FYI
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MY PROFILE
>From Times Online
December 17, 2009
Mumbai terror suspect David Headley was `rogue US secret agent'
Rhys Blakely in Mumbai
A key terror suspect who allegedly helped to plan last year's attacks in Mumbai
and plotted to strike Europe was an American secret agent who went rogue,
Indian officials believe.
David Headley, 49, who was born in Washington to a Pakistan diplomat father and
an American mother, was arrested in Chicago in October. He is accused of
reconnoitring targets in India and Europe for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the
Pakistan-based terror group behind the Mumbai attacks and of having links to
al-Qaeda. He has denied the charges.
He came to the attention of the US security services in 1997 when he was
arrested in New York for heroin smuggling. He earned a reduced sentence by
working for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) infiltrating Pakistan-linked
narcotics gangs.
Indian investigators, who have been denied access to Mr Headley, suspect that
he remained on the payroll of the US security services possibly working for
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) but switched his allegiance to LeT.
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"India is looking into whether Headley worked as a double agent," an Indian
Home Ministry official said yesterday.
Mr Headley, who changed his name from Daood Gilani, was in Mumbai until two
weeks before the attacks on the city, which claimed 166 lives last November. It
is alleged that he spent months checking targets in India's commercial capital,
using his Western looks and anglicised name to move in elite social circles,
hobnob with Bollywood actors and even to pass himself off as Jewish.
Despite being firmly on the radar of the US intelligence agencies, he was
allowed to return to India as recently as March. Indian officials are furious
that their American counterparts did not share details of that visit at the
time. The Indian media has raised the possibility that Mr Headley was being
protected by his American handlers a theory that experts say is credible.
"The feeling in India is that the US has not been transparent," said B. Raman,
a former counter-terrorism chief in the Indian foreign intelligence service,
the Research and Analysis Wing.
"That Headley was an agent for the DEA is known. Whether he was being used by
the CIA as well is a matter of speculation, but it is almost certain that the
CIA was aware of him and his movements across the subcontinent."
According to Mr Raman, it is probable that Mr Headley, who was arrested when
the US authorities learned that he was about to fly to Pakistan, was listed on
the main database of the US National Counterterrorism Centre, a facility used
by the CIA and several other American agencies to track terror suspects.
Indian officials suspect that US agencies declined to share intelligence to
avoid compromising other secret operations and to to be able to deny any link
with Mr Headley.
Analysts believe that the US may also have been anxious to avoid sharing
information that could further raise tensions between India and Pakistan,
nuclear-armed neighbours who have fought three wars.
According to documents put before a court in Chicago, Mr Headley had links with
the Pakistan Army and, through it, with al-Qaeda.
As well as helping to co-ordinate the Mumbai atrocity, Mr Headley is accused of
planning attacks on Mumbai's Bollywood film industry, the Shiv Sena, a Hindu
extremist group also based in Mumbai, a major Hindu temple, and a Danish
newspaper that had published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
The US authorities allege that he was close to Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a former
Pakistani schoolmate and businessman who is also being charged with planning to
attack the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. Mr Rana is accused of having
known about the attack on Mumbai in advance.
The CIA denied that Headley had worked for the organisation.
"Any suggestion that Headley was working for the CIA is complete and utter
nonsense. It's flat-out false," Paul Gimigliano, from the CIA's Office of
Public Affairs, said.
The Indian Home Secretary, Gopal Krishna Pillai, has said that his Government
would seek the extradition of Mr Headley a request that has so far been
stonewalled by US officials.
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