Eideard

 
Rock on, Mumbai!

Allegations that Pakistan’s intelligence service was involved in the Mumbai terror attacks will be scrutinised in an American court case starting on Monday when the man who helped plan the 2008 strikes testifies against his alleged accomplice.

David Headley, a Pakistani-American businessman who has confessed to his involvement in the attacks, will be the star witness in the trial of Tahawwur Rana, his childhood friend, in Chicago.

Rana is charged with providing material support for terrorism in the assaults, which killed 166 people, as well as a plot in Denmark that was never carried out. Opening arguments in the case, based on the deaths of six Americans in Mumbai, will begin on Monday.

The case has drawn international attention because Headley’s testimony is expected to reinforce allegations that Pakistan plays a double game in the fight against terrorism. Its success will depend largely on how the jury views Headley, 50, who is said to have juggled relationships with multiple wives, terrorist groups and intelligence agencies.

Headley is a former informant for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He pleaded guilty last year to conducting reconnaissance for the Mumbai attacks and for the Danish plot. His confessions painted a devastating portrait of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) – he says ISI officers helped the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist group plot the commando-style attacks on Mumbai…

Prosecutors recently raised the political stakes by indicting a suspected ISI officer for the murders in Mumbai. The officer, identified only as Major Iqbal, allegedly oversaw Headley’s scouting in India.

The decision to indict Iqbal was made at high levels in Washington, sending a signal from Barack Obama’s administration, which had expressed frustration about Pakistan’s reliability even before Osama bin Laden was found and killed in Abbottabad.

RTFA. Beaucoup detail. Involved, intricate, opportunist – and offering all the corruption you would expect in global politics.

The ISI is about as useful to processes dedicated to peace and security as the average teabagger is to stem cell research.

Special New Year’s good wishes to the regulars in so many countries who wander through here. We appreciate your reflection, thoughts and contributions.

Sith gun robh so!

Mumbai’s top politician has offered to resign over a housing scandal in which top military chiefs and associates of Congress Party leaders were allegedly allocated exclusive flats in an apartment block built for war heroes and widows.

Two of the Congress-led Indian government’s most senior ministers, Pranab Mukherjee, the finance minister and AK Anthony, the defence minister, are heading an investigation to establish the role of Ashok Chavan, Maharashtra’s chief minister, in the affair.

The allegations centre on ownership of flats in a 31 storey block built by the Adarsh Housing Co-operative on Cuffe Parade, overlooking the Arabian Sea, in one of Mumbai’s most expensive neighbourhoods.

It was built on land believed to be illegally-occupied by India’s security forces, but construction was permitted on the grounds that war widows and heroes of the Kargil War would be the beneficiaries.

Last week two former army chiefs and one retired navy chief announced they had acquired flats in the development but denied they had known they were intended for war widows. They have subsequently said they would give up their apartments.

Anyone surprised?

An ancient “tunnel-like” structure has been unearthed in the garden of the General Post Office in the Indian city of Mumbai.

The authorities say it is clear that the previously undiscovered structure is not a sewage or storm-water drain. It was only revealed when a local newspaper reporter asked to see it.

The heritage committee is yet to inspect it, or decide what exactly the structure is. Experts say such tunnels were often part of fortified basements…

Chief Postmaster General Faiz-ur-Rehman told the BBC that the discovery of the structure came as a surprise. “I have been here for more than 20 years,” he said, “but was never aware of its existence…

Some reports say there is a possibility of it being an escape route connected to another tunnel. Three ways out, with covers, have been found so far in the garden…

Mr Rehman said that the original drawings for the building were not available in India. Officials say they could be in the UK – the former colonial power.

“Maybe if we could access the original plan we may be able to find out if there are more – and what purpose these structures served.”

Surely, no one expected the Brits to let their “subjects” know much about what they were doing or planning back in the day.

OTOH, some beancounter probably squirreled away a copy of the plans.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

The prime ministers of India and Pakistan agreed today to resume peace talks between their top diplomats and work toward rebuilding trust shattered by the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that New Delhi blamed on Pakistani militants.

Officials said India’s Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani, agreed on the need to normalise relations dogged by more than six decades of hostility since both gained independence from Britain. They deputed their foreign ministers to meet at a later date to discuss the resumption of a wide-ranging formal dialogue that began in 2004, but was suspended after the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.

The two prime ministers met for more than an hour in the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, on the sidelines of a summit of south Asian leaders. It was their first meeting in eight months…

The two prime ministers “agreed that relations between the two countries should be normalised and the channels of contact should work effectively to enlarge the constituency of peace in both countries,” Nirupama Rao told reporters…

India and Pakistan have been under pressure to resume their peace dialogue – which eased historic tensions although it made little headway on the key issue of Kashmir, which they both claim in entirety and have fought two of their three wars over since gaining independence in 1947.

Overdue. I always say that. I always mean it. RTFA.

State meeting last November

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, flying to New Delhi, praised India’s restraint and statesmanship following the 2008 Mumbai attacks and remarked at how both India and Pakistan have kept tensions at a “manageable level.”

Relations between the South Asian neighbors have been strained since India suspended a peace process with Pakistan after the assault on Mumbai by Pakistan-based militants…

“The bombing in Mumbai was a really terrible event and frankly I believe that the Indians responded subsequently with a great deal of restraint and have conducted themselves in a very statesmen-like manner since that attack,” Gates told reporters on his flight to India…

Last month, Gates told the U.S. Senate he believed al Qaeda wanted to provoke a conflict between India and Pakistan in order to destabilize Pakistan. He said it was providing Lashkar-e-Taiba militants — the group blamed for the Mumbai killings — with targeting information to help the group plot attacks in India.

Gates said the United States would be happy to work to help improve India-Pakistan relations, if asked, but added: “I think it’s clear that both sides prefer to deal with this bilaterally and that others not be involved…”

Of course, military-industrial commerce is an important part of Gates’ visit. India is preparing to open the purse-strings for $50 billion worth of death toys. Uncle Sugar wants the biggest chunk. If not all of it.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Mumbai held tearful memorials and police staged a show of strength on Thursday as India’s financial hub marked the first anniversary of militant raids that killed 166 people and ratcheted up tensions with Pakistan.

While emotionals onlookers waved Indian flags and banners with slogans such as “End The Violence,” police commandoes with new weapons and armored cars tracked the route the 10 gunmen took for an attack that stunned the country.

Other residents lit candles outside a Jewish center, one of several sites from luxury hotels to the city’s biggest railway station, that were targeted by the Pakistan-based militants in a rampage lasting three days.

At the Trident hotel, one of the targets, chefs and laundry boys gathered to remember the attacks. Outside, a black granite column read: “In memory of our guests and our staff.” A wreath of white lilies lay in front next to a glass case with burning candles.

“We just wanted to show our support and show that we care,” said Subir Kumar Singh, who was leaving a written message on a banner outside the Leopold cafe, a popular tourist spot that still has bullet marks from the attacks.

Someday, religions will no longer honor murder. Or nationalism rooted in religion.

One of the protests by Indian Muslims against the Mumbai terrorism
Daylife/AP Photo by Ajit Solanki

A Pakistani court on has charged seven suspects in connection with the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people one year ago.

The men were indicted at an anti-terrorism court in a high security prison in the city of Rawalpindi on the eve of the first anniversary of India’s worst militant attacks, which dramatically soured relations with rival Pakistan…

Among the seven, who were arrested by Pakistan over the November 26-29 siege on India’s financial capital, are alleged mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and alleged key Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative Zarar Shah…

‘They have been indicted under the anti-terrorism act and the Pakistani penal code,’ said their attorney, Shahbaz Rajput, without elaborating…

According to news agency Press Trust of India, the latest information handed to Pakistan included statements of key witnesses, including a magistrate and FBI officials, from the trial of the lone gunman to survive the attacks.

The gunman, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, has confessed to his involvement in the attacks in a dramatic announcement to a court in Mumbai.

If you think the announcement just coincidentally happened within the context of Obama’s state dinner for the Prime Minister of India, you may also believe the same holds true for the timing of India handing over additional evidence on the case – to Pakistan authorities.

Am I being cynical, again? You betcha.

A man has been arrested in Mumbai for marrying 14 women, each unaware of his other wives, over two and a half years…

Police officers said Tushar Waghmare registered his profile on a website, stating that he was divorced and looking for working Brahmin – upper caste – women who were either divorcees or widows. He claimed to have divorced his wife in 2006.

Waghmare fixed appointments with his targets at one of his rented apartments in the city, after visiting profiles of women on marriage websites.

“None of the women or their parents ever thought of doing a background check on him, as they would be impressed with his job profile,” deputy commissioner RM Vhatkar said.

Waghmare, who has since been sacked from his job with Air India, earned £946 a month and reportedly took care of all 14 “wives”. Three of them were professionals and the rest were housewives…

His last wife, a 29-year-old divorced architect, found him out when she visited him at one of his other homes.

Har! The man is obviously bent on self-destruction.