Click to play videoNew Delhi: The FBI's investigation of suspected Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Rana is throwing up more questions than answers. The questions range from not just whether Headley and Rana knew about and planned the Mumbai attacks, but how much US officials knew about the men and also, were they rogue CIA agents?
The FBI has now alleged that Rana met a retired Pakistani army brigadier, Abdur Rahman Hashim Syed, who is known as "Pasha" in Dubai. Pasha was Headley's direct link to one of Pakistan's most wanted terrorists, Ilyas Kashmiri, and a direct link to al-Qaeda as well.
The question that was being asked on CNN-IBN's Talking Point was: Is Pakistan's ISI-LeT link now out in the open? To try and answer the question on the panel of experts were Pakistan High Commissioner to UK, Wajid Shamshul Hasan; Associate Editor The Hindu, Siddharth Varadarajan; and strategic affairs expert, B Raman.
CNN-IBN: Can Pakistan now deny anymore that in some way the links between the ISI and the Lashkar and their operations in targeting Indian installations are becoming clearer by the day? The fact was that both Headley and Rana have been trained in elite Pakistani schools, they have links with Pakistan, there is the admission of Brigadier Pasha who also appears to be with them. Pakistan appears neck-deep in the Headley-Rana case.
Wajid Shamshul Hasan: I don't know what you are talking about because we have no involvement in such cases. We are defending ourselves against terrorism, we are fighting terrorism in Pakistan, we are cooperating with everybody who is fighting terrorism, and so there is no question of Pakistan's or ISI's involvement in such dastardly activities. We are committed to peace and we are committed to fighting terrorism and that should be understood very clearly in Delhi and elsewhere. Pakistan has suffered much more on account of terrorism than any other country has and that is why we seek regional cooperation and the cooperation of everybody who is opposed to terrorism to help us fight terrorists. That is what we have been asking India as well - to provide us evidence if they have any. We have discovered a lot of evidence of Indian involvement in some of the terrorist activities in Pakistan.
CNN-IBN: But Mr Hasan, we are no longer talking of India's evidence, we are now talking of FBI evidence that has been produced in a Chicago court. The facts that David Coleman Headley and Tahawwhur Rana had links with a former Pakistani brigadier and that Pakistani army members had links with the Lashkar are coming out of the FBI's evidence.
Wajid Shamshul Hasan: This is totally wrong. The Pakistani army or the ISI has no role to play in such activities. If they were involved, they were all ex-army personnel so you can't blame the current army or the current members of the ISI of being involved in any of these activities. As a matter of fact we are in the forefront of the war against terrorism and we are fighting it out on our territory and we are helping others fight it out as well. We have always supported India and we have always sought India's help.
CNN-IBN: Mr Hasan how long can you live in this denial? You have said that you wanted India to provide evidence, now it is the FBI which is providing evidence. Everyday the FBI chargesheet is coming out with new and explicit details and all details point to the fact that Headley and Rana had widespread links with members of the establishment in Pakistan and that these elements were plotting various conspiracies in India. How can you now deny a fact which is now coming out in a Chicago court. It is no longer an Indian conspiracy.
Wajid Shamshul Hasan: Well, I am again repeating what we have always been saying and propagating. The fact is that no one from the Pakistani establishment is involved in such activities and we are fighting a war against terrorism, so how could we be supporting such nefarious elements?
CNN-IBN: Siddharth Varadarajan, is it just Pakistan which has much to answer for or is it now the US - keeping in mind the fact that Headley was in fact an agent of a US agency who turned rogue?
Siddharth Varadarajan: I think there is a lot more to this case than meets the eye or which has emerged so far. The fact that the FBI has a taped conversation between Headley and Rana dated in September 2008 obviously suggests that they were being very closely monitored and the American authorities had some inkling of a connection between these two gentlemen and what exactly they were up to. I am not saying that they were necessarily duty-bound to provide every bit of information to India. Unfortunately, we run a very, very porous system where the confidentiality of information coming out of Mumbai is not respected and this is true of virtually every level of the Government. Nevertheless, the coming weeks will establish to what extent the FBI and CIA were actually aware of Headley's involvement in this plot, were they allowing Headley to continue with his travels in order to unravel a wider conspiracy. I think these are questions that the Indian side needs to quietly take up with the American side without really muddying the waters with accusations at this stage.
CNN-IBN: B Raman, so far it seems as if up to this point, the US is getting Pakistan to cooperate in the Headley-Rana investigation in a way which India has been unable to in the past. How much further do you think this goes since there is now the involvement of Illyas Kashmiri in all of this as well.
B Raman: So far as this case is concerned, it is for the US to make Pakistan cooperate because they have all the evidence - including the taped conversation. We still do not have any evidence other than what the US has chosen to share with us. They have all the email correspondence between Headley and Rana and their Pakistani handlers and all these have been produced in court and all these things are available on the FBI's website. The evidence has brought out the involvement of one retired officer and two serving officers and the retired officer has been named but they have not given the name of the serving officers. Now it is up to the FBI to bring enough pressure on Pakistan to make the country cooperate. And Pakistan is in denial mode. They have not only been denying the evidence India has produced but also the evidence which the FBI has produced. This is a big problem that the world community faces.
CNN-IBN: But if the conversations were taped in September 2008 - before 26/11 - why wasn't this real-time intelligence shared with India? If the FBI was taping conversations between Headley and Rana which they have now produced in court it either proves that Headley was someone that the US was tracking before 26/11 and was possibly a rogue agent or it proves that this information was never shared with India.
B Raman: We still don't know how much information was shared with India and when the FBI started sharing this information but I would like to say one thing here and that is that whatever technical intelligence the FBI has produced in court along with the first affidavit in October and the subsequent affidavits in December against Rana - all date from October 2008 till now. Initially these concerned the plans of a terror strike in Copenhagen and subsequently terror strikes in India. Whether they had any intelligence before that we don't know. Yes, they alerted the Government of India in 2008 but whether that alert was based on technical intelligence we don't know. So certain amount of intelligence they have been sharing but one gets the impression that they did not share all that needed to be shared.
CNN-IBN: Wajid Shamshul Hasan you have always been very consistent with what you have said on this show but first you denied that the 26/11 attacks were plotted in Pakistan and then you admitted it. Then the country denied any Pakistani nationals were part of the attack and then they admitted it. Is this something that we are going to have to deal with in coming months that there were Pakistani officers involved in plotting and planning the Mumbai attacks last year? Is that something Pakistan is going to have to come to admit now?
Wajid Shamshul Hasan: Well you are discussing the American citizens who were caught.
CNN-IBN: They were originally Pakistani citizens, they have trained and studied in Pakistan.
Wajid Shamshul Hasan: They are presently American citizens. We don't know where they were trained but the fact is that we have largely been talking peace in Pakistan with India and that is what we discussed with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when our Prime Minister met him in Sharm-al-Sheikh.
CNN-IBN: But it is the understanding that we are talking about here. There is an FBI team in Pakistan which is following the leads of David Headley and Tahawwhur Rana. What are you saying about that? This is now FBI evidence against Pakistani army officers.
Wajid Shamshul Hasan: This is not against Pakistani army officers. This is about American citizens who were caught and it has nothing to do with the Pakistani army or the ISI.
CNN-IBN: In the chargesheet the FBI talks about 'Person A' who is understood to be a serving Pakistani army officer.
Wajid Shamshul Hasan: Well it is again what you say and what the FBI talks about. The FBI says 'Person A' and we don't know who he is. He could be an American citizen that they are talking about. This is nothing to do with Pakistan as such.
CNN-IBN: Siddharth Varadarajan, you wrote today (Tuesday) in The Hindu that this is the right time for India and Pakistan to come back to the dialogue table. How do you come back to the dialogue table when Pakistan still lives in denial about any involvement of its establishment with terror. That's where the problem comes - the lack of trust.
Siddharth Varadarajan: I have some sympathy for Mr Hasan and the civillian government and the people of Pakistan. The problem of terrorism that we are confronting is very much like an onion. You peel away the layers and the deeper you go, the more you unearth and this is a painful and traumatic process. It causes tears and pain and the saner elements of the Pakistani establishment have to be encouraged to come to grips with this problem. There are wise sections in the Pakistani establishments who realise that the Pakistani links with Jihadi establishments are exacting on the neighbourhood and within Pakistan itself. My view on the talks is that India has to do what it has to do to protect itself. In other words, homeland security, internal security must be strengthened - all the stuff that we haven't been doing must be done.
CNN-IBN: Even if we say that terrorism is complex and multi-layered, shouldn't there be an acknowledgment at some stage by the Pakistani civillian government that they are confronted with a problem. It can't be a Hafiz Saeed denial, a Headley Rana denial and then expect India to go the extra mile.
Siddharth Varadarajan: You are right when you say that Pakistan has not even admitted to a tenth of the problem, but the fact that they have admitted to something, the fact that you have seven or eight LeT men in prison on trial and even if they are small fry, it affects the ability of the LeT to run major operations. So, we shouldn't underestimate them. I just don't see how continuing the suspension of dialogue makes India more secure. I think we need to do what we can to nudge this entire process along and to work with the US. I remember in 1993, India supplied the triggers of the Bombay bombs and showed the US that they were of Pakistani origin and the US didn't do anything about it. The US is cooperating with us more than ever now. Today, we have some evidence and they are willing to crack the whip because American nationals died. We need to do what we can to nudge this process along and I don't think it compromises our security in any way.
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