ID :
34220
Sat, 12/06/2008 - 15:25
Auther :
Shortlink :
http://m.oananews.org//node/34220
The shortlink copeid
Top LeT militant was in Karachi to help Mumbai attack: report
New York, Dec 5 (PTI) A top Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militant was in Karachi for the last three months to help organise the worst-ever terrorist attack in India's financial capital Mumbai, the New York Times reported Friday, citing a Pakistani official in contact with the terror outfit.
Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the Lashkar-e-Toiba commander', was in Karachi for the last three months to help organise the terrorist attack in Mumbai, the report said.
The Mumbai attackers also kept in contact with their handlers in Pakistan with cellphones as they rounded up guests at the two hotels, it said quoting officials.
The attackers left a trail of evidence in a satellite phone they left behind on the fishing trawler they hijacked near Karachi at the start of their 500-mile journey to Mumbai, the report said.
The phone contained the telephone numbers of Yusuf Muzammil, a LeT militant considered to be mastermind of the Mumbai attack, Rehman and a number of other Lashkar militants, the Times said, citing a report on the Mumbai siege prepared by M J Gohel and Sajjan M Gohel, two security analysts who direct the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London.
The numbers dialed on the phone found on the trawler
used to call Muzammil matched the numbers on the cell phones
recovered from the Taj and Oberoi hotels, the report said.
Based on evidence found on the trawler, it was
possible that five other men were involved in the plot and
were still at large, the paper said.
In one of the hotels, a gunman asked several Indian
guests what caste they belonged to and what state they came
from, the Times quoted an official who interviewed the guests
as saying.
Once the attacker found out these details, he then
called someone believed to be Muzammil, who was also
identified by the surviving gunman and who was in Lahore,
according to phone records recovered by investigators.
The surviving guests said the attacker told the person
on the other end of the phone the guests' details and asked
whether they should be killed or not.
At one point, a guest said one of the calls seemed to
be a conference call with two people on the other end.
Once the calls were finished, the paper said, the
attacker moved the small group of guests, who did not know
what their fate would be, into a room. When the attackers
became distracted by tear gas fired by the police, the
hostages managed to escape.
In another instance, the Times said, the gunmen forced
a Singaporean hostage at the Oberoi hotel, Lo Hwei Yen, to
call her husband in Singapore. She told him that the hostages
were demanding that Singaporean officials tell India not to
try a rescue operation. The next day, Lo was killed, the
foundation's report said.
Investigators found that after the gunmen killed her,
they used the phone she had called her husband with, it said.
"The worrying scenario is that Muzammil may have
ordered her execution along with two other hostages that were
found murdered in the same room," the report was quoted as
saying. PTI
Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the Lashkar-e-Toiba commander', was in Karachi for the last three months to help organise the terrorist attack in Mumbai, the report said.
The Mumbai attackers also kept in contact with their handlers in Pakistan with cellphones as they rounded up guests at the two hotels, it said quoting officials.
The attackers left a trail of evidence in a satellite phone they left behind on the fishing trawler they hijacked near Karachi at the start of their 500-mile journey to Mumbai, the report said.
The phone contained the telephone numbers of Yusuf Muzammil, a LeT militant considered to be mastermind of the Mumbai attack, Rehman and a number of other Lashkar militants, the Times said, citing a report on the Mumbai siege prepared by M J Gohel and Sajjan M Gohel, two security analysts who direct the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London.
The numbers dialed on the phone found on the trawler
used to call Muzammil matched the numbers on the cell phones
recovered from the Taj and Oberoi hotels, the report said.
Based on evidence found on the trawler, it was
possible that five other men were involved in the plot and
were still at large, the paper said.
In one of the hotels, a gunman asked several Indian
guests what caste they belonged to and what state they came
from, the Times quoted an official who interviewed the guests
as saying.
Once the attacker found out these details, he then
called someone believed to be Muzammil, who was also
identified by the surviving gunman and who was in Lahore,
according to phone records recovered by investigators.
The surviving guests said the attacker told the person
on the other end of the phone the guests' details and asked
whether they should be killed or not.
At one point, a guest said one of the calls seemed to
be a conference call with two people on the other end.
Once the calls were finished, the paper said, the
attacker moved the small group of guests, who did not know
what their fate would be, into a room. When the attackers
became distracted by tear gas fired by the police, the
hostages managed to escape.
In another instance, the Times said, the gunmen forced
a Singaporean hostage at the Oberoi hotel, Lo Hwei Yen, to
call her husband in Singapore. She told him that the hostages
were demanding that Singaporean officials tell India not to
try a rescue operation. The next day, Lo was killed, the
foundation's report said.
Investigators found that after the gunmen killed her,
they used the phone she had called her husband with, it said.
"The worrying scenario is that Muzammil may have
ordered her execution along with two other hostages that were
found murdered in the same room," the report was quoted as
saying. PTI
