David Headley alleges Pakistan role in Mumbai attacks

[Pioneerfirst]

I doubt the situation would have been different. The way America works is that the judiciary is well and truly independent of the government - Davis was the headache of the Obama administration not of the Chicago judge and the jury.

but at the end US govt has to play a role, the accused are not US national.

 

[hembo]

Twitter updates from the court house (Colin Freeze) so far

- "Dr. Rana said India deserved it." #Ranatrial

- LET's Mir said the one caught gunmen had "disobeyed orders" to stay at target and work in tandem resulting in his capture. #Ranatrial

- Rana tried to "comfort me, calm me down" after Mumbai. Told him what prayers to say, etc. #Ranatrial

- Pasha (Not the ISI chief, but a retired general) offered to introduce H totribal area types "who had connections with al-Qaeda." Namely Said al-Masri (sp?) & I. Kashmiri.

- Few weeks after Mumbai, Headley was in Chicago filling Rana in on MMP.Same modus operandi:false flag immigration firm for recce. #Ranatrial

- In Nov. 2009 LET gave Headley thumbdrive with JPGs of Denmark cartooonist Westergaard (sp?) and paper's cultural editor. #Ranatrial

- In post-mortem with LET, H learned terror group was surprised by the reaction. Indians, US asking lots of questions re: Lashkar. #Ranatrial

- Headley says 26/11 operation was a relief on some level.Was afraid Indian *or Pakistani * govts might get wind of plot, stop it. #Ranatrial

- Headley felt that he "got even" with India through Mumbai massacre. Pak as a whole wasn't, but he was. #Ranatrial

- "I asked Pasha (ret'd army) to advise Dr. Rana not to go to India. So he wouldn't get caught in some...situation," says Headley. #Ranatrial

- It was September 08 when Lashkar-e-Taiba settles on "stronghold option." #Ranatrial

- ISI Major Iqbal "was upset the Bombay Airport was not included on the list" Headley testifies. #Ranatrial

- Mumbai's Central Train station was on the initial list, but oonly as a exit point for the shooters Headley testifies. #Ranatrial

- Also listed were the Taj, a Naval airstation, and a Shiv Sena temple (Siddibinayak, I think.) #Ranatrial

- LET Sajid Mir gave Headley the list. "He add the Chabbad House." (Sp? Blanking)

- Major Iqbal "didn't give me the list. He told me the Chabbad House (sp?) would be added ... b/c it was a front for the Mossad." #Ranatrial

- "Please figure out how we can use this Raja Rege guy" Email DH sent to Pak's Iqbal, and Chicago's Rana.

Anyone knows about this Rege guy?

---------- Post added at 11:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:07 PM ----------

Continuing:

Court recession

- Headley doesn't feel too good abot returning to India. Envisions death and incapacitation. writes his best bud Rana with his last will...

- Envisions another run at Chabbad House with Headley doing recce. Attack would draw in more Indian brigadiers to be killed than in 4 wars.

- Ok, catching up: LET felt there was already too much heat to back a Denmark ooperation. Headley directed to go to Waziristan. #Ranatrial

- In early 09 Headley went to Denmark for initial surveillance of newspaper for his MMP. (Micky mouse project- for the Danish Cartoonist)

- Headley had a dream about the Prophet Mohammed standing beside an open grave. Asked handlers if it was "auspicious" for MMP. #Ranatrial

- Headley needed all First World Immigration branches to backstop his story he was a consultant. Got Rana to print business cards. #Ranatrial

- Chicago consultancy had branches in Toronto/New York. "I asked the New Yoork and Toronto office to remember me," Headley says. #Ranatrial

 

[EagleEyes]

Honestly, Pakistan government doesn't give a about attacks done two years ago. It is too busy in attacks on its own soil, why should we care?

 

[Nothing]

Honestly, Pakistan government doesn't give a about attacks done two years ago. It is too busy in attacks on its own soil, why should we care?

Totally agree with you ...
You are correct , your government is not caring about attack on your country why shld they care about India , which is again planned by your country mens ... and 2 years ... uuuuhhhhhh 2 years ..... yeah where you have blast every second week 2 years are too long to remember ...

 

[hembo]

Honestly, Pakistan government doesn't give a about attacks done two years ago. It is too busy in attacks on its own soil, why should we care?

Well, IMHO, GOP should better give a ****. Because this nonchalant attitude and refuse to analyze the impact of harbouring groups with extreme ideology is THE reason, what's happening NOW in Pakistan. Once you start giving a ****, I'm sure Pakistan to will return to be a normal, peaceful and truely developing nation with a prosperous populace.

Radicalization has to go. There is no other alternative. My two cents webbie!!

 

[Fireurimagination]

Honestly, Pakistan government doesn't give a about attacks done two years ago. It is too busy in attacks on its own soil, why should we care?

You should care because your countrymen (& now even your beloved ISI implicated) planned and killed 166 unarmed civilians in the neighboring country

 

[hembo]

More:

- Headley goes back to Chicago and says he brings Tahawwur Rana up to speed on all emerging plots. #Ranatrial

- Kashmiri envisions gunmen shooting newspaper hostages dead and throwing their heads out of the window. #Ranatrial (MMP)

- Kashmiri: "Danish response forces would not be as incompetent or as timid as the Indians." Warned siege would be short lived. #Ranatrial

- Kashmiri tells Headley an AQ team "coming out of England" being assembled. Gives 80000 rupees. Would be fight to the death. #Ranatrial

- In May 09 LET is out of the MMP Denmark plot and AQ is in. Headley goes to Waziristan to meet Ilyas Kashmiri. #Ranatrial

- The Mumbai Massacre gunmen in Jewish centre needed coaching from LET higherups to kill hostages. #Ranatrial

- "After approaching from behind place the barrel on the back of their head and fire" SAJID said. #Ranatrial

- Headley testifies LET felt Jewish women were fair game -- Israel drafts women. #Ranatrial

 

[hembo]

Headley alleges more Pakistan militants, ISI links

Posted: May 24, 2011 11:16 AM AST
Updated: May 24, 2011 11:57 PM AST

By EILEEN SULLIVAN and SOPHIA TAREEN
Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) - The federal government's star witness at a Chicago terrorism trial revealed more potentially damaging details on Tuesday alleging close cooperation between a Pakistani militant group and the country's top intelligence agency, telling jurors that he frequently exchanged emails and met with members of both groups a month before the deadly 2008 attacks in Mumbai.

David Coleman Headley returned to the witnesses stand for a second day in the terrorism trial of a Chicago businessman accused of collaborating in the three-day siege of India's largest city - alleging how he was recruited by a member of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as ISI, to take part in the Mumbai plot and providing a rare glimpse into what he claims were the inner workings of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Headley told jurors Tuesday that he met with both his handlers from Lashkar and ISI in Pakistan in October 2008 - one month before the Mumbai rampage that killed more than 160 people including six Americans - and his Lashkar contact, Sajid Mir, said militants had unsuccessfully tried to do the attack in September but crashed their boat leaving Pakistan. They also talked for the first time about a separate plot to attack a Danish newspaper that in 2005 had printed cartoons of Prophet Muhammad, he said.

"I suggested we only focus on the cartoonist and the editor," Headley testified of a later meeting with Mir. "He said, "'All Danes are responsible for this.'"

As the government's first and main witness in the trial of his longtime friend Tahawwur Rana, Headley's testimony outlining links between the ISI and Lashkar could inflame tensions between Pakistan and India and place even more pressure on the already frayed U.S. and Pakistani relations.

It also could add to the questions about Pakistan's commitment to catch terrorists and the ISI's connections to Pakistan-based terror groups, especially after Osama bin Laden was found hiding out earlier this month in a military garrison town outside of Islamabad.

Headley pleaded guilty to laying the groundwork for the Mumbai attacks that killed more than 160 people including six Americans, and he agreed to testify against Rana to avoid the death penalty, making him one of the most valuable U.S. government counterterrorism witnesses.

"Headley's testimony is a nail in the coffin of U.S.-Pakistani strategic cooperation," said Bruce Riedel, a former White House adviser on Middle Eastern and South Asian issues. "Until now his commentary has gotten very little attention outside India, now it will finally get the attention it deserves here."

The Pakistani government has denied the ISI orchestrated the Mumbai attacks, and a senior ISI official said Tuesday that the agency has no links to the terrorists behind the rampage. When asked about the testimony being heard in Chicago, the official said "it is nothing." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because his agency doesn't allow its operatives to be named in the media.

On Tuesday, Headley testified that details of planning for the attacks were known by an ISI officer known only by the alias "Major Iqbal" and Mir. Iqbal said a list would be provided to Headley of possible targets and later he would receive it from Mir. The three men met together in Pakistan in October 2008 where Mir told Headley about the failed attempt on Mumbai. The meetings continued.

"In a few weeks if everything went well, they were going to launch a second attempt," Headley testified.

Prosecutors showed emails between the three men - some of them forwarded to Rana - detailing points on the Mumbai attacks and the aftermath. They wrote in code from ever-changing email addresses including some that came from transliterated Urdu words into English and others from seemingly innocuous phrases like the email handle "Get Me Some Books," that Mir used at one time.

When the attacks happened, Headley, who was born Daood Gilani, testified that he got a text message from Mir asking him to turn on the television.

"I was pleased," he told jurors, but later he started to worry. "I was concerned if our plan had been leaked out."

At this time, Headley said, he was also in more frequent contact with Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, whom prosecutors identified as retired Pakistani military with links to Major Iqbal. Syed was referred to as "Pasha."

Rana, who attended medical school in Pakistan, was only brought up periodically throughout testimony, with Headley saying that he debriefed all his plans with Rana. He said they discussed the Mumbai attacks afterward and what they considered a successful mission against Indians.

"Dr. Rana said, 'They deserved it,'" Headley said.

Rana, a Canadian citizen who has lived in Chicago for years, is accused of giving Headley cover during his time in Mumbai by allowing him to set up a branch of his Chicago-based immigration services business. His name is the seventh one on the federal indictment, and the only defendant in custody. Among the six others charged in absentia are Mir, Iqbal and Pasha.

Rana, who has pleaded not guilty, is also accused of helping arrange travel and other help for Headley, who planned the separate attack that never happened on the Danish newspaper. Defense attorneys have told jurors their client was taken advantage of by his friend and did not know what was in store. But prosecutors have said Rana was not duped and knew of the plans, both in Mumbai and Denmark.

Defense attorneys were expected scrutinize Headley's credibility as a witness, saying he has been motivated to change his story and that he was working for the U.S. government even as he said he was working for Lashkar and ISI.

____

Associated Press writer Chris Brummitt in Islamabad contributed to this report.

 

[hembo]

New evidence links Pakistani intelligence to Mumbai attack
Praveen Swami

NEW DELHI: Fresh evidence has emerged that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate played a key role in funding and organising the Lashkar-e-Taiba's November 26, 2008, attack on Mumbai.

Prosecutors in Chicago have filed e-mail correspondence between the Pakistani-American jihadist David Headley and a serving Pakistani intelligence officer he knew as Major Iqbal — documents which will add to the growing global concern over the ISI's links with terrorist groups.

In one January 23, 2008, e-mail, for example, Headley forwarded his handler “some preliminary information” on commercially available surveillance equipment on January 23, 2008.

The e-mail shows Headley was thinking of acquiring a pen with a built-in concealed camera, as well as counter-surveillance equipment designed to detect equipment planted by police.

Headley's handler, another e-mail records, asked him to call, but “please not [on] my mobile number.” Instead, the handler provided him with an alternative United States cellphone number, in what Headley has told the trial court was an attempt to evade intelligence surveillance.

Closely involved

In his testimony on Monday, Headley said the ISI was intimately involved in the operation — at one point even making available the services of a naval diver, and considering his deployment to help the Lashkar's assault team land in Mumbai. Major Iqbal, Headley said, had provided $25,000 for his mission.

Further e-mail filed in the Chicago court, prosecutors say, show the ISI routed the funds through city businessman Tahawwur Rana. Rana has pleaded not guilty, while Headley has agreed to a reduced sentence in return for cooperating with the investigation.

In a May 22, 2007, e-mail, Headley provided Rana with accounts for expenses of $14,448. He scrupulously recorded that he had spent $425 on a personal visit to Dubai, and another $380 on “World Cup expenses” — a possible reference to bets placed on matches played in the West Indies in March and April that year.

Later that year, though, Headley was voicing frustration over the progress of the operation. “We must take rapid steps to improve business,” Headley wrote in a September 16, 2007, e-mail, asking Rana to “please direct me as to the planned line of action.”

Headley's handwritten diary makes clear he was also in touch with several top Lashkar operatives. It includes a cellphone number for Sajid Mir, the Lashkar's overall commander for transnational operations, as well as Abdul Rehman Makki, the brother-in-law of the Lashkar-e-Taiba's supreme leader Hafiz Mohammad Saeed.

Now believed to be the Lashkar's second-in-command, Makki was teacher at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore, and helped Saeed and Osama bin Laden's member Abdullah Azzam co-found the organisation.

The Hindu found that all of the Pakistani numbers listed in the diary were now defunct, suggesting that the individuals named in the diary all had reason to fear surveillance.

Pakistani officials have repeatedly denied any ISI role in the Mumbai attacks, and the suspects earlier indicted in an investigation by the country's Federal Investigation Agency did not name Headley or other key co-conspirators.

 

[Trisonics]

Let us not forget that foreign nationals were deliberately targeted in this attack. It is not regional terrorism but global. Its very important to investigate the findings.

 

[DelhiDareDevil]

Honestly, Pakistan government doesn't give a about attacks done two years ago. It is too busy in attacks on its own soil, why should we care?

Because another Pakistan based group can attack India again and start of a war.

 

[Garry]

Because another Pakistan based group can attack India again and start of a war.

These people are savages...take a look at the example above,Even the so called elite pakistanis have this kind of thinking.at first when the mumbai attacks happened they talked about that how there is no proof of involvement of state aka ISI and also tried to block LET being labeled as terrorist organisation with china's veto ..and now proof is present on the table, they are saying that they don't give a damn about those 176 innocent men, women and children being killed under the hand of these pathetic psychos.
i don't think talking of peace with these people is going to make any difference.
moreover i don't usually go in troll mode in this forum and i hate to say this But i wish their whole country goes to hell ,if it is not already there

 

[A1Kaid]

DH is a patsy of course he's going to blame Pakistan because that's what he was assigned to do, his paymasters have ordered him to do so... Just research DH's background to learn more about him...

For Hindustanis to use DH's remarks as evidence is really naive and pathetic, the man is assigned to blame it on Pakistan he's doing his job.

 

[jayron]

Honestly, Pakistan government doesn't give a about attacks done two years ago. It is too busy in attacks on its own soil, why should we care?

You guys don't care and are out of control of your own organizations and assets. Thats why drones are justified.

 

[Pak_Sher]

Who is David Headley and American Agent:

Drug conviction and DEA dealGilani opened two video rental stores in New York City in the late 1980s.[23]

In 1987 he was first arrested on drug charges, and cooperated with the DEA in exchange for a lighter sentence.[24]

In 1997 he was one of two men arrested for smuggling heroin into the country from Pakistan.[20] In exchange for information about his Pakistani drug contacts, he received a considerably lighter sentence than his co-defendant: fifteen months in jail and five years of supervised release. In November 1998, Headley was delivered to the low-security Federal Correctional Institution in Fort Dix. However, his supervised release period was never completed. Instead, in November 2001, an assistant U.S. attorney applied to have Headley discharged.[25] Headley traveled to Pakistan multiple times to conduct undercover surveillance operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration.[10][20] In 2002 and three times in 2003, he attended Lashkar-e-Taiba training camps in Pakistan.[22]

[edit] Domestic arrest and terror trainingGilani's 1999 trip to Pakistan was for an arranged marriage, but in 2002, he married his girlfriend of 8 years in New York.[26] In August 2005 Gilani was arrested in New York after a fight with his then wife.[26] His wife told federal agents that Gilani was an active member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, had trained extensively in its Pakistani camps, and had shopped for night-vision goggles and other equipment.

Gilani trained five times with Lashkar-e-Taiba at a camp in Pakistan. A 2007 court testimony by a fellow militant Willie Brigitte described the Lashkar training camp, which was guarded and supplied by Pakistan army soldiers.[3]

In October 2010, when it was revealed that Headley's wives had complained in 2005 and in 2007 to U.S. authorities about his terrorist activities to no effect, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, Jr. undertook a review of how Headley had been handled.[11]

[edit] Name change and move to ChicagoIn 2006, he changed his name to David Headley so as to make border crossings between the United States and other countries easier. He moved his family to Chicago, where he claimed to work for Tahawwur Hussain Rana's immigration agency. Rana had been in the Cadet College Hasan Abdal with him.[20]

David Headley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia