In Chicago trial, Headley bares Pak links to Mumbai attack

By Uttara Choudhury New York: Pakistani-American David Headley’s explosive testimony in a court in Chicago on Monday has unmasked Pakistan’s ties to terrorism and put its spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)  in the dock for supporting the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which carried out the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. Headley also revealed he was motivated by his dislike for India sparked by Pakistan’s humiliating defeat in the 13-day  India-Pakistan war of 1971. That war resulted in the creation of Bangladesh. The prosecution and defence made their 45-minute opening arguments on Monday in the terrorism trial of Pakistan-born businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana in the jam-packed Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago. The prosecution then wheeled out the government’s star witness, Headley, who has previously pleaded guilty to doing the spadework for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, financed, he claims, by $25,000 from an officer in the ISI. Headley said he disliked India because his junior school was bombed during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. He  also told the court that it was his understanding that the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the LeT ran their ideas by the ISI which provided assistance to them. “These groups operate under the umbrella of the ISI…They coordinated with the ISI,” Headley testified under oath from the witness stand. He said he had received weapons and leadership training from the LeT since 2000 and it was his understanding that the group and the ISI helped each other. “They coordinated with each other and the ISI provided assistance to Lashkar,” said Headley. When the prosecutor asked Headley about the nature of the ISI support, he responded that the ISI gave “financial and military support” to the LeT. [caption id=“attachment_14460” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“David Headley told US District Court Judge Harry Leinenweber that the ISI gave financial and military support to LeT. AFP “] [/caption] Arrested on a trip to Pakistan’s northeast while seeking a contact who could help smuggle weapons into India, Headley said he was freed after explaining his connection to the LeT by an ISI officer named “Major Ali.” Headley also talked about how his LeT handler said he would receive a call from an officer known only as “Major Iqbal” about an operation in India. A superseding indictment already names Major Iqbal who is believed to be in the ISI as an additional plotter of the Mumbai attacks along with Sajid Mir (Headley’s handler) and two others. The court heard on Monday how closely Iqbal and the ISI were involved with monitoring Headley and his activities. ISI was the guiding force From Monday’s testimony it appears the ISI guided Headley, but as the trial stretches into June, we are likely to get more details to the question: How much was Pakistan’s ISI involved in planning the Mumbai attacks? A recruit with a Western passport was considered a godsend for Pakistani terrorist groups, and so Headley  - as the son of a former Pakistani diplomat and an American mother - was valued and cultivated. He said he lunched with LeT founder and suspected 26/11 mastermind Hafeez Saeed and operations commander Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi. Saeed is still rabble-rousing in Pakistan while Lakhvi is currently in detention. Headley told the US court he wanted to fight in Kashmir but “I was told (the LeT) would find something better and more suitable for me.” The job reserved for Headley turned out to be tinkering with opening a First World office in Mumbai while using a GPS device to program in key location markers for the Mumbai attackers. “LeT told me I would be going to India to conduct surveillance,” said Headley who also talked about combat weapons training he had undergone in Pakistan. He pointed to a map of Pakistan and the now famous garrison-town of Abbottabad as one of his training sites. Headley also said that it was Saeed who “motivated” him by saying, “one second of jihad equals hundred years of prayer.” India has pressed Pakistan to try Saeed for the Mumbai attacks, but there’s been no action on that. Saeed, who is the founder of the LeT and its charitable front — the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the Falah-i Insaniat Foundation – recently organised a rally in Lahore to praise the slain Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and to curse the US for killing him. After more than a year and a half behind bars, Rana got his day in court and listened closely to the proceedings. He was seen taking notes while Headley took the stand. Rana is accused of helping Headley find targets in Mumbai for the LeT. Rana has pleaded not guilty. He faces a possible life sentence if convicted. The prosecution led by Assistant US Attorney Sarah Streicker told the court on Monday that Headley and Rana discussed the Mumbai attacks and that Rana knew the nature of Headley’s visits to India and applauded the attacks telling Headley that “the Indians deserved it.” It isn’t just about pulling the trigger… “The defendant knew all too well that when Headley travels to a foreign country, people may die,” Streicker told a predominantly African-American jury of four men and eight women in her opening argument. “The defendant didn’t carry a gun or throw a grenade. In a complicated and sophisticated plot, not every player carries a weapon. People like the defendant — who provide support — are just as critical to the success,” she added. The prosecution said it will show the jury Rana’s complicity through exchanged emails and other hard evidence.  Rana, who owns First World Immigration Services in Chicago, allegedly allowed Headley to use his business as a cover while scoping out targets in India. In his opening statement, Rana’s attorney, Charlie Swift, told the jury that Headley was a “master manipulator” who “made a fool” of Rana. Swift said Headley was working for the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the US Drug Enforcement Administration and for the ISI, which taught him “how to be a spy” at the same time. “Headley was a master manipulator, manipulating three different organisations - the LeT, the ISI and the DEA -  all at the same time, while also manipulating several relationships and wives,” said Swift. “Headley now needed a home run or a touchdown (to avoid the death sentence) so he changed his story and said Rana knew everything.” Although most of the court filings are sealed, US District Court Judge Harry Leinenweber has released one segment of Headley’s grand jury testimony where Headley discussed doing work for the ISI: “During my trip to Chicago, I told [Rana] about my meetings with Sajid and others in Lashkar. I also told him about my meetings with Major Iqbal, and told him how I had been asked to perform espionage work for ISI. I even told him some of the espionage stories that Major Iqbal had told me.” New evidence of the ISI’s legally unjustified actions that emerge from the Chicago trial will reverberate in Washington, which is already asking how bin Laden could have been hiding in Abbottabad for five years without Pakistan’s military and the ISI knowing. “It is a big deal because it is part of an evolving revelation of things we already knew,” Christine Fair, a professor and terrorism expert at Georgetown University told NPR. “For those, in the wake of bin Laden, who are out for blood, this is another opportunity to bludgeon Pakistan for its various, numerous shortcomings in the war on terror.”