establishment elements within the Pakistani military-jihadi complex used the compact on anti-India terrorism to orchestrate events in Pakistan as leverage against the US’s AfPak strategy.

Much has been said about David Coleman Headley’s troubled personal history and conviction in the 1990s on charges of drug-trafficking. It is now a settled fact that Headley was working as an agent for the US Drug Enforcement Administration to expose Pakistani drug cartels. But at some point in the early years of the last decade, Headley, (then known by his original name Daood Sayed Gilani), might have started working for US intelligence on penetrating Pakistan-based terrorist outfits. At this time though, there is no official confirmation on this.

The events in Pakistan in the years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes help explain ISI’s patronage of Lashkar while simultaneously working with the US to expose pro-Al Qaeda elements within it.

In late-2003, Asia Times carried extensive reports of American pressure to shut down “Forward Section 23” in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir leading to the closure of all training camps and ISI operations offices in that region. These reports mentioned a clandestine special investigation cell jointly headed by a member of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency and a member of a US federal agency. The report also revealed that many jihadi groups were actually paramilitary organisations where the unit commander reported to an Army officer. Pakistani military officers were invested in the jihad in Jammu & Kashmir including with the management of funds for training and recruitment.

After the closure of Forward Section 23, the ISI section in Karachi became the hub for the anti-India jihad. In December 2008, the Times News Network quoting unnamed Indian intelligence sources described the “Karachi Project” as involving jihadi fugitives from India, sheltered in Pakistan, luring vulnerable Indian Muslim youth to conduct terrorist attacks against India.

Charge-sheets reveal that Headley first started training with the LeT in 2002. French investigations — into the 2002 killing of submarine engineers and in the Willie Brigitte case — indicate that Brigitte trained with the LeT in the same time frame. The French case mentions two Americans training with Brigitte at a LeT camp at a time when the camp was audited by US federal agents. The LeT commander in the Brigitte case was described as Sajid Mir, a Pakistani military officer. The same Sajid Mir is widely presumed to be the unnamed LeT operative in the Headley case.

The ISI leveraged real-estate contracts in Karachi to fund clandestine activities that often saw the wires crossed between Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Of specific interest are the public accounts of a Dawood Qasmi, who was affiliated to the LeT. Qasmi, in an interview in 2003, describes his interrogations by US authorities on his alleged links to Al Qaeda. His daughter has related how an ISI colonel approached him to rejoin the LeT after his ‘re-appearance’ and his subsequent charity work for the Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h. An FBI initiative to trace terror funding through Islamic charities saw Qasmi being detained for a second time for his links with Arif Qasmani, an alleged double agent and financier of Al Qaeda, the ISI and the LeT. Qasmi had been detained between late 2005 and February 2007. His assets were frozen by the US in 2009 after he was accused of having financed the bomb attack on Mumbai local trains in 2006 and the Samjhauta Express in 2007.

Qasmi’s story reveals one side of the coin that saw the ISI playing a deceptive game of ‘good Lashkar’ and ‘bad Lashkar’ under the watch of US authorities. Qasmi’s story reveals the other side where LeT-affiliated individuals deceived Al Qaeda and the Taliban under the watch of elements within the ISI.

Another double agent, Ghulam Mustafa, had two roles, one as chief coordinator of finances and logistics for militant activities in Jammu & Kashmir, and the other as organiser of Al Qaeda’s transfer of money and human resources between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mustafa, who has been described as “Al Qaeda’s Man who Knew Too Much”, was detained in 2006 by Pakistan.

Headley’s two Pakistan-based controllers came from each of the two sides. Retired Major Abdur Rehman (Hashim) represented the ex-ISI/Al Qaeda side of the equation in his role as the bridge to Ilyas Kashmiri. A Army Major, possibly LeT’s Sajid Mir, represented the ISI-LeT side.

US agencies knew of Mir: The Headley charge-sheet describes him as a senior LeT figure who was well-known to the Government. There have been several reports of joint US-Pakistan operations that have engaged pro-establishment elements within LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed as a counter-balance to the Al Qaeda friendly anti-establishment radicals. One such joint facility was the target of a suicide attack in Lahore in March 2008.

The Chicago charge-sheets and investigation reports reveal several aspects of this dynamic with the ex-ISI/Al Qaeda on the one hand and serving ISI-LeT on the other. Individuals from the two sides had no compunctions on collaborating with each other on acts of terror outside Pakistan. They did, however, have differences in the priorities on the targets of such attacks — India versus other international targets. The factional faultlines between them were about acts of terror within Pakistan.

Mumbai 26/11 represented a unique convergence of interests between these factions. It served the objectives of the Karachi Project in furthering jihad in India. It also offered the anti-establishment factions the prospect of instability in Pakistan in the wake of an Indian reaction.

Indian agencies have failed to penetrate the multiple assumed identities used by ISI officers running the LeT. Many analysts assume that Mir is the ‘Zarar Shah’ who was earlier named in connection with the 26/11 attacks. He has not been on the Indian radar to date for any acts of terror committed against India. Qasmi was not even charged by India in the Mumbai train bombings case. Also, the veil needs to be lifted on the true identities of those who have been known to India only as Abu al-Qama, Muzammil and Azam Cheema.

Maj Hashim was arrested by Pakistani authorities in August 2009 in connection with the assassination of Maj-Gen Faisal Alvi, but was let off. The Headley charge-sheet quotes Sajid Mir expressing concerns about Maj Hashim cutting a deal with the Pakistani establishment by exposing pro-Al Qaeda elements. The drone strike that allegedly killed Ilyas Kashmiri came after Maj Hashim was released.

It is widely assumed that Maj Hashim also controlled the Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jihad-Islami modules that have been responsible for terrorism in India. This thread needs to be further investigated to assess if and how it links to the ‘Indian Mujahideen’ modules led by Abdul Subhan Tauqeer and Riyaz Bhatkal.

The most significant revelation from the Headley-Rana saga is the existence of ‘jihadi free agents’ like Headley who occupied the space in between the two sides, comfortably offering services to either. These constitute the latest dimension in the proxy war against India. The US must be more forthcoming in sharing intelligence with Indian authorities in order to unearth the entire story. As long as Pakistan engages in the use of jihadi militants as strategic assets, the complex dynamics will result in terrorist threats to India and other countries. The US would do well to recognise this and act accordingly.

-- The writer tracks terrorism in South Asia.

ramana wrote:Thanks. Make the right most two cols blank and rename the page Daoud Gilani/David Headley Case.

We can then each of us collectively fill in the columns.

Thanks, once again.

New tidbit Tahawwur Rana is a Pakistan Army deserter http://is.gd/5PdYX

Meanwhile, some media reports said Rana may use 'deserter defense' in court in his renewed effort to be freed on bail. Rana may contend that he deserted the Pakistani military and is persona non-grata in his homeland.

Since he cannot return to his native Pakistan, where he could be arrested, the judge should allow him out on bond in his terrorism case as he 'promises not to flee'.