FBI probe of 26/11 terror attack led to Pakistan

WASHINGTON - A lot of information led back to Pakistan with the early arrest of Pakistani national Ajmal Amir Kasab, proving a major turning point in the investigation of the November 2008 Mumbai terror attack, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

“A lot of the information led back to Pakistan,” Anthony Tindall, a supervisory special agent who led the bureau’s investigation. told members of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force recounting the sobering lessons the assault offered for US in the constant fight against terrorism.

It showed how a group of only 10 terrorists with limited education, training and funding - along with automatic weapons, grenades and cellphones - could cause so much slaughter in just three days, the Miami Herald cited Tindall as saying at a conference in Miami last week.

Another major turning point in the investigation was the early arrest of Kasab, the lone surviving attacker, a poor, uneducated young man recruited, trained and selected for the mission directed by Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Tindall called Ajmal, who joined another terrorist in the deadly Mumbai railway station attack, “an incredible source of information”.

“One of the things we learned from this operation is that we needed to bring them something they couldn’t do themselves,” Tindall told the audience, while showing TV news accounts of the massacre.

“A lot of the information led back to Pakistan.”

The Indian government sought the FBI’s help during the Nov 26-28 attack, and the bureau deployed eight agents from Los Angeles as well as technicians from Quantico, Virginia.

The FBI gained the trust of Indian investigators almost immediately because agents and technicians were able to glean significant information from GPS, cellphones, satellite phones, Internet data, financial records, witnesses and boats, Tindall said.

Tindall, now based in Hawaii as the FBI’s liaison to the US Pacific Command, said that a Mumbai-style attack in the US would not likely cause as much death and destruction because local, state and federal law enforcement would be better coordinated.

The crippling flaw in Mumbai Police’s defence against the initial assault was that its officers didn’t even carry weapons, Tindall said. “In the United States, we would bring guns and bullets much quicker than the Indians could have.”

Still, the FBI’s chief of counterterrorism in south Florida warned everyone in the audience to be ready for any assault like Mumbai, noting it was “deceptively simple and highly coordinated with little money expended”.

“It’s something to think about as you go about your business,” said Erin Beckman, assistant special agent in charge of counterterrorism. “It could happen in Seattle, San Diego, Manhattan and even Miami.”

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)