News Analysis: Mumbai Terror attacks
By Ritu Sarin Dec 04, 2008 Muslim India
New Delhi: Investigation into the Mumbai Terror attacks is acquiring the dimensions of an international probe with trails being tracked in several countries besides Pakistan after evidence that the terrorists used a Thuraya satellite phone bought in Karachi and two SIM cards issued in Vienna, Austria, and New Jersey in the United States.
Top sources have confirmed to The Indian Express that this has drawn in investigators from several countries who are assisting Indian agencies to piece together the complex jigsaw of the terror plot.
The Thuraya satellite phone, located on the Kuber, the fishing trawler used by the terrorists in their journey to Mumbai, has been tracked to a distributor in Karachi. Now efforts are on in Dubai, where the Thuraya company is based, to locate who sold the set to the distributor.
A scrutiny of the call details on the Thuraya set has revealed that the terrorists made four or five calls to numbers in Sialkot and Karachi during the journey.“Efforts are on to zero in on the identities of the persons called,” sources in the Prime Minister’s Office said.
Besides the satphone, two mobile handsets recovered from terrorists killed in the commando action in the Taj Mahal hotel have also widened the scope of the terror probe. These mobile phones were being intercepted, as The Indian Express first reported, by Indian agencies right through the gunbattle.
While the two handsets are manufactured in India, one of the SIM cards was issued by a Telecom company in Vienna, the other by a firm in New Jersey. Sources said intelligence agencies in Switzerland and the USA are now actively working on the purchase trail of these SIM cards.
In a related breakthrough, a foreign intelligence agency has helped land a copy of the Pakistani passport (and thus picture) of Zaki-ur-Rehman Naqvi, the Lashkar-e-Toiba Commander widely believed to be behind the attacks.
Zaki-ur-Rehman has since been named by Ajmal Ameer Kasab, the lone surviving militant now in the custody of the Mumbai police, during interrogation, as the man who debriefed them on the locations and modus operandi of the Mumbai operations. A copy of the passport, accessed by The Indian Express, shows that the travel document had been issued to Naqvi in 2007. It gives the age of the passport holder as 48 and describes him as a resident of Okara.
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Ritu Sarin is head of investigations at ‘The Indian Express’, India's leading investigative newspaper and a contributor to the weekly Hong Kong-based newsmagazine, 'Asiaweek'. During her 17-year career, she has reported extensively on the militant movements in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, as well as done a series of investigative reports on India’s intelligence agencies, narco-terrorism, and political corruption.
By Ritu Sarin Dec 04, 2008 Muslim India
New Delhi: Investigation into the Mumbai Terror attacks is acquiring the dimensions of an international probe with trails being tracked in several countries besides Pakistan after evidence that the terrorists used a Thuraya satellite phone bought in Karachi and two SIM cards issued in Vienna, Austria, and New Jersey in the United States.
Top sources have confirmed to The Indian Express that this has drawn in investigators from several countries who are assisting Indian agencies to piece together the complex jigsaw of the terror plot.
The Thuraya satellite phone, located on the Kuber, the fishing trawler used by the terrorists in their journey to Mumbai, has been tracked to a distributor in Karachi. Now efforts are on in Dubai, where the Thuraya company is based, to locate who sold the set to the distributor.
A scrutiny of the call details on the Thuraya set has revealed that the terrorists made four or five calls to numbers in Sialkot and Karachi during the journey.“Efforts are on to zero in on the identities of the persons called,” sources in the Prime Minister’s Office said.
Besides the satphone, two mobile handsets recovered from terrorists killed in the commando action in the Taj Mahal hotel have also widened the scope of the terror probe. These mobile phones were being intercepted, as The Indian Express first reported, by Indian agencies right through the gunbattle.
While the two handsets are manufactured in India, one of the SIM cards was issued by a Telecom company in Vienna, the other by a firm in New Jersey. Sources said intelligence agencies in Switzerland and the USA are now actively working on the purchase trail of these SIM cards.
In a related breakthrough, a foreign intelligence agency has helped land a copy of the Pakistani passport (and thus picture) of Zaki-ur-Rehman Naqvi, the Lashkar-e-Toiba Commander widely believed to be behind the attacks.
Zaki-ur-Rehman has since been named by Ajmal Ameer Kasab, the lone surviving militant now in the custody of the Mumbai police, during interrogation, as the man who debriefed them on the locations and modus operandi of the Mumbai operations. A copy of the passport, accessed by The Indian Express, shows that the travel document had been issued to Naqvi in 2007. It gives the age of the passport holder as 48 and describes him as a resident of Okara.
______________________________________________
Ritu Sarin is head of investigations at ‘The Indian Express’, India's leading investigative newspaper and a contributor to the weekly Hong Kong-based newsmagazine, 'Asiaweek'. During her 17-year career, she has reported extensively on the militant movements in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, as well as done a series of investigative reports on India’s intelligence agencies, narco-terrorism, and political corruption.
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