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Washington: The precise role of Pakistan’s notorious Inter-Services Intelligence in “sheltering” Osama bin Laden may take a while to unfold, but Americans will begin to learn enough about the military intelligence agency’s devious ways when the 26/11 trial kicks off in a Chicago court next week.
Besides the central figures of David Coleman Headley (who has already pleaded guilty under a deal with FBI) and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, the trial will focus on the role of an ISI officer, simply identified as “Major Iqbal”, and three others charged last month as “co-conspirators” in the Mumbai terror plot.
The foursome based in Pakistan remain at large and will be tried in absentia. Besides “Major Iqbal” who “participated in planning and funding attacks carried out by Lashkar”, the others are: Sajid Mir, LeT’s “handler” for Headley; Mazhar Iqbal, a Lashkar commander; and Abu Qahafa, a combat trainer for Lashkar recruits.
In a court testimony, Headley has already stated that he worked for the ISI and for Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, adding: “I also told (Rana) about my meetings with Major Iqbal, and told him how I had been asked to perform espionage work for ISI”.
The first public airing of the ISI’s alleged involvement in the Mumbai attacks will begin in the court of US District Judge Harry D Leinenweber in Chicago next week.
As the activities next week will largely focus on selection of jurors, the trial proper is expected to get under way only from May 23, beginning with opening statements.
The trial is set to last four weeks, from Monday through Thursday each week. With Headley having pleaded guilty, Rana has been indicted on 12 counts for planning out the attacks, providing material support to LeT to carry out the bombings and guiding Headley in scouting targets in Mumbai for the carnage. If convicted, Rana faces a possible life sentence.
“The indictment (of “Major Iqbal”) has explosive implications because Washington and Islamabad are struggling to preserve their fragile relationship. The ISI has long been suspected of secretly aiding terrorist groups while serving as a US ally in the terrorism fight,” says ProPublica, an independent group of investigative journalists that has been focusing on the 26/11 probe.
“The discovery that bin Laden spent years in a fortress-like compound surrounded by military facilities in Abbottabad has heightened those suspicions and reinforced the accusations that the ISI was involved in the attacks that killed 166 people in Mumbai,” said the group’s Sebastian Rotella, writing in The Washington Post on Sunday.
“It’s very, very troubling,” says Frank R. Wolf, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee. Wolf, who has closely followed the Mumbai case and wants an independent study group to review South Asia policy top to bottom, has been quoted as saying: “Keep in mind that we’ve given billions of dollars to the Pakistani government. In light of what’s taken place with bin Laden, the whole issue raises serious problems and questions.”
The superseding federal indictment in the Mumbai case, issued last month, has been mentioned ISI as such. But the affiliation of “Major Iqbal” has been detailed in US and Indian case files and by anti-terrorism officials in interviews with ProPublica over the past year.
“Headley described an almost symbiotic bond between Lashkar and the ISI, which helped create the group as a proxy army against India,” ProPublica said, noting his account has been corroborated through other testimony, communications intercepts, the contents of his computer and records of phone and e-mail contact with ISI officers.
Besides the central figures of David Coleman Headley (who has already pleaded guilty under a deal with FBI) and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, the trial will focus on the role of an ISI officer, simply identified as “Major Iqbal”, and three others charged last month as “co-conspirators” in the Mumbai terror plot.
The foursome based in Pakistan remain at large and will be tried in absentia. Besides “Major Iqbal” who “participated in planning and funding attacks carried out by Lashkar”, the others are: Sajid Mir, LeT’s “handler” for Headley; Mazhar Iqbal, a Lashkar commander; and Abu Qahafa, a combat trainer for Lashkar recruits.
In a court testimony, Headley has already stated that he worked for the ISI and for Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, adding: “I also told (Rana) about my meetings with Major Iqbal, and told him how I had been asked to perform espionage work for ISI”.
The first public airing of the ISI’s alleged involvement in the Mumbai attacks will begin in the court of US District Judge Harry D Leinenweber in Chicago next week.
As the activities next week will largely focus on selection of jurors, the trial proper is expected to get under way only from May 23, beginning with opening statements.
The trial is set to last four weeks, from Monday through Thursday each week. With Headley having pleaded guilty, Rana has been indicted on 12 counts for planning out the attacks, providing material support to LeT to carry out the bombings and guiding Headley in scouting targets in Mumbai for the carnage. If convicted, Rana faces a possible life sentence.
“The indictment (of “Major Iqbal”) has explosive implications because Washington and Islamabad are struggling to preserve their fragile relationship. The ISI has long been suspected of secretly aiding terrorist groups while serving as a US ally in the terrorism fight,” says ProPublica, an independent group of investigative journalists that has been focusing on the 26/11 probe.
“The discovery that bin Laden spent years in a fortress-like compound surrounded by military facilities in Abbottabad has heightened those suspicions and reinforced the accusations that the ISI was involved in the attacks that killed 166 people in Mumbai,” said the group’s Sebastian Rotella, writing in The Washington Post on Sunday.
“It’s very, very troubling,” says Frank R. Wolf, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee. Wolf, who has closely followed the Mumbai case and wants an independent study group to review South Asia policy top to bottom, has been quoted as saying: “Keep in mind that we’ve given billions of dollars to the Pakistani government. In light of what’s taken place with bin Laden, the whole issue raises serious problems and questions.”
The superseding federal indictment in the Mumbai case, issued last month, has been mentioned ISI as such. But the affiliation of “Major Iqbal” has been detailed in US and Indian case files and by anti-terrorism officials in interviews with ProPublica over the past year.
“Headley described an almost symbiotic bond between Lashkar and the ISI, which helped create the group as a proxy army against India,” ProPublica said, noting his account has been corroborated through other testimony, communications intercepts, the contents of his computer and records of phone and e-mail contact with ISI officers.
