Posted on 12/02/2008 12:00:25 PM PST by MyTwoCopperCoins
NEW DELHI: The Mumbai terror attacks were originally planned for September 27 but Lashkar mastermind Zakiur Rahman suddenly aborted the plot, arrested terrorist Ajmal Amir has told his interrogators.
He also said that Abu Hamza, the Lashkar jihadi who carried out the attack on Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, had, citing his own example, reassured that the gang would get away after the strike on Mumbai.
Five IM members were arrested in Mumbai on September 24 in the aftermath of the Delhi blasts and the Lashkar bosses and their ISI handlers thought the operation might fail in the face of heightened police vigil, Ajmal said.
Ajmal's interrogation report says that the terrorists were instructed by Zakiur (47) and his deputy Kafa (30) to carry out the attacks in Mumbai on the 27th day of Ramzan, which was on September 27, but the plan changed after several IM members were rounded up in various parts of the country.
The disclosure by the arrested terrorist may appear to tie in with the intelligence alert sounded by RAW on September 18 about a possible attempt by Lashkar to attack Mumbai by the sea route.
Because of the changed plan, the gang set out for Mumbai on November 23 on board the Lashkar ship, Al Hussaini. According to Ajmal, all members of the crew were jihadis.
The 10 terrorists, after finishing their training, were instructed by their bosses to assemble at Karachi where they stayed for over two months before leaving for Mumbai.
"Ajmal told us that they were not allowed to read newspapers and watch TV during the time they stayed in Karachi and were given some magazines which were translated from Urdu to Hindi to sharpen their Hindi," said a source.
The cops also found a fake college ID card from Ajmal with his photograph and name as Samir Chaudhary. The card was reportedly issued from Arunodaya PG college in Bangalore. Cops said that Ismail, the terrorist gunned down at Chowpatty, also carried a fake ID in the name of Naresh Verma.
The Bangalore connection takes on significance because of the revelation by Ajmal about Abu Hamza's complicity in the jihadi plot against Mumbai.
Ajmal told his interrogators that Ismail (25) had guided the hijacked fishing trawler, Kuber, after killing the captain Amarsinh Solanki and brought it to Mumbai with the help of a GPS navigation map. He also said that the killer squad of 10 was accompanied by five others on the Lashkar ship Al Husseini. The five returned after taking control of Kuber and its crew members.
Ajmal said the men told Ismail that they had killed the "bakras" (referring to the four crew members of Kuber) and asked him to kill Solanki later.
Ajmal's interrogation report said he strayed into terrorism from a career as a petty criminal. Coming from an extremely poor family and having had a troubled childhood, he joined a Lashkar camp after seeing their pamphlets and discovered that he had found his calling. He went through the LeT's rigorous training programmes and finally found himself on the boat to Mumbai.
"Ajmal is the third of five siblings. His father Mohammad Amir pulls a cart in Faridkot near Multan while his elder brother Afzal stays in Lahore and works as a labourer. His mother Noor Elahi is a housewife and his elder sister is married. A younger sister and a brother stay in Faridkot with the parents," an officer of Mumbai's ATS said.
Due to poverty, Ajmal left his house in 2005 and move to Lahore. Cops said that his family was given Rs 1.50 lakh after he was roped into terrorism.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/We_were_reassured_of_escape_after_the_attack_Kasav/articleshow/3785601.cms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l6eKHI4APg
Grainy cell-phone video obtained exclusively by CBS News allegedly shows police beating the only suspect to be caught alive in the Mumbai, India terror attacks.
bttt
$3,000 to kill 15 people (on average)? I'm sure they would have scraped up the $3,000 to pay him not to kill them.
I still don’t believe it was ten.
There were ten targets hit, maybe a thousand casualties in all, they kept thousands of soldiers and police tied down for three days. No way was it ten men.
Either the others did get away, faded into the chaos and disappeared, or there are some captured that are undergoing hard interrogations and will never see the light of day. They’ll give up what they know and then go to an unmarked grave.
Ten guys seems unlikely to me too.
For one thing, it is possible for 10 guys to carry all the ammo they must have expended in 2.5 days of fighting?
Supposedly they had rooms at the hotel with weapons and ammo prepositioned and stockpiled. So someone had to do all that in the days ahead, and those “someones” were already in the city before the triggermen came off the boat.
And apparently they had people working at the hotel as employees.
And someone not part of the fighting was apparently monitoring news coverage and coordinating the various teams. This was a big operation.
There is a strong possibility of supplies and aid being pre planted by local Muslims or other infiltrators before hand. Also Indians did a poss poor job of locking down the areas of conflict as there would be 500+ crowds of people standing around to see whats up. Any one of them could have been talking to the gunmen and giving them a heads up on police movements.
Interesting that we don’t read about any bleeding hearts in India concerned about the “quality” of the interrogation.
re: No way was it ten men.
We had an incident here in Tampa a month or so ago where a jilted lover took someone hostage and sat in a lawn chair by his van for over 12 hours during which time one of Tampa’s main north-south traffic arteries was closed. Well over 100 police responded to the threat, all wearing full combat gear and blocking off all travel within a large area surrounding the scene. TV had pictures of the guy sitting in his lawn chair chatting on his cell phone with various people, all the while more and more police were responding to the scene. It was ludicrous. It’s like we’ve lost our ability to use any semblance of common sense.
And this guy wasn’t even a terrorist. He was hurting over a love gone bad. Even so, he managed to do what terrorists want in every situation and that’s to inconvenience as many people as possible. If they can bluff their way into shutting down a major airport or delaying flights over an entire region then all the better they feel.
I have no doubt 10 men who are heavily armed and have already killed dozens of people could easily tie up the entire police resources of a typical city. Let it be going on in a dozen or so locations at the same time and no city has the resources to deal with it.
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