Attack in Mumbai -2

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<b>The men behind 26/11</b>
http://www.dailypioneer.com/189796/The-m...26/11.html

Wilson John with Vishwas Kumar

In the backdrop to the resolve shown by India this week not to brook further nonsense from Pakistan, Saturday Special presents excerpts from a new book on 26/11 which names names

The plan to attack Mumbai was first conceived on the third floor of the ISI headquarters at Zero Point in Islamabad, almost hidden from the bustle of the crowded Aabpara business centre. The head of the ISI directorate sits on the third floor, overseeing a shadowy empire of spies and jihadis which today poses a greater threat to global security than the al-Qaida.

Operations like the Mumbai attack of late November 2008 (26/11) are never discussed in official meetings. Such meetings remain unlisted and no minutes are kept. Nor are they planned in a day. Only a handful of officers decide the details, over a period of time, going back and forth over details and more details.

The head of the ISI, its Director General, is a Lt General who oversees three Deputy Director Generals heading Political, External I and External II Divisions. The DDGs are Major Generals and share the responsibility of leading six to eight Sections-Joint Intelligence Bureau, Joint Intelligence North, Joint Counter-Intelligence Bureau, Joint Signals Intelligence Bureau, Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous, Joint Intelligence Technical, Joint Intelligence X and Special Operations Wing.

A highly classified operation like Mumbai could not have been shared among more than four people would have known about the plan besides the Chief of Army Staff, who at the time of the planning was President General Pervez Musharraf. The DG ISI was Lt General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani. Among General Kayani’s close confidants were four Major Generals — Sikander Afzal, Asif Akhtar, Muhammad Mustafa and Tahir Mahmood — all of who played major roles behind 26/11.

Akhtar headed ISI’s Operations Wing which handled terrorist groups operating in Kashmir and other parts of India. Afzal was the Deputy Director General External and headed all sections which dealt with terrorist groups and India. One of his close confidants was Brigadier Riazullah Khan Chibb, one of the key masterminds of the Mumbai attack.

Mustafa was in charge of the Evaluation wing and Tahir Mahmood was General Officer Commanding. Special Services Group (SSG), which sometimes acted as the armed wing of the intelligence agency. Tahir Mahmood, as the Brigade commander of Brigade 62 at Skardu, had launched terrorists from LeT and other Army supported groups across Indian territory to camouflage the movement of regular troops.

A lot of homework had been done before the Generals laid out the plan. Generally, no serving officer is given control of terrorist operations as the discovery of such links run the risk of attracting sanctions from international donors. Terrorist operations are always left to the ‘irregulars’. These are retired officers who are reemployed on contracts for specific missions for the Army which can be easily denied. They operate out of private offices in different locations in Pakistan, have access to weapons and equipment and are paid through slush funds maintained by the ISI.

These shadow cells work within a hierarchy with clearly defined tasks -—the Generals who remain part of the network after their retirement, such as Lt General Hamid Gul, keep a distance from soiling their hands and work more as advisors and defenders. Gul, for instance, leads the ISI’s ‘psyops’ while former chiefs like Assad Durrani and Ehsan ul Haq project themselves as the ‘liberal’ face of the organisation. While Gul remains the sole expert for TV channels, Durrani and others make their way easily through cocktail and seminar circuits in world capitals. The ‘dirty jobs’ are left to the Brigadiers.

Three Brigadiers who played a key role are Riazullah Khan Chibb, Ijaz Shah and Haji. Though names of other Brigadiers and other retired officers have time and again emerged during various investigations — Major Wajahatullah and Colonel Kayani —there are fewer details in open source about their past and present activities. There are, however, some details about Shah and Chibb, largely thanks to the emails which
former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto wrote before her assassination in 2007. Both Shah and Chibb had retired from ISI a few years ago and have vast experience in running and handling terrorist groups targeting India. They are also confidants of Musharraf.

Now, the non-State actors: it was a motley crowd of committed trainers, cartographers, communications experts and ideologues who worked on the front end of the mission.

The principal trainers were Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi (alias Abu Wahed Irshad Ahmad); Muzammil (aka Yousuf aka Abu Gurera aka Abu Mohammad); Faheem Ahmad Ansari (alias Abu Jarar). Apart from them, Azzam Cheema, better known as ‘Babaji’, taught recruits how to spot vital installations on the map and uses satellite phones to keep in touch. Another Abu Qahafa, an expert commando trainer who joined the group in 2006, was the chief instructor for the Mumbai attackers. A confidante of Muzammil, he is an expert commando trainer and led the select recruits through the toughest training schedule at LeT’s Maskar Aksa camp. Abu al Qama, an old hand at training new recruits, and was in charge of LeT’s training camp, Ibn-e-Tamia, PoK, which received the Indian recruits across the Kashmir border.

The ideologue behind the operation was Abdur Rahman Makki, who is actually the LeT’s supremo Hafiz Saeed’s cousin and brother-in- law. He is second only to Saeed in the hierarchy and is known as a firebrand proponent of suicide missions, having penned a highly popular book called Tehrik-e-Islam ke fidayeen dastay (Islam’s suicide squads).

Another relative of Saeed, Ibrahim (aka Ali), a computer expert and fund distributor, put together the assault team. He recruited Faheem Ahmed Ansari (aka Abu Jarar), who trained under Muzammil, and was briefed extensively about the targets subsequently and selected for the attack in November 2008. Ansari was made to go through Google Map and other maps to pinpoint targets like the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and the Taj Hotel. Ansari drew maps for Muzammil and was later tasked to extensively videotape and photograph the locations after he returned to India. Abu Hamza (aka Ramzan aka Aamir) was one of the trainers at Baitul Mujahideen. Hamza and had a role in previous terror strikes in India like the ISI (Bangalore) attack of 2004. His inputs about making entry, traveling and then exiting the target areas were critical to the success of the Mumbai attack.

While Lakhvi and Abu Qahaf remained in touch with the terrorists from Karachi, it was Muzammil who was coordinating the attack pattern from Lahore, most probably from an ISI Forward Detachment Lahore at 7, Lawrence Road, Lahore. Muzammil’s satellite phone conversations with the Mumbai attackers after they had set sail from Karachi was intercepted by the US electronic and communication intelligence service, NSA (National Security Agency) and passed on to the Indian intelligence agencies on November 18, 2008, six days before the attack took place.

Zarar Shah (aka Abdul Wajid), LeT’s communications expert and urban combat trainer, confessed later of his involvement and said he had stayed with the attackers in Karachi for a few weeks to train them in urban combat skills. US agencies had intercepted his telephone calls to the attackers at the Taj Mahal Palace and tower. Shah, the intercepts showed, was directing the attackers almost minute-to-minute.

<i>-- This is an excerpt from Investigating the Mumbai Conspiracy, Wilson John and Vishwas Kumar, Pentagon Press, New Delhi, 2009</i>