Religious Head Incites Mumbai Attack

Religious head incited killers

Bruce Loudon, South Asia correspondent | December 01, 2008

Article from: The Australian http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/

THE al-Qa'ida-linked Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists suspected over the Mumbai massacre were trained in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, and were incited by speeches from their leader in Lahore.

As the sole surviving terrorist was interrogated in Mumbai, security sources told The Australian that 10 terrorists were picked by LET for the suicide mission.

They were ordered to "kill until your last breath" and murder up to 5000 people.

They did so after provocative speeches by Hafiz Mohammed Saeed last month in Lahore, capital of the Punjab.

Saeed, described as LET's supreme religious and political head, declared in one speech: "The only language India understands is that of force, and that is the language it must be talked to in."

The email claiming responsibility for the Mumbai attack minutes after it started last Wednesday was generated on a computer based in Pakistan.

And a satellite telephone captured from the terrorists revealed calls made to numbers in Pakistan during the attacks, reports said.

Officials said the terrorists' route to Mumbai had been recorded on GPS co-ordinates contained in the satellite phones.

Sources said the 10 terrorists -- most of whom were believed to be Pakistanis -- were ordered to undergo training to attack Mumbai.

The captured gunman, Ajmal Amir Kamal, 21, reportedly told intelligence sources the group had trained openly in Muzaffarabad before heading to the nearby Mangala dam for lessons in marine commando techniques.

The group then visited Rawalpindi, which adjoins Islamabad, the Pakistan capital and site of the Pakistan army headquarters.

From there, the group took a train to the port city of Karachi, where, heavily armed, they boarded a freighter for the trip to Mumbai. Along the way, they became nervous about Indian coastguard activity and almost aborted the mission.

They "dragooned" a less conspicuous, passing fishing boat into service, shooting dead four of its crew members. The skipper of the fishing boat and another crew member took them closer to Mumbai before they, too, were killed. One was decapitated and the other had his throat slit.

Close to shore, they transferred to small speedboats for the run into the two landing points they had selected in Mumbai - Sassoon Docks and Badhwar Park, on Cuff Parade.

Conflicting evidence obtained by intelligence agencies suggests that the group may have had local support, and that one or more of its members may have been staying locally, possibly even in the Taj Mahal hotel.

A British link to the attacks was raised over the weekend when a senior Indian official claimed that Britons were among the militants.

Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra state, in which Mumbai lies, was quoted on an Indian television station as saying that British citizens had been detained.

British MP Patrick Mercer, a former Tory security spokesman, said he had been given information that at least two of the terrorists had credit cards and other identifying documents that linked them to Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, in northeast England.

The claims, however, were not substantiated by official British sources, who said there was no evidence "at this stage" that Britons had taken part in the attacks, although they acknowledged that events were "moving fast" and more information was emerging about the nationality of the terrorists.

MI5 and British counter-terrorist police are keeping in close touch with their counterparts in India and are alert to the possibility that Britons with Pakistani origins might have been involved. Significant numbers of young British Pakistanis have taken part in terrorist training in Pakistan.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that there was no evidence of Britons being involved, and the Foreign Secretary David Miliband said: "We obviously will want to work very closely with the Indians but it is too early to say whether or not any of them are British."

Malaysian police are investigating reports that Malaysian-issued credit cards were found in the belongings of the terrorists involved in the Mumbai attacks.

Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar said Malaysia had no links with the terrorists, responding to an Indian report that nine of the gunmen claimed to be Malaysian students when they travelled to Mumbai several months ago.

Terror analyst Praveen Swami said that at a meeting of key LET leaders in Lahore on October 19, LET leader Saeed, who insists he is only head of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa welfare organisation, made plain his view of Pakistan's neighbour.

"India, he claimed, was building dams in (Indian-controlled) Jammu and Kashmir to choke Pakistan's water supplies and cripple its agriculture," Mr Swami reported Saeed as saying.

"Earlier, in an October 6 speech, Saeed claimed that India had 'made a deal with the United States to send 150,000 Indian troops to Afghanistan' and that it agreed to support the US in its existential war against Islam.

"Finally, in a sermon to a congregation at the Jamia Masjid al-Qudsia (mosque) in Lahore at the end of October, Saeed proclaimed that there was an 'ongoing war in the world between Islam and its enemies'.

"He claimed that 'crusaders of the East and West have united in a cohesive onslaught against Muslims'."