ISI, Major Iqbal helped Headley in executing Mumbai attacks

From Himani Kumar
Chicago, May 24 (PTI) In further indictment of ISI,
26/11 accused David Coleman Headley Tuesday said the Pakistani
spy agency and its operatives like Major Iqbal and LeT founder
Hafiz Saeed had helped him in laying the groundwork for the
Mumbai attacks.
The testimony by 50-year-old Headley, a prosecution
witness, came as the trial of Mumbai attacks co-accused and
his longtime friend Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian of Pakistani
origin, opened in the US at Chicago's Dirksen Federal
Building. Pakistani-American Headley is also a co-accused.
"They (ISI and LeT) coordinated with each other and
ISI provided assistance to Lashkar," Headley told Judge Harry
D Leinenweber.
According to Headley, Rana's old friend from military
school in Pakistan, two years before terrorists struck
Mumbai, he began laying the groundwork for the attack with
USD 25,000 finance from Major Iqbal.
Headley said that when LeT leaders began talking about
a possible attack in India, he suggested that he get involved.
"I suggested that I change my name and make a new
passport to make it easy to enter India undetected," he told
the court.
Headley said ISI provided help to LeT and that he
first started training in Pakistan more than a decade ago with
the Lashkar.
Headley said LeT chief Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind
behind the 26/11 attacks that killed 166 people, motivated him
for carrying out a "jihad". Saeed told him that the
satisfaction of one second of "jihad" is equal to "100 years
of worship."
LeT operators also chose Headley because he was an
American and that people would least suspect him. A bald Headley, wearing a blue T-shirt and a black
jacket, said that besides Hafiz Saeed and Major Iqbal, others
like Major Abdur Rehman Pasha, Zaki Saab and Sajid Mir, who
are named by him in the case, had helped him.
He said ISI provided financial and military assistance
to Lashkar and he assumed they worked under the same umbrella.
Headley had scouted India's key atomic installation
Bhabha Atomic Research Centre ( BARC ) and had visited Shiv
Sena headquarters in Mumbai, in the western Indian state
Maharashtra, prosecutor Sarah Streicker told the judge.
Headley had gone to the Shiv Sena office to build
contacts with its public relations officer Rajaram Rege.
Streicker said that Rana knew all along what Headley
was doing with the preparation of the attacks and that "India
deserved it".
"Rana knew all along what Headley was doing and
defendant moved his business for Headley's terror and plotting
of attacks," Streicker told the court.
"Defendant Rana knew about the deadly consequences of
his assistance and he did not stop to provide assistance,"
Streicker added.
On the other hand, Rana's lawyer Charlie Swift, who
has defended the case of Osama bin Laden's driver Salim Ahmed
Hamdan, said that Headley was "manipulative leading
multi-lives" and maintained three wives.
Swift also played a telephonic call between Abdur
Rehman Pasha and Headley in which he made fun of Rana. Swift
said that Headley was a double agent who worked for ISI and
CIA, DEA at the same time.