2/3/10

take one for the team

aangirfan asks:
Were the Mumbai Attacks of 2008 an inside-job, involving the CIA, Mossad and corrupt elements of the Indian security services?

Recent news suggests that the Indian military is corrupt.
...The alleged Mumbai Attacks mastermind, the American David Headley, claimed to know the names and titles of senior Defence personnel in Mumbai and New Delhi. (HEADLEY-GATE)
On 8 February 2009, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi revealed that the Mumbai terror attacks could not have been carried out without internal help from India. (Indian Non Cooperation in the Mumbai Investigations)

On 12 February 2009, the Mumbai police Chief Hassan Ghafoor admitted that two Indians who were arrested by the Indian police had been involved in the Mumbai carnage.

Something to keep in mind when India accuses Pakistan of "dragging it's feet" on the Mumbai investigation.


Today we learn of the "Karachi project." Both Headley AND Khwaja have told their interrogators of this project. What could this mean?
The ISI has put together a team of Indian jihadis in Karachi, and is waiting to launch them into the country on a terrorist project, alleged terror suspects David Coleman Headley and Mohammad Amjad Khwaja have told their interrogators.

Headley was arrested by the FBI in Chicago in October last year, and is accused of recceing Mumbai and other Indian cities for the Lashkar-e-Toiba as part of the preparations for 26/11. Khwaja, belonging to the Harkat-ul Jihad-i Islami, was arrested on January 18, and is being held in Hyderabad.

Headley has described the “Karachi project” to FBI interrogators, details of which have been shared with New Delhi, sources said. He is believed to have said that both the ISI and the Lashkar have been training Indian nationals in terrorist activities, and using them for anti-India “projects” from time to time.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has also been able to unearth significant details about Headley’s movements in Pakistan through his e-mail correspondence. Contents of his Gmail account were shared with New Delhi following an official request to Google.

Details of Headley’s movements in and out of India, reported in The Indian Express last Thursday, show that he flew into Mumbai from Karachi and returned to the same city twice over the last three years — once in late 2006, and then again in April 2008.

Evidence of the ISI-Lashkar Karachi project has also come independently from HuJI man Khwaja, who was picked up by Chennai Police on his return from Saudi Arabia on a Pakistani passport. Top sources said Khwaja has told his interrogators that a large number of highly-indoctrinated jihadi Indian nationals have been housed in the Pakistani port city.

Reportedly, Headley had earlier told investigators of other targets, including high-profile boarding schools:

Then comes an input from the FBI’s interrogation of David Coleman Headley and Pakistani Canadian Tahawwur Hussain Rana that the prestigious National Defence College in New Delhi, Doon School, Dehra Dun, and Woodstock, Mussoorie, both high-profile boarding schools in Uttarakhand, are on the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba’s target list. America and Israel have already issued advisories on travel to India.

Killing promising young people? That is certain to get a response.

More recently, it was reported that Headley was in the process of finalizing the next target in India at the time of his arrest.

Mumbai, Jan. 31: American terror suspect David Headley was scheduled to visit India aga-in in November last year ap-parently to finalise the next target for LeT group and set up a base in Delhi.

Sources privy to the investigations said that Headley had told his friends in India that he was coming to the country in November for his business. Headley’s messages to his friends, who have recorded their statements before the NIA, stopped in the last week of September, barely a few days before he was arrested by the FBI at O’Hare airport in Chicago on October 3 last year, the sources said.
After recording the statements, the sleuths believe that since Lashker had postponed its planned terror strike on Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten because of international pressure following 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, Headley, who was arrested just before he could board a plane for Philadelphia en route to Pakistan, was coming to India for finalising the next target.

The friends, which included some women, told the investigators that Headley was constantly in touch with them from the US and before being arrested he had said that he was coming to India and that they will have a get-together.

According to the documents shared by the FBI, Headley had been asked by his handler, a Pakistani Army official, that he should wind up his office — First World Office — in Mumbai and “open up a new business centre in Delhi to be used as a cover for future activities”.

The travel details of Headley, who is now turning out to be the globe-trotting prize asset of LeT, was being examined by various agencies, the sources said.

The investigators believe that the last visit of Headley to India in March last year may have been to finalise synchronised terror strikes on Jewish houses located in five cities. —PTI

Headley frequently introduced himself as a CIA agent. I'm pret-ty sure that it's illegal to impersonate a CIA agent. I bet the "various agencies" are poring over Headley's travel details. We will probably learn some more interesting details about them soon.

Why would Headley and Khwaja get pinched and start talking about the "Karachi project," which now implicates India?

One possibility: Limited Hangout
A limited hangout is a form of deception, misdirection, or coverup often associated with intelligence agencies involving a release or "mea culpa" type of confession of only part of a set of previously hidden sensitive information, that establishes credibility for the one releasing the information who by the very act of confession appears to be "coming clean" and acting with integrity; but in actuality by withholding key facts is protecting a deeper crime and those who could be exposed if the whole truth came out. In effect, if an array of offenses or misdeeds is suspected, this confession admits to a lesser offense while covering up the greater ones.

A limited hangout typically is a response to lower the pressure felt from inquisitive investigators pursuing clues that threaten to expose everything, and the disclosure is often combined with red herrings or propaganda elements that lead to false trails, distractions, or ideological disinformation; thus allowing covert or criminal elements to continue in their improper activities.

Victor Marchetti wrote: "A 'limited hangout' is spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting - sometimes even volunteering - some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further."
You know... take one for the team......?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is very useful information on 'Limited Hangout'.

- Aangirfan

A. Peasant said...

i might be way off, but given the astonishing number of problems with their story, this would seem to be the next logical step: to admit to *some* corruption, and try to cut the losses.

legal mumbo jumbo

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