India's Intel team returns home after US snub

[deckingraj]

More news pouring in...

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Retired Major held for links with Headley

The retired Major was picked up after he was found to be in communication with the duo, the military spokesman said.

The Pakistan Army confirmed on Tuesday that a retired Major has been detained for suspected links with David Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, arrested last month in the United States for plotting a terror attack in Denmark.

Denying a report that serving officers were picked up in connection with the case that was being probed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Major-General Athar Abbas, the military spokesman, said only one retired Major was picked two months ago and was now being questioned by intelligence agencies.

Headley, a Pakistani whose original name was Daoud Gilani, and Rana were arrested by the FBI in Chicago in October for conspiring to kill an editor and a cartoonist of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which published 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.

The FBI also found that they were in communication with the Laskhar-e-Toiba in Pakistan. Indian officials are reported to be investigating if the two men, who travelled to India before last year’s Mumbai carnage, were involved in the planning of the attacks.

The retired Major was picked up after he was found to be in communication with the duo, the military spokesman said. He was now being “detained by intelligence agencies for further finding out about this communication”.

It is believed that the information that led to the retired Major’s arrest came from the FBI, but the spokesman said he could not confirm this.

The Major retired two years ago, Major-General Abbas told The Hindu, but declined to give any more details about him, and what his duties were when he was in service.

“After someone retires from the Army, he is a private citizen, and he is free to do what he likes,” the spokesman said, distancing the institution from the detained major.

The retired army official’s suspected links to Headley and Rana, both of whom are alleged by Indian officials to be LeT operatives, are bound to strengthen suspicions voiced by many analysts that sections within the Army remain supportive of and sympathetic towards the militant group.

Earlier, Associated Press said five Pakistani army officers, two of them serving lieutenant-colonels and one a retired brigadier, had been were detained for their links with Headley and Rana.

Major-General Abbas said the report was “completely incorrect,” and the only person detained was the retired Major.



The Hindu : News / International : Retired Major held for links with Headley

 

[deckingraj]

Some hope that we will get a hand to these people....

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India likely to gain access to Headley, Rana after indictment


India on Sunday indicated the possibility of gaining access to terror suspects David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Rana, both arrested by FBI, once they are “indicted” by the US.

“We hope to have an access once both are indicted,” Union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai told PTI when asked about Indian investigators’ chances of getting access to the arrested suspects, who planned a major terror plot to target the country at the behest of LeT.

Mr. Pillai, who was speaking on the sidelines of a function, said the investigations into the terror duo’s Indian trails will take another 3-4 weeks.

While Headley is a Pakistani-origin American national, Rana is a Pakistan-born Canadian citizen.

India is expected to get information about the plans and network of Headley and Rana next week when a high-level FBI team visits New Delhi with “all details” of their probe.

National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan had on Sunday said U.S. President Barack Obama informed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that he was seized of the case related to Headley and Rana.

During their meeting on Tuesday, Obama and Singh discussed the issue with an assurance by the former to send a high-level FBI team to India within a week with “all details”, Narayanan told journalists accompanying the Prime Minister on return home from his two-nation tour of US and Trinidad & Tobago.

The team is expected to give exhaustive details about the plans of Headley and Rana and their network in India.

“Let us see what information they share,” Mr. Narayanan said.

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article56917.ece

 

[deckingraj]

@ Mods - May be we should close this thread bacause far as snub goes here is the latest in this regard...

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FBI team in India with Headley information

A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) team arrived in India on a two-day visit with information on Pakistan-born suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Rana presently in US custody.

“Investigations are on in the matter. The FBI team is here and we have been assured of all cooperation from the US,” External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said on the sidelines of the India-Africa Hydrocarbon Conference here.

India hopes the FBI team will have key information about the two terror suspects, whose roles are being probed in last year’s Mumbai terror attack, which left over 170 people dead.

Headley and Rana had travelled to India extensively before the 26/11 attacks.

Indian intelligence agencies believe Headley was a missing link in the Mumbai attacks and had provided photographs, maps and other details to the 10 Lashkar terrorists who sailed into the city through Karachi.

The FBI had on October 3 arrested Headley, a Pakistani born national but settled in the US, for alleged links with an international terror network. Rana, a Canadian citizen and Headley’s accomplice, was arrested on October 18. Rana was living legally in Chicago, where he operated an immigration centre.

The two, according to the FBI charges, were scheming a terror attack on a Danish newspaper that had published blasphemous cartoons of Prophet Mohammed wearing a bomb as a turban.

According to investigators, they were working on behalf of the Pakistan-based LeT terror outfit and were planning new terror attacks in India.

The decision of the FBI to come to India follows intensive discussions between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President Barack Obama in Washington last month.

CIA chief Leon Panetta had disclosed the links of Headley-Rana to elements in Pakistan’s ISI when he met National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan in New Delhi in November.

The Hindu : News : FBI team in India with Headley information

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Conclusion : If this report is true then Indian investigators not able to lay their hands on these people in US was due to US law rather than a snub as suggested by many members

 

[manojb]

Chicago man accused of involvement in Mumbai attacks


The attacks in Mumbai were the result of extensive planning
US prosecutors have charged a Chicago man with involvement in the deadly Mumbai (Bombay) attacks of a year ago.
David Headley is said to have helped identify targets for the assaults which left 174 people dead, including nine gunmen.
He had already been accused with another man of plotting to attack a Danish newspaper over cartoons that caused outrage in the Muslim world.
Federal prosecutors said Mr Headley was co-operating with both investigations.
Mr Headley, who changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006, and Tahawwur Hussain Rana are charged with planning attacks on the Danish offices of the Jyllands-Posten, which in 2005 printed controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
US prosecutors said they had also unsealed charges against a retired Pakistani military major, Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, for participating in the conspiracy to attack the Danish newspaper and its employees.