The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM).
Pakistani passport issued to Zabiuddin Ansari under the name of Riyasat Ali
On June 21, 2012, Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari – aka Abu Jundal, aka Abu Hamza – suspected as a key member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) team that planned and handled the Mumbai terror attacks of November 26-28, 2008, was arrested by Indian security officials upon arriving from Riyadh at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport. He was brought before a court in Delhi the same day, but his arrest was revealed a few days afterwards. Ansari, who hails from the Beed district of Maharashtra of which Mumbai is the state capital, was heard speaking Hindi during the three days of the attacks.
In addition to Ansari, there are three other key individuals being detained in connection with the Mumbai attacks: David Headley, a Pakistani-American who changed his name in order to carry out reconnaissance missions of targets in India, is being held in a U.S. prison; Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist caught alive by the Indian authorities at the time of the attacks; and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a key LeT commander, who was arrested by the Pakistan authorities following the attacks.
Below are excerpts from media reports providing details on Pakistan's involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks, as revealed by Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari.
LeT's Training Camps Operational In Shewai Nullah, Pakistani Kashmir; Ughi, Mansehra
"[Zabiuddin Ansari] identified the location of the November 26 control room in Qaidabad, Karachi, as well as the Lashkar-e-Taiba's main terror training camp at Shewai Nullah, in Muzaffarabad [the capital of Pakistani Kashmir]. Trained at Ughi camp in Mansehra [in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan], he told Indian interrogators that Lashkar terror training was alive and kicking in Pakistan.
"[Ansari] met LeT chief Hafiz Muhammed Saeed at Majid Qadsia, Chauburji, in Lahore, soon after he fled India to Pakistan via Bangladesh in 2006. He told interrogators about his meeting with LeT's chief operational commander, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, in August 2009 at the Adiala jail in Rawalpindi, and that Lakhvi holds a daily durbar [meeting] at the high security facility, where he meets nearly 15 to 20 people every day.
"While... [Ansari] claimed he had gone to meet Lakhvi to give him sweets, after [the latter] married the daughter of a civil contractor in Muzaffarabad in March 2009, sleuths suspect Lakhvi had passed on instructions to... [Ansari] for a future attack at the meeting. [That Ansari] was high up in the Lashkar hierarchy is evident [from the fact that] Lakhvi's meeting was fixed by his personal aide Abu Bakr soon after... [Ansari] placed a request."[1]
Paragliding At LeT Training Camp In Muzaffarabad, Pakistani Kashmir
"[Ansari admitted] that LeT is imparting paragliding training to its recruits at its camp in Muzaffarabad, in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir... [Ansari] also confessed [to] using [the] social networking site Facebook to hunt for recruits for his terror mission[s in] Saudi Arabia and India, using nine accounts and email IDs. He had reportedly opened one of the Facebook accounts in his real name, Zabiuddin Ansari, which caught the eye of investigating agencies.
"He also said that paragliding has been made a part of the training curriculum of LeT cadres. The police are verifying whether Jundal himself has received paragliding training. Officials haven't ruled it out completely, as Jundal himself was in charge of training the November 26 terrorists..."[2]
LeT Has A Dedicated Internet Team; "Pakistan Army [Officials Teach] Use Of Weapons, Like AK Series Rifles, Hand Grenades, Rockets... Anti-Tank Mines"
"[Ansari] has told his interrogators that LeT operatives are trained in 'internet activities,' and [that] the outfit has a dedicated band of 'trained and educated' boys who look after the entire gamut of online activities – like sending emails, maintaining websites, and using different servers in a way to show the IP addresses in the U.S. and other western countries. Indian agencies were aware of these facts through intelligence sources and interrogation of small-time operatives, but this has been corroborated now...
"LeT... had professionals who took classes in the use of software and internet, besides people from ISI [the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence] and [the] Pakistan army who taught use of weapons, like AK series rifles, hand grenades, rockets, pistols, mortars, anti-tank mines, anti-personnel mines, anti-aircraft guns, remote control devices, explosive devices, and sophisticated communication systems.
"[An intelligence official in New Delhi said:] 'The new recruits, several of them well educated, join these training programs for several days. Their day starts early in the morning with religious prayers, listening to lectures, exercising, studying about weapons and how to make IEDs, and, later, they are asked to use them. If the trainers find that a particular recruit is not concentrating, he is removed from the training program.".[3]
"Two Serving Pakistani ISI Officers, Major Iqbal And Major Sameer Ali, Regularly Attended LeT Meetings In Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir Between 2007 And 2008, When The [Mumbai] Attacks Were Planned"
"[Ansari] revealed that two serving Pakistani ISI officers, Major Iqbal and Major Sameer Ali, regularly attended LeT meetings in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir between 2007 and 2008, when the [Mumbai] attacks were planned...
"Ansari revealed that LeT bosses Hafiz Saeed and Zakir-ur-Rehman Lakhvi had planned the attack... He also said that Lakhvi and LeT operational commander Muzammil were present in the control room which monitored the attack from Karachi... 'The handlers panicked after Ajmal Amir Kasab's capture [during the three-day attacks on Mumbai]. However, the overall mood in the control room was jubilant because the terrorists had succeeded in prolonging the battle with the Indian security agencies for three days,' Ansari reportedly told interrogators.
"Ansari trained the 10 attackers to pretend to be Indians. He taught them to converse in Hindi, provided them numbers of media houses and gave them tips on how to interact with the media and misguide them.
"A trained electrician, Ansari was soft-spoken and rarely raised his voice, till he came in contact with activists of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in 2005 in [the Indian town of] Aurangabad."[4]
"ISI Operative Major Sameer Ali Visited The Karachi Control Room [Used In] The November 26 Attacks"; Mumbai Attackers Were Trained At Baitul Mujahideen In Muzaffarabad
"Suspected ISI operative Major Sameer Ali visited the Karachi control room [used in] the November 26 attacks when the mayhem engulfed Mumbai, and gave several instructions to LeT 'commander' Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi. This was stated by Syed Zabiuddin Ansari... Pakistani-American LeT operative David Headley, too, had given information about Major Sameer's role in the November 26 attacks.
"Another suspected ISI officer, Sajid Mir, who was also involved in the Mumbai attacks and [in a] conspiracy to carry out other terror acts in India, helped Ajmal Kasab and nine other terrorists involved in the November 26 strikes to get training in Baitul Mujahideen ['House of Mujahideen,' a training camp in Muzaffarabad]. Mir was a key motivator and organizer of the country's worst terrorist attack, which claimed 166 lives, Jundal told interrogators.
"When the Mumbai attack was over, Major Sameer told all those present in the control room to disperse and go underground... While [Ansari]... went back to Baitul Mujahideen, Lakhvi stayed at a protected house with his three wives.
"Following international pressure, a few weeks after November 26, sleuths of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency [FIA] raided the control room [in the Quaidabad area of Karachi] and destroyed it... Months later, when FIA raided the Baitul Mujahideen camp [in Muzaffarabad], they arrested Lakhvi there. [Ansari]... said he, along with another LeT terrorist, Abu Qahfa, had managed to escape from the terror camp through a rear gate."[5]
Indian-Born Saudi National Mahmoud Ahmed Bahaziq A Key LeT Financier
"A key element in the interrogation of Zabiuddin Ansari... has been to figure out the shadowy figures who actively finance LeT's ... operations. And it has once again brought back the focus on a 68-year-old Indian-born Saudi Arabia[n] national, Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq.
"[Ansari] is also being questioned about the role of Asad Khan, alias Abu Sufiyan; Siddique Bin Osman, alias Rafeeq, alias Abu Hanzala; and Farhatullah Ghori, alias Abu Sufiyan – who reside in Saudi Arabia and are key LeT operatives who provide shelter to wanted terrorists, and also play an important role in financing the terrorist outfit.
"[A]part from funding LeT, Bahaziq also plays a key role in providing a safe haven to wanted terrorists, who on many occasions use Saudi Arabia as a transit point. The charge sheet filed in the Mumbai November 26 terrorist attack lists Bahaziq as a senior financier of LeT, and names him as a prominent figure in the terrorist organization, along with Haji Mohammed Ashraf – the chief of LeT's finances. Born in Hyderabad, Bahaziq went on to procure a passport [from] Saudi Arabia, and has been actively financing LeT since the 1980s. How he [obtained] Saudi nationality is still a mystery... The Indian-born Saudi national has been [crucial] to LeT's establishment and activities, and was a popular visitor to the... LeT center in Muridke, Pakistan [near Lahore]."[6]
Ansari Had Been Living In Saudi Arabia On A Pakistani Passport Issued Under The Pseudonym Riyasat Ali
"[Ansari] has named ISI officers Major Samir Ali and Colonel Hamza as Pakistan's state actors who were directly involved in the terror attack on Mumbai. While Major Samir Ali oversaw the November 26 operation from LeT's control room in Karachi, Colonel Hamza arranged for Jundal's escape to Saudi Arabia in April-May 2011."[7]
"[Ansari] had been living in Saudi Arabia on a Pakistani passport issued under a pseudonym. The passport purportedly used by Ansari was issued in the name of Riyasat Ali on January 28, 2009, showing him as a resident of Sheikhupura in the Punjab province of Pakistan. It mentions his father's name as Khushi Mohammad and has a validity up to January 27, 2014. The passport, however, bears Ansari's photograph.
"The... passport had a valid Saudi Arabian visa. [Ansari]... visited Saudi Arabia twice using the same passport, once in 2010 and then in 2011 after which he stayed there for about seven months before he was picked up in Riyadh by the local intelligence agencies on a tip-off by their Indian counterparts. It is alleged that Ansari was in Saudi Arabia to recruit people for the outfit, and had managed to indoctrinate a few persons. However, it [has] not [been] confirmed [whether] any of them [underwent] terror training...
"On the basis of said passport, Pakistani officials tried to [place] Ansari [in] custody, stating that he was a Pakistani national. However, Indian authorities were successful in securing his deportation after they got his DNA samples matched with those of his father, a resident of Beed, Maharashtra, following a clandestine operation."
LeT Operational Head Muzammil Butt Orchestrated 2000 Massacre Of Sikhs In Indian Kashmir, During Then U.S. President Bill Clinton's Visit To New Delhi
"For years, the [Indian] army was blamed for the [2000] Chhattisinghpora massacre [in Indian Kashmir]. But... it [has] now [been revealed that] the bloodbath was orchestrated by Lashkar's operational head, Muzammil Butt. [Ansari]... has told interrogators that it was Muzammil, then operating in Kashmir, who, along with a dozen men in army fatigues, went to the village in Kashmir's Anantnag district on March 25, 2000, and killed 35 Sikhs. The aim was to create communal tension in the valley on the eve of then U.S. president Bill Clinton's visit to India, and also malign the Indian army... [Ansari's] interrogation revealed that Muzammil, along with his associates, drew all the men of the village out of their homes and asked them to gather near the village gurdwara [Sikh place of worship]. The Lashkar men then shot 35 Sikhs in cold blood...
"According to [Indian police] sources, Muzammil, whom Home Minister P. Chidambaram recently said had replaced Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi as LeT's operational head [in Pakistan], was responsible for several more killings in the valley, and this was something he admitted to several of his LeT colleagues. Jundal [i.e. Ansari] was known to be close to Muzammil, who was part of the Karachi-based control room that directed the November 26 attacks..."[8]
Prior To His Arrest, Ansari Was Plotting A New Terror Attack And Recruiting Terrorists For LeT
"LeT may be plotting another strike against India, Syed Zabiuddin Ansari... is said to have told interrogators during initial questioning. [Ansari]... had shifted his base to Saudi Arabia and, at his handlers' behest, was engaged in 'talent spotting' [by] phone for the new plot... [He] had also been assigned the task of providing legal aid to the Lashkar and Indian Mujahideen terrorists arrested in India.
"LeT is busy creating new modules because of a crackdown in Pakistan. A [police] team probing the September 19, 2010 Jama Masjid attack [in Delhi]... had found that Indian Mujahideen [IM] boss Ahmad Zarar Siddi Bappa, alias Shahrukh, used to make frequent calls to Saudi Arabia... The [Indian police] sources claimed that... [Ansari] and Lashkar's direct link with IM and the Jama Masjid attack was 'proved' by the fact that he was a friend of Mohammad Adil, alias Ajmal, a Pakistani national arrested by the special cell in November 2011, along with 12 IM members from a Meer Vihar factory [in Delhi].
"Adil, who had fired on Taiwanese tourists in the Jama Masjid attack, was sent to India by Jundal to help Shahrukh. Delhi Police had got a non-bailable warrant issued against Jundal after they raided IM's Meer Vihar factory last year... [Ansari] knows the Bhatkal brothers – Riyaz and Iqbal, bosses of IM based in Karachi – very well. He claims that the Bhatkal brothers used to come to joint meetings of Lashkar and IM..."[9]
Endnotes:
[1] Hindustantimes.com (India), June 28, 2012. The original English of the reports in this dispatch has been edited for clarity.
[2] Hindustantimes.com (India), June 29, 2012.
[3] Timesofindia.com (India), July 2, 2012.
[4] Indiatoday.intoday.in (India), accessed July 6, 2012.
[5] Indianexpress.com (India), July 5, 2012.
[6] Hindustantimes.com (India), July 6, 2012.
[7] Economictimes.com (India), July 6, 2012.
[8] Timesofindia.com (India), July 9, 2012.
[9] Timesofindia.com (India), June 26, 2012.
