LAHORE: A low profile terrorist attack in the Indian administered Jammu & Kashmir, orchestrated by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) that had been in the pipelines for several months, eventually turned into the massive attacks on Mumbai last week, reports a Hong Kong-based web newspaper, Asia Times Online.
The report filed by a senior Pakistani journalist Mohammad Shehzad, stated that the original plan was highjacked by the Laskar-e-Taiba that generally focused on the Kashmir struggle, and al-Qaeda, resulting in the deaths of nearly 200 people in Mumbai as militants sprayed bullets and hand grenades at hotels, restaurants and train stations, as well as a Jewish community center. The report states that the PNS Iqbal (a naval commando unit) was the main outlet for the Pakistani militants to be given training and through deserted points they were launched into the Arabian seas and on into the Indian region of Gujarat. Going by Asia Times Online report, under directives from Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Kiani, who was then director general of the ISI, a low-profile plan was prepared to support Kashmiri militancy.
“Although Pakistan had closed down its major operations, it still provided some support to the militants so that the Kashmiri movement would not die down completely. After Kiani was promoted to chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj was placed as DG of ISI. The external section under him routinely executed the plan of Kiani and trained a few dozen Lashkar-e-Toiba militants near Mangla Dam near the capital Islamabad. They were sent by sea to Gujrat, from where they had to travel to Kashmir to carry out operations. Meanwhile, a major reshuffle in the ISI two months ago officially shelved this low-key plan as the country’s whole focus had shifted towards Pakistan’s tribal areas. The director of the external wing was also changed, placing the game in the hands of a low-level ISI forward section head (a major) and the LeT’s commander-in-chief, Zakiur Rahman”.
The report states that Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi was in Karachi for two months to personally oversee the plan. “However, the militant networks in India and Bangladesh comprising the Harkatul Jehadul Islami, which were now in al-Qaeda’s hands, tailored some changes. Instead of Kashmir, they planned to attack Mumbai, using their existent local networks, with Westerners and the Jewish community center as targets. Zaki and the ISI’s forward section in Karachi, completely disconnected from the top brass, approved the plan under which 10 men took Mumbai hostage for nearly three days and successfully established a reign of terror. The attack, started from ISI headquarters and fined-tuned by al-Qaeda, has obviously caused outrage across India”, the report concludes.
In a related development, American media reports quoting a senior Pentagon official say former Pakistan Army officers and those from the powerful ISI helped train the attackers who targeted Mumbai last week killing over 180 people. However, no specific links had been uncovered yet between terrorists and the Pakistani government, the unnamed official said, according to the New York Times.”A former Defense Department official said on Wednesday that American intelligence agencies had determined that former officers from Pakistan’s Army and its powerful Inter Services Intelligence agency helped train the Mumbai attackers,” the paper said on December 4. It, however, did not identify the official, saying he had spoken on condition of anonymity.
The disclosure came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held meetings with Indian leaders in New Delhi and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met their Pakistani counterparts in Islamabad, in a two-pronged effort to pressure the country to cooperate fully in tracking down the perpetrators of the bloody attacks, the paper said. Pakistan has refuted Indian allegations that militants operating from its soil were responsible for the deadly attacks, with President Asif Ali Zardari terming them as “non-state actors”.
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