There was considerable coverage in the press about U.S. army major, Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 and wounded 30 at Fort Hood on Nov 5, 2009. Hasan was an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent.
But we have heard very little about David Coleman Headley, another American-born Muslim of Pakistani descent, who is getting wide coverage in the press in India as being one of the chief planners of the Mumbai blasts. These blasts, which lasted from 26-29 November 2008, killed over 173 people and wounded over 308. There were 10 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks carried out by members of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), the Pakistan-based ¬ militant organization. LET is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., India and UK, but it appears to have support in the notorious ISI, the Pakistan Intelligence agency.
David Headley was born in June 1960 in Washington, D.C., to a Pakistani father and an American mother. His birth name was Daood Sayed Gilani. He spent his early childhood with his father in Pakistan and attended school there. His mother brought him to the U.S. in 1977. Headley is the half brother of Danyal Gilani, spokesman for Pakistan's prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani.
Headley was convicted of conspiracy to smuggle heroin into the U.S. from Pakistan in 1998, but spent only two years in jail. He then became an informant for the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and conducted undercover surveillance operations in Pakistan. It appears he also worked for the CIA. It is now known that he attended LET training camps in Pakistan in 2002 and 2003. He changed his name in 2006 to hide his Muslim identity so that he could make easy border crossings between the U.S. and other countries.
A federal grand jury in December 2009 cited Headley for providing support for terrorism plots in Denmark and India. And last week, four more persons were added to the list: a Chicago native and Canadian citizen Tahawwur Rana, Pakistan-based terrorist leader Ilyas Kashmiri, and a retired colonel in the Pakistani Army, Abdur Rahman Hashim Syed. The FBI is asking Pakistan to extradite the latter two to stand trial in the U.S.
India has also made a request to extradite Headley but has been informed that he will be tried and sentenced in the U.S. U.S. intelligence has also made it clear that it has no intention of providing India with information about Headley's past and his connection with the DEA and CIA.¬
How these individuals went about assisting the LET to carry out the Mumbai attacks is intriguing. According to the federal charges, in the spring of 2006 two LET members discussed with Headley the idea of setting up an immigration office in Mumbai as a cover to scout potential bombing targets. Headley, in June 2006, approached his schoolmate, Rana, in Chicago and told him about his assignment. Rana owned and operated First World Immigration Services and obtained documents to support Headley's opening of a First World office in Mumbai. He also advised Headley on how to obtain a multiple entry visa into India. In July 2006, LET provided Headley with $25,000 to establish and operate the Mumbai office.
Headley made five trips to Mumbai between Sept. 2006 and July 2008 using his association with First World as cover and taking photos and videos of potential targets. He continually met with the LET counterparts during the planning phase.¬
The attack in Denmark, in retaliation for publishing a cartoon of Prophet Mohammad in a newspaper, was to have come after Mumbai. In May 2009, Headley and Rehman met with Kashmiri in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area of Waziristan to discuss meeting with European contacts who would provide him with money, weapons and manpower for the attack. On Oct. 3, 2009, Headley was arrested at O'Hare airport in Chicago on his way to Pakistan to deliver videos.
Defense Sec. Robert Gates was In India last week saying that LET poses a grave threat in that region with designs to provoke a war between Pakistan and India. Yet Pakistan has yet to shut down LET raising questions about Pakistani government involvement. A rational response would be to offer the U.S full cooperation on the Headley case and bolster its anti-terrorism credentials.
Kulkarni lives in Perry.
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