Author: IANS
Publication: The Times of India
Date: June 6, 2011
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Did-Headleys-info-help-US-locate-Kashmiri/articleshow/8742248.cms
One compelling possibility that arises in
the aftermath of the drone killing of Ilyas Kashmiri is whether key Mumbai
terror plotter David Headley offered actionable intelligence on the powerful
al-Qaida commander's whereabouts.
While it is nearly impossible to confirm
what specifically Headley might have revealed to the US federal investigators
and whether that intelligence helped establish Kashmiri's location, his plea
deal with the government and his five days of testimony that concluded last
week point to his close ties with the Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami (HuJI) leader.
Headley first met Kashmiri in February 2009
along with Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, a former Pakistani army officer also
known as Pasha, in Waziristan. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the
details of video surveillance of Copenhagen carried out by Headley as part
of a plot to attack the office of the Morgenavisen Jylland-Posten newspaper
which had published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in 2005. Headley and
Pasha met Kashmiri again in May that year in the same Waziristan area.
US authorities have maintained that Kashmiri
wanted to carry out a suicide attack on the newspaper and have the attackers
behead newspaper employees and throw their heads out of the building to create
maximum impact. Having been to Kashmiri's Waziristan location at least twice,
Headley had a fair idea where to point the US investigators to. After his
arrest in October 2009, as Headley began showing near desperation to cooperate
with the federal investigators to earn his plea deal, he felt so compelled
to ensure that his information led to some major arrest that he offered an
extraordinary idea to the US government.
He told them they should send him back to
Pakistan with an ornate sword embedded with a locator chip which he could
gift Kashmiri. The US then could use the signal from the chip to locate and
target him. There is nothing to suggest that US even considered the idea.
