| Very long piece with much information, a fair bit we've read already, but a useful piece if you're new to the story. Big item of new news is how the perps planned and got into India. |
MUMBAI, Nov 30 - A sensational revelation has emerged from a terrorist caught alive by Indian troops: The attack on Mumbai's top hotels was meant to be India's Sept 11. Azam Amir Kasav - some reports have his name as Ajmal Amir Kasab - confessed that part of the plot called for him and his fellow terrorists to carry out a replay of the destruction of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel, in targeting Mumbai's Taj Mahal Hotel.
The Marriott was blown up by militants in September, an attack that killed more than 50 people.
According to a report in The Times of India, Azam said the attacks on the Taj and The Oberoi Trident were aimed to create a "Sept 11 in India", a reference to the coordinated attacks by Al-Qaeda on the United States in 2001. They involved the crashing of hijacked planes into the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon that left nearly 3,000 people dead.
| Azam and eight others in the team made a reconnaissance trip to Mumbai several months before the attacks, pretending to be Malaysian students. |
The confessions of the clean-shaven, fluent English-speaking 21-year-old Pakistani have given investigators a clearer picture of what had happened last Wednesday. Azam said he was member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, but the Kashmir- based Pakistani militant group has denied any role in the attacks.
Founded as a guerilla group to fight the Indian army in Kashmir, the group was banned by the Pakistani government after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks, but reportedly continues to enjoy the backing of some Pakistani politicians and security officials. |