Diplomatic shift behind
handover of Mumbai
terrorist Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - India's investigation into the
November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai has
received a shot in the arm with the detention of
Saiyad Zaibuddin Ansari, aka Abu Jundal aka Abu
Hamza, one of the key handlers of the 10
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists who carried out
the attacks.
Ansari was in the LeT's
"control room" in Karachi during the attacks. His
interrogation after his arrest last week is
expected not only to throw light on who was
present in that control room during the 72 hours
when Mumbai was under siege, but also to provide
India with more solid evidence of the Pakistani
state's involvement in the carnage.
Ansari
was born in Beed, a town roughly 310 kilometers
east of
Mumbai. A wanted man in
India in connection with his role in the 2005
pipe-bomb blast in Ahmedabad and the 2006
Aurangabad arms and explosives case, Ansari fled
to Pakistan. He was involved in several terrorist
attacks in India thereafter, including the blasts
at Ahmedabad railway station in February 2008 and
the German Bakery in Pune in 2010.
His
role in the November 26, 2008, carnage in Mumbai
was revealed first by Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the
only terrorist to be captured alive by Indian
authorities. During his trial, Kasab told the
court that one "Abu Jundul" had tutored the team
in Hindi, which is spoken widely in India, to help
them blend with locals but also to pass off the
attacks as the work of Indian jihadists.
Intercepts of telephone conversations between
those in the "control room" and the 10 terrorists
had earlier revealed the voice of an individual
who used several Hindi words and spoke with a
marked Mumbai accent. That individual was Ansari.
Since Pakistan has not handed over to
India those who masterminded the Mumbai attacks,
India has had to piece together the plot based on
information provided by Kasab, who is in a Mumbai
jail facing a death sentence, and David Headley,
the Pakistani-American LeT operative currently in
US custody, who carried out the reconnaissance
ahead of the attack. While these two provided
vital input into the training of the assault team
and the reconnaissance operations that preceded
it, Ansari is expected to take investigators right
into the Karachi control room.
"Unlike
Kasab, who was a one-event man, a foot-soldier who
acted on orders issued by others, Ansari was among
those who gave those orders," a senior official in
the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India's
external intelligence agency, told Asia Times
Online. Ansari was "in touch with LeT commanders,
even the ISI [Pakistani Inter-Services
Intelligence]. He should have information about
LeT-ISI links, the network and possibly future
attacks," the RAW official said. This has made
Ansari a "prize catch" for India.
So far
Ansari is reported to have told his interrogators
that the control room was in a VIP area of Karachi
near the Malir cantonment and the international
airport.
Citing unnamed intelligence
sources, The Hindu reports that Ansari has named
Sajid Mir, who was in overall control of the
Mumbai operation; the LeT commander heading its
Kashmir operations, Muzamil Butt, who provided the
assault team in Mumbai with military guidance as
the operation unfolded; Lashkar ideologue
Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi; his lieutenant Mazhar
Iqbal; and the LeT's computer expert Abdul Wajid
aka Zarar Shah.
Outlook newsmagazine has
said the "most significant revelation" made by
Ansari so far "is of the presence and involvement
of two majors in the conspiracy meetings in
Karachi". He has apparently mentioned "Major
Iqbal", a shadowy figure who is believed to be of
the ISI, and Major Sameer Ali of the Pakistan
Army. Others, including Headley, have mentioned a
Major Iqbal in their testimony. Indian
investigators will try to get Ansari to clarify
his identity.
Ansari was supposed to be in
jail in Pakistan since February 2009, facing
prosecution before an anti-terrorism court for his
involvement in the Mumbai strikes. His "escape" to
Saudi Arabia on a valid Pakistani passport under
the name of Riyasat Ali points to some help from
Pakistani authorities.
It was when Saudi
officials nabbed him last year on forgery charges
that a tip alerted Indian intelligence agencies of
Ansari's presence in the kingdom. What followed
was a massive year-long effort by India's
intelligence agencies and diplomats to get the
Saudis to hand him over to New Delhi. This was all
the more challenging as Islamabad was pressing for
Ansari's deportation to Pakistan.
Analysts
are saying that the more important story involving
Ansari is not vital information on the Pakistani
state's link to the Mumbai plot that he is likely
to provide - this is after all old news - but the
change in Saudi-India ties that facilitated the
deportation.
K C Singh, a former Indian
ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Iran,
recalls in an article in Outlook the "many battles
that Indian ambassadors in the six GCC [Gulf
Cooperation Council] countries waged, mostly
unsuccessfully before [September 11, 2001],
against Pakistan's use of those countries for its
anti-India terror network". Not only were these
countries used for recruitment and financing, but
they had become sanctuaries for underworld dons
and terrorists.
Providing the example of
Anees Ibrahim, brother of Karachi-based underworld
don Dawood Ibrahim and among the prime accused in
the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, Singh points to
how fugitives from the law in India, especially
those with ties to Pakistan, would take refuge in
GCC countries and the latter would allow them to
slip away to Pakistan. Anees was detained in
Bahrain and transferred to Dubai on a "collusive
complaint from a Dawood associate". As a GCC
member, a Dubai resident's claim took precedence
over the more substantive charges of terrorism
that India pressed. Consequently, "a few days
later, complaint withdrawn, Anees fled Dubai for
Pakistan", Singh writes.
This reluctance
to help India in its battle against terrorism was
evident too during the hijack of an Indian
Airlines plane in 1999. When the plane landed in
Dubai for refueling, the Dubai government got the
women and children off the plane but refrained
from preventing the plane from flying onward to
Kandahar although there were commandos standing
by. "In an India-Pakistan standoff, the Gulf
countries would not take sides," recalls Singh.
This began to change after the September
11 attacks in the US when a "trickle of
deportations began from Dubai, but mostly of
criminals without Pakistani links".
"The
US counter-terrorism thrust, the growing warmth in
India-US relations, increasing interest of GCC
countries in Indian trade, tourism and investment
and the growing Indian profile as a global player
gave India more traction," Singh writes. Although
not all fugitives were deported on India's
request, "known criminals could no longer assume
safety in the GCC region".
While Saudi
authorities began cracking down on terror outfits
operating on their soil from 2002 onward, funding
of religious extremism and support to the spread
of Wahhabism in South Asia continued. It was only
post-2006, after the visit of King Abdullah to
India, that things began to change. A flurry of
high-level visits between India and Saudi Arabia
followed and cooperation expanded manifold. If the
Delhi Declaration signed in 2006 strengthened ties
in the fields of energy, trade, science and
technology, etc, the 2010 Riyadh Declaration
resulted in cooperation in counter-terrorism,
money laundering, narcotics, arms and human
trafficking, etc. An extradition treaty was signed
that year.
Indian intelligence officials
say Indian-Saudi counter-terrorism has grown over
the years. Still, they are cautious in
interpreting the Saudi deportation of Ansari to
India. "It is a milestone but it must not be
interpreted to mean either fraying Saudi-
Pakistani ties or increased Saudi sensitivity to
India's concerns over terrorism," an RAW official
told Asia Times Online. "After all, the Saudis
continue to reject more often than they concede
India's requests for deportation of fugitives," he
pointed out.
Yet Ansari's deportation has
enhanced optimism in India of Saudi support in
nabbing fugitives. New Delhi is said to be working
on getting at least three Indians wanted in
connection with terrorist attacks in India, who
are in Saudi Arabia on Pakistani passports. The
Saudis are reportedly on the brink of deporting
Fasih Mahmood, who is wanted for his role in the
German Bakery case and the blast at Chinnaswamy
cricket stadium in Bangalore.
Pressure
from the US is said to have played a crucial role
in forcing the Saudis to deport Ansari to India.
Washington's support was forthcoming in Ansari's
case because American lives were lost in the 2008
Mumbai blasts. The question is whether the
Americans will continue to pressure the Saudis in
the case of other fugitives as well. More
important, will the Saudis deport terrorists
wanted in India in the absence of US pressure?
Sudha Ramachandran is an
independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
(Copyright 2012 Asia Times
Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
