It’s been a while since this happened. Just curious if Indian government came to any hard conclusions regarding Pakistani Intelligence Services involvement in planning the attack.
I’ll take a stab at this. There is of course the fact, proved beyond doubt, that the attackers(members of Lashkar-e-Taiba) were Pakistani, came from Pakistan, and were in constant contact with a ‘control room’ in Pakistan for the duration of the attack. Reconnaissance for the attacks was carried out by a Pakistani American David Headley(originally Daood Gilani) who was apparently a DEA double agent, was arrested by American authorities and who implicated the ISI in no uncertain terms.
He’s apparently not the most reliable of witnesses, but then again, it’s not like he’s making particularly unbelievable accusations. There has recently been some corroboration for his account -
The latest news is that an Indian named Abu Jundal(alias Sayed Ansari) was arrested by Saudi authorities, and handed over to India. He was in Saudi Arabia on a Pakistani passport(which are apparently machine readable and biometric and hence ought to be difficult to fake), and carried Pakistani nationality cards. It’s been widely reported that he was handed over to India over Paksitani protests because a) the US insisted on it and (b) Indian investigators recovered DNA from his family in India and it matched. He was apparently the guy who went to Pakistan and helped train the attackers in Hindi. He was present in the control room in Pakistan and in constant communication with the attackers over the phone while the attacks took place. The people he names match the ones earlier fingered by David Headley. From the Chicago tribune -
So. Is there hard, incontrovertible, smoking gun level proof that Pakistani intelligence were involved? I’m not sure. There is enough proof however that nobody in India doubts that there was some level of involvement. Of course, India’s experiences with Pakistani involvement in terrorist activity go far back enough that most Indians don’t really need proof. I don’t think I come under that category, but I too think there’s enough proof here to believe that the Pakistani state, or, given its schizophrenic nature, at least some elements of the Pakistani state, were involved in the attack.
More importantly, given Pakistan’s reputation in these matters, I don’t think most of the world really doubts they were involved either. Sort of like OBL. What really concerns me though is not so much that they were involved in the past, but that there are no serious indications that they are attempting to, able to, or even want to reign in this kind of activity in the future.
Thanks for that exhaustive reply blddysbba. You have covered pretty much everything.
One of the masterminds, LeT chief zakiur rehman lakhvi, is sitting in their jail and operating LeT from there:
Nearly 4 years after the incident, the Pakistani authority haven’t match his voice samples with recorded phone conversations of the handlers given to them by India.
Since they have acquired Nuclear weapons, the possibility of a full blown was has been nullified otherwise India would have attacked Pakistan in 2008. The last full blown war in 1971 resulted in abject surrender of 93k Pakistani armymen to Indian army and breaking away of east Pakistan (Bangladesh) within 13 days.
Reported second half of truthseeker’s post.
For? I see that it’s not in the best taste, but I don’t see which rules he’s breaking.
It’s got nothing to do with OP and will invariably lead to [del]nuclear war[/del] a dick waving contest over who’d win a full-scale war if it happened today. I don’t think it merits a warning or anything.
O ye of little faith.
I am not interested in dick waving contest in this thread.
The reason why Pakistan executes such audacious attacks is because they know that a full blown war wouldn’t take place as they have the nukes.
I think they’re complaining because you’re in General Questions and offering opinions instead of provable facts. And they’re opinions of a political nature, the type of thing better suited to GD. The problem is that eventually something that qualifies as a political jab gets tossed in by someone, and them someone gets warned. That results in a pointless ATMB thread, which devolves into a request for avatars. And that’s pretty much the basis of the India/Pakistan conflict. Some of them believe in avatars, and some don’t.
I understand your point.
But there is universal acceptance that Pakistan can’t win a conventional(non-nuclear) war with India. There defense minister has been quoted saying the same:
Thank you for the info.