Pakistan dances with Jihadist Frankenstein

“The report "reinforces the sense that Pakistan is riding a jihadist Frankenstein," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who led the Obama administration's initial review of its Afghanistan and Pakistan strategies. Given the level of detail in the Indian report, Riedel said, there appears to be "no question of an ISI role in Mumbai."

“Indian report accuses Pakistan's intelligence service of significant role in Mumbai siege

By Emily Wax and Greg Miller

Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, October 19, 2010; 11:18 PM

NEW DELHI - Pakistan's main intelligence service was far more involved in funding and orchestrating the 2008 Mumbai attacks than was previously believed, according to a classified Indian investigative report. But that conclusion was disputed Tuesday by U.S. intelligence officials, who said they saw no evidence to substantiate Pakistani government involvement.

The Indian report is based primarily on the interrogation of David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani American who was arrested last year in Chicago and pleaded guilty this year in U.S. federal court to helping to plot the attack.

The three-day siege in Mumbai left 166 people dead, including six Americans. It has been attributed to the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-i-Taiba, but the extent of official Pakistani involvement - if any - has long been hotly contested.

In the report, Headley is quoted describing his extensive contact with handlers from Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, and speculates on its alleged motivation for helping to launch the strike. In Headley's telling, the ISI was hoping to refocus militants against neighboring India at a time when they were increasingly turning their guns on Pakistan. "The ISI, I believe, had no ambiguity about the necessity to strike India," he said, according to the report.

Pakistani officials immediately rejected the suggestion that the ISI was involved, with one calling it an "Indian-staged drama."

The ISI has often been accused of exporting militancy to India, Afghanistan and beyond, rather than trying to eliminate it at home. Headley's account, if true, offers an unusual firsthand insight, complete with the names of ISI personnel with whom he says he met as the plot took shape.

But India has a significant motive of its own for blaming its arch rival for the assault, in which 10 gunmen targeted two international hotels, a tourist cafe and a Jewish outreach center.

A U.S. counterterrorism official said American authorities have seen no evidence that ISI leaders were aware of, let alone involved in overseeing, the attack.

"There are no indications that the Pakistani ISI made any kind of institutional decision to help direct, plan or orchestrate the Mumbai attacks," said the U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the ongoing investigation. "If there was information pointing to Pakistani government sponsorship of the Mumbai attacks, surely the United States would have reacted accordingly."”