Pakistani Intelligence Connection to Mumbai Attacks

Pakistan's military intelligence agency, the ISI, was heavily involved in 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, a 109-page classified Indian government report obtained by the British newspaper The Guardian alleges.

The report is based on confessions of American Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) operative David Headley who scouted targets for the attacks under instructions from the Pakistani terror group LeT. More than 160 people were killed in the Mumbai attacks, including six Americans.

Headley struck a plea bargain with U.S. authorities in March and confessed to all 12 terrorism charges brought against him, including conspiracy to bomb public places in India, to murder Americans and others in India, and to provide material support to the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba. In interviews with Indian investigators from the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Headley detailed numerous meetings between Pakistani intelligence officers and Lashkar members. He claimed at least two of his reconnaissance missions to India to scout potential targets were paid in part by the ISI and he reported regularly to the spy agency.

According to Headley, the Mumbai attacks were in part a result of ISI efforts to boost the morale of Lashkar and other Kashmiri jihadi groups and to stop growing integration between Kashmiri Jihadist groups and "Taliban-based outfits." Several of these groups were identifying more with the Taliban's jihadist activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the ISI wanted to shift "the theater of violence from the domestic soil of Pakistan to India."

"The aggression and commitment to jihad shown by several splinter groups in Afghanistan influenced many committed fighters to leave [LeT to join these organizations]," Headley said. "I understand this compelled the LeT to consider a spectacular terrorist strike in India."

The report detailed meetings Headley held with members of the Pakistani intelligence agency. He also claimed to have received $25,000 from his ISI handler to finance a reconnaissance trip to India.

Headley also confessed to interrogators about a plan to attack high-profile targets in Delhi, including the prime minister's residence and the premier National Defense College.

The Pakistani government has denied news reports of ISI involvement in the attacks and an ISI spokesperson called the allegations as "baseless."

Dallas Skyscraper Plot Nets 24-Year Sentence

A federal judge sentenced a Jordanian man to 24 years in prison Tuesday after he admitted plotting to blow up a Dallas skyscraper.

Hosam Smadi's plea agreement signed in May capped his maximum sentence at 30 years. He admitted driving what he thought was a truck bomb into a parking garage beneath a 60-story Dallas skyscraper called Fountain Place. After an undercover agent drove him away from the building, "Smadi then used a cell phone to remotely detonate" the bomb, a statement of facts said. "Smadi believed the bomb would explode and cause extensive damage."

Unlike other unsuccessful terrorists recently in U.S. court, Smadi apologized for his actions before receiving his sentence Tuesday.

"I am so ashamed for what I did," he said. "I am guilty of this ugly, evil crime that targeted innocent people – women and children… I am very sorry for my action… Osama bin Laden is a bad man. I hate al Qaeda."

Earlier in his two-day sentencing hearing, psychiatrists for the defense and the government discussed whether Smadi was a schizophrenic, the Dallas Morning News reports. Smadi's father testified that he abused Hosam as a child, admitting to beating him with sticks and chains, trying to run him over with a car, and choking the boy after he tried to stop his father from beating his mother.

On Tuesday, the government psychiatrist testified that Smadi was faking his condition. U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn told Smadi he did suffer hardships in life, but none justified his actions. Law enforcement officials learned of Smadi's interest in a terrorist attack through his own postings on websites and his attorneys argued that he was manipulated by the FBI into attempting the bombing. The judge didn't buy it.

"The initiation of this contact was you and all you," Judge Lynn told him. " I have not heard an explanation for what moved you to involved yourself with these kinds of websites and invite someone to assist you and provide the tools to you to do damage to this country, but that you did...You professed to love Osama bin Laden.."

Smadi is likely to be deported upon completing his sentence.

Galloway Convoy Meets Hamas Leadership

The "Viva Palestina 5" convoy received the green light to depart from the Syrian port of Latakia to the Egyptian port of El-Arish today, after waiting for more than a week to receive final approval from Egypt and the ship's captain. Thirty activists will sail on a ship and the remaining 350 or so plan to fly to El-Arish.

The Egyptian ambassador in Syria told convoy organizers earlier this month that they could enter Gaza if they met five conditions. Those conditions were not specified, but Viva Palestina leader George Galloway was informed that he is not allowed to enter the country, upholding a ban placed on Galloway by Egypt in January.

Viva Palestina held a press conference in Latakia on Sunday, announcing Egypt's decision to bar an additional 17 convoy participants from entering the country. Five of those banned are British, ten are Jordanian and two are Turkish. Among those banned include convoy spokesperson and Hamas operative Zaher Birawi, who serves as a representative for Hamas and is a leader of a group affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK. Also banned are 10 participants who were on the IHH Mavi Marmara ship that staged a violent confrontation with Israel on May 31.

Egyptian authorities said that the participants barred are a national security threat to the country.

Speaking at the press conference along with Galloway, Birawi, and others, was Mousa Mohamed Abu Marzook, the deputy secretary of Hamas in Damascus and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). Marzook is the man to the right of Galloway, sitting in front of the microphone in this picture.

Marzook provided substantial funds to the defunct Holy Land Foundation (HLF) in the late 1980s and early 1990s while living in the United States. In 1994, Marzook designated HLF as the main fundraising arm for Hamas in the U.S. Marzook was arrested in New York in 1995 and deported to Jordan. In 2008, a jury found that HLF routed more than $12 million to Hamas through a network of charities by the terrorist group.

Marzook is the second SDGT that the Viva Palestina convoy has met with on its journey to Gaza. Earlier this month, a convoy delegation met with Hamas leader Khalid Mishaal in Damascus.

Judge Raps MAS-Tied School's Conduct

The Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA) in Minnesota has been facing a civil lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union alleging it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by using taxpayer money to promote religion.

Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten reported on Saturday that the state-funded school has engaged in legal tactics that "have gone far beyond the usual rough-and-tumble of lawyers in our adversary system." Those tactics include a defamation counter-suit against the ACLU citing an official's statement that TiZA was "a theocratic school."

The defamation suit was dismissed by the court. Another chief tactic has been attempted intimidation of potential witnesses.

In January, the ACLU filed affidavits by a parent of a former TiZA student and a former TiZA staffer who claimed threats of violence were made against them related to the litigation. The ACLU also asked the court to quash a TiZA secrecy clause in its staff handbook that the ACLU claimed intimidated potential witnesses from testifying against the school. The court ordered the secrecy clause could not be enforced against any TiZA staff in connection with the ongoing suit.

TiZA is run by officials with the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society (MAS). In her affidavit, former office assistant Janeha Edwards said there is no distinction between the TiZA school and MAS.

"Their mail comes to the same mailbox, their faxes come through the same fax machine, and their telephone calls come to the same phone. MAS runs a daycare in the school building," she wrote. "MAS files and TIZA files are intermingled."

In an October 1 court order favoring the ACLU, U.S. District Court Judge Donovan Frank questioned why the public charter school is trying to silence its employees:

"In addition, it should go without saying that, apart from the employment contract issue, intimidation and threats will not sit well with a fact-finder such as a jury. From what the Court can discern on the record currently before it, TiZA's behavior during the discovery process thus far in the case has not been consistent with a good faith search for the truth."

Though not a party to the lawsuit, MAS has tried to get the ACLU lawyers replaced, prompting Kersten to wonder whether the lawyers have information that could take the issue into deeper and more troubling areas. "Every time we read about this lawsuit," she concludes, "we have to pinch ourselves and say: We're talking about a public, taxpayer-funded school."

Four Convicted in Attempted Synagogue Bombing

After eight days of deliberation, a New York jury Monday convicted four men accused of plotting to bomb a synagogue in the Bronx and fire missiles at military planes.

The four defendants — Onta Williams, Laguerre Payen, James Cromitie and David Williams IV — could receive sentences up to life in prison. Williams and Payen were found not guilty of one charge of attempting to kill officers and employees of the United States, the New York Times reported.

Much of the case focused on the use of a government informant, Shahed Hussain, who posed as a terrorist and supplied the men with bombs that didn't work and Stinger missile tubes. Defense attorneys said Hussain entrapped the four defendants and cited taped conversations in which Cromitie expressed doubts about the plot.

The use of informants has been criticized by Islamist groups, who accuse the FBI of sending "agent provocateurs" into mosques to instigate conspiracies. Following the arrests of Cromitie and his associates, Dawud Walid, head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Michigan office, told a radio interview that the FBI was "manufacturing their own terrorism suspects to give the appearance that they're actually doing something tangible in the so called 'War on Terrorism.'" The FBI is "cultivating and inciting people towards extremism," he said.

Cromitie, however, also told Hussain that he hated Jews and didn't care how many people were in the Riverdale synagogue when the bombs exploded.

The case was tried in federal district court in Manhattan before a jury of six women and five men.

In a statement, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the convictions "affirm our commitment to do everything we can to protect against" homegrown terrorism. "The defendants in this case agreed to plant bombs and use missiles they thought were very real weapons of terrorism."

Wife Warned FBI of Mumbai Plotter's Lashkar Ties

The wife of an American citizen who scouted targets for the Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008, alerted the FBI three years earlier that her husband was an active member of the Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), according to media reports. David Coleman Headley's wife reported that he had trained in Lashkar camps in Pakistan and had purchased night vision goggles and other equipment for the terrorist group. The LeT is believed to be behind the Mumbai attacks.

Headley's wife, an American-born New York makeup artist, had three separate meetings with the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force after a dispute that resulted in Headley's arrest by New York City Police on charges of domestic assault. Headley was later released on bond after federal officials determined the information was inadequate to legally justify opening an investigation. ProPublica, an investigative news agency, first reported the tip on its website Friday and in the Washington Post on Saturday. ProPublica did not identify Headley's wife by name due to concerns about her safety.

In 2007, less than a year before the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people, including six Americans, Headley's second wife, Faiza Outalha, a young Moroccan woman, warned officials at the American Embassy in Pakistan that her husband was plotting an attack in Mumbai. Outalha showed embassy officials a photograph of herself with Headley at the Taj Mahal hotel, one of the targets of the Mumbai attacks. Hotel records confirm Headley and his wife stayed at the Taj hotel in April and May 2007, as part of several reconnaissance missions to India to scout potential sites for terrorist attacks under instructions from LeT.

In March, Headley pleaded guilty to 12 federal terrorism charge that were brought against him, including conspiracy to bomb public places in India, to murder Americans and others in India, and to provide material support to the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba. He has been cooperating with government authorities since his arrest in October 2009.

Headley is reported to have been married at least three times and for a brief period he was married to all three wives at the same time. His third wife was a conservative Pakistani Muslim. According to court records, Headley served as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration in the 1990s as part of the agency's efforts to bust a drug smuggling ring in Pakistan. A high-level U.S. law enforcement said Headley ceased working as an informant for the agency before the Mumbai attacks in November 2008. The official however did not specify whether Headley worked as an informant during the years he was training in Pakistani terrorist camps and planning the attacks.

It is unclear whether the information provided to federal agents by Headley's former wives could have averted the Mumbai attacks. Mike Hammer, spokesman for the National Security Council, claims the U.S. government repeatedly issued warning to Indian authorities about potential attacks: "The United States regularly provided threat information to Indian officials in 2008 before the attacks in Mumbai," Hammer told the Los Angeles Times. "Had we known about the timing and other specifics related to the Mumbai attacks, we would have immediately shared those details with the government of India," he added.

Canadian Report Suggests Measures to Combat Prison Radicalization

Segregation of inmates, the denial of radical texts and aggressive screening of clerics all are needed to stop Islamist radicalization from taking root in Canadian prisons, a new study recommends.

In "From Rehabilitation to Recruitment," Macdonald-Laurier Institute fellow Alex Wilner examines the evolution of Islamist radicalism in Europe and the U.S. and draws lessons for Canada.

"So far, in Canada, it's just a threat," he writes in a column published Monday in the Globe and Mail summarizing his findings and recommendations. "But European countries have a very real problem, especially with Islamist radicals spreading militant, politically violent interpretations of their religion among the general prison population, and it's a growing issue in the United States."

And recent convictions in a series of terrorism cases will increase the number of jihadis in custody. That's why he believes counter-radicalization policies are needed by the Correctional Service Canada now, including a purge of radical literature from prison libraries and careful screening of clerics who counsel inmates:

"Like all Canadians, convicted terrorists have a right to practise their faith. But not to the total exclusion of legitimate security concerns. CSC must employ enough qualified imams to attend to prisoners' religious needs, screen them properly to be sure they are not part of the problem rather than the solution, and train them in confronting extremism effectively."

U.S. prison officials should study Wilner's recommendations, too. As we've reported, those in charge of inmate cleric programs have done a poor job screening the ideology of preachers with access to dangerous inmates and the material on the shelves in prison libraries.

Dremali Arrest Stirs CAIR Concern

An imam with ties to mosques in Florida and Iowa has been arrested on immigration fraud charges. Ibrahim Dremali and his wife Safaa Rashad Eissa were arrested in Texas last week and will return to Iowa to face charges, the Iowa Independent reports.

Dremali founded the Islamic Center of Boca Raton before becoming an imam in Des Moines. While in Florida, his mosque co-sponsored a rally in 2000 which featured Hizballah flags and chants of "with jihad we'll claim our land. Zionist blood will wet the sand."

In addition, Dremali testified on behalf of Adham Amin Hassoun during a 2002 bond hearing, attesting to Hassoun's "peaceful and generous" character. Hassoun would later be indicted for "actively recruiting mujahideen fighters and raising funds for violent jihad" and conspiracy to murder, kidnap, and maim persons in a foreign country," in order to "advance violent jihad," including "murder, kidnapping, and maiming," to establish "Islamic states under Sharia."

Hassoun was convicted in 2007.

Dremali is in poor health, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Iowa chapter said in a Facebook posting:

"Please CALL SENATOR HARKIN'S OFFICE TODAY AND ASK FOR HIS HELP TO STOP THE ORDERED APPEARANCE IN DES MOINES ON OCTOBER 20TH and HAVE THE CHARGES DROPPED!!!"

For more on Dremali, see our report on the Islamic Center of Boca Raton and the Iowa Independent's coverage of the arrest.

Another HLF Employee Pleads Guilty

A prominent Islamic singer living in the United States has pled guilty to hiding his associations with a designated terrorist financier. In a federal court in Detroit today, Syrian native, Mohamad Masfaka admitted to falsifying immigration records and lying to federal authorities during the naturalization process.

According to an indictment filed on December 3, 2008, Masfaka was an employee of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), an organization proven to have funneled millions of dollars to Hamas under the guise of humanitarian assistance. Internal HLF records introduced into evidence during the trial show that Masfaka was hired on December 1, 1997 and served as the "MI Representative." He was listed receiving a salary of $12,000 for his efforts operating the "HLF's activities in the Detroit area from his home, serving as the Detroit HLF representative."

In filling out a 2002 application for naturalization, Masfaka failed to disclose his nearly year-long employment with HLF. When pressed by the investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Masfaka maintained that he was never an employee of HLF. Instead, he repeatedly said that he was merely a singer in a band that performed in fundraising events for HLF, and that he never received payment from the now defunct "charity." Bank records, however, demonstrated that HLF drafted and Masfaka had cashed at least five checks during his time with the organization.

At the time of his arrest, ICE Special Agent in Charge Brian Moskowitz said "this individual went to great lengths to avoid apprehension and will now face justice." Following Masfaka's plea of guilty, he is set to be sentenced on December 14, and will face deportation following a stint in federal prison.

British Cleric Says Rape 'Impossible' in Marriage

Those who fear the possible creep of sharia legal principles into Western law will not be reassured by the recent pronouncements of Sheikh Maulana Abu Sayeed, president of the Islamic Sharia Council in Britain.

Rape, Sayeed told The Independent newspaper, is impossible in marriage and men who rape their wives should not be prosecuted because "sex is part of marriage." Also, he added, many married women who alleged rape were lying, the newspaper reported.

"Clearly there cannot be any rape within the marriage," Sayeed told a British blog called The Samosa. "Maybe aggression, maybe indecent activity … Because when they got married, the understanding was that sexual intercourse was part of the marriage, so there cannot be anything against sex in marriage. Of course, if it happened without her desire, that is no good, that is not desirable."

Rape within marriage was declared illegal in Britain in 1991, the newspaper reported.

Dave Whatton, spokesman on rape for Britain's Association of Chief Police Officers, said "it is a fundamental principle that sharia law should not replace the laws of the UK." On that, he would find little disagreement here.

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