On Monday, Feb. 9, FIA, which conducted the investigation under Mr. Malik, said it needed more information from India to take its investigations further. What was the radical thing that happened between Feb. 9 and Feb. 12 that made Mr. Malik not only accept Indian claims but also issue a lot of statements which in some places directly contradict the Indian dossier like the issue of the dinghies? And also contradict FIA’s own earlier findings that a conspiracy was hatched somewhere outside Pakistan? Even the Cabinet’s Defense committee in its last meeting on Feb. 9 urged India to answer all the relevant questions raised by Pakistani investigations. There was no hint in all of these statements that, come weekend, Pakistan will accept the entire set of Indian allegations without any supporting evidence.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—On Feb. 12, Pakistan’s de facto Interior Minister Rehman Malik had claimed in a press conference that Mumbai attacks were partially planned in Pakistan. There are many points that need to be made clear to understand if it was the right time to unveil the half-baked and incomplete Pakistani investigations. It is also time to assess the implications of Mr. Malik’s ‘admission’ of guilt.

The text in black below is an actual quote from Mr. Malik’s press conference as reported by the New York Times in its report posted at this link http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/world/asia/13pstan.html .

The text in red is our comment based on factual errors and contradictory information provided by Mr. Malik’s investigations. At the end of this report, it will become clear how Mr. Malik and his patrons in the government in Islamabad misled the entire Pakistani nation and adopted a course of action to oblige this government’s patrons and protectors in Washington D.C.

MALIK’S CLAIM: Mr. Malik said investigators had identified three boats used in the attack. “The boats that were used by the terrorists to reach Mumbai are under our possession.” Rehman said. Malik said three boats were used by the attackers, one of which was refueled in the Indian state of Gujarat; and that two houses in the sprawling port city of Karachi had been ‘identified’.

OUR REBUTTAL: When and how these boats were handed over to Pakistan if terrorists went to Mumbai on these and what about the Indian claims that Pakistani terrorist came via a hijacked Indian trawler and that the Indians had also found a dead captain/sailor on board along. (Refer to the widely publicized Indian ‘dossier’.)

MALIK: Mr. Malik said on Thursday that Pakistani authorities have not yet ascertained the identities of the other nine attackers because information provided by India was vague. “We have requested more information from India,” he said.

REBUTTAL: If there is no evidence about the other nine terrorists killed in Mumbai then on what basis has Mr. Malik registered a case against the other 5 persons along with Ajmal Kasab. Why Pakistani investigators are following the same hasty way to conclude it without properly looking into all angles and possibilities, when there are enough reasons and questions that necessitate this?

MALIK: He said Pakistan was pressing India to provide DNA profiles of all the 10 attackers. Pakistan had given Indian officials a list of 30 questions to which investigators were seeking answers, including some relating to the records of conversations between the attackers and their handlers.

REBUTTAL: So if there are 30 questions still out there, how did Rehman Malik conclude that some part of the Mumbai attack was planned in Pakistan? Why he was in such a hurry to do a press conference if there are 30 questions yet to be answered? Why is he expecting the Indians to give correct answers? Without DNA reports how investigators had come to the conclusion that all those involved in Mumbai were Pakistanis.

MALIK: Sketching the international profile of the attackers’ communications, he said cell phone SIM cards were bought in Austria while calls over the Internet, using a server in Texas, were paid for in Barcelona, Spain.

REBUTTAL: If this version is true, this means that Lashkar-e- Taiba became more resourceful after being banned in Pakistan in 2002 than it was before the ban, and now it can operate globally and no one including CIA, FBI, MI6, RAW and ISI noticed it before the Mumbai attacks. Will Mr. Malik throw some light on how he uncovered this alleged global terrorist network of LeT in just 37 days (India released the ‘evidence’ on Jan. 5). Or is it just an American desire to create a new monster of fear in the minds of the international public opinion in the shape of LeT now when Al-Qaeda is fading and more questions are being asked about Al-Qaeda’s links to CIA and Mossad?

MALIK: Rehman Malik said “One person named Javed Iqbal was living in Barcelona,” he said. “Don’t ask how I brought him to Pakistan. He was lured to come here.”

REBUTTAL: Why not Mr. Malik? It was a great work done by you. Pakistanis have all the right to learn how you lured that person to come to Pakistan and on what basis it was concluded that the person you lured was the real conspirator. Why you are not sharing this with nation?

MALIK: Mr. Malik identified another one of the conspirators held in Pakistan as Hammad Amin Sadiq, who, he said, had been traced through telephone records and bank transfers. “He was basically the main operator,” Mr. Malik said.

REBUTTAL: Here it gets absurd. On one hand it is said that the investigations were done on the basis of the Indian dossier but this name Hammad Amin Sadiq is appearing in this case for the first time. Another point is this: How was this Hammad Sadiq proven to be the main conspirator when the investigation is still short of answers to 30 questions that need to be answered by the Indians? Rehman Malik’s report looks more like the Iraqi WMDs report produced by the United States: concocted, half-baked, and motivated.

Confusion about SIM cards

and the facilitators:

The most questionable aspect of the information Mr. Rehman Malik provided to the Pakistani media is the confession that SIM cards used by Mumbai attackers were bought from Spain and Pakistani citizens have provided these.

An AFP news report quoted Rehman Malik as saying that “two controllers” who used the voice over Internet protocol – Mohammad Ashfaq and Javed Iqbal, who had been living in Barcelona before being repatriated – were also in custody. Mr. Malik named other countries, where he said the plotters had made payment transfers or where equipment used in the attacks was registered.

For example, he said, one telephone SIM card came from Austria, U.S. $ 238 were transferred from Spain to acquire a domain name — used for communication over the Internet — that was registered in Houston, Texas, and money was paid in Italy.

“Therefore we will be requesting through Interpol to (the) FBI to help us investigate it, because this is also a good piece of evidence,” he said.

Austria’s foreign ministry said Wednesday it had no evidence that the Mumbai attacks may have been planned in Austria, following media reports quoting Mr. Malik. Here it is important to remember that Hemant Karkare, the Mumbai police antiterrorism chief who busted Hindu terrorist militants penetrating Indian military, has served for seven in Austria as an operative of the Indian intelligence service, RAW. This means India maintains an intelligence presence in this European country and possibly human assets as well. This is one of the linkages with India that recur with unusual frequency in the Mumbai investigations. More come later in this report.

Another domain name used by the attackers was registered in Russia, and a satellite phone, registered in a Middle Eastern country was bought by someone “not based in Pakistan“, said Malik, giving no further details.” (AFP)

Interestingly, if Texas was also used by the attackers to facilitate the SIM card purchase then obviously the world class intelligence agency FBI should have had some information because FBI was the first investigation agency contacted by India to probe the Mumbai attacks. But it is not likely the case because Rehman Malik said “Therefore we will be requesting through Interpol to (the) FBI to help us investigate it, because this is also a good piece of evidence.” It means FBI had done no investigation at all into this, or had no knowledge about it. Mr. Rehman’s FIA, however, turned out to be better than FBI in this regard. This point raises questions about the role of the FBI as well, but that’s another story.

Besides, if the information given by Rehman Malik about SIM cards is true then what happened to the arrest of two Indians including one named Ahmed Mukhtar, an Indian RAW operative in Indian Held Kashmir, who was arrested by Indian police on charges of providing the SIM cards to the Mumbai attackers?

December 7, 2008, 1:41 am

One was a Police Constable

In a possible breakthrough in the Mumbai terror probe, two persons, a trader from Srinagar and another from Kolkata, were arrested for allegedly buying mobile SIM cards on fake IDs which were used by terrorists during the November 26 siege.

Mukhtar Ahmed Sheikh and Tauseef Rehman were arrested by the Kolkata police on Friday night. The two men are alleged to have supplied SIM cards to the group of 10 gunmen who attacked Mumbai last week, leaving around 200 people dead and more than 300 injured.

Mukhtar Ahmed is a Jammu & Kashmir police constable and was staying in Kolkata for the past few months, as per initial reports received. He was arrested from Delhi by the Kolkata police. At least 37 SIM cards were procured from Kolkata and adjacent areas and sent to Pakistan in the last two months, some of which security agencies believed were used during the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

The cards were purchased mainly from Park Street in Kolkata, Basirhat in North 24 Parganas district and Santoshpur in South 24 Parganas district. The owners of shops from where the SIMs were bought were detained for interrogation.

“The cards were purchased in lieu of some extra money. We suspect that this was to create a SIM card pool from which three were used in Mumbai attack,” the source said.

The Mumbai police have traced five SIM cards used in the Mumbai attack of which three were procured from West Bengal. Earlier reports suggested that the satellite phone recovered from the abandoned trawler Kuber contained crucial terrorist information.

Satellite phone had records of conversation between LeT Chief in Mujaffarabad and Yahya in Bangladesh. There were also reports that Yahya arranged fake IDs and SIM cards for Mumbai terror operation from Mauritius, US and UK. The cards were purchased mainly from Park Street in Kolkata, Basirhat in North 24 Parganas district and Santoshpur in South 24 Parganas district, the source said.

The owners of shops from where the SIMs were bought were detained for interrogation.

“The cards were purchased in lieu of some extra money. We suspect that this was to create a SIM card pool from which three were used in Mumbai attack,” the source said.

The Mumbai police have traced five SIM cards used in the Mumbai attack of which three were procured from West Bengal.

http://www.india.com/news/india/two_arrested_providing_sims_mumabai_attackers_1765

Now interestingly the above new reports clearly mentions the street address of the shops from where the SIM cards were purchased. If Rehman Malik’s claims are accepted, then what about the Indians arrested for providing the SIM cards to the Mumbai attackers?

Here is another report which says one of the arrested Indian citizens, Ahmed Mukhtar, is an undercover Indian agent in Held Kashmir:

From The Times

December 8, 2008

Mumbai terror suspect ‘was Indian undercover cop’

Rhys Blakely in Mumbai

India is grappling with the possibility that one of its own undercover operatives helped equip the Islamist extremists who attacked Mumbai, killing more than 170 people. Police in Indian-controlled Kashmir demanded the release of one of their undercover agents on Sunday after he was arrested by police in Delhi for allegedly supplying a mobile SIM card used by the Mumbai gunmen. Mukhtar Ahmed, 35, originally from Indian-controlled Kashmir, was detained on Friday in Delhi. He is being held with another man, Tauseef Rehman, 26, who was arrested in his home city of Calcutta on the same day. The detention of the two men, both now being held in Calcutta, had been hailed as a potentially key breakthrough in the Mumbai investigation. The operation turned sour, however, after police in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir’s summer capital, said that Ahmed worked for them, raising the possibility that an Indian agent aided the militants that committed India’s worse terror attack in 15 years. A senior officer in Srinagar, Kashmir’s summer capital, said Calcutta police were told that Ahmed is “our man and it’s now up to them how to facilitate his release”. He said that Ahmed was a Special Police Officer, part of a semi-official counterinsurgency network whose members are usually drawn from former militants. “Sometimes we use our men engaged in counter-insurgency ops to provide SIM cards to the [militant] outfits so that we track their plans down,” he said. A police spokesman in Calcutta told The Times that his force was investigating the claims. He said the arrests of the two men were the result of the “very neat” cooperation of India’s intelligence agencies. At stake now, however, is the perceived integrity of the Indian police: Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based terrorist faction that Indian officials believe is behind the Mumbai attacks, was formed to free Kashmir from Indian rule and has long infiltrated militants into the state. The arrests of the two men also provided the first indication that the Indian authorities, who have so far insisted that the Mumbai attacks were planned in and launched from Pakistan, believe the gunmen may have received help from inside India. It is alleged that both men were in Calcutta in October when Mr Rehman used a dead relative’s identification to buy several SIM cards, some of which were later used by the Mumbai terrorists. Mr Rehman gave or sold the SIM cards to Mr Ahmed, police allege. Both men have been charged with fraud and criminal conspiracy. A police spokesman in Calcutta emphasised, however, that it was not clear whether Mr Ahmed and Mr Rehman knew that the SIM cards would be used by terrorists. The Mumbai police said they recovered seven mobile phones, three global positioning system handsets and one satellite phone from the terrorists. Indian officials have claimed that the satellite phone was used to place calls to Pakistan. Meanwhile, Rakesh Maria, the police officer who is leading the investigation into the attacks in Mumbai, said that overseas agencies had not been allowed access to Kasab, the captured gunman. The Mumbai police have, however, passed DNA evidence from the gunman to the FBI. Suggestions that home-grown militants may have been involved in the Mumbai plot were ramped up last week when it emerged that Indian police arrested four Indian Muslims for alleged involvement in a planned attack on Mumbai as early as February. One of them, Faheem Ahmed Ansari, was carrying a fake Pakistani passport and a list and maps of nine targets in southern Mumbai, including the Taj Mahal hotel and other sites attacked last week, police said. The revelation appears to undermine India’s assertion that the attack on Mumbai last week, in which 171 people were killed, was planned and executed only by Pakistani members of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has links to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5302946.ece

On Monday, Feb. 9, FIA, which conducted the investigation under Mr. Malik, said it needed more information from India to take its investigations further. What was the radical thing that happened between Feb. 9 and Feb. 12 that made Mr. Malik not only accept Indian claims but also issue a lot of statements which in some places directly contradict the Indian dossier like the issue of the dinghies? And also contradict FIA’s own earlier findings that a conspiracy was hatched somewhere outside Pakistan? Even the Cabinet’s Defense committee in its last meeting on Feb. 9 urged India to answer all the relevant questions raised by Pakistani investigations. There was no hint in all of these statements that, come weekend, Pakistan will accept the entire set of Indian allegations without any supporting evidence.

The irony is that Mr. Rehman chose not to give India any time to respond to Pakistani questions and instead hurriedly called a press conference and prematurely revealed his findings as final.

The Holbrooke Connection?

Mr. Malik’s disclosures came on the final day of a visit to Pakistan by Richard C. Holbrooke, President Obama’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, who was scheduled to fly later to Kabul, the Afghan capital. The timing may, thus, have been intended to display Pakistani goodwill.

The question is: Why was Mr. Malik so anxious to get a ‘good-boy certificate’ from the U.S. envoy to Afghanistan? Instead he could have told Mr. Holbrook about the efforts made by Pakistan in investigating the matter and could have told the U.S. official about the loopholes in the Mumbai attacks story that India’s intelligence and security departments need to fill in. And why was Mr. Malik leaking information to Geo TV and Dawn TV two days before his press conference?

There are some reports according to which Zardari & Co. succumbed to fear that U.S. will cut aid package (meant for filling pockets of Mr. Zardari & Co. since this aid will not go to pay off the Pakistani military’s spending on this war because the U.S. has delaying these payments.)

The Zardari government can’t deny this. Read the following excerpts from a report of Time of India:

Mumbai attack: US, western pressure worked

13 Feb 2009, 0108 hrs IST, Indrani Bagchi, TNN

NEW DELHI: Why did Pakistan do a volteface on the Mumbai attacks? After flinging around disinformation for the past few weeks, tossing names from Austria to UK, US and Bangladesh, what possessed the government of Asif Ali Zardari to tread the straight and narrow?

It’s easy to detect the hand of US and western pressure, particularly as it came a day after US special envoy Richard Holbrooke exited Islamabad. Even if Mumbai was not discussed with Holbrooke, as Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi insisted, a phone call from US President Barack Obama to Zardari on Wednesday had an entirely different effect.

According to sources, Pakistan’s admission had a lot to do with its precarious finances and a threat of aid cut-off by the US which is trying to undercut its dependence on Islamabad for the success of the fight against Taliban. . http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Mumbai_attack_US_western_pressure_worked/articleshow/msid-4120445,curpg-2.cms

The Zardari-Gilani Feud

As it had been witnessed for last few months, the gulf between the policies of the elected PM and the unelected president are on two different streams.

The press conference by Rehman Malik and the statement by the Cabinet’s Defense Committee three days back are in sharply contrast with one another.

The same report from Times of Indian states:

“On Tuesday, the Pakistani defense committee of cabinet squashed any hopes of giving a response to the dossier to India by issuing a statement that the information from India was “insufficient” and they would revert with more questions. This was preceded by days of studied leaks from “government officials” who gave teaser-trailers about the dossier, designed to infuriate India. But to observers in India, it seems significant that the denials came from PM Yousuf Gilani’s office while the admissions have come from Zardari’s office. The simmering disaffection between Gilani and Zardari and the prevailing atmosphere of infighting within the Pakistani establishment could also be playing out in the Pakistani response. It is significant that the FIA is a civilian agency, while the ISI which is holding Lakhvi and Shah in `protective custody’ is a military outfit. Indian officials say that ISI has denied FIA access to the two masterminds. This could have impact in the coming days on Pakistan’s future responses.” http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Mumbai_attack_US_western_pressure_worked/articleshow/msid-4120445,curpg-2.cms

Indian Involvment in Mumbai Attacks:

Soon after Rehman Malik admitted role of Pakistanis in Mumbai attacks, the Indian police commissioner acknowledged that local Indians were also involved in the attacks.

‘Attackers had Indian links’

Friday, February 13, 2009

MUMBAI: For the first time, Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Ghafoor on Thursday admitted that the 10 terrorists who attacked Mumbai had “local support”. He said these supporters had been identified and were among the 16 wanted accused on the list given to Pakistan. The rest on the list are Pakistanis. “We have identified the local (Indian) supporters of the Mumbai attackers and their names have been submitted to the Pakistani government as wanted accused in our case,” Ghafoor said. He, however, refused to disclose how many locals were involved and their names. But in New Delhi, an Indian home ministry official said: “We’ll need to check with the Mumbai police on the statement.” The local supporters were from north India and had criminal records, said the police chief. The two Indian Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives — Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed —in police custody, are not on the list.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=20278

But as usual under pressure and fear of being proven guilty the Indians retracted from the above statement.

Another Indian dossier, another bluff

Interestingly after Rehman Malik’s press conference where he also revealed that a case has been registered against 8 Pakistanis, Indian media leaked stories planted by people within the Indian government about a new ‘dossier’ that India planned to send to Pakistan:

Indian police chief says another dossier sent to Islamabad:

Friday, February 13, 2009

NEW DELHI: Besides, the Indian police have sent another dossier to Pakistan, which includes the names of 16 people suspected of involvement in the Mumbai attacks, Mumbaiís police chief said on Thursday.“The dossier that we have sent about the evidence contains 16 names and it has been sent to Pakistan,” Hasan Ghafoor told AFP by telephone. “Out of those 16 names, 10 are the names of the one person in custody and the nine dead (gunmen), and the six others who are wanted by us in this crime,” he said, adding that those six were “of Pakistani origin”. http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=20277

Why has India suddenly come up with a new ‘dossier’ that includes 16 names? The answer has been given by none other than Mr. Malik himself. He has ‘admitted’ and confirmed that 10 terrorists from Pakistan are responsible for Mumbai, so India coincides this with a list of 16: 10 that Pakistan has owned and 6 additional.

Turning Tables on India

Although the confession by Rehman Malik appears damaging for Pakistan but it can be used to turn the table on India. To do this, we have to take advantage of what the Indian police commissioner has said about Indian involvement in Mumbai attacks and above all what Rehman Malik said in his press conference about the 30 questions sent to India.

Another lead is the linkage between Mumbai and Samjhota Express, where 69 Pakistanis were burned alive during a visit to India. Rehman Malik during the press conference said “One of the terrorists involved in the Samjhota Express attack was also involved in carrying out the Mumbai attacks.” Now on the basis of this statement the following questions have been sent to India by Pakistan for further information:

Questions raised in the Malik report:

1. Information about Indian government and military officials involved in Malay village [Malegaon] and Samjhota Express blasts in which Indian Muslims were targeted

2. Details on the deaths of Indian Anti-Terrorist Squad chief Hemant Karkare and two of his colleagues and their driver, who survived the attacks. Karkare uncovered the Indian military intelligence officers involved in killing the Pakistanis in Samjhota Express.

3. Details on Samjhota Express attack mastermind, Indian military intelligence Col. Prohit, who was arrested on November 5 by Karkare.

4. Information on a diamond trader from Indian Gujarat suspected of involvement in the Malay village blasts.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20092\13\story_13-2-2009_pg1_2

If any fair-minded person were to read into these questions, it becomes clear that all this Mumbai saga has more to do with India than Pakistan. It is more complex than what the Indians are selling to the world.

It is now India’s turn to provide answers to the above questions. Pakistan can exploit the situation in its favor by asking for access to all the accused arrested and involved in Samjhota Express and Malagaon blasts including Col. Prouhit (Remember that the Indian mainstream media reported that Co. Prouhit said during interrogations that he has links with Israeli intelligence officers and that he was working with their help on a plan to establish a fundamentalist Hindu state in India, as reported by Indian newspapers.)

Beware of Afghanistan-CIA-India’s attempt to make LeT a fear monster:

The concerned quarters have to keep their eyes and ears open to see the emerging scenario and to counter it well within time before it’s too late.

The timings of the press conference by Rehman Malik, the threats by TTP to LeT and Harkatul Mujahideen, the confession by Rehman Malik about involvement to LeT in Mumbai attacks and the allegation made by Afghan officials yesterday soon after Rehman’s confession, all are interlinked. Above all the timings of these events especially when Halbrook is visiting Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.

The suicide attack on Feb 13 in Afghanistan and the controversial statement by Afghan police official comparing the attack to Mumbai attacks is indeed a scary development.

It seems that now Afghanistan has also joined India, and CIA to implicate LeT for problems in Afghanistan.

Now we need to be very careful and need to keep and eye on all the internal elements that had joined hands with the outsiders to malign Pakistan and ISI. ISI has to work more closely with PM to put pressure on Zardari. Besides its time to ask for more equipment for manning the Pak-Afghan border. It will be more useful if Pakistan could succeed in convincing US for provision of drones instead of attacks.

This column has been edited for AhmedQuraishi.com and PakNationalists, extracted with permission from a situation report released by BRASSTACKS, a security and defense analysis think tank based in Islamabad. Mr. Zaid Hamid is its Founding Consultant and the author of this report. He can be reached at info@brasstacks.biz . You can also visit www.brasstacks.pk

pakalert.wordpress.com/2009/02/15/a-traitor-or-downright-idiot/