India has directly accused Pakistan’s intelligence services of having a direct hand in the November 2008 terror assault on the city of Mumbai. Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said the Mumbai attack and last year’s deadly suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul were planned and organized inside Pakistan by groups that receive the support from the Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
“The perpetrators planned, trained and launched their attacks from Pakistan, and the organizers were and remain clients and creations of the ISI,” Menon said in Paris on Feb. 4, AFP reported. Menon’s accusation is the first on the record statement from an Indian official accusing a Pakistani agency of involvement in Mumbai.
The 62-hour terror spree in Mumbai resulted in 165 innocent people killed and hundreds more wounded. The Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terror group allied with al Qaeda and supported by powerful elements within Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency and the military, carried out the attack, an Indian intelligence dossier stated. The dossier contained proof of calls made between the Mumbai terrorists and their handlers inside Pakistan as the attacks were ongoing, as well as transcripts of the handlers providing information to the terrorists and ordering them to murder the civilians. The handlers were heard cheering after the murders.
Pakistan is still examining the Indian dossier but so far has been reluctant to admit links between the terrorists and Pakistan. On Jan. 30, Pakistani’s high commissioner to Britain claimed the Mumbai dossier was “fabricated” and denied the attacks were plotted inside Pakistan. “Pakistani territory was not used so far as the investigators have made their conclusions,” Pakistani High Commissioner Wajid Shamsul Hasan said. “It could have been some other place.” Hasan’s statements sparked sharp rebukes from Indian officials.
While Menon has implicated the ISI in the Mumbai assault, news from Pakistan indicates the Federal Investigation Agency has concluded that the plot originated in Bangladesh and Dubai. The FIA has concluded that the Bangladeshi branch of the Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami carried out the attack with the help of Indian nationals based out of Dubai, and at least one of the attackers was a Bangladeshi.
The Bangladeshi branch of Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami Bangladesh, or HuJI-B, was established in 1992 “with assistance from Osama bin Laden’s International Islamic Front,” according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal. The terror group espouses the same philosophy as the Taliban and is an al Qaeda in Bangladesh. HuJI-B also receives support from the Inter-Service Intelligence agency.
Elsewhere in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, 12 jihadi groups rallied in Muzaffarabad to support the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the charitable front group for the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Jamaat-ud-Dawa was declared a terrorist entity by the United Nations Security Council after the Mumbai attacks.
Banned terror groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, participated in the rally while Pakistani security officials stood by. “The authorities made no effort to stop the meeting, despite the ban on some of the groups taking part,” BBC reported. “The only security at the conference was a line of policemen who surrounded the venue.”
Jamaat-ud-Dawa / Lashkar-e-Taiba held a public rally in Lahore in January to protest Israel’s military operation in Gaza. The group operated under the name of Tehreek-e-Tahafuz Qibla Awal, or the Movement for the Safeguarding of the First Center of Prayer. But the banner for the Jamaat-ud Dawa was flown and senior officials from the group addressed the crowd.
15 Comments
indian govt is in habit of accusing every thing on pakistan and ISI…… india is the most psychologically insecure state in south asia … accuse pakistan and forget the ground reality of riseing hindu tva and discrimination, insult, killing of thousands of Dalits, christians , muslims and sikhs…..
i am sorry to say indian democracy is joke…… and how can we belive indian agencies who like to create hypes…
those who created LTTE, BLA, and other terror outfits in neighboring states…. and those who kill minorities under state direction[Dehli massacare, Gujrat) should not acuse others… BTW master mind of Samjhota express bombing which killed 55 pakistanies in India is a Serveing lieutenant colonal of Indian army… man behind Gujrat massacare MODI is CM of Gujrat, Party behind worst Sikh massacare is ruleing india…. BABU BAJRANGI who proudely told how he and his men killed and Raped in Gujrat in front of TEHELKA reporter is free and respected……
i can go on but its of no use
Big question is what next? If the Indian FM is 100% positive the ISI is involved, what then? That region is a powder keg and I have no faith in the Pakistani state. I think the educated and pro democratic Pakistani’s are far outnumbered by the cavemen in that country and it’s only a matter of time before the state of Pakistan is considered a failure. Maybe this sounds horrible, but I say stand back and let them settle this on their own. Bring our nationals home and let them have at it.
Hugh said: Bring our nationals home and let them have at it.
Add our tax-payer funded Aid (military and developmental) to the list. Pakistan will not survive two weeks without the aid guarentees from the west. And then let Indians take care of whatever is left.
The ISI should be declared a “terror org.” The P-stani Army is not interested in fighting the T-ban/AQ, they do not have the will to do so. If India strikes, they have EVERY right. Maybe that would’nt be so bad for us. Then we could strike at will in the tribal areas. P-stan is on the brink of collapse.
I like your idea Rhyno327…..The USA should invade from the north and India invade from the east and smash all of the militants and AQ in the Tribal areas……Taliban and AQ shouldn’t have a safe haven inside Pakistan……Hunt these animals where ever they sleep.
Guys,
Though it might be personally satisfying to nuke those bad actors till they glow, we’re not going to shoot (or bomb) our way out of this one. The best we can hope for is engagement and containment. There is an article by Gautam Adhikari dateline 29 Nov 2008 from The Times of India points to the way forward:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Editorial/COMMENT_Save_Pakistan_To_Save_All/articleshow/3770216.cms#write
India has been dealing with Pakistan since inception, and has the most at stake in any action against Pakistan. The Jammu – Kashmir dispute seems to be the underlying reason for most of the trouble. Solve it, like the Israel and Palestine issue and lot of problems just might go away.
Rhyno and Natej
Much of war is logistics. We haven’t even secured our supplies to Afghanistan or established control there–where our forces can move freely. In the event we attacked Pakistan, our supply routes from the north are subject to Russian veto. Our supply routes through Pakistan (already precarious) would be lost until we conquered them. Pushed against a wall, the Pakistani nuclear threat cannot be totally discounted. Yes, we would win such a conflict eventually but at what cost?
The Al Queda and Taliban groups control areas in Pakistan but their popularity is more evident than real and is probably fading in the light of some of their barbarous terrorist attacks and typical misrule. The young democractic government in Pakistan is not much worse than the young Iraqi democracy was in 2005 to 2007.
Let’s see if we can secure supply routes and bases for our surge in Afghanistan, continue to enlarge and improve the Afghan Army, and use it to secure that country. Then we will see if Pakistan’s government can improve. If the Al Queda types do succeed in major terrorist attacks against the west based out of Pakistan, our time horizon may shorten considerably but for right now, invasion of Pakistan is not warranted or wise.
Rosario:
Although Jammu and Kashmir is an issue, it is not the underlying issue when talking about terrorism emanating from Pakistan. The terrorism is because of the fundamental intolerance in accepting the plurality of religions, leave alone the plurality of the thought process itself. The turmoil in the western/north western province of Pakistan which is not related to J&K holds testimony to this fact. J&K is just used because of the inability to contain the violence. Solving J&K will never stop this nonsense.
WHat a no brainer. That country says one thing and does the opposite. If you see a paki talking, he is spinning lies.
Pakistan has proven itself to be an irresponsible state–this is a fact in the eyes of the global citizen. If we give the benefit of doubt to the fledgling govt, we are still left with their Army/ISI which simply cannot be trusted.
Now combine the fact that they have an arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Add to it that the West/US continues to pump in cash into this bottomless pit.
With their propensity for corruption, pouring in more money in order to create a prosperous and stable pakistan makes no sense.
So, why not do a cash-for-nukes deal with them before the taliban or AQ get their hands on this stuff. (Else, let the failing economy fail.)
Pakistan can then use that cash for shoring up its fight against the terrorists and for its development. It is only after that any further development money makes sense.
Else, we can sit back, in business-as-usual mode and keep financing the pak army and be served up with Huge (Huji) red herrings…while the web of deceipt plans, and rigorlously trains for, its next spectacle in New York, London, Madrid, Bombay ….where next?
Sure We can invade and march right up on a nuclear mine.
If there is one person who should be incarcerated for life in a military person it must be AQ Khan. And he just walks free.
But this should surprise no one – the paki military has used blackmail so many times to get out of sticky situations. The lack of any reaction from US leadership on this issue is enlightening.
The US finds itself twisted in knots trying to deal with the pakis – it is only a matter of time before it completely draws down from Afghanistan as well. As long as US supply lines run through pakistan and it keeps “co-operating” with the ISI, the status quo remains.
I also wonder why ShivShankar Menon is making noises about the ISI – India has never had the gumption to deal with islamic terrorism and has not done anything so far since the Bombay attacks.
It sounds like he is pleading/begging with the US to “do something” – but i am afraid he is only making India look more impotent and revealing how American hands are badly tied up when it comes to dealing with Pakistan.
I am just wondering – does Vegas offer odds on when US troops will draw down from Afghanistan ?
For the next two years the US Army is going to have much of it’s logistical support firmly attached to Iraq. With that in mind, it is difficult to even imagine direct military action against Pakistan. Only in the most dire circumstances would we do so.
THE QUESTION IS MOOT!
I always did want to use that phrase somewhere.
Probably true -was ISI.
So what?
Doesn’t mean Pak government was behind it.
ISI is notoriously infiltrated by Jihadists.
In order to derail Islamabad, they are willing to go after India. Doesn’t mean central government ordered this.
Its Pakistani factionalism, and India should keep that in mind. It should see to help Pakistan put its house in order, and Pakistani needs to be interested in purging ISI ranks of Deobandis.
Overthe past few days, a bunch of comments on this thread and others were marked as spam. I did my best to restore them, if something is still missing I apologize.
Again I ask that everyone read the comments policy. If someone that posts something you disagree with, take on the idea and not the person. If you feel the comment is out of bounds, email me and I will make the judgment. Some of the comments of late have been pushing the limits, please make DJ and my job easy and not hard.