The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM).
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Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari – who is thought to be a key member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) team that planned and handled the 26/11 (November 26-28, 2008) Mumbai terror attacks – was arrested by Indian security officials as he arrived at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport from Riyadh on June 21, 2012. His arrest was made public on June 25, 2012.
Ansari is the second key man whose arrest could lead to revelations about how the attacks were planned in Pakistan; the other man is Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive during the attacks.
Indian investigators say that Ansari was present in the LeT's control room in Karachi at the time of the Mumbai attacks, and that his conversations with the terrorists in Mumbai during them were recorded. "In telephone conversations intercepted during the November 26 attacks... an individual speaking with a marked Mumbai accent can be heard instructing the terrorists to make a list of demands to the media," according to a media report.
Ansari is believed to have been recruited by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Pakistani jihadi organization founded by Professor Hafiz Muhammad Saeed who now heads the LeT's charity arm Jamaatud Dawa (JuD). Both the LeT and JuD, along with their numerous aliases and leaders, were outlawed by the UN Security Council for their role in the attacks. Recently, the U.S. has announced a reward of $10 million for information leading to the prosecution of Hafiz Saeed, who remains free in Pakistan.
Below are excerpts from Indian media reports examining: a) the use of numerous aliases by Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari and his travels from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, b) the details of the planning involved in the 26/11 attacks, c) what happened in the Karachi control room of LeT during the three days of the terror attacks, and d) the likely implications of the arrest and its diplomatic fallout for Pakistan and impact on the upswing in India-Pakistan relations.
