Policy Research Group - Strategic Insight: Who is the Pasha popping up in Headley confessional Who is the Pasha popping up in Headley confessional ================================================================================ editor on 18 March, 2010 04:45:00 The role of Pakistan Army and its intelligence agency, ISI, in targeting India has never been as clear as in the Mumbai attacks. Not only was most of the planning done by various retired and serving Army and ISI officials but the execution of the attacks was carefully monitored and guided by them. A clear evidence of this complicity surfaced with the arrest of retired Major Abdur Rahman Hashim Syed alias Pasha in Pakistan following disclosures by Chicago resident David Headley in November 2009. Headley had acted as a LeT reconnoiter to identify and scan potential targets of attacks in Mumbai and other cities in India. Syed retired from the army in 2007 and joined LeT where he advised and helped the group in training and recruitment. In fact, the Major was bankrolling Headley’s assignment. He reportedly paid $28000 to Headley. A close scrutiny of Syed’s trail reveals the deep-rooted nexus between the Army and the terrorist groups in Pakistan. Two of Syed’s contacts were Major Haroon Rashid and Ilyas Kashmiri, a soldier-turned-terrorist leader. In fact, Rashid and Syed were arrested early 2009 for the murder a retired senior Army officer in Islamabad. Rashid, who had taken premature retirement, had joined LeT after meeting Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur Rahman Lakhvi. Rashid advised Lakhvi and his aides on making explosives. He was also into kidnapping for ransom to fund the Taliban and other terror groups. He was involved in the kidnapping of an Indian film producer in Karachi who had shelled out Rs 6 crore (about $1.5 million) for his release. The money was routed through Ilyas Kashmiri to the Taliban groups. A former Special Services Group commando Kashmiri had trained recruits during the Afghan jihad. He ran a mercenary terrorist outfit, Brigade 313. He acted as a conduit between the Taliban groups and other criminal and extremist groups in Pakistan facilitating fund raising, weapons transfer, besides planning and executing attacks. Major Syed’s was not the only retired or serving army office whose name cropped up in the Headley case. There were at least five other officers of Pakistan Army and ISI who were either detained or questioned in connection with the Headley case. The five included a retired Brigadier General and two serving Lieutenant Colonels. The news was later denied by the Pakistani authorities and no further information on these offices became public, except that of Major Sameer Ali. Headley’s phone records showed that he often called 344-525-7300 which was Sameer Ali’s mobile number. Ali is known to have run a spying network in India. His name came up during the interrogation of two Pak nationals, who were arrested in 2009 on the charge of spying in India. The surviving Mumbai attacker, Ajmal Amir Kasab, clearly mentioned the presence of a `Major General sahab` during his training at Baitul Mujahideen, the LeT’s training command headquarters in Muzaffarabad, PoK. According to Kasab, the army officer wanted to test the progress of the training given to him and his team members at Baitul Mujahideen and other camps. The General wanted to see the group’s shooting capability. ‘We were given one Kalshan (Kalashnikov) each with a full magazine. Major General Sahab told Amir Hafiz Saeed to put targets. Amir Hafiz Saeed asked Abu Kahfa to put 10 targets. The General Sahab told us ‘when I say fire once, fire one shot and when I say fire twice do rapid fire’, said Kasab in his testimony. Kasab said ‘ten of us took positions and he inspected our positions and then said `fire`. We immediately fired a single shot. Except for Imran Babar, everyone fired on target’. He went on to claim in his confessional statement to the Mumbai police that the officer was quite pleased with his shooting and asked others to follow his example. Although the identity of the officer whom Kasab saw at the LeT campus is still shrouded in mystery, the possibility of him being Brigadier Riaz-ullah Khan Chibb could not be easily discounted. Chibb was a regular visitor to Baitul Mujahideen and Lakhvi’s liaison officer for ISI. Before his retirement, Chibb was a senior officer in ISI’s Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB) which dealt with the internal security matters, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit and Baltistan. JIB is one of the most powerful divisions of ISI and its primary agenda is anti-India activities. Brigadier Chibb, re-employed after his retirement early 2007, was awarded with a Sitara-i-imtiaz (military) on December 17, 2007 for meritorious services in operational field. Chibb’s name had surfaced early also, in August 2006 when Delhi Police arrested a LeT operative Abu Anas. He had claimed that he was the PSO of Zaki-Ur-Rahman Lakhvi. Anas disclosed that LeT commanders, Army and ISI officers met every month to share information. ISI officials gave regular updates to the LeT commanders on the Indian security forces and discussed plans to counter the Indian strategy. US agencies have documented regular meetings between ISI and LeT leaders in the past to share intelligence on Indian counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir. Chibb, along with others, was also constantly in touch with another LeT commander, Abdul Wajid of Sheikhupura (Punjab), better known as Zarar Shah, an expert in communications. Shah is one of the key plotters of the Mumbai attack. Chibb's boss in ISI was Maj Gen Sikander Afzal, head of JIB, who reported to Lt. General Kayani, the ISI Director General. Lt. General Afzal presently (February 2010) heads the Multan Corps Command. The Chibb link to LeT is worth a little deeper probe to understand the nexus between the intelligence and army officials with terrorist groups. More so because, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had accused Chibb of conspiring against her. In a series of emails to her supporters in the US and other countries, Bhutto accused Chibb along with his friend Ijaz Shah, of setting up a rigging cell in Islamabad. Shah was ISI head in Punjab before becoming Interior Secretary in Punjab government and Director of Intelligence Bureau directly reporting to President Pervez Musharraf. Chibb and Shah had come closer when the former headed the Anti-Narcotics Force at a time when Shah was the chief of ISI Punjab. Benazir was to hand over a confidential report on Chibb, Shah and their activities to US Senator Patrick Kennedy, a Democratic Congressman, and Arlen Specter, a Republican member of the Senate Sub-committee on Foreign Operations, at a dinner on December 27, 2007, the day she was assassinated.