Mumbai terror attacks: Headley recalls how 26/11 targets were chosen

Witness implicates Rana in Mumbai, Mir in Denmark bombing plot.

CHICAGO, US:

David Headley, a key witness in the trial of Canadian businessmen Tahawwur Rana, on Tuesday gave more details of his interactions with “Major Iqbal” a purported Pakistani intelligence agent, Rana and Sajid Mir of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The 50-year-old who has already admitted his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks took the stand again and told the US federal court on the second day of the trial that “Major Iqbal had asked him “why I hadn’t included the naval airbase in the list of targets for 26/11”.

According to him, Sajid Mir had told him that a dozen people were being trained outside Muzaffarabad to prepare for the attacks.

Headley outlined details of how the Chabad House was included in the list of targets in Mumbai. “Major Iqbal told me it was a front for a Mossad office”, he said. He also continued to implicate Rana in the plot. He also quoted Rana as saying “India deserved it” when they discussed the attacks. Rana, says Headley, also tried to calm him down when Headley began to get worried in the aftermath of the 26/11 attacks.

The prosecution showed emails from Headley, who had dubbed the Denmark bombing plot “Mickey Mouse” to refer to the blasphemous cartoons appearing in the Jyllands Posten. In another correspondence, Sajid Mir’s son is referred to as “polar bear cub”, and one of Mir’s aliases includes “Doctor Abraham”.

In another email submitted as evidence, Headley began to voice genuine fear over the December 2008 arrest of LeT members in Pakistan. His alleged handler Pasha responded: “All happening to your friends is superficial”. Headley also expressed concern over the possibility of Sajid Mir’s arrest, telling him [Pasha] that someone had been asking about him in Philadelphia. His cousin, however, lied on his behalf and claimed he was still in Pakistan.

Headley’s emails to Pasha also reveal a Harry aka Major Haroon, previously part of the LeT and in 2008 associated with a group in Waziristan.

Headley also testified that Sajid Mir had announced preliminary plans in September 2008 to attack the Jyllands Posten office to avenge the
sacrilegious cartoons that it had carried.



Published in The Express Tribune, May 25^th, 2011.