Is American The Missing Link In Mumbai Terror Attack?

With the passport of David Headley now apparently confirming his nine visits to India, investigators are now focusing on whether he is the missing answer to last year’s Mumbai terror attacks. Headley was placed under arrest in Chicago last week by the FBI for allegedly conspiring with Lashkar-e-Toiba to launch terrorist attacks in India. Lashkar-e-Toiba is the group blamed for the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last year.

News sources reported on Sunday that Headley was a guest at several of the hotels targeted in the the Mumbai attack and also reportedly pretended to be Jewish, staying at the Chabad center prior to the deadly attack. These reports have not yet been confirmed by U.S. authorities.

The American and Indian authorities are questioning an American citizen of Pakistani descent on suspicion of involvement in last year’s Mumbai terror attacks. Indian media reported on Sunday that the suspect pretended to be Jewish, stayed at the Chabad center and prepared the ground for the lethal attack.

David Coleman Headly (49) was arrested last month at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport while on his way to Philadelphia, and from there to Pakistan. The American Federal Bureau of Investigations suspected he was involved in a plot to carry out an attack in Denmark following the publication of the controversial Prophet Muhammad caricatures.

A deeper look, however, revealed that he was also involved in the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, in which at least 173 people were killed.

Since Headley’s arrest, the US has been investigating his actions along with the Indian authorities. Over the weekend Headley’s role became clear: Indian security sources reported that he was the one who scanned the Chabad center for the Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is believed to be responsible for the attacks.

Source

From IBN

CNN-IBN has learnt this after accessing Headley’s passport, which he acquired in March 2006 after allegedly joining the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the group blamed for the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last year.

The passport shows that Headley visited New Delhi, Mumbai, Kochi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Agra between 2006-2009–trips investigators suspect were recces for terrorist attack conspiracies.

Headley, while visiting Mumbai in March 2006, listed Hotel Trident as a place of residence. He stayed at guesthouse near the CST Railway Terminus and he booked a room at the Taj Hotel. The Trident, the Taj, and the CST terminus were three main targets of terrorists during the November 2008 attacks.

Headley visited New Delhi in March 2009 and stayed in two hotels in Paharganj, close to the railway station in the national capital’s historic area. Records show he stayed at Anand Hotel and De Holiday International for three days.

via Source.

Worrisome Al Qaeda Videos Found By FBI

The FBI has reportedly recovered two highly inflammatory Al Qaeda videos from the house of Pakistan-born Canadian, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, who was arrested last month along with another person, David Coleman Headley, a Pakistan-born American national.

The new videos were recovered from the house of 48-year-old Rana, who has been living in Chicago for nearly a decade.

Produced by the media wing of Al Qaeda, one of the videos is titled “Bombing of Denmark Embassy”.

The 54-minute DVD is narrated by Abu Yahya al-Libi, an Al Qaeda spokesman who reportedly escaped from American custody in Afghanistan.

In his presentation, al-Libi explicitly calls for violent action to retaliate against Denmark for the publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammad by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

According to an FBI affidavit, the DVD also prominently features video of a man who carried out a suicide car bombing of the Danish embassy in Islamabad June 2, 2008.

Rana and Headley, who are allegedly part of an Lashkar-e-Taiba plot, are said to have been ready to launch new terror attacks in India.

via Read Full Story.

India – Discrepancy Over Alert, Warning of Sea Based Attack

Union Home Ministry on Monday refused to confirm any intelligence alert suggesting a possible 26/11 like attack in the country, a Times Now report said.

Earlier, it was reported that the intelligence agencies had issued an alert warning of possible sea-based terrorist strike.

The alert was reportedly issued for Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata following information that 30 to 40 terrorists of Lashkar-e-Taiba are planning a sea based strike.

It had also stated that local police and Coast Guard have been put on a specific alert in view of the intelligence inputs.

The warning comes only a few weeks prior to the date exactly one year ago that terrorists struck Mumbai India in a similar style attack.

Source

Mumbai Terror Detective Tells Of World Plot

As terrorist gunmen ran amok in Mumbai on the night of November 26, Rakesh Maria, a detective whose exploits regularly inspire Bollywood’s thriller makers, found himself facing the most valuable captive he is ever likely to interrogate.

The prisoner was Azam Amir Kasab, 21, allegedly the sole Mumbai gunman to be taken alive, who made his first public appearance in a special bomb-proof courtroom inside Mumbai’s high-security Arthur Road jail today.

During the opening moments of what would become a 60-hour ordeal, Mr Kasab and an accomplice allegedly shot dead 58 people at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the city’s main railway station – an assault on working-class commuters that would account for a third of the Mumbai attack’s total death toll. Nine other gunmen were killed.

Mr Kasab, who is accused of being a footsoldier for the Islamist Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist faction, allegedly failed in his bid for martyrdom when the car he and Ismail Khan had stolen ran into a police roadblock. While Khan was shot dead, Mr Kasab was captured.

via The Pakistan link: Mumbai terror detective tells of world plot – Times Online.

Low-Tech Terror Attack in Mumbai Could Spur Copycats in the West

The Mumbai attacks have prompted some Western officials to step up vigilance against the type of low-tech assault the 10 gunmen mounted last month.

Since the attacks in Mumbai, al Qaeda Web sites and chatrooms have lit up with aspiring militants urging more such attacks, according to the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group. One message cheered “the heroes” of the attack for making “the enemies suffer,” including the U.S., the U.K. and Israel.

Historically, the group accused in the attack, Lashkar-e-Taiba, has focused on furthering Pakistan’s claims to the Kashmir region, disputed with India. Although its messages have a strong anti-American component, U.S. officials have seen the group as a lesser counterterrorism priority.

But current and former intelligence officials say they are worried the Mumbai attacks may reflect a broadening of Lashkar’s interests, and that would-be jihadis may copy the approach of the Mumbai attackers, who carried out their assault on foot using little more than machine guns, explosives and cellphones. Al Qaeda’s resurgent base in Pakistan also provides opportunities for collaboration with groups such as Lashkar, officials said.

David Cohen, the head of intelligence for the New York Police Department and a former senior Central Intelligence Agency official, said what used to be merely propaganda against the U.S. and Israel has now been “operationalized” by the Mumbai attacks. “It puts us on notice in a much more clear and direct way,” he added.

The NYPD has dispatched three officers to Mumbai to better understand the attacks because of concerns about copycats.

“It’s a very clear indication that we have the potential to be victimized by a group motivated by religious ideology that doesn’t use something sophisticated,” said John Cohen, a senior official in the Bush administration’s office for sharing information among intelligence agencies.

Source – Read Full Article

Mumbai: Where are the 14 Other Pakistani-Trained Terrorists?

The lone gunman captured alive in Mumbai has told interrogators only 10 of the 24 young men in his year-long terrorist training course were sent to Mumbai last week, leaving 14 still in Pakistan, ready to strike again.

Security officials say they have been warned by Indian and U.S. officials that a second attack on the Indian capital city New Delhi is possible.

U.S. officials say the captured gunman’s account corroborates other intelligence that points to the role of the Pakistani-based Lashkar e Taiba, a group affiliated with al Qaeda that opposes Indian rule over the disputed state of Kashmir.

U.S. counter-terrorism officials say Lashkar e Taiba’s ability to operate with impunity inside Pakistan is one reason U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has warned Pakistan “this is a time for complete, absolute, total transparency and cooperation.”

A warning issued by U.S. intelligence agencies to Indian officials in mid-October suggests the U.S. may know the precise location of the training camps or headquarters in Pakistan, according to sources in the intelligence community.
Source