ISI handlers watched Mumbai carnage on TV,
instructed terrorists: Headley
LALIT K JHA AND HIMANI
KUMAR
IN CHICAGO
Watching the November 2008
Mumbai carnage live from
Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Tayiba
handlers guided the terrorists
on phone and even asked them
to change tactics to challenge
the advancing Indian comman-
dos.
The strategy followed during
the 60-hour siege of Mumbai
emerged during the testimony
of Mumbai attack co-accused
and confessed terrorist David
Coleman Headley in a Chicago
District Court on the third day
of the trial of his childhood
friend and Pakistani-Canadian
Tawahhur Hussain Rana.
Rana has been slapped with a
dozen charges in connection
with the November 2008
attack in which 166 people were
killed while Headley, a
Pakistani-American and a star
prosecution witness, has plead-
ed guilty.
Headley told the court that
his Lashkar handler Sajid Mir
was in Karachi during the
Mumbai attack. Sajid Mir told
Headley that a couple of people
were with him.
Sajid Mir was in contact with the attackers via phone and
he was watching television coverage of the siege, he said.
Sajid Mir was praised by Rana for his Chabad House
attack strategy and even called him Khalid bin Walid, one
of the greatest generals in history, Headley testified.
About the operation at the Jewish center Chabad House
in Mumbai, Headley said Sajid Mir told the two terrorists
to use mattresses and ambush the special forces who were
descending down the staircases. Six people were killed in
the attack on Chabad house.
According to Headley, Rana said this strategy was tacti-
Pasha, left, and Sajid Mir, Headley’s ISI/Lashkar handlers
cally brilliant and that he be called Khalid bin Walid, a
famous Arab military strategist during the time of Prophet
Mohammad in the 7th century.
Headley said he told Sajid Mir that he has received a
compliment from Rana for his ‘tactical brilliance.’
Before he took the last trip to Mumbai for surveillance
ahead of the attacks, Headley said, Rana sent a message for
Headley from Major Iqbal, Headley’s Inter Services
Intelligence handler.
Headley also said Sajid Mir expressed frustration that
Headley did not follow all his instructions. ‘I was not sup-
posed to go back to India after
the Mumbai attack and travel
to Denmark,’ Headley said.
— Press Trust of India
;Page A9
‘ISI did provide me training’
eral prosecutors in the documents to the
court, which have been unsealed.
— Press Trust of India
