26/11: US charges four Pakistanis
India Blooms News ServiceChicago, Apr 26 (IBNS) Four Pakistani men were charged by US prosecutors in connection with the 26/11 on Tuesday.
The four men- Sajid Mir, Abu Qahafa, Mazhar Iqbal and Major Iqbal-have been indicted for murdering Americans in India, said reports.
The indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago also accused the four people of conspiracy to murder and maim and providing material support to terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
The Mumbai Terror Attacks on Nov 26, 2008 killed 166 people, including six US citizens.
This Washington Post article has information on Sajid Mir, a leading member of Lashkar-e-taiba:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/13/AR2010111304907.html?hpid=topnews
On the trail of Pakistani terror group's elusive mastermind behind the Mumbai siege
Sunday, November 14, 2010; 12:59 AM
On a November night two years ago, a young American rabbi and his pregnant wife finished dinner at their home in the mega-city of Mumbai.
Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg had come to India on a religious mission. They had established India's first outpost of Chabad Lubavitch, the Orthodox Jewish organization, in a six-story tower overlooking a shantytown. The Holtzbergs' guests that evening were two American rabbis, an Israeli grandmother and a Mexican tourist.
Hundreds of miles away in Pakistan, a terrorist chief named Sajid Mir was preparing a different sort of religious mission. Mir had spent two years using a Pakistani-American operative named David Coleman Headley to conduct meticulous reconnaissance on Mumbai, according to investigators and court documents. He had selected iconic targets and the Chabad House, a seemingly obscure choice, but one that ensured that Jews and Americans would be casualties.
On Nov. 26, 2008, Mir sat among militant chiefs in a Pakistani safe house tracking an attack team as its dinghy approached the Mumbai waterfront. The Lashkar-i-Taiba terrorist group had made Mir the project manager of its biggest strike ever, the crowning achievement of his career as a holy warrior.
The 10 gunmen split into five teams. His voice crisp and steady, Mir directed the slaughter by phone, relaying detailed instructions to his fighters. About 10:25 p.m., gunmen stormed the Chabad House. They shot the Holtzbergs and the visiting rabbis, took the Israeli grandmother and Mexican tourist hostage and barricaded themselves on an upper floor.
Mir told his men to try to trade the hostages for a gunman who had been captured. Mir spoke directly to the Mexican hostage, 50-year-old Norma Rabinovich, who had been preparing to move to Israel to join her adult children.
Mir soothed the sobbing woman in accented but smooth English.
"Save your energy for good days," Mir told her during the call intercepted by Indian intelligence. "If they contact right now, maybe you gonna, you know, celebrate your Sabbath with your family."
The prisoner swap failed. Mir ordered the gunman to "get rid" of Rabinovich.
"Stand her up on this side of your door," he said. "Shoot her such that the bullet goes right through her head and out the other side . . . Do it. I'm listening. . . . Do it, in God's name."
The three-day siege of Mumbai left 166 dead and 308 wounded. Twenty-six of the dead were foreigners, including six Americans. The attacks inflamed tension between Pakistan and India at a time when the nuclear-armed foes were trying to improve their relationship. The repercussions complicated the U.S. battle against Islamic extremism in South Asia and thrust Lashkar into the global spotlight.
Two years later, Mir and his victims are at the center of a wrenching national security dilemma confronting the Obama administration. The question, simply put, is whether the larger interests of the United States in maintaining good relations with Pakistan will permit Mir and other suspects to get away with one of the most devastating terrorist attacks in recent history.
The Washington Post article continues at the above link.
No comments:
Post a Comment