Omar Sheikh, Ilyas Kashmiri, David Headley, Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi, Bahaziq, 26/11, 9/11, LeT, ISI

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The inter-connections are so intricate that it will become almost impossible to state where ISI ends and where global terrorism begins.

Lets start with one point – the Mumbai attacks and then work back as well as front from that point out and draw logical inferences along the way.

26/11 – One terrorist was caught alive that gave India the first real face of terror brewing in its own backyard and the enormous tentacles that it has spawned within India itself. Brigade 313 of Ilyas Kashmiri (which is itself a part of Al – Qaeda’s Laskhar al Zil) and Lashar e Taiba (LeT) were in control of the operations. Hafeez Saeed and Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi provided the boys, facilities and religious indoctrination. The training and strategy came mainly from Ilyas Kashmiri – former Pakistani SSG commando.

I can safely say that my blog was the first off the blocks when on 27/11 – the next day after 26/11 – broke the SSG connection to the Mumbai attacks. My first lines were : “This was a classic commando raid replete with beach landing et al. It had all the markings of a thorough Pakistani SSG trained operation – which makes it a Pakistani Army action.

It has been a well thought of strategy of Pakistan Army to embed the Taliban and terrorist organizations like Lashkar e Taiyyba, Jaish e Mohammad, Lashkar e Jahagvi with its own soldiers and commandos. These army recruits blend in with Taliban and terror organizations, deemed to have gone "native", maybe without the knowledge of Taliban / terror organizations who are just happy to have received high class "recruits".

Pakistan Army, through ISI, now draws back its own cadres from Taliban and these terror organizations for special operations around the globe. For Mumbai attacks, Lashkar e Taiyyba was chosen - but the actual foot soldiers were ex-army soldiers including SSG commandos (leading the charge) already embedded in these organizations - as well as a few battle hardened fidayeen terrorists. These LeT "terrorists" were given rigourous training by either current or ex-SSG commando trainers (sufficiently bearded to evade detect) who will probably be known as Gen Saab or Gen Mohd (aka John Doe)."

(I did not know Ilyas Kashmiri would fit this to the T at that point)

New York Times on 19th October - at least a main stream US media now coming to terms with this factor - Pakistan military and its role in terrorism. "Ex-Military Officer in Pakistan Is Linked to 2 Chicago Terrorism Suspects"

People in the West have amnesia to article like these ones in Times Online:

1) Taliban leader killed by SAS was Pakistan officer

2) PAKISTAN is allowing Taliban fighters wounded in battles with British and other Nato forces in Afghanistan to be treated at safe houses.

Point 1: 26/11 was executed by Brigade 313 and LeT. At this stage we will not get into the detail that there were people behind Brigade 313 and LeT at this stage, rather stick to what is logical and already proven.

Fast forward to November 2009 – 12 months hence. Two Lashkar operatives are captured in US – David Coleman Headley (Daood Gilani) and Tahawwur Hussain Rana – both of Pakistani origin. The role played by the duo, specially David in spotting 26/11 targets is well documented. The handler of Headley was none other than Ilyas Kashmiri.

Pont 2: 26/11 spotter and conspirator was handled by Ilyas Kashmiri.



Step back in time to India winter 1994: As reported in Indian Express- In late 1994, a milkman knocked on the door of a Ghaziabad house. As the door opened, he noticed men with guns inside, but he still delivered the milk. He then tipped off the police who raided the place and rescued several foreign hostages being held by a group of terrorists, seeking the release of some arrested militant leaders including Maulana Masood Azhar. Azhar had been arrested in February that year.

When the police reached there, the commander of the terrorist group that called itself Al-Hadid — essentially it was a Harkat-ul Ansar-Harkat-ul Jihad-al-Islami operation — had just stepped out with his trusted lieutenant Omar Saeed Sheikh. The police confronted them as they returned and, in the gunbattle that ensued, Sheikh was injured and arrested but the commander escaped. He was none other than Ilyas Kashmiri.

Point 3: Sh Omar Saeed – the 9/11 conspirator who allegedly wired money to Md Atta too was handled by Ilyas Kashmiri.
MUST READ: BEFORE THE NEXT 9/11 PAY THE SENATORS OFF

Omar Saeed Sheikh was imprisoned in India for kidnapping Westerners. While there, he met Aftab Ansari, another prisoner, an Indian gangster who was released from prison near the end of 1999. Saeed also met another prisoner named Asif Raza Khan, who was also released in 1999.

On being released at the Kandahar hostage exchange, Omar lived with Jaish e Md before going to an ISI safe house in Pakistan where he moved around with impunity. That he traveled to UK twice and was not detained is also open to questions about the complicity of UK intelligence with Omar Sheikh. In Pakistan, Omar works with Ijaz Shah, a former ISI official in charge of handling two militant groups; Lt. Gen. Mohammed Aziz Khan, former deputy chief of the ISI in charge of relations with Jaish-e-Mohammed; and Brigadier Abdullah, a former ISI officer. He is well known to other senior ISI officers.

(What is the role of Aziz Khan and Brigadier Abdullah in 26/11? Is he (Brigadier Abdullah) the Brigadier sahab - Qasav mentions?? )

In 2002, French author Bernard-Henri Levy was presented evidence by government officials in New Delhi, India, on Saeed Sheikh making repeated calls to ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed during the summer of 2000. Later, Levy got unofficial confirmation from sources in Washington regarding these calls that the information he was given in India was correct. He noted that someone in the United Arab Emirates using a variety of aliases sends Mohamed Atta slightly over $100,000 between June and September of this year and the timing of these phone calls and the money transfers may have been the source of news reports that Mahmood Ahmed ordered Saeed Sheikh to send $100,000 to Mohamed Atta.

Now just recall the names of two prisoners who befriended Omar – they were Aftab Ansari and Asif Reza Khan. Both played a crucial role to finance the 9/11 attacks in the USA.

Amir Reza Khan, commander of the Asif Reza Commando Force (ARCF), a little known group which was involved in the 2002 attack on the US consulate in Kolkata, West Bengal. Reza, like Rahman, is today in Pakistan. Amir Reza is wanted for the Partho Roy Burman abduction case (July 2001) in which a part of the ransom money, $100,000, was wired to the 9/11 leader Mohammad Atta via Aftab Ansari and Syed Omar Sheikh. The role of the then ISI Chief, Lt. General Mahmud, was also exposed in facilitating the money transfer. Reza is also involved in creating Indian Mujahideen (IM), the new terrorist group which carried a series of attacks in India in 2008.

The role of Ilyas Kashmiri is somehow MISSING from the 9/11 planning – there is no way his footprints will be missing. If anything – he could very well have MASTERMINDED the 9/11 together with ISI. (NOTE : Before 9/11 Pakistan was a bankrupt nation and going down, and after 9/11 it was lavished with money and is being continued to be feted. In inner circles, Al-Qaeda is known as Al-Faeda - faeda in URDU means BENEFIT)

Point 4: Ilyas Kashmiri’s point man Omar Saeed was neck deep in financing the 9/11 as was the Pakistan intelligence wing the ISI. What is defeaning by its silence – is the role of Ilyas Kashmiri in 9/11. It is a matter of time before someone unearths the all important link.

Fast forward to present: As reported in Observer Group research DECODING THE HEADLEY RANA CASE : Within days of the Rana-Headley arrests, the Bangladesh security agencies arrested three LeT operatives from Dhaka--Mufti Harun Izahar, son of Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ) leader Mufti Izaharul Islam, Shahidul Islam and Al Amin alias Saiful. All three had regular conversations with David Headley, LeT chief Hafiz Saeed and LeT’s Bangladesh coordinator, Sheikh Abdur Rehman.

Harun, who also ran an Islamic kindergarten school in Chittagong, said Hafiz Saeed spoke to him on the mobile and asked him to target the US embassy in Dhaka. He said Saeed spoke to him in Arabic and gave him specific instructions on how to carry out the attack. Harun had recently visited Pakistan. For the attack, Harun and his associates got 600,000 takas from LeT’s chief financial officer, Indian-born Saudi national Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq. Bahaziq, who recruited Dawood Ibrahim and Azzam Ghauri to LeT, is a close associate of Hafiz Saeed. Ghauri was one of the first LeT commanders in India, and a partner of Abdul Karim Tunda, who became the operational commander of the terrorist group in Bangladesh. Ghauri was killed in an encounter in 2000.

Following the arrest of Harun and his two aides, the Bangladesh police arrested three more LeT operatives subsequently. The police suspect that there were at least 20 more, both Bangladeshi and Indian nationals, who could be involved in the foiled terrorist plot. Some of them are from Kerala and other South Indian states and work primarily in the textile sector.

Harun and his aides were not an independent LeT cell but only part of a larger network which was being strengthened for quite sometime. The first inkling of such a network, incidentally, came when two key LeT leaders were arrested in Bangladesh in July this year--Maulana Mohammad Mansur Ali alias Maulana Habibullah and Mufti Sheikh Obaidullah. Ali is a Afghan Jihad veteran. Both worked closely with HuJI in Bangladesh, training several Indian and Bangladeshi nationals in weapons and explosives.

Two intriguing links can be found in the dossier which project the trans-national nature of LeT’s expansion in Asia for the past several years. One is that both Habibullah and Obaidullah were arrested on the basis of information provided by two aides of Dawood Ibrahim, Zahid Sheikh and Dawood Merchant, arrested in Dhaka earlier. Sheikh said there were about 150-paid D-company men in Bangladesh and their associates included former ministers, senior police officials and top businessmen. LeT operations in Bangladesh, incidentally, draw large funding from some top businessmen dealing in pharmaceuticals.

Both Habibullah and Obaidullah drew a month salary of 7000 takas from Sheikh Abdur Rahman, LeT’s commander for Bangladesh based in Pakistan. Rahman has since been arrested in Pakistan but strangely enough, there is no word on it in the Pakistan media. Rahman had also bankrolled Maulana Harun who was working with David Headley to carry out terrorist attacks. Hardly any detail about Rahman is known. There are two Abdur Rahmans in the LeT hierarchy--one is Mufti Abdur Rahman Hafiz, one of the teachers at Muridke, and another is Abdur Rahman Makki, in charge of LeT’s external affairs, and brother-in-law of Hafiz Saeed. Makki, a fierce proponent of suicide terrorism, has been in charge of organising LeT’s networks in Asia and Europe.

Point 5: The top LeT financier in Saudi, Bahaziq is known to be a Saudi intelligence proxy who has embedded himself in the LeT and this relationship is used by the CIA. And Dick Cheney used Dawood Ibrahim’s connection in Paskitan to lavish the Afghan mujahideen that were close to Cheney’s sphere of influence. This role of the US with LeT is (albeit an arm of US intelligence) is most intriguing as well as disturbing. As is the connection of British intelligence with Omar Sheikh.

The curious case of Musharraf and death threats to him and also Musharraf and Osama.

Musharraf was a blue eyed boy of Gen Zia ul Haq who Islamized the Pakistan army was single handedly destroyed democratic institutions in the country. He favoured Musharraf as he was aware of his religious zeal and his connections to the Deoband school of Islam. Musharraf, who was asked by Zia-ul-Haq to control the situation, brutally suppressed the Shia revolt with the help of Osama bin Laden and his Sunni tribal hordes brought in from the NWFP.

NOTE THE IMPORTANT CONNECTION BETWEEN MUSHARRAF AND OSAMA BIN LADEN AS MENTIONED ABOVE.




SOUTH ASIA ANALYSIS reports: In its issue of May,1990, "Herald", the monthly journal of the "Dawn" group of publications of Karachi, wrote as follows: " In May,1988, low-intensity political rivalry and sectarian tension ignited into full-scale carnage as thousands of armed tribesmen from outside Gilgit district invaded Gilgit along the Karakoram Highway. Nobody stopped them. They destroyed crops and houses, lynched and burnt people to death in the villages around Gilgit town. The number of dead and injured was put in the hundreds. But numbers alone tell nothing of the savagery of the invading hordes and the chilling impact it has left on these peaceful valleys."

Gen. Musharraf started a policy of bringing in Punjabis and Pakhtoons from outside and settling them down in Gilgit and Baltistan in order to reduce the Kashmiri Shias to a minority in their traditional land and this is continuing till today.

Point 6: Musharraf and Bin Laden jointly undertook military operations to ethnically cleanse the Shias in Gilgit.

Ilyas Kashmiri who beheaded an Indian soldier was gifted Pakistan Rs 100,000 for this deed by none other than President Musharraf. READ: BRIGADE 313

Point 7. Musharraf paid bounty to Ilyas Kashmiri.

Yet, somewhere along the way both Ilyas Kashmiri and his protégé Omar Sheikh wanted to kill Musharraf. The plan to kill Musharraf was foiled, ostensibly once when RAW tipped Musharraf off. The plot of kill Kiyani was shot down by Al – Qaeda high command much to the consternation of Ilyas Kashmiri.

But what takes the cake is this: Long war journal reports - From prison, Omar called Musharraf on his personal cell phone in mid-November and threatened his life. "I am after you, get ready to die," Omar reportedly told Musharraf. The plan was to ambush Musharraf's convoy as he traveled between Army House in Rawalpindi and his farm outside of Islamabad or to blow up a bridge as he traveled to the airport.

The report also points out interestingly: Omar also phoned retired Major General Faisal Alavi, the former commander of Pakistan's Special Service Group, just days before he was killed on Nov. 22.

Point 8: Both Ilyas Kashmiri and Omar Sheikh turned against Musharraf. Perhaps the storming of the Lal Masjid was the last straw - but no doubt Musharraf was neck deep in with Al Qaeda.

Bottom line : The connection between Pakistan Army, ISI, LeT, Al Qaeda is very fused. The Taliban are the special ops regiment of Pakistan Army against any (so called) misadventure by Indian Army. CIA is deeply engaged with ISI in the opium trade and powerful people in both these agencies are making serious money in this global economic meltdown. India is hedging its bets and finds itself sandwiched in the Great Game rapidly unfolding in the Central Asian Regions.

The CIA and ISI used Taliban and Al Qaeda extensively to counter Russia in both central Asia and even in Europe. Now that part of US has fallen out with Al - Qaeda does not mean that Pakistan has to cut its strategic roots with Al-Qaeda and even the Taliban. This has to be understood.

The US (non-rogue CIA elements) has created a counter terrorism cell within the ISI. This cell is completely segregated from the ISI top hierarchy and works in closest of co-ordination with FBI & CIA. Whenever Taliban or Al-Qaeda detainees are questioned, the ISI officers have headphones and an IP camera which beams the images and audio to the FBI / CIA stations and also simultaneous translations (if need be). The questions of FBI / CIA authorities are simultaneously aired through the headphones of the local ISI interrogator. Such is the co-ordination that several top rung ISI officers and Army officials have deep reservations - and bang, comes the attack on ISI offices in Peshawar.

Musharraf is cooling his heels in UK – the same country that headquarters the Islamic Caliphate war mongers – Hizbut tahrir. In an earlier article showcasing the British role in promoting Islamic groups in its soil I wrote: "I have been saying it ad nauseum that Hizb ut Tahrir is a UK run agency – much like Dobermann Pinschers on a leash kept in an idyllic British countryside castle, about to be unleashed by their UK masters as and when deemed necessary. " READ: HIZB-UT TAHRIR PLOTS BLOODLESS COUP IN PAKISTAN - THE LARGER PICTURE AND THE BRITISH ROLE.

The story gets murkier when one reads that UK smuggled opium out of China to make money, probably the same is being done by CIA in collusion with ISI and Dawood Ibrahim in Afghanistan. (READ: UK WAS THE BIGGEST DRUG RUNNER IN 19TH CENTURY)

That the biggest druglord in Afghanistan happens to be Hamid Karzai’s brother and is a CIA asset is a story known to all, but recently broken in mainstream New York Times too. (READ: BROTHER OF AFGHAN LEADER SAID TO BE PAID BY CIA)

The Indian Intelligence will tell you – they know it all. Great. So, what do you do with the knowledge – where is the action? A person like Headley can come in India, set up business, lay undetected for years, run the 26/11 ops out of Pakistan and then safely fly into his nest in Chicago.

If Indian intelligence had balls – I would have seen three incidents –

1) Omar Skeikh killed in UK when he visited his parents after the Kandahar hijack,
2) Dawood Ibrahim along with its inmates blown to smithereens in an apparent truck bombing – "supposedly" done by a rival gang in Karachi. and
3) Flooding Pakistan with fake Paksitani currency

And isn’t it intriguing that Indian intelligence officers had to turn their tails and return empty handed from the US – not even being given a peek at Headley and Rana? Guess, the US is using its old tricks to arm twist Pakistan to deliver more and keeping Indians off the duo is part of the bargain. However, this is just a short term solution. India will probably get to voice match Headley as one of the 26/11 voices from Pakistan.