Pakistani-American terror suspect David Headley has told Indian investigators that he had scouted Delhi for potential strike targets, including the prime minister’s residence and key defence complexes, four months after the 2008 Mumbai terror attack in which Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had a major role to play.
Headley, who has confessed his role in plotting the Mumbai attack with the Lashkar-e-Taiba and was arrested last year in the US, told a team of Indian interrogators in a Chicago prison that he was in New Delhi in March 2009, said sources familiar with the case but who spoke only on condition they were not identified.
The revelations came as Britain’s Guardian Tuesday quoting secret Indian government documents reported that ISI played a major role in helping prepare the Mumbai attack.
During his Delhi trip, Headley videographed 7 Race Course Road, the prime minister’s official residence, and defence complexes – Raksha Bhavan, and the National Defence College (NDC) in the heart of the capital, the sources disclosed.
A four-member team of Indian investigators interrogated Headley in June this year after he entered into a plea bargain with the US government offering to be available to foreign investigators for any questioning related to terror plots he was scheming with the LeT and Al Qaeda.
The 49-year-old Pakistani-born – who had dual identities as a Pakistani and an American – revealed that he found “minimal security” at the NDC that appeared a “vulnerable target”.
The security cover at the prime minister’s residence appeared too tough to break and his Pakistani handlers were not interested in striking at the Raksha Bhavan, an office-cum-residential complex for the senior army officers, Headley is believed to have told the investigators.
He said his Pakistani handlers were more interested in attacking the NDC – a target important for its symbolic value as it has many military personnel from different countries attending courses at any time – and had even started working on the idea with help from an unknown person in Nepal, the sources said.
ISI’s support came out in a 109-page report prepared following Headley’s interrogation.
He has spoken about dozens of meetings between ISI officers and senior militants from LeT. Pakistan initially denied all links to the Mumbai mayhem but later admitted that the only terrorist, Ajmal Kasab, caught in Mumbai was indeed its resident.
At least 166 people were killed and over 200 injured in the November 2008 attack.
Headley claimed that at least two of his missions were partly paid for by the ISI and that he regularly reported to the spy agency.
A key motivation for the ISI in aiding the attack was to bolster militant groups with strong links to the Pakistani state and security establishment who were being marginalised by more extreme radical groups, the Guardian report quoted Headley as saying.
“The aggression and commitment to jihad shown by several splinter groups in Afghanistan influenced many committed fighters to leave… I understand this compelled the LeT to consider a spectacular terrorist strike in India,” Headley was quoted as saying.
He said the ISI hoped the Mumbai attack would slow or stop growing “integration” between groups active in Kashmir, with whom the agency had maintained a long relationship, and “Taliban-based outfits” in Pakistan and Afghanistan which were a threat to the Pakistani state, the Guardian reported.
He also described a meeting with a “Colonel Kamran” from the military intelligence and a string of meetings with a “Major Iqbal” and “Major Sameer Ali”. He claimed that he was given $25,000 by his ISI handler to finance one of eight surveillance missions in India.
ISI director general, Lt. General Shuja Pasha, visited a key senior LeT militant in prison after the attacks “to understand” the operation.
The Guardian said this implies what many Western security agencies suspect – that the top ranks of the ISI were unaware of at least the scale of the planned strike.
An ISI spokesperson told the Guardian that the accusations of the agency’s involvement in the Mumbai attack were “baseless”.