Surviving Mumbai attacker rose from crook to militant

The training was done in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and the mountain town of Mansehra, in Pakistan’s deeply conservative North West Frontier Province, which was a center of training for Kashmiri militants before Pakistan began its peace process with India. Some was also done in Murdike, the base of the Islamist charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which has been accused by the U.S. of being the front group for Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Three months before the attack, Kasab, along with nine other men he had never met, were put in isolation in a house in Pakistan and trained for the assault on Mumbai by three or four operatives, Maria said.

The 10 men were divided into teams of two and each was given a target. Kasab and his partner were assigned the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station. They were shown maps of the area on the Internet and quizzed on detailed photographs of the station that appeared to have been taken by an accomplice in Mumbai, Maria said.

Their mission was “to open indiscriminate fire at CST, take people hostage, go to a vantage point and prolong the siege as long as they could,” Maria said. After killing dozens of people, the two men abandoned the station under police pressure and continued their killing spree outside, he said.

The other teams _ two targeting the Taj Mahal hotel, one the Oberoi hotel and one a Jewish center _ also studied detailed photos and were given the same instructions, Maria said.

All the men were given fake IDs from Indian universities to confuse authorities about the source of the attacks, Maria said.

None expected to survive the attack, he said: “It was a suicide mission.”

Under questioning, Kasab has steered authorities to the Indian boat the men hijacked to get to Mumbai, told them where to find their GPS trackers and satellite phone and divulged the real names of his nine fellow gunmen, Maria said.

Maria declined to reveal the names Kasab gave of his recruiters and contacts, saying he was waiting for independent verification.

But he said everything else Kasab said has checked out.

1|2

PrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email