Dossier From India Gives New Details of Mumbai Attacks -

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NYTimes.com

In the beginning, they were 32. A squad of suicide bombers assembled in Pakistan, they were taught how to make bombs, withstand interrogation, and fight to their death.
In the beginning, they were 32. A squad of suicide bombers assembled in Pakistan, they were taught how to make bombs, withstand interrogation, and fight to their death.
They were whittled down to 10, and on a Saturday morning in November, they set sail from Karachi with coordinates plotted on a global positioning set. Once in Mumbai, they went on a killing spree, leaving 163 dead, all the while receiving detailed instructions and pep talks from their handlers across the border.
These are some of the details of their gory mission compiled by Indian authorities and officially shared Monday with the Pakistani government.
The information seems designed to achieve at least two Indian objectives. First, it seeks to demonstrate that the attackers were sent from Pakistan. The dossier, a copy of which was provided to the New York Times, contains photographs of materials found on the fishing trawler they took: a bottle of Mountain Dew soda packaged in Karachi; pistols that bore the markings of a gun manufacturer in Peshawar; Pakistani-made items like a matchbox, detergent powder and shaving cream.
Second, the information seeks to rally international support for the Indian effort to press Pakistan on its handling of militants. It contains a list of 26 foreigners killed in the Mumbai attacks, and chronicles India's efforts in recent years to persuade Pakistan to investigate suspects involved in terror attacks inside India and shut down terror training camps inside Pakistani territory. In its final pages, it demands that Pakistan hand over "conspirators" to face trial in India and comply with its promise to stop terrorist groups from functioning inside its territory. It was shared this week with diplomats from friendly nations; one described it as "comprehensive," another as "convincing."
Although the dossier takes pains not to blame serving or former officials in Pakistan's army or spy agency, Indian officials have consistently hinted at their complicity, at least in training the commando-style fighters who carried out the attack. On Tuesday, the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, upped the ante but stopped short of naming any specific entities or individuals.
"There is enough evidence to show that, given the sophistication and military precision of the attack, it must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan," he said.
Pakistan on Tuesday rejected the Indian allegation. "Scoring points like this will only move us further away from focusing on the very real and present danger of regional and global terrorism," Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's Information Minister, said in a statement, according to the Associated Press. "It is our fond resolve to insure that non-state actors to do not use Pakistan's soil to launch terrorist attack any where in the world."
Pakistan has said it is examining the information dispatched by India.
The dossier, along with a power-point presentation made to diplomats here, narrates a journey of zeal, foibles and careful planning, one whose blow-by-blow media coverage was followed by handlers, believed to be in Pakistan, and used to caution the gunmen on the ground about the movement of Indian security forces and motivate them to keep fighting.
"Everything is being recorded by the media. Inflict the maximum damage. Keep fighting. Don't be taken alive," says a caller to a gunman inside the Oberoi Hotel close to 4 a.m. on the first day of the three-day siege.
"Throw one of two grenades at the Navy and police teams, which are outside," came one instruction to the gunmen inside the Taj Mahal hotel.
"Keep two magazines and three grenades aside and expend the rest of your ammunition," went another set of instructions to the attackers inside Nariman House, which housed an Orthodox Jewish center.
The telephone conversations, selected transcripts of which have been compiled in the dossier, chronicle a steady exchange between the attackers in Mumbai and their counselors.
At the Taj, they are asked whether they have set the hotel on fire; one of the attackers says he is preparing a mattress for that purpose. At the Oberoi, one of them asks whether to spare women ("kill them," comes the terse reply) and Muslims (he is told to release them and kill the rest). At Nariman House, a residential building that housed a Jewish community center, they are told how to damage India's standing with a key ally, Israel.
"Keep in mind that the hostages are of use only as long as you do not come under fire because of their safety," a handler, identified only as Wassi, exhorts, according to the transcripts provided. "If you are still threatened, then don't saddle yourself with the burden of the hostages. Immediately kill them."
"Yes, we shall do accordingly," the gunman inside Nariman House replies. "God willing."
"If the hostages are killed, it will spoil relations between India and Israel," Wassi continues.
According to the investigation, the 10 men boarded a small boat in Karachi at 8 a.m. on Nov. 22, sailed a short distance before boarding a bigger carrier believed to be owned by Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a key operative of a banned Pakistan-based terrorist group called Lashkar-e-Taiba. The following day, the 10 men took over an Indian fishing trawler, killed four of its crew members and sailed 550 nautical miles across the Arabian Sea.
Each man carried individual weapon packs: a Kalashnikov, a 9-millimeter pistol, ammunition, hand grenades and a bomb containing a military-grade explosive, steel ball bearings and a timer with instructions inscribed in Urdu.
By 4 p.m. on Nov. 26, the trawler approached the shores of Mumbai. The leader of the crew, identified by Indian investigators as Ismail Khan, 25, from a town in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, contacted their handlers and received instructions. When darkness set in, they killed the captain of the trawler and boarded a motorized dinghy, the engine of which, Indian investigators say, bore marks from a Lahore-based importing company. They reached Mumbai at about 8:30 p.m., and in five teams of two, set upon their targets: Victoria Terminus, the city's busiest railway station, a tourist haunt called Café Leopold, the Jewish center in Nariman House and two luxury hotels, the Taj and Oberoi.
They made one mistake, investigators say. They left behind Mr. Khan's satellite phone; it was recovered by Indian investigators and its photograph was included in the dossier. A GPS wasalso recovered from the trawler.
The gunmen seemed to use Indian mobile phones during the course of the attacks. Their counselors, 6 in all, used Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol numbers, including one from an American company called "Callphonex."
The last call transcript in the dossier is at 10:26 p.m. on Nov. 27, between a gunman inside Nariman House and his interlocutor. "Brother you have to fight," says the caller. "This is a matter of the prestige of Islam."
By the morning of Nov. 29, Indian forces had killed 9 of the fighters.
The sole survivor, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, is in the custody of the Mumbai police. His interrogation turned up the most chilling detail: He was part of a cadre of 32 would-be suicide bombers, which was later joined by an additional three men. A team of six went to Indian-administered Kashmir, Mr. Kasab told his interrogators.
Ten were kept in isolation for more than three months, in a house near Karachi, before going to Mumbai.
The dossier says nothing about what happened to the remaining trainees.
Richard A. Oppel Jr. contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

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