The following news is so terribly shocking that the prestigious Captain Louis Renault Award must be issued yet again this month. Here goes: the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, was behind the 2008 terror assault on Mumbai. This shocking news comes up in the testimony of two Pakistanis who were detained by the US and are currently on trial for terrorist activities, including the scouting of the Mumbai terror assault. From The Times of India:
David Headley aka Daood Gilani and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, the two Pakistani expat foot soldiers who allegedly planned and conducted the Mumbai recce before the 26/11 terrorist carnage have implicated the Pakistani government and its intelligence agency ISI in the ghastly attack.
In court documents that have surfaced ahead of his upcoming trial in Chicago, Rana says his acts of providing material support to terrorists in the Mumbai attacks as alleged by US prosecutors ”were done at the behest of the Pakistani government and the ISI, not the Lashkar terrorist organization.” The documents also cite Rana invoking his friend David Headley’s Grand Jury testimony in which the latter too implicates ISI.
More from The Globe and Mail (which has the court documents) and The Press Trust of India.
If there was any doubt about ISI involvement in Mumbai, it should have been erased after the chilling transcripts of the Pakistan-based Mumbai handlers speaking to the terrorists were released in early 2009. One of the handlers was referred to as “Major General.” And Zarar, one of the handlers, was a go-between for the ISI and Lashkar-e-Taiba, which executed the Mumbai assault. From The Long War Journal, back January 2009:
Six Pakistani handlers monitored the news coverage from Mumbai and kept in constant touch with the terrorists holed up in Nariman House and the Taj Mahal and Trident hotels during the three day siege. The handlers are identified as Zarar, Kafa, Wassi, Jundal, Buzurg, and “Major General.”
Zarar has been identified as Zarar Shah, the Lashkar-e-Taiba communications expert who set up the network that allowed the Mumbai terrorists to speak with Lashkar-e-Taiba commanders in Pakistan during the attack. He also served as a key liaison between the terror group and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Zarar is currently in Pakistani custody and has admitted to his role in the Mumbai attacks.
