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| India-Pakistan |
| Mumbai attack: US backs Indian proof of Pak hand |
| 2008-12-23 |
| NEW DELHI: The US has endorsed the evidence gathered by Indian agencies about the complicity of Pakistan's state actors in the terrorist attack on Mumbai, in what can result in stepped up international pressure on the Zardari regime to take action against the mentors of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Top US intelligence official John Michel McConell is learnt to have expressed complete satisfaction with the strength of India's case against Pakistan, based on FBI's examination of call records of satellite and cellular phones used by Mumbai attackers and their Pakistan-based handlers. McConell confirmed that one of the numbers logged on the satellite phone the terrorists used while navigating their way to Mumbai belonged to known Lashkar terrorist Abu Al Qama. Indian intelligence officials are familiar with the satellite phone that Qama uses. The US, using its leverage with Sharjah where Thuraya is headquartered, corroborated this fact, and also the fact that Qama was passing instructions to the attackers from Pakistani soil. India's case about the Pakistan hand has also been borne out by the data the Americans retrieved, using their superior technology, from the damaged mobile phones used by terrorists while they were carrying out the massacres in Taj and Trident hotels. The phones had got severely damaged in the fire that broke out during the gunfight. "We are committed to get to the bottom of this case," US officials are learnt to have told their Indian counterparts during their interaction spread over 48 hours. The Americans are planning to confront the Pakistanis, still in denial mode, with the evidence that their own investigation has thrown up. Sources said the UK has also passed on electronic intercepts, described by a senior source as "one clinching piece of evidence", to India. McConell, along with FBI officials who have been camping in India in connection with the probe into 26/11, has held meetings with home minister P Chidambaram, national security advisor M K Narayanan and senior Indian intelligence officials. Indian experience with the US intelligence agencies has so far not been satisfactory, with the latter winking at evidence against Pakistan because of its dependence on Islamabad for success in Afghanistan. Indian agencies, however, feel that the response could be different this time because of the fact that Mumbai casualties included US nationals. The FBI is mandated to take the probe to the logical culmination, which will include charging the names of Lashkar leaders and their collaborators in ISI that come up in the probe. |
| Posted by:john frum |