13/7 Mumbai blasts case cracked

13/7 Mumbai blasts case cracked, 2 from Bihar arrested: ATS

Maharashtra ATS on Monday claimed to have made a major breakthrough in the July 13 triple blasts in the city last year that claimed 27 lives, with the arrest of two of the accused hailing from Bihar.

Naqi Ahmed Wasi Ahmed Sheikh (22) and Nadeem Akhtar Ashfaq Sheikh (23) were arrested on January 12 but the mastermind of the crime Yasin Bhatkal, a top Indian Mujahideen operative, and the planters of the IEDs used in the blasts are still evading arrest, Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Rakesh Maria told reporters.

Maria said while Naqi came to Mumbai in September 2010, Nadeem, his co-villager, from Bihar's Darbhanga district, was living in Antop Hill area of the city.

Naqi, according to Maria, came in touch with Ahmed Zarar Siddibappa alias Yasin Bhatkal alias Imran in 2008.

He said Nadeem was called to Delhi by Bhatkal and handed over a cloth packet containing the explosive and detonators used in the blast that was handed over to Naqi.

Naqi, he said, was given Rs 1.5 lakh by Bhatkal as commission for the crime in which at least Rs 10 lakh, received through hawala channels, was used. He said Naqi and Nadeem had stolen two Activa scooters that were used for carrying out the explosions. Two motorcycles also stolen by them and kept for future use have also been recovered from Bihar.

Rubbishing media reports that Naqi was innocent and that he was being tortured in police custody, Maria said he was aware of Bhatkal antecedents.

Naqi not only assisted Bhatkal in scouting for an apartment in Habib Building in Byculla but also paid the money for accommodation, the ATS chief said.

Maria said while Bhatkal and two others, who had planted the explosives and whose names he refused to divulge lest it would hamper investigations, were eluding the police dragnet, another accused in the case--Haroon Rashid Naik--had already been arrested by ATS in a counterfeit currency case.

Naik, he said, had been arrested in August last year and ATS would on Monday seek a transfer warrant for him from the court. "We need the custody of Naik from Mumbra for investigation of economic trail and conspiracy in the case," he said.

Maria trashed media reports that Bhatkal was in the city for several months after the blasts and that he was to visit the landlady of the Byculla apartment when he got the whiff of impending action by Mumbai police due to lack of coordination between Delhi police's special cell and Maharashtra ATS and escaped.

Spy agency 'planned' Mumbai attack

PAKISTAN government's spy agency was involved in planning the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, a US court has heard.

David Coleman Headley, a US-Pakistani who has already pleaded guilty to helping plan the massacre, told a Chicago court Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) supported the Kashmir-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba and ''co-ordinated'' with the banned militants in the lead-up to the attacks in India's largest city.

Headley's evidence compounds the embarrassment for Pakistan's military over a massive security failure on Sunday night when more than a dozen Taliban militants stormed a naval base in Karachi, killing 10 security personnel.

In November 2008, militants stormed Mumbai by boat, launching at least 10 co-ordinated attacks. They laid siege to the city for more than 60 hours, killing 166 people.

Headley was giving evidence in the trial of his childhood friend Tahawwur Rana, who is accused of helping him conduct surveillance ahead of the attacks, as well as aiding a plot to bomb a Danish newspaper for publishing cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

Rana has pleaded not guilty. Headley agreed to testify in exchange for prosecutors not seeking the death penalty.

Headley joined Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2001 and was taught hand-to-hand combat at training camps. He told the court Lashkar-e-Taiba and ISI regularly ''co-ordinated''. He said a ''navy frogman'' from Pakistan attended a planning meeting for the Mumbai attacks and he identified a co-defendant previously only known as ''Major Iqbal'' as a member of ISI.

''They co-ordinated with each other. The ISI provided assistance to Lashkar … financial and military,'' Headley said.

The possibility of ISI's involvement in the Mumbai attacks was raised in diplomatic cables sent from the US embassy shortly after the attacks, WikiLeaks has revealed. But Pakistan has rejected the allegations. ''ISI and serving officers did not provide support to David Headley, and ISI had nothing to do with the Mumbai attacks. David was a double agent, he is not a credible witness,'' a Pakistani embassy spokesman said in Washington.

In Karachi, the armed insurgents breached the supposedly secure military compound using only two ladders and held off troops in a gunfight for more than 17 hours, blowing up two P-3C Orion surveillance planes.

Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the militants apparently knew about a gap in the coverage of two security cameras, and chose that location to get inside.

Four militants died in the subsequent siege - three were shot and one blew himself up - and another two were believed to have escaped, he said.

Displaying pictures of the dead attackers, Mr Malik called on Pakistanis to unite against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

''I regret that some of us believe they are our friends and are praying for them. I appeal to the nation to consider who is the real enemy,'' he said.

Speculation continues over the fate of the Taliban's spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, who was reported killed in the country.

While Taliban spokesmen have dismissed the reports by an Afghan TV station yesterday as ''pure propaganda'', Mullah Omar, the de facto head of state of the Taliban's ''Islamic emirate'' in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, is, at least, missing.

US charges Pakistanis over Mumbai attack

Four newly-indicted figures are linked to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba that is blamed for the deadly raid.

Four Pakistanis have been charged as co-conspirators in the 2008 attack on Mumbai that killed 166 people, including six Americans, US prosecutors said in Chicago.

The four who were charged on Monday, had been previously mentioned, but not named, in indictments charging American David Headley and Tahawwur Rana, Pakistani-born Chicago businessman, with helping to identify targets in India's commercial capital.

Headley and Rana have also been charged in a plot to attack a Danish newspaper that was never carried out.

Headley pleaded guilty in March 2010 and is cooperating with US investigators about making several trips to India, and later to Denmark, to scout targets for the coordinated and deadly attack.

Rana has been held since his arrest in 2009 as a conspirator with Headley, and his US trial is scheduled to begin on May 16. His attorney was not immediately available for comment.

New indictments

All of the four newly-indicted figures are linked to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, the armed group that is blamed for the attack on Mumbai.

Those newly indicted were Sajid Mir, Abu Qahafa, Mazhar Iqbal, and a fourth defendant known only by the alias "Major Iqbal."

All four are believed to be in Pakistan.

They were charged with six counts of aiding and abetting the murder of US citizens.

Other charges related to the Mumbai attack included providing support to Lashkar-e-Taiba, identified as a terrorist organisation by the United States.

Mir was also charged in the plot against Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper after it published cartoons of Prophet Muhammad that enraged many Muslims and prompted protests.

Patrick Fitzgerald, US attorney in Chicago, had requested the superseding indictment handed up by a grand jury on April 21 charging the four to be sealed to give the government time to alert US agencies and consult foreign authorities.

The Mumbai attack strained already tense India-Pakistan relations.

India has said it is not satisfied with the pace of Pakistan's investigation, and has demanded more people be put on trial for the attack, including Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba.