In one of the most important terrorism trials, star witness David Coleman Headley has made some chilling revelations about the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai before a Chicago federal court
In one of the most important terrorism trials, star witness David Coleman Headley has made some chilling revelations about the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai before a Chicago federal court In the ongoing trial of Chicago businessman, Tahawwur Hussain Rana at a federal court in Chicago, Rana said that Indians got what they deserved. Rana was charged with providing support in the planning and coordination of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. "They deserved it," Pakistani-Canadian suspect Rana said upon hearing of the attack, according to witness David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American who spent months sizing up targets in Mumbai. "I told him we were even with the Indians right now," Headley said of his conversation with Rana, who stands accused of providing Headley with a cover and acting as a messenger, had sought revenge against the Indian people for a 1971 attack at the military school where the two men met, Headley said.
Terror: The Taj Mahal Hotel, which was attacked on November 26,
2008. Pics/AFPIn the trial, Headley, an operative of Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and Rana, a co-accused in the Mumbai attack case are coming out with revelations which clearly implicate the Pakistani spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and other terrorist organisations in carrying out the deadly attacks. The trial began on May 23, 2011. Headley, who has confessed to his involvement in the attacks, is the star witness in the trial of Rana, his boyhood friend and alleged accomplice.
2002Headley began his training with the LeT. Influenced by a speech by a LeT head Hafeez Saeed in 2000, he decided to join the organisation. His dislike towards India along with Saeed's speeches on jihad convinced him to join LeT. Headley was supposed to be a spy for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) then. Later during the trial, he spoke about Saeed, saying -- "He (Saeed) said one second spent conducting jihad was superior to 100 years praying." By his own admission, Headley graduated through a series of training camps that included studying the Koran, arms training, spy and commando techniques, hostage rescue etcetera. Headley also told the court that "he disliked India" because he held "India responsible for severing Pakistan" and "bombing his school in 1971".
Testimony: In this courtroom drawing, David Coleman Headley faces
US District Court Judge Harry Leinenweber in Chicago courtroom2005, February 2006 After Headley learnt from members of LeT in late 2005 that he would be travelling to India for surveillance to carry out the Mumbai attacks, he described how he changed his name from Daood Gilani to David Coleman Headley, on February 15, 2006, in Philadelphia. He did so to present himself as an American, who is neither Muslim or Pakistani. Headley said that when LeT leaders began talking about a possible attack in India, he suggested that he get involved. He said, "I suggested that I change my name and make a new passport to make it easy to enter India undetected." Headley misrepresented his birth name, father's true name and the purpose of his travel in his visa application. Headley told the Chicago court on Tuesday that he frequently exchanged emails withu00a0 ISI and LeT.
June 2006In order to have a reason to stay and operate in India while doing the surveillance, Headley came up with the idea of a immigration-office front. To achieve this, he along with ISI's Major Iqbal tried to enlist Rana's help. Rana who was initially skeptical of the plan agreed after much convincing. "I asked if he would allow us to use his office as a front ... He agreed," said Headley. Headley has revealed details about his relationship Major Iqbal who gave him $25,000 to help cover the cost of his surveillance work. The Washington-born militant said he was given a GPS device to locate possible targets.
Rescue: Indian firefighters use a ladder to rescue employees and
guests from the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai2006, 2007, 2008He then made five extended trips to Mumbai in September 2006, February and September 2007, and April and July 2008 each time taking pictures and making videotapes of various targets, including those attacked in November 2008. Besides, he also conducted surveillance of the National Defense College(NDC) in Delhi. Pasha told him that if "we were able to conduct" an attack on NDC then "we will be able to kill more Brigadiers than Pakistan has done in the four wars" with India. Pasha, whose actual name is Abdurahman Hashim Syed, is a Pakistani Army official who joined the LeT, said Headley.
He wasu00a0 arrested briefly by the ISI in 2009. Headley testified that Ilyas Kashmiri, a leader of the Al Qaeda , met Headley, and asked him to go to India again to do surveillance of the NDC and a number of Chhabad Houses in various cities of India. "Kashmiri asked me to return to India. He said that his leadership was very upset about the recent Israeli strike on the Gaza strip and (thus) wanted retaliation," Headley said. "Major Iqbal told me the Chhabad House would be added on whatever list (of targets) there was because it was a front office for the Mossad"u00a0-- Israel's intelligence agency, Headley said, adding that Major Iqbal "seemed upset the (Mumbai) airport was not included" as a target. Headley also said that he also conducted surveillance of the Siddhivinayak temple in Mumbai.
Trial: This courtroom drawing shows Tahawwur Hussain Ranau00a0and
Magistrate Judge Nan Nolan on December 15, 2009, in Chicago2008Major Iqbal has now been identified as 'Chaudhery Khan' by Mumbai terror accused Headley. He also told the court during the trial that an attempt to take the attackers to Mumbai in September 2008 failed. He said that according to Major Iqbal, in September they lost the Pakistani boat which was supposed to take the attackers to sea for some distance after which they were to be shifted to an Indian fishing boat. Iqbal also told Headley that they had lost 12 life jackets meant for the attackers. In an email dated April 23, 2008, Headley sent 'Chaudhery Khan' information on commercially available spy cameras and pen spy cameras.
Headley said that there was a plan to assassinate Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray. During his stay in Mumbai, Headley wanted to befriend Rajaram Rege, whom he described as Shiv Sena PRO, so as to gain access to the party. Rege was apparently also looking to gain intimacy with Headley to bag some multi-billion Indian contracts for US companies. "If anybody from USA or any country wants a venture or invest in India I am the ideal person for them. Projects worth Rs 10,000 crores sanctioned by government are with me.
Are you getting my point????" Rege wrote in an email to Headley on May 19, 2008, according to a copy of the email produced in the court by federal prosecutors. Rege went ahead to lure Headley to get him big contacts in India because of his strong political connections. Headley told federal prosecutors that he sought guidance from his handlers in Pakistan as to how to respond to Rege's email. Rege, he noted, was considered by them an entry point into Shiv Sena, whom they considered as a terrorist outfit and had hatched plans to assassinate its leaders. On May 23, 2008, Headley responded to Rege's email asking the latter how projects would be financially beneficial to him.
October 2008 Headley said how he was recruited by a member of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) to take part in the Mumbai plot. Headley, who has pleaded guilty to escape the death penalty, said he met with both his handlers from LeT and ISI in Pakistan in October 2008 -- one month before the Mumbai rampage.
November, 2008 Starting Nov 26, 2008, and continuing through Nov 28, 2008, 10 attackers carried out multiple assaults in Mumbai, which Headley had scouted in advance. "I was pleased to watch Mumbai carnage on TV." This was the response of Headley when asked by the prosecutor on how he felt about the siege in which 166 persons were killed. Headley said he was watching TV from his home in Lahore during the 60-hour siege.
December, 2008Headley, who returned the US in December 2008, also said that his LeT handler Sajid Mir sent him a sms asking him watch the 26/11 attacks on television. After the Mumbai attacks, Headley met with Rana and told him of plans to attack a Danish newspaper that had published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. "Lashkar wanted to plan something," Headley said, adding when asked about the cartoons, "We were all infuriated."
After the Mumbai bombings, Headley and an associate went to Waziristan in Pakistan's northwestern mountainous frontier, to meet with an Al-Qaeda representative about plans to bomb Denmark.
2009 The Mumbai terrorist suspect said that he was afraid of going back to India at this point in time. Why?, he was asked. "Because I have been coming in and out of India before the (Mumbai) attack, conducted the surveillance, (so I was) was concerned about being apprehended in India during the travel," he said.But since this was a mission, he decided to go, not before sending an email to Rana and asking him what needs to be done in the event if his death and how to distribute money or take care the well being of his wives and children. "I am travelling and things are so bad these days, I would like to leave a few instructions with you in case of my death or if I am anticipated for some reason," Headley wrote to Rana on March 3, 2009 in an email. Headley met Pasha who took him to meet senior Lashkar officials. Later he was asked to go back to India; Headley scared of his death wrote an email which has his will to Rana. In June 2009, Headley said he met with Rana to discuss about the plot to attack the Danish newspaper. Rana "thought it would be a huge event in the media," Headley said.
October, 2009
Headley was arrested by US authorities in early October. He was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport as he prepared to board a flight to Philadelphia, intending to travel to Pakistan. Conversations revealed he was on way to meet Kashmiri, who was ready to help Headley with the Danish attack. FBI also arrested his accomplice Rana.
November, 2009Rahul Bhatt, son of filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt's name came up during investigation on the "Mumbai friends" of Headley in 2009. At the trial Headley said, that the LeT had instructed him not to take his (Mumbai) friends in his heart. They specifically mentioned Rahul. In an interview earlier this week Rahul said that he was spared (by Headley) probably because he was genuinely a good person. Headley spent two years scouting Mumbai, even taking boat tours around the city's harbor to identify landing sites for the attackers and befriending Bollywood stars as part of his surveillance.u00a0
2010A twice convicted drug dealer, Headley formally admitted to 12 terror with six counts of conspiracy to bomb public places in India, and maim persons in India and Denmark (plotting an attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in 2005).
MAY, 2011According to Headley, international pressure in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks led Lashkar-e-Taiba to abandon its plan to attack theu00a0 Danish newspaper. Headley, said he was told by Sajid Mir, during a visit to Lahore two years ago that after 26/11, LeT wants to postpone the Denmark operation, which was being planned on the lines of the Mumbai carnage. The reason being, explained Headley, "Lashkar was under a lot of scrutiny and at that time they wanted to lay low. As a result, the LeT indefinitely postponed the Denmark operation." However, when Headley went to meet Kashmiri, another one of his handlers, in Waziristan in February 2009, he told him to carry out the Denmark operation as soon as possible.
"Kashmiri said it was very important that this attack be carried out ASAP," Headley said. Referring to the surveillance videos of various locations in Copenhagen carried out by him, Kashmiri praised him. He also sought Headley's advice on how to carry out the attack. "He (Kashmiri) called the cartoons as disgraceful," Headley said and added that Kashmiri wanted to drop a truck of explosives inside the building of the newspaper, to which he suggested that that was not a viable option because of the barricades on the way to the building. According to reports, the plan to attack the Danish newspaper was code named Mickey Mouse project.
J.DeyIndian intelligence officials wantu00a0 David Coleman Headley's associate Tahawwur Rana to be convicted by the Chicago court, which could pave the way to his questioning. The matter assumes significance as Headley has not changed his statement after he confessed to India's National Investigating Agency last year. Indian officials are hopeful that they may have access to Rana once he is convicted. This will help investigators probing the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is India's nodal agency for investigating terror, will move the US court to be allowed to question Rana in depth. Investigators have relied on Ajmal Kasab's confession to the police. There are other names like Kafa, Abu Mawiya, Fadulla, Abu Anas during Daura-e-Khas training camps in Pakistan. Headley has told the Court in the US that he had carried out recce before the Mumbai attacks.
