Interpol: arrest warrants for 3 Pakistani military officers for Mumbai attacks

Interpol has issued warrants for the arrest of two serving officers in the Pakistan army for alleged involvement in the 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai, investigators said today (Friday). A third military figure, a retired Pakistan Army Major, was also named as a suspect along with an al Qaeda-linked commander and a leader of the Pakistan-based terrorist group, Lashkar e Taiba (LeT), which carried out the Mumbai attacks in which 166 were killed.

The Daily Telegraph’s Dean Nelson and Praveen Swami write that by asking Interpol to issue warrants against two senior Pakistan Army officers, India has intensified its campaign against Islamabad and strengthened its claim that some elements within Pakistan’s security forces supported the Mumbai attacks (see “India: Pakistan ISI behind Mumbai attacks,” 14 July 2010 HSNW).

The development follows an admission by the former military ruler General Musharraf earlier this week that Pakistan had raised terrorist groups to attack India because of its refusal to negotiate over the dispute on the future of Kashmir (see “Tell us something we don’t already know,” in Ben Frankel, “Missing links unveiled?” 6 October 2010 HSNW; see also “Pakistan admits Mumbai November attack was hatched in Pakistan,” 12 February 2009 HSNW).

Those named in the warrants include Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri, a militant commander believed to be close to al Qaeda, Sajid Majid, a senior LeT figure also known as Sajid Mir, Major Syed Abdur Rehman, a retired Pakistan Army officer, and two serving officers named as Major Sameer Ali and Major Iqbal.

The officers are alleged to serve in Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency and were named by the LeT operative David Headley, who was arrested in Chicago last year as he was about to travel to Pakistan.

Headley, the son of an American mother and a Pakistani diplomat, was raised in Pakistan and educated at a military school. During interrogation he revealed he had carried out reconnaissance missions for the Mumbai terrorist attack and claimed that the two officers were his handlers.

Headley said both men spoke English, Hindi, and Urdu, and alleged that Major Iqbal gave him $25,000 in cash in 2006 to visit India. India’s Ministry of External Affairs and its Ministry for Home Affairs, which is responsible for counter-terrorism, declined to comment on the Interpol notices yesterday.

Nelson and Swami quote B. Raman, a retired senior Indian intelligence officer, to say it was unlikely the warrant would have been issued without corroboration for Headley’s claims.

Indian investigators are alleged to have found evidence in an investigation into a man suspected of being an ISI agent in Uttar Pradesh.

Waqas Ahmad, who was arrested near Kanpur last year, was suspected of reporting back to the same telephone number in Pakistan that Headley said he had used to speak to his alleged handlers — three serving Pakistan officers (“India: Pakistani Army colonel was involved in Mumbai attacks,” 27 February 2009 HSNW).

B Raman, however, said it was highly unlikely the officers would ever be identified or arrested. “No one knows if these are their real names, it’s on the basis of what Headley said,” he said.