An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

About the Author

Dr. Prem Mahadevan specializes in research on intelligence and terrorism. He was a senior researcher for almost nine years with the Centre for Security Studies (CSS) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. The current paper is derived from research conducted for his latest book, Islamism and Intelligence in South Asia, which examined linkages between the Pakistani 'Deep State' and jihadist groups. The paper was written with generous support of the CSS for which the author is grateful. Mahadevan has briefed NATO Headquarters, the Global Counterterrorism Forum, European Union and Swiss policy officials about state involvement in cross-border terrorism in South Asia. He dedicates this paper to the memories of Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, killed by Pakistani terrorists in the 26/11 attack.

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

On November 26, 2008 (hence ‘26/11’), ten suicidal terrorists armed with Kalashnikovs, grenades and improvised explosive devices attacked Mumbai. Beginning at 21.40 hours local time, five locations across the city were struck simultaneously by two-man shooter teams.1 Over the next few hours, 140 Indian citizens and 25 visitors from 14 countries were shot dead. Singled out for execution were the American, British and the Israeli nationals.2 Mindful of the diplomatic fallout if foreign tourists were killed during rescue operations, Indian security forces took until the morning of November 29, 2008 to evacuate the affected sites and neutralise all the gunmen.3 Ten years after the attack, this paper reviews the known facts about the 26/11 attackers and their sponsors. It traces three distinct hypotheses of the attack’s origins, and how they each may help in shaping a policy response for future such incidents: Hypothesis 1: The 2008 Mumbai attack was part of an ongoing and sustained covert war waged by a hostile neighbouring country Hypothesis 2: It was an occasional aberration resulting from close inter-personal ties between ‘rogue’ intelligence agents and international terrorists Hypothesis 3: It was a one-off and stand-alone action by a ‘non state actor’. The three differing perceptions lead to a common question: How should a state respond to a terrorist attack launched from another state’s territory, especially if the latter state denies that its territory was used as a planning and logistical base and refuses to cooperate in bringing the perpetrators to justice as required by international law? With the resurgence of great power rivalry in world affairs, this question is becoming increasingly policy-relevant. From an extra-regional (i.e. non-South Asian) perspective, the Mumbai attack has useful lessons for terrorism scholars. Since the end of the Cold War, at least two generations of academic researchers and intelligence analysts have internalised the idea that terrorists are hostis humanis generis (‘enemies of all humanity’). This paradigm was reinforced by the September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda attacks on the United States. After 9/11, the notion that even a ‘rogue’ intelligence agency would covertly sponsor the actions of international outlaws did not fit into the interpretive lenses of many experts. Until recent events in Europe and the Middle East reignited interest in covert action as a framework for understanding state behaviour, there was little acknowledgment that state-sponsored terrorism might still exist.4 Mumbai 26/11 revealed that even many years after 2001, strong operational-level ties persisted between intelligence agencies and United Nations-designated terrorist groups. It exposed the limits of the existing global order in dealing with supposedly ‘rogue’ entities within a sovereign state’s government. Lastly, it indicated that India as a long-standing

| 3 An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism victim of terrorism may have erred in relying excessively on only two instruments to preserve its homeland security. These two instruments were: international diplomacy designed to reduce the political cover afforded to terrorist entities, and domestic intelligence to disrupt their actions on Indian territory. The 26/11 attack may have happened because New Delhi neglected a third instrument of counterterrorism which could have stabilised its efforts and made them durable: deterrence through covert, prompt and reciprocal retaliation.5 Who attacked Mumbai? Even as the 26/11 attack was ongoing, a hitherto unheard-of entity calling itself the ‘Deccan Mujahideen’ claimed responsibility for the attack.6 This claim was later exposed as a ruse intended to mask the real perpetrator. Misleading investigators through false claims has been a decades-old terrorist tactic. In the 1980s and 1990s, two territorially-based and hierarchically-structured organizations, Hizballah and Al Qaeda, had carried out mass casualty attacks but publicly denied responsibility. Instead, phantom networks that were supposedly acting ‘independently’ contacted media agencies to take the credit. An example was the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Africa, of which Al Qaeda at first professed innocence.7 Through such disinformation, terrorist organisations with extensive fixed assets have sought to split international opinion and avoid alienating their sympathisers.8 They also preserve their safe havens and possible links to state sponsors by giving host governments an excuse not to act against them.

In the 26/11 attack in Mumbai, the perpetrator was Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based jihadist organisation. The LeT had its administrative headquarters near the city of Lahore and ran paramilitary training camps across Pakistan. The purchase and construction of its headquarters is reported to have been financed in the late 1980s by future Al Qaeda founding chief Osama bin Laden.9 The LeT may have been returning a favour when it helped to purchase a plot of land in the town of Abbottabad in 2003-04. Seven years later, bin Laden was tracked down and killed by American commandos in a house built on that same plot of land.10 By 2008, the LeT was operating an extensive recruitment and fund-collection system through a charitable front organisation called the Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD). Although the LeT had been banned in 2002 by the Pakistani Government under American pressure, the JuD operated unfettered as a legal entity. Its civic outreach and credibility in Pakistani society increased due to disaster relief work carried out after the 2005 earthquake which devastated parts of northern Pakistan.11 The head of JuD, Hafiz Saeed, openly dual-hatted as the head of LeT until the latter was banned in 2002.12 Thereafter, he claimed to have severed ties with the group, a claim not generally believed.13 The LeT was unlike other jihadist organisations in Pakistan, in that it was a transnational Wahhabi group and not an indigenous Deobandi one. As such, it had a strong ideological affinity with the Middle Eastern terrorists. Its cadre emulated operational methods pioneered by Al Qaeda and standardised the tactic of suicidal assaults against soft targets. On the advice of ex-soldiers from the Pakistani army’s Special Forces, the LeT

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism cadres focused on causing maximum loss of life before the security forces could respond to a terrorist incident.14 Since the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) personnel were typically instructed to set up a security cordon and wait for negotiators to arrive, ‘active shooters’ from the LeT were primed to kill anyone they encountered, before being surrounded. Thereafter, they were to barricade themselves in a stronghold and fight to the death. Once killed, their identity would remain unverifiable and spare their home country (i.e. Pakistan) from international embarrassment. Crucially, the LeT never attacked targets within Pakistan itself.15 Rather, it concentrated on cross-border attacks against India and Afghanistan and establishing long-distance support networks in the Middle East, Europe and North America. By 2009-10, it had a presence in at least 21 countries and was known to have assembled portfolios on 320 targets worldwide.16 By abstaining from domestic terrorism and adopting an outwardly-focused targeting policy, the LeT ensured its usefulness to the Pakistani security establishment. The organisation was an optimal tool for covert operations against adversarial countries. Its Wahhabi orientation limited its mobilisational base within Pakistan, and reduced the potential for its leaders to develop an autonomous agenda outside state control. To ensure its survival, the LeT built strong ties with the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), the espionage and sabotage branch of the Pakistani army.17 Writing in September 2015, American scholar C. Christine Fair claimed that: From the early 1990s, the ISI and the Pakistani army invested heavily in LeT. The army helped build LeT’s military apparatus specifically for use against India and it designed LeT’s training regime. It co-located army and ISI personnel at LeT training bases to help execute the regime and to train the organisation’s trainers and this remains true to date. All senior leaders have ISI handlers, including Saeed himself.18 The organisation’s rise was partly fuelled by an economic trend: a forced return of large numbers of middle class Pakistani expatriates from the Persian Gulf in the early 1990s. As many of these workers lacked employment prospects and social connections within their homeland, the Wahhabi organisation gave them a sense of community – a way of connecting with the Arabian dream they had left behind.19 Over the following years, the LeT used its expatriate connections in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to build an international funding and logistics chain.20 The Captured Shooter Although the LeT initially denied involvement in the Mumbai attack (only to own up later), its culpability was established within hours. A chance capture of one of the gunmen, Ajmal Kasab, exposed the attack’s origins. Together with another terrorist, Kasab had opened fire at Mumbai’s main railway terminus while being filmed on close circuit television cameras. During the following hours, as the two were pursued by city police, his partner was killed and he was overpowered and arrested while on the move (i.e. before he could find a stronghold to hunker down in for a final shootout). Having been trained as a

| 5 An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism suicidal terrorist, he was untutored in counter-interrogation tactics. Under the shock of capture Kasab revealed crucial details of the attack plan to Indian police. Among these were: 1. He and all the remaining nine terrorists in Mumbai were Pakistani members of the LeT. As proof, he named his native village, a claim later verified by international journalists including from the British Broadcasting Corporation. 2. The ten gunmen had departed from the Pakistani port city of Karachi in a LeT-owned ship, before they reached the high seas. They hijacked a fishing boat to enter Indian territorial waters undetected.

3. After landing on the Mumbai coastline, they split up and attacked multiple sites across the city as instructed to by their LeT trainers. 4. The attack was being coordinated in real-time from a control room in Karachi, via mobile phones and internet telephony. Kasab repeated these claims when interrogated separately by officials from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. His capture proved crucial in tracing the attack back to Pakistani territory.21 An equally important role was played by Signals Intelligence. Following Kasab’s arrest, intelligence officials from the United States and countries allied with it collectively met in Islamabad with the major general who headed the ISI’s analysis division. They presented intercept evidence of ISI personnel speaking with the attackers in Mumbai.22 Knowledge of this conversation remained a closely-guarded secret for many years. Thus, some diplomats incorrectly briefed reporters that while LeT’s involvement in the attack was beyond doubt, there was no evidence implicating the ISI.23 By doing so, they created a political opportunity for the civilian Pakistani Government to distance itself from the LeT. Instead of seizing this, Islamabad sought to conceal LeT’s role in the attack.

‘A Second Kargil’ Faced with Kasab’s capture, the Pakistani Government made a clumsy attempt at dissimulation. After the gunman’s parents independently confirmed to foreign media that their son was in Indian custody, they were never seen again.24 Their native village was sealed off and neighbours who had previously acknowledged LeT’s presence in the area were apparently briefed to make different statements when international journalists next came calling.25 So pervasive was the attempted erasure of Kasab’s origins that former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said it implied Islamabad had something to hide.26 Sharif would have known what a governmental cover-up looked like. During his second Prime Ministerial stint (1997-99), the Pakistani army had covertly infiltrated several hundred soldiers dressed in civilian clothes into Indian-administered Kashmir. For ten weeks in the summer of 1999, these soldiers battled with Indian forces in the Kargil region of Kashmir. Yet, military and civilian spokesmen in Islamabad denied the intruders were regular Pakistani troops, with the army going so far as to refuse Indian offers to repatriate their bodies for burial.27 Only after the resultant crisis had passed, did the Pakistani army

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism admit that it had crossed into Indian territory as part of an offensive authorised by the military leadership.28 The Mumbai attack of 2008 has been described as a ‘second Kargil’.29 Much as Islamabad at first refused to acknowledge the identity of its soldiers in 1999, in 2008 it sought to deny that Kasab was a Pakistani national. Admission of his identity only came 42 days after his capture. The apparent trigger was the circulation of a dossier by New Delhi on January 5, 2009 to 14 countries whose citizens were killed in the attack. A copy was also given to Islamabad. Citing multiple investigatory and intelligence sources, the dossier reportedly demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the attack had originated from Pakistan.30 Sensing the international mood turning against it, Islamabad sought to regain (some) credibility by acknowledging Kasab’s nationality.31 There was another similarity between 26/11 and Kargil: on both occasions, elements from Pakistan attacked India when relations between the two states were improving. This constrained New Delhi’s response options, since it came under international pressure not to jeopardise the (limited) progress made through dialogue. Coming as it did in the midst of a high-level discussion on security cooperation and visa liberalisation, the LeT’s assault achieved maximum surprise against the Indian policy establishment.32 In part, this was because Indian analysts had long regarded the organisation as a ‘veritable arm of the ISI’.33After Mumbai, a question arose that if LeT had carried out the attack – and Kasab’s confession left little doubt on that point – whether it had done so with ISI approval. If not, then the jihadist organisation might have ‘gone rogue’ on its long-standing patron. But if the ISI had been informed beforehand, why would it have permitted such a provocative operation to be launched? ‘Deep Terror’ In 2017 British investigative journalists Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy published a book chronicling the last years of Osama bin Laden. They made an interesting statement here: In 2008, according to two former aides to the Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Hafiz Saeed, Osama had travelled to Manshera to attend an extraordinary meeting for the Mumbai operation of November 26, 2008 (which had become known as 26/11). It had been facilitated by Lashkar, overseen by the ISI’s S-Wing and sponsored by Al Qaeda.34 Scott-Clark and Levy’s claim is important because it indicates the Mumbai attack may have been a joint venture by three parties: Al Qaeda, LeT and a wing of the ISI known for operational ties with jihadist groups. The so-called ‘Security’ or ‘S’ Wing has been written about in Pakistani English language media since at least 2001.35 In June that year, the monthly Newsline reported that ‘S’ Wing was suspected of instigating massacres within the country, to destabilise elected governments.36 Its activities allegedly dated back to 1988, a year during which the military government of General Zia ul Haq had faced an existential crisis.

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One of the civilian politicians challenging Zia was future Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Following Zia’s mysterious death in August 1988, the Pakistani army came under intense extraneous (primarily American) pressure to allow general elections to be held. It seemed probable that the winner would be Bhutto, a prospect the army dreaded. It had toppled her father in a coup 11 years earlier and had him executed. With Benazir as an elected head of government, old scores might be settled. Former ISI officers such as Lieutenant General Ghulam Jilani Khan and Brigadier Imtiaz Ahmed would have had especial reason to worry: under Zia, they had boosted their careers by harassing the Bhutto family. Benazir Bhutto later alleged that shadowy figures within the intelligence community had pre-emptively sabotaged her efforts to forge a united political bloc against the military.37 On September 30, 1988, just weeks before the elections, teams of gunmen took to the streets of Hyderabad, a city in Pakistan’s Sindh province.38 Over the course of just 15 minutes, they massacred approximately 250 members of the minority Muhajir community. The following day, clashes broke out in Karachi as Muhajirs vented their rage on innocent Sindhis. The latter were the main constituents of Bhutto’s political party.39 As a result of this inter-ethnic hostility, the army remained the final arbiter of domestic politics, even though its popular legitimacy had waned.40 Since then, Pakistani politics has featured a particular term for unexplained terrorist acts that ‘coincidentally’ serve the interests of the army: ‘Deep Terror’.41 The phrase is a play on the ‘Deep State’ – a confluence of military, intelligence and Islamist interests dedicated to undermining mainstream civilian politicians. To this day, no scholar has noted three similarities between the 1988 Hyderabad massacre and the one which occurred in Mumbai two decades later: Tactics: Both attacks unfolded according to a fast, fluid and opportunistic pattern, striking unprotected targets and moving on before a coherent security response could be organised. Politics: In both cases, the political interests of a beleaguered Pakistani military establishment were served by a ‘non state actor’. Following 26/11, the army manufactured a war hysteria that led to sudden dissipation of resentment against its (mis)rule between 1999 and 2008.42

Judicial failure: The alleged masterminds of both attacks, after being presented in Pakistani courts, were not convicted. A renegade Sindhi politician named Qadir Magsi was acquitted in 2017 of arranging the Hyderabad massacre.43 LeT operations chief Zaki ur Rehman Lahkvi was bailed in 2015 and remains untraceable, having been excused from further court appearances in connection with the 26/11 attack.44 The broad lesson from comparing Hyderabad 1988 and Mumbai 2008 seem to be that if 250 Pakistani citizens can be massacred and forgotten by the country’s legal system, the same system is unlikely to deliver justice for 165 non-Pakistani victims of terrorism.

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

A poor intelligence agency, but good at covert action Opinion remains divided among international scholars on how much foreknowledge existed within the ISI about the 2008 Mumbai operation, and how high within the command structure it went. German academic Hein Kiessling, in his book on the agency, argued that: An operation such as Mumbai attacks, which needed expert technical assessment, money and time to prepare, could not have been carried out or kept hidden without the knowledge of the service’s leadership. Considering the political explosiveness of the event, the COAS [Chief of Army Staff] as well would have to have been informed.45 This view is echoed by Bruce Riedel, a former White House advisor and senior official of the US Central Intelligence Agency: Some people have suggested ISI’s involvement in the attack was probably only at a low level and that the top army commanders did not know about the plot. As a former professional intelligence officer, I find that argument ridiculous…. [It] was a major ISI operation that would have been overseen and monitored, if not micro-managed, by the top brass of the service. They knew what the plan was and they approved it.46 A slightly less categorical view is taken by the American scholar Stephen Tankel, who echoes what seems to be the consensus opinion among experts. Tankel does not comment about the army leadership. But he suggests that planning and preparation for 26/11 took place under an outgoing ISI chief, who may have bequeathed the operation to his successor without disclosing all necessary information.47 This successor then faced the political fallout while the real patron of the attack (the former ISI chief) withdrew from the scene. Regardless of which interpretation is correct, the fact remains that elements of the ISI are widely believed to have assisted the Mumbai attack. In part, this view exists due to Pakistan’s lengthy record of sponsoring international terrorism. As German analyst Siegfried Wolf notes: Pakistan is one of the most active sponsors of terrorism worldwide. International experts confirm that the country is not only flirting with (militant) Jihadism but has also been using terrorism as an instrument of state policy for decades. Moreover, these claims are backed by Pakistani elites themselves. For example, former President Asif Zardari publicly admitted that the country deliberately created and nurtured terrorist groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), as a policy to achieve short-term tactical objectives.48 The mention of ‘short-term tactical objectives’ is illustrative. Observers suggest that the ISI has an action-oriented work culture but a poor record of evaluating collateral risk.49 The American journalist David Ignatius argues that the agency is better at covert action than

| 9 An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism at collecting and evaluating intelligence.50 British academic Robert Johnson is more direct, suggesting that the ISI fails to safeguard Pakistani security but escapes accountability for these failures.51 In part, this is because the agency has over many decades engaged in clandestine political messaging through the domestic media.52 As an intelligence monolith working both inside and outside Pakistan, it has the journalistic contacts needed to fabricate popular narratives and the institutional credibility to do so in the name of ‘national security’. Following the 26/11 attack, ISI spokesmen used Pakistan’s electronic media to undercut crisis management efforts by the civilian government. When the Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers spoke telephonically on November 28, 2008, the former suggested that the ISI chief may travel to India to share information. His Pakistani counterpart agreed. Within hours, the ISI told a news briefing that New Delhi had ‘summoned’ its chief and that Islamabad had capitulated to this ‘demand’.53 By reframing ‘suggestion’ as ‘summons’, those within the agency who wished to impede joint counterterrorism efforts succeeded. There was no exchange of information and no ISI official went to Delhi. Message control is more difficult outside Pakistan, and commentators such as former ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani have been critical of the agency. In connection with 26/11, Haqqani noted that the then ISI chief told him it was ‘our people but not our operation’.54 Haqqani noted in 2018 that the attack planners had not faced any consequences for their supposedly rogue operation.55 This was hardly surprising: since the 1990s, the ISI has routinely differentiated between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ terrorists, depending on who the victims are.56 Academic research has found that Pakistan-based jihadist groups which exclusively attack foreign targets fall into the ‘good’ category as far as sections of public opinion are concerned.57 Even if terrorists attack domestic targets, as long as these are sectarian or ethnic minorities, the perpetrators are spared the full wrath of the state.58 In contrast, those entities which attack Pakistani security forces are unambiguously labeled ‘bad’ and hunted down.59 With many of its cadres thought to have interlocking marital and familial ties in the armed forces, LeT is widely perceived as a ‘good’ terrorist organization.60 According to Indian scholar Wilson John, the ISI seeds its ‘non state’ proxies with ‘sheep-dipped’ personnel. That is, military and civilian operators who are retired or on leave from government service and reemployed as private contractors. Their unofficial status gives the agency plausible deniability combined with tight operational control. The covertly manipulated terrorist entities are therefore actually ‘para state actors’.61 One such deniable operative named Sajid Majeed was the project manager of the 26/11 attack. The controllers Much of what is known of Majeed comes from the confession and testimonies of David Headley, a Pakistani-American penetration agent. Using his American passport, Headley visited India a total of nine times between 2006 and 2009. During these visits, he reportedly conducted surveillance of 30 locations for possible attack, including all the sites struck on 26/11.62

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

Headley was arrested in October 2009 by American authorities.63 He was interrogated while in US custody by officials from the Indian National Investigation Agency (NIA). A sanitized version of his interrogation report was made available to the public. He later made a plea bargain that resulted in his being awarded 35 years’ imprisonment in the United States for conspiring to carry out the Mumbai attack. His lengthy and direct involvement with the operation makes his accounts revealing. According to Headley: The ISI (...) had no ambiguity in understanding the necessity to strike India. It essentially would serve three purposes. They are (a) controlling further split in the Kashmir-based outfits (b) providing them a sense of achievement and (c) shifting and minimizing the theatre of violence from the domestic soil of Pakistan to India.64 The LeT spy implied that in 2008, the ISI was worried about the possibility of losing control over jihadist groups which it had sponsored. As a ‘loyal’ organisation, LeT could unite Islamist radicals under a common umbrella which would remain on the right side of the Pakistani security establishment. However, an impending generational turnover made it necessary to cultivate younger leaders within the organisation. Under the influence of Al Qaeda’s ideological shadow since 9/11, these already tended to see India and the West as common enemies. They conceived of an attack that would strike both at the same time. Sajid Majeed was one such leader. Born in 1976, he had spent parts of his childhood in Saudi Arabia and Karachi. The first place seems to have made him an ‘Arabized’ jihadist with a global worldview.65 The second likely gave him insights into how urban warfare tactics in densely-populated localities could bring a city to its knees. Majeed would have seen gang violence in Karachi’s slums randomly spilling into middle class neighbourhoods.66 He may have got the idea of a multi-directional ‘swarming’ attack upon Mumbai from this experience. Using his position as assistant to the head of LeT’s external operations department, he lobbied with top management to approve the attack. He had already shown a predilection for envisioning spectacular operations, including one against a nuclear installation in Australia. Majeed was one of two Pakistani controllers whom Headley reported to. The other was a serving ISI official identified in US court documents as ‘Major Iqbal’ According to Headley, Major Iqbal paid him a total of US$ 28,500 to cover his travel to India and accommodation expenses.67 The officer also arranged for Headley to receive 50 training sessions in intelligence tradecraft from a junior ISI operative.68 Unlike Majeed, who was embedded within LeT, Major Iqbal remained a member of the Pakistani army. Headley told interrogators that every senior leader of LeT reported to an ISI handler.69 His own introduction to the group had come via an ISI officer identified as ‘Major Sameer Ali’. Major Ali’s name would be mentioned again in connection with the 26/11 attack, from a different source. In 2012, Saudi officials arrested a jihadist called codenamed ‘Abu Jundal’. The man lived in Saudi Arabia on a Pakistani passport under the name Riyasat Ali. After his arrest Islamabad lobbied to have him released into its custody.70 Even as it did so, New Delhi provided DNA evidence that Jundal was actually an Indian citizen named

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Zabiuddin Ansari. Despite its close ties with Pakistan, the desert kingdom ignored the latter’s protests and extradited Jundal to India. Its move enabled a leap forward in the three- and-a-half year investigation into 26/11. For the first time, Indian investigators were able to question one of men who had directed the attack from inside the LeT’s Karachi control room. Ansari alias Jundal had fled India in 2006, after attempting to smuggle arms into the country for terrorist attacks. He traveled to Pakistan, where he sought refuge with LeT. His role in the 26/11 planning was a crucial one: to school the ten gunmen in Hindi phrases both before and during the attack so that they could masquerade as Indian-born terrorists. In order to do this telephonically while the raid was underway, he was admitted into the control room.71 Jundal revealed that the LeT mother ship ‘Al Husseini’, which ferried the gunmen to international waters had been purchased with ISI money. Specifically, he identified Major Iqbal as having provided 2.5 million Pakistani rupees towards the purchase.72 He also revealed that Major Sameer Ali had been present inside the LeT control room. According to Jundal, Major Ali delivered ammunition to a LeT training site where rehearsals for the attack were conducted. His statement suggested that rather than being a secondary character, as depicted by Headley, Major Ali was a central figure in the 26/11 plot. This would make sense if the attack was actually an ‘S’ Wing operation. As a covert action unit of the ISI, ‘S’ Wing functioned on the basis of semi-private, long-running associations between handlers and jihadists. These associations endured regardless of whether a handler was a ‘sheep- dipped’ or a serving Pakistani official. Lastly, Jundal claimed that some of the combat training for the attack was conducted in Al Qaeda camps located along the Pakistan-Iran border.73 Jundal’s information about the ISI would be corroborated a year later, when another India-born LeT jihadist called Abdul Karim alias ‘Tunda’ was arrested by Indian police. ‘Tunda’ had lived in Pakistan for two decades. Although not directly involved in the 26/11 conspiracy, he claimed that according to information he had gathered, at least two ISI officers were in the control room during the attack.74 According to Ajit Doval, a former Director of the Indian Intelligence Bureau who became the National Security Advisor of India in 2014, the names of ISI personnel supervising the attack were obtained by New Delhi.75 In part, this was because they made a mistake by speaking directly to the gunmen in real-time. Unbeknown to the ISI, the Indian IB had breached LeT’s communications security by inserting a shipment of doctored mobile phone SIM cards into the organisation’s network in Kashmir. One of these cards was later placed into a handset given to the gunmen who attacked Mumbai. LeT assumed that if the gunmen used Indian mobile numbers then their links with Pakistan would gain an additional layer of deniability. When the shooting began, the IB identified the number as among those it had fed to LeT’s field ranks. It was able to swiftly listen in on calls between the terrorists in Mumbai and the Karachi control room. It continued listening even after the terrorists discarded the original handset and began using

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism phones taken from dead civilians. By that time, the IB had identified the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) account used by the control room and switched to monitoring all calls made to that account.76 The information gained was included in the January 2009 dossier which New Delhi shared with foreign governments whose citizens had been killed. Perhaps it was only to be expected that after this additional embarrassment, the Pakistani government admitted Kasab’s nationality. Not why, but why not…

In the days, weeks, months and years since 26/11, much brainpower has been expended on asking why ISI officials would have participated in such an attack. Headley’s interrogation report provides one possible answer, but that is based on his own opinion. This paper takes a rather different view. Rather than ask why the ISI would attack India in a manner designed to provoke widespread international outrage, perhaps the real question should be: why not? What follows below is a hypothetical timeline of institutional thinking, ideological influencing and operational planning, that may explain how ‘S’ Wing, LeT and Al Qaeda came together to carry out a unprecedented ‘hybrid’ attack. The distinguishing feature about 26/11 was that it brought many tactical innovations to the game of terrorism and counterterrorism. First, it combined hostage-taking of foreign nationals in one location (a Jewish cultural centre) with ‘active shooter’ rampages in others. Second, it featured the planting of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in fixed and mobile concealment (on the ground and in taxis). Third, it threw up a massive digital trail leading to Pakistan, which would normally have been self-defeating for the purpose of maintaining plausible deniability, had it not been for the elaborate efforts made to fake the gunmen’s origins. The timeline consists of key dates over a 16-year period, when events occurred that could have produced the tragic outcome now remembered as the Mumbai attack of 2008: 16 July 1992 A member of a Sikh separatist group, Lal Singh alias Manjit Singh, is arrested in Mumbai. He reveals that the ISI has developed a plan to bring together Sikh and Kashmiri separatists with jihadist militants operating in the Indian heartland. The objective of this plan is to unleash a campaign of urban terrorism that will slow India’s economic growth. The Indian government offers to let American counterterrorism officials interrogate Lal Singh, to independently assess his claims. It hopes to demonstrate proof that Pakistan is a state- sponsor of terrorism. Perhaps because it anticipates such an outcome and wishes to avoid embarrassing Islamabad, Washington declines the offer.77 Even so, over the following years American officials take up other offers of questioning Pakistani jihadists held in Indian custody as long as these have information about threats to US nationals or strategic interests.78 12 March 1993 A series of thirteen synchronized bombings rock Mumbai, killing 257 people. The bombings are not claimed by any terrorist group. Investigators recover unexploded ordnance | 13 An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism which when traced, leads to Pakistani army stores. The evidence is presented to the CIA, which asks to take possession of it for independent testing. Later, the CIA claims that the evidence was ‘accidentally’ destroyed while in its possession and that no clear trail could be found to Pakistani state actors, even if the ordnance indeed came from Pakistani territory.79 Meanwhile, Indian police discover that the bombs were planted by a local gang of drug smugglers called D-Company. The leadership of this gang subsequently flees to Pakistan.80 Sometime in 1997 Indian Prime Minister I.K Gujral orders the closure of Counter Intelligence Team – X, a covert action unit deployed against Pakistan. The unit had been tasked with secret missions to deter cross-border attacks on the Indian heartland.81 The closure order is intended as a unilateral goodwill gesture and comes at a time when the urban terror threat has receded after Mumbai 1993. Over the next decade, India is left with no deep-cover assets inside Pakistani territory which can be activated quickly for paramilitary missions.82 The following year, Pakistan conducts nuclear tests in response to India’s own, creating a sense of invulnerability within the Pakistani army that no serious threat now exists to it.83 23 February 1998 Al Qaeda announces the formation of the International Islamic Front Against the Jews and the Crusaders. One of the founding members is LeT, whose India-born operative Abdul Karim alias ‘Tunda’ brokers contacts between D-Company and Al Qaeda. The drug smuggling syndicate’s logistical network in East Africa is used to move Al Qaeda personnel there. Shortly afterwards, suicide bombers strike the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In 2003, the US government declares the leader of D-Company to be a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) with ties to both Al Qaeda and LeT.84 18 September 1999 and 3 November 1999 Osama bin Laden announces from a farmhouse in Afghanistan that ‘India and America are my biggest enemies and all Mujahideen groups in Pakistan should come together to target them’.85 The announcement comes less than two months after the end of the Kargil crisis. At the time, bin Laden is in the process of replacing his Arab bodyguards with Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, even as Arab intelligence services in partnership with the CIA are making efforts to infiltrate his inner circle.86 The Al Qaeda declaration of war against India is followed by a statement from LeT chief Hafeez Saeed, who threatens that ‘We will not rest until the whole India [sic] is dissolved into Pakistan’.87 Over the following years increasing numbers of Pakistani ‘sleeper’ agents of LeT are discovered inside India, having entered the country clandestinely and assumed local identities.88 13 December 2001 Five suicidal gunmen are killed by Indian police while attempting to storm the parliament building in New Delhi. A number of policemen also die in the shootout. The gunmen’s identities are only learnt after intelligence agencies arrest their local hosts. All

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism shooters are said to be of Pakistani origin, but Islamabad flatly denies this. Investigators find they belong to a Karachi-based Deobandi group called Jaish-e-Mohammed but were supported logistically by LeT. From analysis of their mobile phone records, they are found to have been communicating with ISI officials located in Karachi.89 Days later, US President George W. Bush announces a ban on LeT: Lashkar-e-Tayiba is an extremist group based in Kashmir. LAT [sic] is a stateless sponsor of terrorism, and it hopes to destroy relations between Pakistan and India and to undermine Pakistani President Musharraf. To achieve its purpose, LAT has committed acts of terrorism inside both India and Pakistan LAT is a terrorist organization that presents a global threat. And I look forward to working with the governments of both India and Pakistan in a common effort to shut it down.90 This announcement contains the following inaccuracies: a) since LeT is not composed of refugees or fugitives it cannot be termed ‘stateless’, b) its administration, recruitment and funding infrastructure is based in Pakistan’s Punjab province, and c) it does not attack domestic targets in Pakistan. By placing India and Pakistan on the same level as ‘victims’ of LeT, the American President prepares the ground for a false paradigm that the two countries share a ‘common enemy’. This adds a layer of deniability to the Pakistani army and ISI’s continued patronage of LeT. 24 September 2002 Two suicidal gunmen storm a temple in western India, killing 37 people. Indian SWAT personnel are unable to capture them alive. The attack is attributed to LeT on the basis of signals interception but the identities of the dead gunmen cannot be reliably verified.91

11 July 2006 Synchronised bombings rip through seven suburban trains in Mumbai, killing 200. Indian claims of ISI involvement are met with open scepticism by US officials.92 New Delhi is advised to set up a mechanism for jointly investigating cross-border terrorist attacks with Islamabad. Accordingly, a joint Indo-Pakistani counterterrorism mechanism is convened in March 2007, with the stated aim of meeting every quarter (it fails to keep this schedule).93 Two days after the Mumbai bombings, the arrests of two Pakistani jihadists reveal that LeT is bribing fishermen to cross the Indo-Pakistani maritime border with weapons and personnel. It is paying Indian rupees 500,000 for each consignment smuggled into India.94

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3 March 2007 A team of eight suicidal terrorists from Pakistan lands on the Mumbai coast. Their objective is to travel across India and hide until activated. Unknown to LeT, the terrorists’ landing has been tracked by Indian intelligence agencies. All are neutralized in subsequent raids.95 10-11 July 2007 Pakistani Special Forces storm a mosque in Islamabad, ending a stand-off triggered after radical Islamists kidnapped some Chinese nationals working in the city. The army’s raid ignites fury among militants across the country. Weeks later, a suicide bombing takes place at a Special Forces base.96 For the remainder of 2007 and continuing into 2008, Pakistan reels from attacks carried out by a renegade local branch of the Taliban. 26 March 2008 Indian police smash a network of local jihadists that has instructional ties with Pakistan.97 For years, LeT has been recruiting and indoctrinating low-level jihadists from India to carry out urban bombings. Recruitment takes place in the Middle East and indoctrination in Karachi (due to its being an Urdu-speaking hub and, therefore, compatible with the Indians’ background). The programme is known as the ‘Karachi Project’.98 Following the arrests in India, LeT planners expand the scope of the Mumbai attack to include additional targets.99

7 July 2008 A suicide bomber strikes the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 54 persons. The New York Times later reports that US intelligence agencies possess signals intercepts indicating the bombing was carried out at the ISI’s behest.100 This marks the first time that the United States has gone public about specific Pakistani involvement in terrorism targeted at Indian interests. Even so, the disclosure only pertains to Afghan territory. That month, the Pakistani civilian government announces its intention to remove the ISI from military control and subordinate it to the elected civilian leadership. Within hours, the announcement is withdrawn, apparently as a result of military pressure.101 26 November 2008 Mumbai attack is launched The above timeline suggests five trends, which were in operation before 26/11:

 Discursive convergence between two Wahhabi groups (Al Qaeda and LeT),

 Use of trans-border smugglers to assist terrorist operations,

 Reluctance from US officials to expose Pakistani linkages with terrorism in India,

 Difficulties faced by Indian agencies in tracing suicidal attackers’ origins, and

 Disruption of jihadist networks that lay within India’s law enforcement jurisdiction.

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

When aggregated, the trends point towards a scenario in which operational trial-and- error led LeT to come up with the innovative concept of a sea-launched suicidal raid. This would target Western and Israeli nationals (in homage to Al Qaeda), avoid contact with local jihadist cells which may be penetrated by Indian intelligence, and leave no conclusive trail back to Pakistan.102 Even telephonic conversations from the gunmen back to Karachi would not be fatally compromising, as shown by the 2001 Indian parliament attack. For its part, the ISI’s ‘S’ Wing may have been complacent about American officialdom not looking too closely at evidence against Pakistan. When the July 2008 Kabul bombing happened, final preparation for the Mumbai attack was well underway. Even though Western intelligence agencies could intercept LeT conversations, past experience suggested they would be reluctant to openly take sides in an Indo-Pakistani spat. The ISI could not have known that the Indian IB had independently broken through LeT’s operational security and could listen in on the phone conversations by itself. Lastly, the dual absence of an Indian covert retaliatory capacity and the presence of Pakistani nuclear weapons would ensure that the attack would be politically cost-free. So the real question may have been not why did LeT and the ISI strike India, but what was there to stop them? From the hypothesis outlined above, it seems that the answer was: nothing. Aftermath: Denial and Deception Following the 26/11 attack, Islamabad’s response was a mixture of denial at home and conciliation abroad. Domestically, a popular narrative emerged in the electronic media, very likely with the encouragement of the ISI, that the Mumbai attack was carried out by ‘home-grown’ terrorists from within India. There were suggestions that the attack was a ‘black operation’ staged by Indian or American intelligence agencies to ‘defame’ Pakistan.103 Kasab’s capture was explained away as the abduction of an innocent Pakistani villager falsely implicated in the attack. The narrative continues to be repeated in Pakistani media to this day.104 Former ISI chief Asad Durrani reportedly peddled it when interviewed by an Indian journalist as recently as 2018.105 At the diplomatic level, Islamabad could not get away with disseminating conspiracy theories. It, therefore, made conditional promises to assist with the post-attack investigation. On 29 November 2008, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that his government would act against any of their nationals involved. The pledge hinged around New Delhi providing what he termed as ‘concrete proof’ and ‘hard evidence’.106 These words contained an escape clause allowing Islamabad, once tempers had cooled, to do nothing on grounds of ‘insufficient’ evidence. Since the mid 2000s, when ISI involvement with terrorist groups came under sustained international scrutiny, Islamabad has been combining cooperative rhetoric with obstructive practice. Writing in 2007, British scholar Shaun Gregory observed that the ISI always promised to act on counterterrorism information provided by foreign governments. Gregory pointed out that the cooperative tone masked a reality that Islamabad was effectively passing the buck to foreign governments to gather intelligence of specific

| 17 An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism terrorist activity, before it made any move to disrupt terrorist networks more generally.107 The same applied after 26/11. During the first week of December 2008, unprecedented pressure built up on Pakistan. LeT had already been proscribed as an international terrorist entity by the United Nations Security Council in May 2005 under Resolution 1267. But Islamabad had since lobbied Beijing to keep LeT’s charitable wing Jamaat ud Dawa off the UNSC’s list of banned terrorist groups. China, as a permanent member of the Security Council, exercised its veto on three occasions to oblige Pakistan.108 After the Mumbai attack, India launched a renewed effort to get JuD listed under UNSC 1267. This time China did not veto the proposal. In the days following the attack, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Hussein Haroon had pledged that Islamabad would abide by a UNSC decision to ban JuD, if one was made.109 With the organization now on the 1267 list, Islamabad had no further excuse for inaction. Two separate ultimatums issued by New Delhi and Washington also forced its hand. Threatened with Indian escalation if it did not act within 48 hours, the Pakistani government launched a token crackdown on both LeT and JuD. On 12 December 2008, 125 activists of the two organizations were detained. Among them was Hafeez Saeed, head of JuD. Tellingly, Saeed was detained under the Maintenance of Public Order Act (MPO), which he had already been subjected to at least twice before.110

Saeed was detained until the first week of June 2009, when restrictions on him were lifted by a Pakistani court, ostensibly because no evidence was found against him in the Mumbai attack case.111 Attention shifted to his deputy Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi, who was projected by Pakistani investigators as the real ‘mastermind’ of the 26/11 conspiracy. As operational head of LeT, Lakhvi’s legal position was more vulnerable than Saeed’s. He was formally arrested by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) of Pakistan at an LeT camp. Also arrested were six other LeT members, later named as co-conspirators in the Mumbai case. Another 21 persons were declared absconding and remain so as of December 2018. The FIA is a civilian police agency with limited influence in Pakistan. Even so, under its chief Tariq Khosa, it made an effort to gather court-admissible evidence of the 26/11 plot. Its charge-sheet avoided mention of the ISI and projected the Mumbai attack as a stand-alone operation by LeT. Individuals such as Sajid Majeed were not mentioned. Zabiuddin Ansari later claimed that Majeed evaded detention with the assistance of ISI officers.112 A stalled trial The Mumbai attack trial opened in February 2009 in a special anti-terrorism court. Pakistan had created such courts in the 1990s to try terrorism cases expeditiously. From the beginning there was nothing expeditious about the 26/11 trial. Besides procedural factors, two months delay passed before a judge was appointed in July 2009. It seemed a coincidence that this development only occurred days before the Indian and Pakistani Prime

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

Ministers were scheduled to meet at a Summit in Egypt. Knowing the Indian side would press for details about the trial, Pakistan handed over a dossier detailing the steps taken.113 The two most prominent suspects in FIA custody were Lakhvi and Zarrar Shah, a senior LeT operative who set up communications infrastructure for the Mumbai attack. Indicting the latter may have been a kind of ‘punishment’ for lapses of operational security. Years later, the New York Times reported that a British signals intelligence operation had targeted Shah prior to the Mumbai attack.114 Indian security officials believe that through this breach British spies overheard incriminating conversations between ISI and LeT personnel in the Karachi control room.115 Since Shah was the point man for maintaining communications, and had failed to secure them he may have been ‘burned’ to protect the ISI officers involved. From 2009 onwards, the Mumbai attack trial in Pakistan featured on average, one judge transferred every year and another appointed in their place. This combined with what appeared to be delaying tactics from the defence counsels undermined the prosecution’s case. Between hearings, witnesses who observed LeT’s attack preparations and had been prepared to testify were intimidated.116 Prosecutors received death threats.117 One, chief prosecutor Chaudhury Zulfikar Ali, filed an application in November 2012 arguing that the delay was damaging Pakistan’s reputation and asked the court to expedite the trial. He separately told the media he would ‘leave no stone unturned to bring the perpetrators to justice’.118 On 3 May 2013, he was shot dead.119 Other prosecutors filed an application on 21 May 2014, alleging that they were being threatened by JuD activists, in order to get them to drop the case.120 One prosecutor was transferred in 2018, ostensibly for not agreeing to the government’s policy of tacitly supporting the accused and letting the case against LeT lose momentum.121 On 3 August 2015, Tariq Khosa published an op-ed in Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English language newspaper. He urged that: Pakistan has to deal with the Mumbai mayhem, planned and launched from its soil. This requires facing the truth and admitting mistakes. The entire state security apparatus must ensure that the perpetrators and masterminds of the ghastly terror attacks are brought to justice. The case has lingered on for far too long. Dilatory tactics by the defendants, frequent change of trial judges, and assassination of the case prosecutor as well as retracting from original testimony by some key witnesses have been serious setbacks for the prosecutors.122 Khosa would later clarify that he perceived the 26/11 attack as the work of a ‘non state actor’.123 His op-ed did not mention the possible role of the ISI, but presented certain key findings of FIA investigators who had worked under his supervision: 1. that Ajmal Kasab was a Pakistani national, whose birthplace, initial schooling and subsequent induction into LeT had been verified

2. that LeT trained the attackers at a camp in Sindh province, from where casings of explosive devices used in Mumbai were recovered and matched

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3. that LeT transported the gunmen to international waters in a fishing trawler, which was later repainted and concealed but could be still identified and seized by the FIA 4. that a control room in Karachi had directed the attack in Mumbai, and the FIA had later located it and traced the VoIP account used 5. that an outboard motor and dinghy used by the gunmen to navigate the last few kilometers of their approach towards to Mumbai, had been traced to an LeT activist 6. that facilitators and financiers of the attack, located in third countries, had been identified, arrested and tried. Taken together, Khosa’s findings demonstrated at the very least, that LeT was the group responsible and that key parts of New Delhi’s claims were true. Yet, his article marked the high-water point of Pakistani acknowledgment regarding the 26/11 attack’s provenance. Three months later, the country’s media regulatory body forbade any further reporting or commentary on LeT. Ostensibly, this was intended to show compliance with UNSC 1267. But given the attention that Khosa’s article received for having admitted LeT’s role in the Mumbai carnage, an argument can be made that the coverage ban was triggered by a desire to prevent any further embarrassing disclosures.124

As far as political debate in Pakistan was concerned, the attack was best forgotten and so ought to be justice for the victims. In May 2018, Nawaz Sharif (who had been in power once again during 2013-17), commented that delays in the trial of Lakhvi and his co- conspirators damaged Pakistan’s credibility. He was pilloried by both civilian politicians and the military. Sharif protested that he had only spoken facts.125 A media report later noted that several prominent Pakistanis had accepted on the record that the attackers came from Pakistan.126 Even so, any reminder that Islamabad had an obligation to act against LeT seemed unwelcome. In part, this is because the organization hides within the widespread overground infrastructure and social respectability within Pakistan, of Jamaat ud Dawa.127 The non-existent ban on JuD In February 2018, the Financial Action Task Force, a grouping of 34 countries which included donors to Pakistan, announced its intention to ‘grey list’ Islamabad for not doing enough to combat terrorism financing. The threat had little practical significance, but it still prompted an unprecedented reaction.128 For the first time, Pakistan temporarily ‘banned’ JuD.129 What it did not dwell on, was how it was able to proscribe an organization that according to its own diplomats, had already been proscribed since December 2008.130 Unnoticed by most international experts, no Pakistani government ever followed through on the post-Mumbai assurance made at the UNSC of complying with Resolution 1267.131 A year after 26/11, the Pakistani news magazine Herald ran a story on how Islamabad had quietly reneged on its binding commitment to shut down JuD. On 11 December 2008, one day after the UNSC named JuD as an international terrorist entity and

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism a front organization for LeT, the Pakistani foreign office announced a ‘ban’ on JuD. This announcement had no legal force within Pakistan. All that happened was that JuD was put on a ‘watch list’ requiring that its activities be put under observation.132 For months and years afterward, Pakistani officials told journalists that JuD no longer operated within the country. Yet, when asked they were unable to produce a formal notification confirming that it had been proscribed.133 Meanwhile, the provincial government of Pakistani Punjab allocated state grants to JuD. In the first 18 months after the Mumbai attack, these totalled 82 million rupees.134 In 2014, special trains were arranged to ferry JuD supporters from across the country to a two-day conference organized by the group.135 Only the threat of FATF ‘grey listing’ prompted a brief clampdown on JuD, which according to local media, consisted of dispatching a civil servant to supervise the continued operation of its facilities.136 By October 2018, even this token restriction had been lifted and JuD was once again, no longer an ‘underground’ entity in Pakistan – to the extent it had ever been one.137 What constitutes ‘State-Sponsorship of Terrorism’? In light of what is known in the public domain ten years later, and with due recognition that this is but a fraction of the complete picture, it is time to review whether 26/11 was really the work of a ‘non state actor’. In 2014, the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence carried an article on linkages between the former East German intelligence service, the Stasi, and terrorists. Among the claims therein was that ‘East German instructors … reportedly trained the terrorists who drove explosives-laden vehicles into the U.S Marine barracks and the French military barracks in Lebanon in 1983. During the training sessions, which took place at a camp in Syria, the terrorists practiced crashing cars and trucks into buildings.’138 To most scholars familiar with the history of international terrorism, this would be an important revelation, if true. The 1983 Lebanon bombings had launched the career of a 21-year old Shia militant called Imad Mughniyeh.139 Despite his age, the ever-audacious Mughniyeh went on to earn respect among terrorists worldwide, including Osama bin Laden. It was reportedly Mughniyeh’s network which in the early 1990s trained Al Qaeda in carrying out vehicle-borne suicide bombings. Mughniyeh also advised bin Laden about releasing propaganda videos to shape policy and media discourse among targeted societies. To imagine that an impoverished Shia from Lebanon could collaborate with a wealthy Sunni from Saudi Arabia may not be totally outlandish.140 But to find that the former may have been trained by covert operatives from an atheist Communist state, all for the purpose of striking the West, requires re-conceptualizing how terrorist plots evolve. Rather than being ‘tactical’ or short-term, cooperation between intelligence agents and terrorists can serve a ‘strategic’ objective by undermining the political will and military credibility of a shared adversary. Such cooperation can remain ongoing independently of political mood shifts, unless explicitly forbidden.

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Does training, funding and logistical support to terrorists, provided by an intelligence agency, amount to ‘state-sponsorship of terrorism’? The question is not a moot one. In 1989, the journal Terrorism and Political Violence carried an article entitled ‘What constitutes state support to terrorists?’ The article acknowledged that ‘proving’ such support beyond reasonable doubt was extraordinarily difficult. It cited how the US government struggled to convince its own European allies about Libya’s involvement in the April 1986 La Belle Discotheque bombing.141 This attack too was later found to have a Stasi connection.142 An East German spy allegedly supplied 20-30 kilograms of plastic explosives for it. So, who was finally culpable: Libya, East Germany, or only the bombing network, which was led by a Venezuelan called Illich Ramirez Sanchez (better known as ‘Carlos the Jackal’). The 1989 article identified five levels of state culpability, in ascending order. It flagged key characteristics of each level, which have been presented here in tabular form:

Level of Characteristics of government behaviour Examples from the Mumbai case culpability

Intimidated  Granting terrorist demands;  Pakistan’s army leadership refused governments an American request to confiscate  Refusal to sign/ratify bilateral/regional/universal Zaki ur Lakhvi’s phone, despite anti-terrorist treaties; concerns that Lakhvi was personally coordinating more 26/11-type  Refusal to legislatively/juridically enforce such attacks.143 treaties  Refusal to extradite on legal technicalities;  Not banning Jamaat ud Dawa even after the UNSC did so  'Quiet deals' by governments who permit terrorists to transit country in return for guarantee of no attacks on local soil.

 Propaganda/rhetorical support to terrorist groups  Initial and continuing attempts to Ideologically in media, international organizations; claim via media reports and official supportive briefings that LeT was not involved regimes  Permitting group to open office on local soil; in 26/11, and that gunmen were not Pakistani citizens  Refusal to extradite on political grounds  Not extraditing the attack master-  Receiving visiting terrorist leaders on level nor- minds when they were identified by mally given to heads of state; the US, despite having extradited Al Qaeda suspects in the 1990s144  Early release of incarcerated terrorists;

 Failure to arrest hijackers who leave airplane on  Momentarily placing UN- country's turf; designated terrorist leader Hafiz Saeed under house arrest and later  Granting of landing rights to hijackers; releasing him without charges  Refusal to permit foreign hostage rescue squads  Granting bail to Lakhvi and exempt- into country; ing him from court appearances, thereby making it difficult for  Failure to arrest known terrorist transiting country. Western governments to track his whereabouts

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

 Permitting group to set up safehouses/  Allowing existence of multiple Generally safehavens on local soil; training camps across Pakistan facilitative which were used to rehearse for regimes  Permitting terrorists to conduct training on Mumbai attacks, as well as the local soil; establishment of a command centre in Karachi  General training by government of umbrella guerrilla bands which have terrorist appendag- es;  Large monetary contributions to umbrella group's coffers;  Provision of arms to group or lax supervision of third party arms transfers.

 Providing false/true documents/passports/  Tactical training by members of Direct support backstopping aliases/cover stories Pakistani special forces to the in incidents by Mumbai shooters145 governments  Providing diplomatic pouch to move terror- ist items;  Supplying ammunition for mis-  Provision of non-lethal operational assis- sion-specific training tance - maps, safehouses, communications;  Direct financing for specific operation;  Funding the purchase of the trawler Al Husseini  Direct training for specific operation;  Provision of weapons for specific operation;  Providing technical support for attack communications146  Adding to terrorist demands during inci- dent;  Payment of insurance/bonuses to terrorists after the fact.

 Participation of intelligence/security service  Indictment of serving ISI intelli- Official personnel in planning of operation; gence officials by US court for participation supervising the attack planning  Government personnel joining terrorist and preparation attack squad  Joining terrorist attack squad once incident has begun  Incarcerating hostages  Shooting at hostage rescue squads

Table constructed from Edward F. Mickolus, ‘What constitutes state support to terrorists?’, Terrorism and Political Vio- lence,1:3 (1989), pp. 288-291. Columns 1 and 2 have been reproduced almost verbatim, using the same language employed by Mickolus. Only characteristics shown in bold font on the table, can qualify as state support of a terrorist incident. Those features of state behaviour which could be interpreted as arising from intimidation by terrorist groups or ideological sympathy and general facilitation of terrorist activity, while deplorable, do not meet the threshold required to prove state culpability. By this logic, elements of the Pakistani State are still implicated in the Mumbai attacks, even if political considerations dictate that the focus of public debate should lie on Lashkar-e-Taiba as an ostensible ‘non-state actor’.

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Limits of International Pressure Ever since the 1993 bombings in Mumbai, a central plank of India’s policy on combating cross-border terrorism has been to seize and hold the moral high ground. Upon the advice of West European experts, New Delhi began a diplomatic effort to sensitize foreign governments of its concerns about Pakistan-based jihadist networks. This yielded partial results. As became clear in the following years, Pakistan was not entirely indifferent to world opinion.147 But neither was it sufficiently worried as to implement a course correction. Put simply, the country wanted to continue acting like a rogue state but be treated like a respectable one. Its confidence came from knowing that geopolitics came to its rescue in the past, and likely will do so again. During the 1980s, the ISI had supported separatist terrorists in India’s Punjab province – a clear violation of international law.148 Yet, its actions were overlooked by the United States so long as they remained below the threshold of full exposure ie., plausibly deniable. The reason for such indulgence was Pakistani assistance in sponsoring the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet army. Once that utility ended with the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Pakistan discovered that its covert action in Punjab came under critical scrutiny by Washington. Quiescent for a few years, it felt emboldened after 9/11 to support LeT in launching a bombing offensive on Indian cities – the same offensive was blunted by arrests across India in 2008. These arrests were perhaps, one of the factors that prompted LeT and the ISI into carrying out the Mumbai attack. With Pakistan holding leverage over the US, in the form of providing sanctuary to Taliban insurgents operating in Afghanistan, there were real limits to what Washington could do. Immediately after killing Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad on 2 May 2011, US Navy SEALs seized his personal files. Among these were recent letters revealing that bin Laden corresponded with Hafeez Saeed.149 With evidence of high-level and ongoing contact between LeT and Al Qaeda confirmed, the US government announced a $10 million reward for information which would secure Saeed’s conviction for the attack.150 Shortly thereafter, it named Sajid Majeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist alongside other LeT leaders. Given that all these individuals were safe in Pakistan, the gesture was largely a symbolic one.151 On the 10th anniversary of the attack, the US State Department announced a further $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of any of the 26/11 conspirators.152 The announcement achieved little, beyond perhaps signalling to Islamabad that the much-anticipated acquittal of the conspirators who were still in prison will not go down well among diplomatic circles. Even so, it is likely have no effect. Having started in the 1990s from a position of feigned ignorance, the increased American tilt towards India seems to have coincided with warming Sino-Pakistani relations. In recent years Beijing has provided ever-more political cover to Islamabad on the matter of LeT. China blocked Indian efforts to hold Pakistan to account before the UNSC 1267 Committee on why Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi was bailed in 2015.153 Considering that Lakhvi was named by Pakistan’s own FIA as the mastermind of the Mumbai attack, it seems that geopolitical considerations will overshadow international counterterrorism cooperation even

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism as US-China tensions increase. Media reports from Pakistan presently suggest that JuD/LeT is involved in securing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.154 The organisation reportedly provides death squads for the ISI to target Baluch separatists, as part of Pakistan’s ‘kill and dump’ policy. Islamabad has long alleged that violence in Baluchistan is fuelled by India. But a multi-year reading of Pakistan’s own media archives would indicate that the accusation is a blame-shifting tactic to cover up for poor governance. Since at least the early 1990s, Chinese nationals have been targeted in Baluchistan due to local impoverishment and frontier criminality.155 Furthermore, threats to Chinese workers are not limited to Baluchistan but extend to other parts of the country, such as Sindh.156 India would need to consider changing geopolitical currents, as it prepares to deal with the next 26/11. For its part, the ISI has momentarily adopted a three-fold switch in tactics as it prepares for another big push against India. First, it has directed jihadists to focus on police and military rather than civilian targets, knowing these would attract less international attention.157 Second, it has sought to promote Jaish-e-Mohammad as a militant force, to draw attention away from LeT.158 And third, since 2015 it has carried out attacks in India’s Punjab, as a way of testing how committed New Delhi would be to taking punitive measures.159 By striking at targets outside Jammu and Kashmir, the Pakistani agency is once again raising the threshold of covert activities to levels of provocation that preceded 26/11. Policy Options for the Future Seen with the benefit of hindsight, New Delhi made two policy mistakes that directly led to the carnage in 2008 carnage. The smaller mistake – a tactical one – was in yielding to Anglo-American pressure in 2006 to form a joint counterterrorism mechanism with Pakistan. At a stroke, Islamabad's previous record of supporting terrorism was erased by placing victim and perpetrator at the same moral level. Had Ajmal Kasab not been captured on 26/11 (through suicidal bravery on the part of the Mumbai police) the same 'joint mechanism' would have become a propaganda tool for Pakistan. It would have been used for projecting New Delhi as being unreasonable and quick to accuse without 'proof'. In such a situation, India would not even had had the option of adopting a diplomacy-focused approach to isolate, name and shame Pakistan, of the kind it later adopted once Kasab was arrested.

The second policy mistake was the strategic and truly damaging one. This mistake consisted of a leadership failure to authorize preparation of covert retaliatory options, in the event that opportunists in the ISI hid behind the 'peace dialogue' to intensify their covert activities.160 Once the joint mechanism was in place, LeT-aided bombings under the 'Karachi Project' grew more frequent over 2007-08. Even without 26/11, the steady drumbeat of these rolling attacks would have constituted grounds for striking back silently at the Pakistani army’s rear-area installations. But the then government of India had already wedged itself into a corner from which extrication became difficult, once it had pledged to continue dialogue despite no cessation of terrorist attacks.161 Having ignored multiple broadsides, it set successive precedents of timidity that eventually led LeT and the ISI to assume, correctly, that there would be no violent reaction even to a truly massive attack.

| 25 An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

Former Director of the Indian Intelligence Bureau D.C Pathak, widely respected as an authority on jihadist terrorism, made a prescient observation in April 2009: Even after India, disregarding the longstanding security assessment about the nature of cross –border terrorism, prematurely sympathised with Pakistan ‘for being at the receiving end of terrorism’, the attacks from across the border did not stop. Pakistan obviously has misread India’s generous stance of putting both the countries on the same side of the fence by agreeing to jointly deal with terrorism. 26/11 has made India’s policy formulation look quite out of step with reality.162 This paper suggests that events since 2009 – in particular the failure of the Pakistani state to ban JuD and convict the 26/11 conspirators – have proven D.C. Pathak right. The paper further suggests that in a paradoxical sense, 26/11 happened both due to the success and failure of Indian intelligence agencies. The IB was successful at disrupting LeT-backed networks within India, forcing the Pakistani jihadist organization to launch a direct attack with minimal local involvement. But the wider political climate prevented the R&AW from hitting back if the ISI crossed a ‘red line’. Informed sources say that this deficiency has been partly rectified in the years since 2008. Even so, a three-faceted approach may offer a suitable mix of options for dealing with the variegated actors and constituents that together, make up the composite Pakistani State (including the Deep State). Each facet corresponds to one of the hypotheses through which the Mumbai attack has been viewed in policy discourse since 2008: Hypothesis 1: Terrorist attacks on India constitute covert warfare by a hostile state An analytical lens that sees cross-border terrorism as a long-standing multi-decadal effort by the ISI and Pakistani army to ‘avenge’ 1971 would consider the Pakistan State as a unitary actor and incorrigible foe. Civilian differences with the military would count for little according to this model, since the military would ultimately decide on policy matters concerning India. Policy Facet 1: Exposing Pakistan as a Rogue State Engaging with civilian leaders would be a waste of time, only providing the army with a political human shield behind which to carry out more covert actions. According to this model, the focus of India’s policy response should be to expose Pakistan at every international policy forum as a regional trouble-maker and a State unfit for inclusion within the community of civilized nations. Such an openly combative approach would require deep research into Pakistan’s domestic affairs and the uncovering of information that might compromise and contradict that country’s narrative about itself as well as its relations with neighbours. Hypothesis 2: ‘Rogue’ agents and terrorists combine to carry out attacks This hypothesis is the one most favoured by international (especially American) scholars and is quite widespread within India too. It implicitly places the onus on India to

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

‘take the first step’ towards talks despite being the victim of persistent cross-border terrorism. By suggesting that terrorism is supported by a few renegade ISI personnel, it provides an alibi for the Pakistani State machinery, both civil and military, to have its patronage of LeT/JuD overlooked. For the sake of preserving a ritualistic ‘dialogue’, New Delhi would extend a wide threshold of tolerance for ISI provocation that will slowly be pushed against. Policy Facet 2: Promoting people-to-people contact Even so, there is value in investing partially in the fiction that only ‘rogues’ in Pakistan are intent in sabotaging bilateral goodwill. Doing so would allow easier access to Pakistani society and thought processes by Indian diplomats and scholars. Just as LeT used the 2004-08 thaw in Indo-Pakistani relations to recruit Indian jihadists and launch a bombing campaign, so can New Delhi infiltrate the wider Pakistani polity and seed it with messages that exacerbate pre-existing rifts. A historical precedent exists in the extraordinarily (and perhaps excessively) courteous treatment shown to Pakistani prisoners of war in 1971.163 The benefits of such a temporarily accommodative approach would become evident whenever there is a need to increase the salience of Response Facet 1 (see above) or Response Facet 3 (see below). Hypothesis 3: Cross-border terrorism is the work of ‘non state actors’ This argument allows the ISI to continue attacking India even as Islamabad presses for a dialogue. Together, the combination of covert attacks and overt talks would strengthen Pakistan’s negotiating position. Even so, the ‘non state actor’ thesis creates some room for New Delhi to play Islamabad at its own game, by insisting that any overt military or covert paramilitary actions against LeT are not targeted at the Pakistani State. Usage of the term ‘surgical strikes’ while referring to cross-border raids conducted in September 2016 signals this message of restraint.164 The primary question is one of target acquisition. Policy Facet 3: Invest in assets to identify, locate and track high-value individual targets Neutralizing LeT operational planners would constitute a legitimate act of self- defence, even if done pre-emptively. Relevant components of India’s security apparatus would need to study the personal vulnerabilities of key Pakistani operatives, and build the capability to strike these. Even if doing so does not degrade LeT’s attack capability, it would force the organization to invest in protective measures and likely deter a vertical and horizontal escalation by impelling the ISI leadership to restrain ‘S’ Wing and its jihadist proxy. For reasons of political expediency, actions taken in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir might be claimed while any undertaken inside Pakistan ought to remain deniable. In conclusion, the 26/11 attack occurred because India invested heavily in two components of counterterrorism: international diplomacy and domestic intelligence, but neglected a third: covert retaliatory capability. For Western governments that confront a genuine ‘non state’ terrorist threat, in the form of Al Qaeda or the so-called ‘Islamic State’/ Daesh, the first two components are sufficient. But as long as Pakistan exists, there will

| 27 An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism always be a State-driven component to terrorism that strikes at India from overseas. For this reason, failing to prepare a deterrent would not only invite the inevitable aggression, but also embolden it. References

1. Maseeh Rahman, ‘Witnesses Describe Mumbai Attackers’ Arrival by Sea’, Guardian, 27 November 2008, accessed https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/27/mumbai-terror-attacks-terrorism-boats, 3 December 2018. 2. Damien McElroy and Rahul Bedi, ‘Bombay Attacks: Britons and Americans Targeted’, Telegraph, 27 November 2008, accessed https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/3529123/Bombay- attacks-Britons-and-Americans-targeted.html, 19 June 2018. 3. David Randall, ‘Mumbai: Sixty Hours of Terror and Chaos’, Independent, 30 November 2008, accessed https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/mumbai-sixty-hours-of-terror-and-chaos-1041646.html, 3 December 2018. 4. Daniel L. Byman, ‘Russia is a State Sponsor of Terrorism—But Don’t Treat It That Way’, Lawfare Blog, 30 April 2018, accessed , 4 December 2018 and Tom O’Connor, ‘Why Doesn’t Saudi Arabia Join North Korea on U.S State Terrorism List after 9/11?’, Newsweek, 20 November 2017, accessed https:// www.lawfareblog.com/russia-is-state-sponsor-terrorism-but-dont-treat-that-way, 4 December 2018. Even when certain states were suspected of funding terrorism-linked organizations, political considerations militated against naming them. 5. A study by two American scholars has found that covert reprisals are India's best and perhaps only response option to major terrorist attacks from Pakistan. See George Perkovich and Toby Dalton, ‘Modi’s Strategic Choice: How to Respond to Terrorism from Pakistan’, Washington Quarterly, 38: 1 (2015), pp. 23-45. 6. Blake Hounshell, ‘Who are the Deccan Mujahideen?’, Foreign Policy, 26 November 2008, accessed http://foreignpolicy.com/2008/11/26/who-are-the-deccan-mujahideen/, 19 June 2018. 7. Z.A [Zaffar Abbas], ‘The Question of Evidence’, Herald, March 2001, p. 34 8. Bruce Hoffman, ‘Why Terrorists Don’t Claim Credit’, Terrorism and Political Violence, 9:1 (1997), pp. 3- 5 9. Rob Johnson, A Region in Turmoil: South Asian Conflicts since 1947, London: Reaktion Books, 2005, p. 206 and Wilson John, ‘Lashkar-e-Toiba: New Threats Posed by an Old Organization’, Terrorism Monitor, Jamestown Foundation, 3:4 (2005), accessed https://jamestown.org/program/lashkar-e-toiba-new-threats- posed-by-an-old-organization/, 4 December 2018. 10. Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy, The Exile: The Stunning Inside Story of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Flight, New York: Bloomsbury, 2017, pp. 223-224 and p. 431 11. Myra MacDonald, ‘Factbox: Lashkar-e-Taiba Charity Wing in Flood Relief Work’, Reuters, 26 August 2010, accessed https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-floods-militants-idUKTRE67O3RL20100826, 4 December 2018 and Declan Walsh, ‘Extremist Measures’, Guardian, 18 October 2005, accessed https:// www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/oct/18/pakistan.worlddispatch, 4 December 2018. 12. Massoud Ansari, ‘The “Head Factories”’, Frontline, 4-17 August 2018, Volume 18, No. 16, accessed https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl1816/18160650.htm, 4 December 2018. 13. Mohammad Shehzad, ‘In Defence of Jehad: Interview with the Former Chief of the Lashkar-e-Toiba’, Frontline, 26 April-9 May 2003, Volume 20, No. 9, accessed via https://frontline.thehindu.com/magazine/ archive/, 4 Deember 2018. 14. Khaled Ahmed, ‘Saleem Shahzad, Al Qaeda and ISI’, Friday Times, 17-23 June 2011, Volume 23, No. 18, accessed https://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta/tft/article.php?issue=20110617&page=2, 4 December 2018. 15. C. Christine Fair, ‘Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Pakistani State’, Survival, 53:4 (2011), pp. 29-52.

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

16. Randeep Ramesh, ‘Mumbai Attackers had Hit List of 320 World Targets’, Guardian, 19 February 2009, accessed https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/feb/19/mumbai-attacks-list-targets, 4 December 2018. 17. For an informative Indian perspective on the ISI, see Sanchita Bhattacharya, ‘ISI: Twisted Shadows’, South Asia Intelligence Review, 22 October 2012, Volume 11, No. 16, accessed http://www.satp.org/south- asia-intelligence-review-Volume-11-No-16, 4 December 2018. 18. C. Christine Fair, ‘How Pakistan's Intelligence Agency Created a Pliant Proxy and Implacable Foe of India’, India Today, 11 September 2015, accessed https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/pakistan/ story/20150921-the-lashkars-empire-of-jihad-820445-2015-09-11, 4 December 2018. 19. Mohammed Nishat and Nighat Bilgrami, ‘Coming Home’, Herald, July 1991, pp. 93-94. 20. Sanchita Bhattacharya, ‘Terror Trails to Saudi Arabia’ South Asia Intelligence Review, 29 October 2012, accessed http://www.satp.org/south-asia-intelligence-review-Volume-11-No-17, 4 December 2018. 21. [No author named], ‘FBI Interrogates Kasab for Nine Hours’, Times of India, 21 December 2008, accessed https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/FBI-interrogates-Kasab-for-nine-hours/ articleshow/3870131.cms, 4 December 2018. 22. Steve Coll, Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016 (London: Penguin, 2018), p. 343. 23. [No author named], ‘Diplomats Saw No ISI link in Mumbai Attack’, Dawn, 2 December 2010, accessed https://www.dawn.com/news/588115/diplomats-saw-no-isi-link-in-mumbai-attack, 19 June 2018 and Mubashir Zaidi, ‘Ajmal`s Nationality Confirmed’, Dawn, 8 January 2009, accessed https:// www.dawn.com/news/337915, 19 June 2018. 24. [No author named], ‘The Unending Faridkot Mystery’, Dawn, 21 November 2012, accessed https:// www.dawn.com/news/765854, 19 June 2018. 25. Waqar Hussain, ‘In Kasab’s Village, Media in Firing Line’, Hindu, 21 November 2012, accessed http:// www.thehindu.com/news/international/In-Kasab%E2%80%99s-village-media-in-firing-line/ article12516812.ece, 19 June 2018. 26. Wire services], ‘After India, Sharif Slams Zardari, Says Kasab from Pak’, Indian Express, 19 December 2008, accessed http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/after-india-sharif-slams-zardari-says-kasab-from- pak/400494/, 19 June 2018. 27. [No author named], ‘Pak Army Admits Kargil role, Martyrs Turn Troops’, Telegraph (India), 19 November 2010, accessed https://www.telegraphindia.com/1101119/jsp/frontpage/story_13195550.jsp, 20 June 2018 and Barry Bearak, ‘India Buries Soldiers That Pakistan Won't Claim’, New York Times, 17 July 1999, accessed https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/17/world/india-buries-soldiers-that-pakistan-won-t- claim.html, 20 June 2018. 28. Peter R. Lavoy, ‘Introduction: The Importance of the Kargil Conflict’, in Peter R. Lavoy ed., Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia: The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil Conflict, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 7. 29. Arif Jamal, Call for Transnational Jihad: Lashkar-e-Taiba 1985-2014, New Delhi: Kautilya Books, 2015, pp. 119-120. 30. [Wire services], ‘No Reply Received from Pak on Terror Dossier: India’, Indian Express, 10 January 2009, accessed https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/no-reply-received-from-pak-on-terror- dossier-india/lite/, 20 June 2018, Somini Sengupta, ‘Dossier Gives Details of Mumbai Attacks’, New York Times, 6 January 2009, accessed https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/world/asia/07india.html, 20 June 2018 and Nirupama Subramanian, ‘India, U.S. Faced Off on Sharing 26/11 Information with Pakistan’, Hindu, 15 March 2011, accessed http://www.thehindu.com/news/the-india-cables/India-U.S.-faced-off-on- sharing-2611-information-with-Pakistan/article13675604.ece, 20 June 2018. 31. Andrew Buncombe and Omar Waraich, ‘Mumbai siege: ‘Kill all the hostages – except the two Muslims’, Independent, 8 January 2009, accessed https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/mumbai-siege-kill -all-the-hostages-ndash-except-the-two-muslims-1232074.html, 20 June 2018.

| 29 An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

32. Owen Bowcott, ‘Mumbai attacks put pressure on Pakistan talks’, Guardian, 27 November 2008, accessed https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/27/mumbai-terror-attacks-diplomacy, 20 June 2018 and Bharti Jain, ‘While Mumbai burned, home secretary, other top officials were busy enjoying Pakistani hospitality’, Times of India, 11 June 2016, accessed https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/While- Mumbai-burned-home-secretary-other-top-officials-were-busy-enjoying-Pakistan-hospitality/ articleshow/52696250.cms, 20 June 2018. 33. An American official would later use these words to describe the ISI's relations with insurgents who were attacking US forces in Afghanistan. See [Wire services], ‘Haqqani network is a “veritable arm” of ISI: Mullen’, Dawn, 22 September 2011, accessed https://www.dawn.com/news/660878, 4 December 2018. 34. Scott-Clark and Levy, The Exile, p. 374. 35. Aamer Ahmed Khan, ‘The End of Jihad’, Herald, December 2001, pp. 20-21 and Azmat Abbas, ‘Tightening the Noose’, Herald, February 2002, p. 32 36. Massoud Ansari, ‘Crime City’, Newsline, June 2001, p. 30. Also see Idrees Bakhtiar and Zaffar Abbas, ‘Conspiracies Unlimited’, Herald, August 1994, pp. 34-36. 37. Syed Ali Dayan Hasan, ‘City of Life’, Herald, September 2000, p. 85. 38. Syed Jamaluddin, Formation of Republic of Jinnahpur (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2008), p. 41, and Saad Ahmad Khan, ‘Shattering the Public Private Divide: The Role of Mohajir Women in the Karachi Conflict’, MA Thesis submitted to the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Manitoba (2015), p. 27. 39. [No author named], ‘Appeals against Dr Magsi, 40 Others in Hyderabad Carnage Case Dismissed’, Dawn, 18 May 2017, accessed https://www.dawn.com/news/1333773, 19 June 2018. 40. Mazhar Abbas, ‘A Movement called MQM’, News on Sunday, 11 March 2018, accessed http:// tns.thenews.com.pk/movement-called-mqm/#.Wyknm4VOJaQ, 19 June 2018. 41. Ilija Trojanow, ‘Große Verwirrung’, Medico, 10 April 2017, accessed https://www.medico.de/grosse- verwirrung-16748/, 28 July 2018. 42. The fact that it was Pakistan, not India, which dropped the first hints of war has been missed by many and requires a careful revisiting of the public statements made by both sides at the time. See A.G Noorani, 'Diplomacy and the Mumbai Attacks', Frontline, 31 January-13 February 2009, Volume 26, No. 3, accessed https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2603/stories/20090213260307900.htm, 4 December 2018. 43. [No author named], ‘Dr Qadir Magsi Acquitted in 1988 Hyderabad Massacre Case’, Express Tribune, 19 May 2017, accessed https://tribune.com.pk/story/1413232/dr-qadir-magsi-acquitted-1988-hyderabad- massacre-case/, 19 June 2018. 44. Syed Raza Hassan, ‘Mumbai 2008 Terror Attack Mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi Released from Pakistan Prison’, Independent, 10 April 2015, accessed https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/ mumbai-2008-terror-attack-mastermind-zakiur-rehman-lakhvi-released-from-pakistan-prison- 10167633.html, 19 June 2018 and [No author named], ‘Bailed Mumbai Suspect Lakhvi’s Luxury Jail Time’, BBC News, 10 April 2015, accessed https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-31606798, 19 June 2018. 45. Hein G. Kiessling, Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan, Noida: Harper Collins, 2016, p. 214. 46. Bruce Riedel, 'Five Years after the Mumbai Attack, its LeT and ISI Architects Roam Free in Pakistan. That Bodes Ill for India', India Today, 2 December 2013, https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/neighbours/ story/20131202-mumbai-attacks-let-isi-pakistan-26-11-mumbai-attacks-al-qaeda-terrorists-768801-1999- 11-30, 4 December 2018 47. Stephen Tankel, 'Ten Years after Mumbai, the Group Responsible is Deadlier than Ever', War on the Rocks, 26 November 2018, accessed https://warontherocks.com/2018/11/ten-years-after-mumbai-the- group-responsible-is-deadlier-than-ever/, 4 December 2018.

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48. Siegfried O. Wolf, ‘Pakistan and State-Sponsored Terrorism in South Asia’, in Paulo Casaca and Siegfried O. Wolf, Terrorism Revisited: Islamism, Political Violence and State-Sponsorship, New York: Springer, 2017, p. 109. 49. Thomas E. Ricks, ‘Two new books on Pakistan’s ISI and its ‘War for National Survival’’, Foreign Policy, 4 October 2017, accessed http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/04/two-new-books-on-pakistans-isi-and-its- war-for-national-survival/, 19 June 2018. 50. See David Ignatius’ interview with Fareed Zakaria dated 25 December 2011, transcript available at http:// transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1112/25/fzgps.01.html, last accessed 20 June 2018. 51. Robert Johnson, ‘Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence’, in Philip H.J Davies and Kristian C. Gustafson eds., Intelligence Elsewhere: Spies and Espionage Outside the Anglosphere, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2013, p. 135. 52. Kiran Hassan, ‘The Role of Private Media in Radicalising Pakistan’, The Round Table, Volume 3, No. 1 (2014), p. 71 53. A.G Noorani, 'Pakistan's Burden', Frontline, 3-16 January 2009, Volume 26, No. 1, accessed https:// frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2601/stories/20090116260108400.htm, 4 December 2018. 54. Suhasini Haidar, ‘Our People Planned 26/11: Ex-Chief of ISI’, Hindu, 10 May 2016, accessed http:// www.thehindu.com/news/international/Our-people-planned-2611-ex-chief-of-ISI/article14311776.ece, 20 June 2018 and [No author named], ‘Ex-ISI Men Likely Behind 26/11 Attacks, Says Athar’, Dawn, 25 April 2011, accessed https://www.dawn.com/news/623876, 19 June 2018. 55. [Wire services], ‘Another Terror Attack Like 26/11 with Footprints in Pakistan Will Lead to War: US Experts’, India Today, 25 November 2018, accessed https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/another-terror- attack-in-india-similar-to-26-11-with-footprints-in-pak-will-lead-to-war-experts-1395924-2018-11-25, 4 December 2018. 56. Zaffar Abbas, ‘Good Terrorist, Bad Terrorist’, Herald Annual, January 1993, p. 64. More than a decade later, another Pakistani journalist, Azmat Abbas, warned that ‘[t]he government’s ‘dual’ counter-terrorism policy may well be a recipe for disaster.’ See ‘Double Standards’, Herald Annual, January 2005, p. 38. 57. Karl Kaltenthaler, William J. Miller, Stephen Ceccoli and Ron Gelleny, ‘The Sources of Pakistani Attitudes toward Religiously Motivated Terrorism’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 33: 9 (2010), p. 823. 58. Saad Rasool, ‘Terrorist Political Leadership’, Nation, 19 February 2017, accessed https:// nation.com.pk/19-Feb-2017/terrorist-political-leadership, 21 June 2018. 59. Isaac Kfir, ‘Sectarian Violence and Social Group Identity in Pakistan’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 37:6 (2014), p. 458. 60. Don Rassler, Christine Fair, Anirban Ghose, Arif Jamal and Nadia Shoeb, 'The Fighters of Lashkar-e- Taiba: Recruitment, Training, Deployment and Death', Occasional Paper, US Army Combating Terrorism Center, West Point, 4 April 2013, accessed https://ctc.usma.edu/the-fighters-of-lashkar-e-taiba-recruitment -training-deployment-and-death/, 4 December 2018. 61. Wilson John, 'Radical Influences in Institutional Structures and Armed Forces in the Region: An Assessment', in [no editor named], Counter Terrorism in South Asia, New Delhi: Knowledge World, 2011, p. 100. 62. Ajit Kumar Singh, 'LeT: Spreading Menace', South Asia Intelligence Review, 5 July 2010, Volume 8, No. 52, accessed http://www.satp.org/south-asia-intelligence-review-Volume-8-No-52, 4 December 2018. 63. Yassin Musharbash, ‘Investigators Look into Possible Ties to “Mickey Mouse Project”’, Der Spiegel, 30 December 2010, accessed http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/copenhagen-terror-probe- investigators-look-into-possible-ties-to-mickey-mouse-project-a-737252.html, 20 June 2018. 64. Interrogation report of David Coleman Headley, compiled by the National Investigation Agency of India, p. 61, accessed http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/1602.pdf, 20 June 2018.

| 31 An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

65. Sebastian Rotella, ‘The Man Behind Mumbai’, ProPublica, 13 November 2010, accessed https:// www.propublica.org/article/the-man-behind-mumbai, 20 June 2018 and Praveen Swami, ‘Sajid Mir’s War against the World’, Hindu, 30 May 2011, accessed http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/Sajid-Mirs-war -against-the-world/article14067909.ece, 20 June 2018. 66. Zafar Abbas, ‘Looking Back in Disbelief’, Herald, September 2000, pp. 87-89 and Idrees Bakhtiar, ‘Apocalypse Now’, Herald Annual, January 1996, pp. 50-55. 67. See indictment against David Headley, filed in US District Court, Northern District of Illinois, July 2010, accessed http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/1520.pdf, 20 June 2018 and Government’s Position Paper as to Sentencing Factors, submitted to US District Court, Northern District of Illinois, accessed http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2013/images/01/24/terrorcase.pdf, 20 June 2018. 68. Shrideep Biswas, 'Lashkar-e-Taiba: Global Outreach', South Asia Intelligence Review, 30 May 2011, Volume 9, No. 47, accessed http://www.satp.org/south-asia-intelligence-review-Volume-9-No-47, 4 December 2018. 69. Sandeep Unnithan, 'The Great David Headley Chase', India Today, 11 February 2016, https:// www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/20160222-david-coleman-headley-pakistan-isi-26-11- mumbai-terror-attacks-lashkar-e-taiba-828453-2016-02-11, 4 December 2018 70. [No author named], 'Abu Jundal's Passport, IDs to be Handed to Pakistani Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani', India Today, 4 July 2012, accessed https://www.indiatoday.in/india/north/story/abu-jundal-passport -pakistani-foreign-secretary-jalil-abbas-jilani-107981-2012-07-04, 4 December 2018. 71. Sebastian Rotella, ‘Militant Reaffirms Role of Pakistan in Mumbai Attacks’, Foreign Policy, 9 August 2012, accessed http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/08/09/militant-reaffirms-role-of-pakistan-in-mumbai- attacks/, 19 June 2018 and Sandeep Unnithan, Shantanu Guha Ray, Kiran Tare, Bhavna Vij-Aurora and Mohammad Waqas, ‘Jundal's Arrest Exposes Pak’s Agenda of Turning 26/11 into an Indian Conspiracy’, India Today, 7 July 2012, accessed https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/20120716-abu- jundal-arrest-kasab-mumbai-terror-attacks-conspiracy-theories-758992-2012-07-07, 20 June 2018. 72. Sanchita Bhattacharya, 'A Peep into Pandora's Box', South Asia Intelligence Review, 6 August 2012, accessed http://www.satp.org/south-asia-intelligence-review-Volume-11-No-5, 4 December 2018. 73. Ajai Sahni, 'Why are There No Storms in Your Teacups?', South Asia Intelligence Review, 8 September 2014, Volume 13, No. 10, accessed http://www.satp.org/south-asia-intelligence-review-Volume-13-No-10, 4 December 2018. 74. Ajit Kumar Singh, 'Exposing the Fountainhead of Terrorism', South Asia Intelligence Review, 2 September 2013, Volume 12, No. 9, accessed http://www.satp.org/south-asia-intelligence-review-Volume- 12-No-9, December 2018. 75. 'NSA Ajit Doval’s Speech on the Challenge of Global Terrorism - Australia India Institute', accessed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP5P_TDB5JI, 4 December 2018. The relevant portion of the video is 1 hour13 minutes 00 seconds – 1 hour 13 minutes 50 seconds. 76. Rajesh Ahuja, ‘26/11 Attacks Anniversary: Officer Who Helped Plant Indian SIM cards in LeT Reveals How Response Unfolded’, Hindustan Times, 26 November 2018, accessed https:// www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/26-11-attacks-anniversary-officer-who-helped-plant-indian-sim- cards-in-let-reveals-how-response-unfolded/story-3hrMQYWWWT64B4vx00fP5I.html, 4 December 2018. 77. B. Raman, ‘To Counter a Covert Aggressor’, Frontline, 5-18 February 2000, Volume 17, No. 3, accessed https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl1703/17030150.htm, 4 December 2018. 78. Praveen Swami, ‘The Long Arm of the Lashkar', Frontline, 24 April-7 May 2004, Volume 21, No. 9, accessed https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2109/stories/20040507003303800.htm, 4 December 2018. 79. B. Raman, ‘Lessons from the Mumbai Blasts’, Rediff.com, 14 March 2003, accessed https:// www.rediff.com/news/2003/mar/14raman.htm, 4 December 2018 and B. Raman, ‘'Never Trust the US on Pakistan’, Rediff.com, 21 July 2006, accessed https://www.rediff.com/news/2006/jul/21raman.htm, 4

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December 2018. 80. M. Rahman and Harinder Baweja, ‘Making Headway’, India Today, 30 April 1993, pp. 50-51 and Ghulam Husnain, ‘'Portrait of a Don’, Herald, September 2001, pp. 29-32. 81. Praveen Swami, ‘Sarabjit Singh, and the Spies We Left Out in the Cold', Firstpost, 2 May 2013, accessed https://www.firstpost.com/india/sarabjit-singh-and-the-spies-we-left-out-in-the-cold-734703.html, 4 December 2018 and Sandeep Uniithan and Asit Jolly, ‘The Other Sarabjit Singhs: The Posthumous Recognition of Sarabjit's Heroism has Brought Hope to Spies Disowned by the Very Country They Served', India Today, 20 May 2013, accessed https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/the-big-story/ story/20130520-sarabjit-singh-pakistan-india-spies-prison-763494-1999-11-30, 4 December 2018. 82. Praveen Swami, 'Fighting Pakistan’s “Informal War”’, Hindu, 15 July 2008, accessed https:// www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/Fighting-Pakistanrsquos-lsquoinformal-warrsquo/ article15261110.ece, 4 December 2018. 83. A.H Nayyar and Zia Mian, ‘Enemies Within’, Frontline, 17-30 January 2009, Volume 26, No. 2, accessed https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2602/stories/20090130260202700.htm, 4 December 2018. 84. Praveen Swami, 'Harnessing Hate', Frontline, 29 July-11 August 2006, Volume 23, No. 15, accessed https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2315/stories/20060811003912800.htm, 4 December 2018. 85. Jason Burke and Harinder Baweja, ‘Osama Bin Laden Trains His Guns on India, Gives a Dangerous Edge to Militancy in Kashmir’, India Today, 4 October 1999, accessed https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/ cover-story/story/19991004-osama-bin-laden-trains-his-guns-on-india-gives-a-dangerous-edge-to- militancy-in-kashmir-824883-1999-10-04, 4 December 2018. 86. Ismail Khan, ‘The Taliban’s New Game Plan’, Newsline, July 2000, p. 64. 87. Praveen Swami, 'Cyberspace Ravings', Frontline, 11-14 December 1999, accessed https:// frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl1626/16260480.htm, 4 December 2018. 88. Praveen Swami, 'The Rajiv Nagar Killers', Frontline, 14-27 September 2002, Volume 19, No. 29, accessed https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl1919/19191160.htm, 4 December 2018. 89. Praveen Swami, 'On the Terrorist Trail', Frontline, 22 December 2001-4 January 2002, Volume 18, No. 26, accessed https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl1826/18260100.htm, 4 December 2018. 90. The full statement of US President George W. Bush, with annotations from an Indian commentator, can be found at ‘Stateless Sponsor of Terrorism’, Outlook, 21 December 2001, accessed https:// www.outlookindia.com/website/story/stateless-sponsor-of-terrorism/214086, last accessed 4 December 2018. More than ten years later, an American strategic analyst suggested that Bush’s statement was ‘unfortunate’ since it arbitrarily absolved Pakistan of any responsibility for LeT’s actions, past and future. See Ashley Tellis, ‘The Menace That Is Lashkar-e-Taaiba’, Policy Outlook, March 2012, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, p. 11. 91. Dioone Bunsha and Praveen Swami, 'The Terror Trail', Frontline, 12-25 October 2002, Volume 19, No. 21, accessed https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl1921/stories/20021025007001200.htm, 4 December 2018. 92. Praveen Swami, 'The Two Faces of Pakistan', Frontline, 12-25 August 2006, Volume 23, No. 16, accessed https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2316/stories/20060825004213200.htm, 4 December 2018. 93. Amelia Gentleman, ‘India and Pakistan Say They Will Fight Terrorism Together in Spite of Deadly Train Bombing’, New York Times, 21 February 2007, accessed https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/world/ asia/21cnd-india.html, 20 June 2018, B. Raman, 'India Walks into Pak Anti-terror Trap', Rediff.com, 8 March 2007, accessed https://www.rediff.com/news/2007/mar/08raman.htm, 4 December 2018 and Nirupama Subramanian, 'Quietly Forward', Frontline, 7-20 June 2008, Volume 25, Issue 32, accessed https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2512/stories/20080620251204400.htm, 4 December 2018. 94. Asutosha Acharya, 'At Sea against Terror', South Asia Intelligence Review, 8 June 2009, Volume 7, No. 48, accessed http://www.satp.org/south-asia-intelligence-review-Volume-7-No-48, 4 December 2018. 95. Praveen Swami, 'Mumbai: The Road to Maximum Terror', South Asia Intelligence Review, 15 December

| 33 An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

2008, Volume 7, No. 23, accessed http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/sair/Archives/7_23.htm, 4 December 2018. 96. Ghafar Ali Khan, ‘Act of Daredevilry’, Herald, October 2007, pp. 60-61. 97. [Wire services], 'Top Leaders of Banned SIMI Arrested in Madhya Pradesh', India Today, 27 March 2008, accessed https://www.indiatoday.in/latest-headlines/story/top-leaders-of-banned-simi-arrested-in-madhya- pradesh-23967-2008-03-27, 4 December 2018. 98. T S Sudhir, Sandeep Unnithan and Amitabh Srivastava, 'Yasin Bhatkal's War against India', India Today, 6 September 2013, https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/featured/story/20130916-yasin-bhatkal-war-against- india-terror-pakistan-indian-mujahideen-765652-2013-09-06, 4 December 2018 99. Interrogation report of David Coleman Headley, compiled by the National Investigation Agency of India, pp. 71-73, accessed http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/1602.pdf, 20 June 2018. 100. Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt, ‘Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul, US Officials Say’, New York Times, 1 August 2008, accessed https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/world/asia/01pstan.html, 21 June 2018. 101. Syed Irfan Raza, ‘Govt Forced to Withdraw ISI Decision’, Dawn, 28 July 2008, accessed https:// www.dawn.com/news/313820 4 December 2018. One American commentator, while being careful not to blame the senior ISI leadership, suggested that the Mumbai attack may have been directed as much at the civilian government’s efforts to rein in the agency as at the Indo-Pakistani dialogue which was then underway. See Daniel Benjamin, ‘The Mumbai Terrorists’ Other Target’, Brookings, 1 December 2008, accessed https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-mumbai-terrorists-other-target/, 4 December 2018. 102. [No author named], ‘From Naved to 26/11: How Pakistan has Reacted When It’s Been Accused of Terrorism’, Firstpost, 7 August 2015, https://www.firstpost.com/world/from-naved-to-2611-how-pakistan- reacted-when-its-been-accused-of-terrorism-2381694.html, 20 June 2018, [No author named], ‘Mumbai Rocked by Deadly Attacks’, BBC News, 27 November 2008, accessed http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ south_asia/7751160.stm, 21 June 2018 and Namrata Biji Ahuja, ‘Pakistani Terrorists Ditching GPS Sets to Avoid Being Traced by India’, The Week, 28 April 2018, accessed https://www.theweek.in/news/ india/2018/04/28/pakistani-terrorists-ditch-gps-traced-india.html, 7 November 2018. 103. Nirupama Subramanian, 'In a Cleft Stick', Frontline, 20 December 2008-2 January 2009, Volume 25, No. 26, accessed https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2526/stories/20090102252602400.htm, 4 December 2018. 104. [No author named], ‘Mumbai Attack was a False Flag Operation by Indian, Israeli Agencies: US Author’, Times of Islamabad, 12 May 2018, accessed https://timesofislamabad.com/12-May-2018/mumbai-attack- was-a-false-flag-operation-by-indian-israeli-agencies-us-author, 21 June 2018. Interestingly, a 2010 investigation by the British newspaper Guardian produced a report, later summarized in the Dawn newspaper of Pakistan that some Pakistani media outlets were manufacturing false stories about Indian sponsorship of terrorism in Pakistan and citing Wikileaks as their source. The same report found that genuine disclosures about civilian politicians in Pakistan were being reprinted while negative commentary about the Pakistani military was being ignored. [No author named], ‘Some Newspapers Publish Fake WikiLeaks Cables against India’, Dawn, 10 December 2010, accessed https://www.dawn.com/ news/589962, 19 June 2018. 105. Aditya Sinha, ‘Meeting With An ISI Chief Reveals A Pak Of Lies’, Swarajya, 18 June 2018, accessed https://swarajyamag.com/defence/speaking-with-the-enemy-delving-deep-into-the-heart-of-an-isi-chief, 21 June 2018. 106. Nirupama Subramanian, 'In a Cleft Stick', Frontline, 20 December 2008-2 January 2009, Volume 25, No. 26, accessed https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2526/stories/20090102252602400.htm, 4 December 2018. 107. Shaun Gregory, ‘The ISI and the War on Terrorism’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 30:12 (2007), pp. 1020-1030. 108. Ananth Krishnan, 'Shielding Pakistan-based Terrorists at UNSC: Why Beijing won't Budge', India Today, 27 April 2016, https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/special-report/story/20160509-china-pakistan-india-

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

unsc-masood-azhar-terrorist-828808-2016-04-27, 4 December 2018. 109. [Wire services], 'Pakistan to Abide by UN Sanctions on Lashkar-e-Taiba', India Today, 11 December 2008, accessed https://www.indiatoday.in/latest-headlines/story/pakistan-to-abide-by-un-sanctions-on-lashkar-e- taiba-35051-2008-12-11, 4 December 2018. Interestingly, a conference of Islamist organisations in Pakistan demanded that Haroon be recalled, suggesting that they were unhappy that he had committed to abiding by the UNSC's decision (even though he could hardly have said otherwise). See [Wire services], 'Jamaat-ud-Dawa Thumbs Nose at Ban and Zardari', Indian Express, 23 December 2008, accessed http:// archive.indianexpress.com/news/jamaatuddawa-thumbs-nose-at-ban-and-zardari/401770/, 4 December 2018. 110. Nirupama Subramanian, ‘Disturbing Setback’, Frontline, 20 June-3 July 2009, Volume 26, No. 13, accessed https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2613/stories/20090703261304400.htm, 4 December 2018 and Wajahat S. Khan, 'Feeling the Heat', India Today, 3 February 2017, accessed https:// www.indiatoday.in/magazine/up-front/story/20170213-hafiz-saeed-arrest-pakistan-mumbai-terror-attacks- kashmir-985703-2017-02-03, 4 December 2018. 111. [No author named], 'Lahore High Court Orders Release of Hafiz Saeed', Hindu, 3 June 2009, https:// www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/Lahore-High-Court-orders-release-of-Hafiz-Saeed/article16569838.ece, 4 December 2018. 112. [No author named], ‘ISI Officers Major Samir Ali, Colonel Hamza Directly Involved in 26/11: Abu Jundal’, Economic Times, 6 July 2012, accessed https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and- nation/isi-officers-major-samir-ali-colonel-hamza-directly-involved-in-26/11-abu-jundal/ articleshow/14699915.cms, 20 June 2018, and Abhishek Sharan, ‘Pak Let Key 26/11 Operative Slip Away After Quizzing Him: Jundal’, Hindustan Times, 27 November 2013, accessed https:// www.hindustantimes.com/india/pak-let-key-26-11-operative-slip-away-after-quizzing-him-jundal/story- QnV0fNiq2448l03LCb0TNM.html, 20 June 2018. 113. Nirupama Subramanian, ‘Advantage Gilani’, Frontline, 1-14 August 2009, Volume 26, No. 16, accessed https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2616/stories/20090814261600900.htm, 4 December 2018. 114. James Glanz, Sebastian Rotella and David E. Sanger, ‘In 2008 Mumbai Attacks, Piles of Spy Data, but an Uncompleted Puzzle’, New York Times, 21 December 2014, accessed https:// www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/world/asia/in-2008-mumbai-attacks-piles-of-spy-data-but-an-uncompleted- puzzle.html, 20 June 2018. 115. Praveen Swami, ‘26/11: 7 years on, India Waits for West Intelligence on “ISI links”’, Indian Express, 19 February 2016, accessed https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/david-headley-mumbai- attack-2611-7-years-on-india-waits-for-west-intelligence-on-isi-links/, 4 December 2018. 116. Anurag Tripathi, 'Malignant Spectre', South Asia Intelligence Review, 16 June 2014, Volume 12, No 50, accessed http://www.satp.org/south-asia-intelligence-review-Volume-12-No-50, 4 December 2018. 117. [No author named], ‘26/11 case: Pakistan Court Summons Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi’, Firstpost, 6 January 2015, accessed https://www.firstpost.com/world/2611-case-pakistan-court-summons-zaki-ur-rehman- lakhvi-2032525.html, 19 June 2018 and Rezaul H. Lashkar, ‘Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi: Five Things about the 26/11 Mastermind’, Hindustan Times, 24 June 2015, accessed https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/ zakiur-rehman-lakhvi-five-things-about-the-26-11-mastermind/story- eIuS1WByRBdM4Q4XCSCs7L.html, 19 June 2018. 118. Sandeep Unnithan, Operation Black Tornado: The Three Sieges of Mumbai, New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2015, p. 204. 119. Declan Walsh, ‘Prosecutor in Bhutto’s Death and Mumbai Attacks Is Killed in Pakistan’, New York Times, 3 May 2013, accessed https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/world/asia/prosecutor-in-bhutto-killing-and- mumbai-attacks-assassinated-in-pakistan.html, 20 June 2018. 120. Sanchita Bhattacharya, 'JuD: The Dependable Terrorist', South Asia Intelligence Review, 14 July 2014, Volume 13, No. 2, accessed http://www.satp.org/south-asia-intelligence-review-Volume-13-No-2, 4 December 2018

| 35 An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

121. Omer Farooq Khan, ‘Pakistan Sacks 26/11 Prosecutor for Not “Taking Govt Line”’, Times of India, 30 April 2018, accessed https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/pak-sacks-26/11-prosecutor-for -not-taking-govt-line/articleshow/63965624.cms, 20 June 2018. 122. Tariq Khosa, ‘Mumbai Attacks Trial’, Dawn, 3 August 2015, accessed https://www.dawn.com/ news/1198061/mumbai-attacks-trial, 20 June 2018. 123. [No author named], 'Pak Investigator Now Says 26/11 Executed by “Non-State Actors''’, Hindustan Times, 10 August 2015, accessed https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/pak-investigator-now-says-26- 11-executed-by-non-state-actors/story-m8Q3pWcu1PhHzhXiCRqx0K.html, 4 December 2018. 124. Particularly strange is the fact the media ban included coverage of LeT’s internationally-designated front organizations, even though these organizations themselves had not been banned by Pakistan. Malik Asad, ‘Pemra Bans Media Coverage of JuD, FIF’, Dawn, 3 November 2018, accessed https:// www.dawn.com/news/1217122, 21 June 2018. 125. Dawood Rehman, ‘Nawaz Sharif Invites Public Wrath for “Admitting Pakistan’s Hand in Mumbai Attacks”’, Daily Pakistan, 13 May 2018, accessed https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/headline/nawaz-sharif -invites-public-wrath-for-admitting-pakistans-hand-in-mumbai-attacks/, 19 June 2018 and Mohammad Imran, ‘What Did I Say That Was Wrong?’: Nawaz responds to controversy around remarks on Mumbai attacks’, Dawn, 14 May 2018, accessed https://www.dawn.com/news/1407622, 19 June 2018. 126. [No author named], 'Is Nawaz the First One to Link Pakistan with Mumbai Attacks?', Pakistan Today, 15 May 2018, accessed https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/05/15/is-nawaz-the-first-one-to-link- pakistan-with-mumbai-attacks/, 4 December 2018. 127. Joshua T. White, ‘Beyond Moderation: Dynamics of Political Islam in Pakistan’, Contemporary South Asia, 20:2 (2012), p. 181. Another scholar points out that knowledge about terrorists based in the country tends to be greater outside Pakistan than in. See Madiha Afzal, ‘Pakistan’s Censorship Model: An Image- and Identity-Obsessed Country’, Brookings, 30 May 2018, accessed https:// www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/05/30/pakistans-censorship-model/, 19 June 2018. 128. Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury, ‘Global Watchdog Likely to Put Pakistan in “Grey List”’, Economic Times, 18 June 2018, accessed https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/global- watchdog-likely-to-put-pakistan-in-grey-list/articleshow/64627664.cms, 19 June 2018 and Uzair Younus, ‘How Will Being on the FATF Grey-List Actually Impact Pakistan?’, Diplomat, 1 March 2018, accessed https://thediplomat.com/2018/03/how-will-being-on-the-fatf-grey-list-actually-impact-pakistan/, 21 June 2018. 129. Sanaullah Khan, ‘Pakistan Extends Ban on Terror Groups, Individuals Identified by United Nations’, Dawn, 13 February 2018, accessed https://www.dawn.com/news/1388987, 21 June 2018. 130. [No author named], ‘Pakistan Will Follow UN Resolution, Ban JuD: Ahsan Iqbal’, Express Tribune, 26 February 2018, accessed https://tribune.com.pk/story/1645241/1-pakistan-will-follow-un-resolution-ban- jud-ahsan-iqbal/, 19 June 2018. 131. [Wire services], ‘“Banned” Jamaatud Dawa Thrives in Pakistan’, Dawn, 10 February 2015, accessed https://www.dawn.com/news/1162698, 19 June 2018, [Editorial], ‘Banned or Not?’, Dawn, 24 January 2015, accessed https://www.dawn.com/news/1159032, 19 June 2018 and Praveen Swami, ‘Pakistan’s Terror-Finance Time-Bomb’, Indian Express, 2 March 2017, accessed https://indianexpress.com/article/ explained/pakistans-terror-finance-time-bomb-financian-action-task-force-lashkar-e-toiba-jamat-ul-dawa -haqqani-network-praveen-swami-column-4550095/, 19 June 2018. 132. Umer Farooq, ‘Sleight of Ban’, Herald, December 2009, pp. 52-53. 133. Anita Joshua, 'Bounty Blunder', Frontline, 21 April-4 May 2012, Volume 29, No. 8, accessed via https:// frontline.thehindu.com/magazine/archive/, 4 December 2018 134. [No author named], 'Sherry Rehman Resents Grant Given to Jamaat ud Dawa', Express Tribune, 18 June 2010, accessed https://tribune.com.pk/story/22210/sherry-rehman-resents-grant-given-to-jamaat-ud- dawa/, 4 December 2018. 135. Ajit Kumar Singh, 'J&K: Frantic Thrust', South Asia Intelligence Review, 8 December 2014, Volume 13,

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

No. 23, accessed http://www.satp.org/south-asia-intelligence-review-Volume-13-No-23, 4 December 2018. 136. Asif Shahzad and Mubasher Bukhari, ‘Seized, But Not Ceased: Banned Charities Pose Challenge for Pakistan’, Reuters, 20 February 2018, accessed https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-militants- financing/seized-but-not-ceased-banned-charities-pose-challenge-for-pakistan-idUSKCN1G423Q, 20 June 2018. 137. [Wire services], ‘Charities Run by Radical Cleric No Longer Banned by Pakistan’, New York Times, 27 October 2018, accessed https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/10/27/world/asia/ap-as-pakistan.html, 7 November 2018. 138. Marian K. Leighton, ‘Strange Bedfellows: The Stasi and the Terrorists’, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 27: 4 (2014), p. 651. 139. Kathryn Westcott, ‘Hezbollah's Most Secretive Operative’, BBC News, 13 February 2008, accessed http:// news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7242607.stm, 3 December 2018 and Mark Perry, ‘The Driver’, Foreign Policy 29 April 2013, accessed https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/29/the-driver/, 3 December 2018. 140. Milt Bearden and Larry Johnson, ‘A Glimpse at the Alliances of Terror’, New York Times, 7 November 2000, accessed https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/07/opinion/a-glimpse-at-the-alliances-of-terror.html, 3 December 2018. 141. Edward F. Mickolus, ‘What Constitutes State Support to Terrorists?’, Terrorism and Political Violence,1:3 (1989), p. 287. 142. Leighton, op cit., p. 659. 143. Azmat Khan, ‘Why Isn’t Pakistan Prosecuting Mumbai Suspects?’ PBS, 10 January 2012, accessed https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/why-isnt-pakistan-prosecuting-mumbai-suspects/, 21 June 2018. 144. Sanchita Bhattacharya, '26/11: Trial and Errors', South Asia Intelligence Review, 26 November 2012, Volume 11, No. 21, accessed http://www.satp.org/south-asia-intelligence-review-Volume-11-No-21, 4 December 2018. 145. S. Hussain Zaidi and Rahul Bhatt, Headley and I, New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2012, pp. 79-80. 146. Arabinda Acharya and Sonal Marwah, ‘Nizam, laTanzim (System, not Organization): Do Organizations Matter in Terrorism Today? A Study of the November 2008 Mumbai Attacks’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 34:1 (2010), p. 10. 147. Ahmed Rashid, 'The Turn of the Screw', Herald, February 1993, pp. 26-31. 148. Hiranmay Karlekar, 'The Amritsar Attack', Daily Pioneer, 24 November 2018, https:// www.dailypioneer.com/2018/columnists/the-amritsar-attack.html, 4 December 2014 and Shinder Purewal, 'The Evolution of Sikh Secessionist Movement in Western Liberal Democracies', International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3: 18 (2012), accessed http://ijbssnet.com/journals/ Vol_3_No_18_Special_Issue_September_2012/12.pdf, 4 December 2018. 149. Rob Crilly, ‘Mumbai Attack “mastermind” Hafiz Saeed Linked to Osama bin Laden’, Telegraph, 4 April 2012, accessed https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/9186009/Mumbai-attack- mastermind-Hafiz-Saeed-linked-to-Osama-bin-Laden.html, 21 June 2018. 150. See US State Department ‘Rewards for Justice’ website, accessed https://rewardsforjustice.net/english/ hafiz_saeed.html, 21 June 2018 and Declan Walsh, ‘US Posts $10 Million Reward for Pakistani Militant’, New York Times, 3 April 2012, accessed https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/world/asia/us-offers-10- million-reward-for-pakistani-militant.html, 21 June 2018. Rob Crilly, ‘US Admits it Lacks Evidence to Convict $10m Hafiz Saeed’, Telegraph, 5 April 2012, accessed https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/asia/pakistan/9188337/US-admits-it-lacks-evidence-to-convict-10m-Hafiz-Saeed.html, 21 June 2018. 151. Press Release: ‘Treasury Designates Lashkar-E Tayyiba Leadership’, US Department of the Treasury, 30 August 2012, accessed https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg1694.aspx, 21 June 2018.

| 37 An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

152. [Wire services], 'US Announces USD 5 Million Reward for Information on 2008 Mumbai Terror Attack Conspirators', Indian Express, 26 November 2018, accessed http://www.newindianexpress.com/ world/2018/nov/26/us-announces-usd-5-million-reward-for-information-on-2008-mumbai-terror-attack- conspirators-1903411.html, 4 December 2018. 153. Sandeep Unnithan, 'While Bilateral Talks Remain a Non-starter, JuD Chief Hafiz Saeed, the Man Who Could Trigger the Next India-Pakistan War, Keeps Bolstering His Terror Infrastructure under the Benign Gaze of 'State Actors'', India Today, 9 September 2015, https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/ story/20150921-hafiz-saeed-inside-jihad-central-jud-820419-2015-09-09, 4 December 2018. 154. Afrasiab Khattak, ‘Baloch in the Eye of Storm’, Nation, 17 June 2017, accessed https://nation.com.pk/17- Jun-2017/baloch-in-the-eye-of-storm, 20 June 2018 and James M. Dorsey, ‘Hafez Saeed Maintains Utility for Pakistan and China’, Arabian Post [Not dated], accessed https://thearabianpost.com/tap/2018/05/ hafez-saeed-maintains-utility-for-pakistan-and-china.html, 20 June 2018. 155. Jaffer Bilgrami, 'The Saindak Incident', Herald, November 1992, p. 78. 156. Hasan Mansoor, ‘Sindh Demands Hard Cash, Equipment to Protect Chinese’, Herald, October 2007, p. 52. 157. Sandeep Unnithan, 'Shields up', India Today, 6 October 2016, accessed https://www.indiatoday.in/ magazine/cover-story/story/20161017-india-pakistan-loc-indian-army-indian-air-force-pathankot-829673- 2016-10-06, 4 December 2018. 158. Sandeep Unnithan, 'Revival of Another “Strategic Asset”', India Today, 7 January 2016, https:// www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/20160222-david-coleman-headley-pakistan-isi-26-11- mumbai-terror-attacks-lashkar-e-taiba-828453-2016-02-11, 4 December 2018. 159. Shashank Joshi, 'India's Gurdaspur Terrorist Attack: Location, Timing and Method', The Interpreter, Lowy Institute, 3 August 2015, accessed https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/indias-gurdaspur-terrorist- attack-location-timing-and-method, 4 December 2018. 160. Sandeep Unnithan, 'Why India didn't Strike Pakistan after 26/11', India Today, 14 October 2015, accessed https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/the-big-story/story/20151026-why-india-didnt-strike-pakistan-after- 26-11-820634-2015-10-14, 4 December 2018. 161. Praveen Swami, 'India’s New Language of Killing', Hindu, 1 May 2014, accessed https:// www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/indias-new-language-of-killing/article5963505.ece, 4 December 2018. 162. D.C Pathak, ‘Understanding the “War on Terror”’, Eternal India, April 2009, pp. 53-54. 163. Ashali Varma, ‘Modi Reminds the World of India’s Treatment of the 1971 Pakistani Prisoners’, Times of India, 8 June 2015, accessed https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/no-free-lunch/modi-reminds-the- world-of-indias-treatment-of-the-1971-pakistani-prisoners/, 4 December 2018 and Anju Agnihotri Chaba, ‘Despite Bitter Memories, We Ensured Humane Treatment was Given to Pak POWs’, Indian Express, 23 September 2015, accessed https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chandigarh/despite-bitter-memories-we- ensured-humane-treatment-was-given-to-pak-pows/, 4 December 2018. 164. [No author named], ‘The New Normal after India’s Surgical Strikes’, LiveMint, 3 October 2016, accessed https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/QmHDL5n1WUxlsKqRKrbUpK/The-new-normal-after-Indias- surgical-strikes.html, 4 December 2018 and Sreemoy Talukdar, ‘How Narendra Modi Took Off India’s cap of “Strategic Restraint” and Placed it on Pakistan’, Firstpost, 30 September 2016, accessed https:// www.firstpost.com/india/how-narendra-modi-took-off-indias-cap-of-strategic-restraint-and-placed-it-on- pakistan-3028264.html, 4 December 2018.

(The paper is the author’s individual scholastic articulation. The author certifies that the article/paper is original in content, unpublished and it has not been submitted for publication/web upload elsewhere, and that the facts and figures quoted are duly referenced, as needed, and are believed to be correct).

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An Inconvenient Reality: 26/11 as State-Sponsored Terrorism

About the VIVEKANANDA INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION

The Vivekananda International Foundation is an independent non- partisan institution that conducts research and analysis on domestic and international issues, and offers a platform for dialogue and conflict resolution. Some of India’s leading practitioners from the fields of security, military, diplomacy, government, academia and media have come together to generate ideas and stimulate action on national security issues. The defining feature of VIF lies in its provision of core institutional support which enables the organisation to be flexible in its approach and proactive in changing circumstances, with a long-term focus on India’s strategic, developmental and civilisational interests. The VIF aims to channelise fresh insights and decades of experience harnessed from its faculty into fostering actionable ideas for the nation’s stakeholders. Since its inception, VIF has pursued quality research and scholarship and made efforts to highlight issues in governance, and strengthen national security. This is being actualised through numerous activities like seminars, round tables, interactive dialogues, Vimarsh (public discourse), conferences and briefings. The publications of VIF form lasting deliverables of VIF’s aspiration to impact on the prevailing discourse on issues concerning India’s national interest.

VIVEKANANDA INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION 3, San Martin Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi – 110021 Phone: +91-11-24121764, 24106698 Email: [email protected], Website: https://www.vifindia.org Follow us on twitter@vifindia

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