Part of Mumbai conspiracy took place in Pakistan: Rehman Malik
February 12, 2009 by SAF Desk
Filed under News at a glance
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has registered a case that could lead to prosecution of the people behind the killing of 179 people in the Indian city of Mumbai last November, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik said on Thursday.
“Some part of the conspiracy has taken place in Pakistan,” Malik told a news conference here.
“We have lodged an FIR into the case,” he said, referring to a police complaint, generally known as a first information report (FIR). Malik said Pakistan had assured India of its full cooperation in the investigations of Mumbai attacks and that Pakistan had been a victim of terrorism since long.
The FIR (01/2009) has been registered with a special investigation unit in Islamabad.
“This FIR has been launched. I want to show all of you, I want to show our nation, I want to show the international community, I want to show all those who have been a victim of terrorism, that we mean business,” he said.
But Malik also named other countries, where he said the plotters had made payment transfers or where equipment used in the attacks was registered.
Malik said the money was transferred from Spain to acquire a domain name, used for communication over the Internet that was registered in Houston, Texas.
A Pakistani, Javed Iqbal who was living in Barcelona was repatriated and arrested in connection with the payment, Malik said.
Another domain name used by the attackers was registered in Russia, and a satellite phone registered in a Middle Eastern country, which he declined to name.
He said the investigators needed more information to complete its probe into the November 26-29 siege, when 10 gunmen attacked a series of high-profile targets in the Indian financial capital.
Malik said further information Islamabad had requested from India included DNA samples of the gunmen, nine of whom were shot dead, and Ajmal Kasab who is currently in Indian custody, and their full names.
India says Pakistan’s spy agency behind Mumbai attacks
February 7, 2009 by SAF Desk
Filed under News at a glance
NEW DELHI : India has for the first time directly accused Pakistan’s powerful military intelligence agency — the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) — of involvement in last year’s Mumbai attacks.
“The perpetrators planned, trained and launched their attacks from Pakistan, and the organisers were and remain clients and creations of the ISI,” Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said in a speech in Paris on Thursday that was picked up by the Indian media.
In January, India handed Pakistan what it said was evidence linking “elements” in Pakistan to the November attacks on India’s financial capital, in which 10 gunmen killed 165 people during a 60-hour siege.
New Delhi has blamed the attacks on the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is active in Indian-ruled Kashmir, but the Pakistan-based organisation has denied responsibility.
India had previously blamed the ISI for a suicide attack on its embassy in Kabul last July, in which 60 people including India’s military attache and a diplomat were killed.
Menon said India had long suffered from “terrorist organisations, their support structures, official sponsors and funding mechanisms, which transcend national borders but operate within them.”
He also blasted foreign arms sales to Pakistan in the name of fighting terrorism, saying it was like selling “whisky to an alcoholic.”
Such transactions damage the “internal political balance, making the consolidation of democracy more difficult,” he added.
The United States has been one of Pakistan’s key military backers, providing F-16 fighter jets in return for political support for its operations in Afghanistan.
Now Pakistan see Bangladesh link in Mumbai terror attacks
February 5, 2009 by SAF Desk
Filed under News at a glance
By Baqir Sajjad Syed and Mohammad Asghar
ISLAMABAD, Feb 4: Pakistani investigators probing into the Mumbai attacks are closing in on a Bangladeshi connection to the terrorist strike and are said to have evidence of not only the involvement of a banned militant organisation, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami, Bangladesh (HuJI-B), but also of its role in planning the attack and training the terrorists.
A reference in this regard is likely to be made in the report of the country’s premier investigation agency, FIA, that will be shared soon with India as findings of preliminary investigations.
The report is likely to indicate that the Mumbai attack was handiwork of an ‘international network of Muslim fundamentalists’ present in South Asia and spread all the way to Middle East; and may build the case for regional anti-terror cooperation.
Mumbai attacks planned in Europe’ claims Pakistan
February 4, 2009 by SAF Desk
Filed under News at a glance
Pakistan’s national investigative body, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) believes that the Mumbai terror attacks were planned in Europe.
The result of a probe into the attacks show the master plan was developed in a European country, a senior FIA official told Press TV.
The official, who was talking on condition of anonymity, said the Pakistani government of Asif Ali Zardari was still undecided over providing the country with evidence.
Declining to name any state, the official added that the report will be presented through a diplomatic channel to the Indian government in the next two days.
However the Pakistani official said their findings rule out the involvement of any Pakistani group or organizations in the Mumbai attacks.
“The report further disclosed that there were no Pakistani group or organization involved in the attacks, however the government is investigating to make the report more transparent,” the official concluded.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced on Sunday that Islamabad has completed its probe into the Mumbai attacks and would soon share this with India.
“The (Indian) dossier (on Mumbai) has been investigated and has been forwarded to the Ministry of Justice and after their approval, I will take you into confidence,” he told reporters upon returning from the World Economic Forum meeting at Davos.