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| India-Pakistan |
| ISI link to 26/11 attack claimed |
| 2010-10-20 |
| [Bangla Daily Star] David Headley, a US informant who scouted locations to help Islamic fascisti prepare for the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, told Indian interrogators this summer that members of Pakistain's military intelligence, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), were closely involved in planning the assault, according to the Guardian newspaper and News Agency that Dare Not be Named news agency. Headley said ISI agents met members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistain-based armed group responsible for the attack, "dozens" of times beforehand. The ISI supported the Mumbai operation because it hoped that a spectacular attack would provide jihadi groups in the contested state of Kashmir with a "sense of achievement" and would shift the "theatre of violence" from Pakistain to India. Such groups, including the Lashkar, are believed to maintain ties to the ISI and Pak government, unlike more extemist groups, such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, which pose a threat to Islamabad. The ISI hoped that a successful Lashkar operation would halt ongoing attrition from the Lashkar to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, Headley claimed. The new allegations of ISI involvement in the Mumbai assault come from a 109-page classified report by the Indian government that documents Headley's interrogation in the United States in June. The Guardian and AP both obtained a copy of the report. The well-executed, three-day operation by 10 attackers included raids on two luxury hotels, a major train station and a Jewish outreach centre. More than 160 people died and hundreds more were maimed. The US and India have blamed the Lashkar for the Mumbai attacks, and the lone surviving attacker has admitted the group carried out the operation. Allegations of ISI ties to Lashkar are not new; in July, Indian Home Secretary GK Pillai said members of the group are the "clients and creations" of the ISI and that the Pak spy agency was "literally controlling and co-ordinating" the Mumbai attack "from the beginning until the end". Pakistain has admitted that parts of the attack were planned on its soil and has jugged Pak citizens as a result. Though Headley claimed he met several ISI agents and was, in one meeting, given $25,000 by an ISI handler to finance one of his reconnaisance missions in India, he also indicated that high-ranking ISI officers may not have known about the Mumbai operation. After the attacks, Lieutenant-General Shuja Pasha, the ISI's director-general, visited a senior Lashkar member in prison to try to "understand" the operation. Headley reportedly took this as an indication that Pasha had not known about the attack, or at least its scope and aims. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 But, but, but Joy Behar and Whoopy said there was no nexus between muslims and terror. What morons. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-10-20 08:28 |