A team of officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States' Department of Justice, currently in India, will travel to Pakistan to follow up on leads about Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley's activities there. The team, which briefed Indian officials on Monday in New Delhi, will travel to Pakistan, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said. Kelly said the FBI has been consulting closely with Pakistani authorities on this case.
The United States on Tuesday said that it was working closely with India on the Headley-Rana case to detect and prevent future terror attacks. Lashkar-e-Tayiba operatives David Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation from Chicago in October for plotting terror attacks in India and Denmark.
A Lahore-based retired Pakistan army major has emerged as a key link between the Mumbai terror attack suspect David Coleman Headley and his Pakistani handlers who guided him in planning and plotting strikes in India.
A joint team of the US department of justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation briefed Indian investigators on American terror suspect David Headley's alleged role in last year's Mumbai terror strike on Monday.
Family members and friends of Tahawwur Rana, who was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on charges of plotting terror attacks in India at the behest of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, on Thursday vouched for his 'honesty' and 'non-violent nature' in a court hearing in Chicago.Rana's bond hearing, held before United States Magistrate Judge Nan Nolan, was attended by his family, including his parents-in-law, friends and acquaintances.Judge Nolan postponed the decision.
"Agents from FBI offices in New Delhi and Islamabad joined forces with Indian government, the CIA, the State Department, MI-6 and New Scotland Yard," he said. Through these partnerships, Muller said: "We had unprecedented access to evidence and intelligence. Agents and analysts conducted more than 60 interviews, including that of the lone surviving attacker.
Terming the Mumbai terror attacks as "successful" from the perspective of terrorists, top United States intelligence official has warned that such strikes could be replicated in the US and other parts of the world.
Terrorists operating in the tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan pose the main threat to the United States, America's top intelligence official has said. "Our primary threat continues to come from the tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. But we are seeing persistent activity elsewhere, from the Maghreb and the Sahel to Yemen," Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller said on Monday.
The detention hearing of terror suspect David Coleman Headley, arrested by the Federal Bureau of Ivestigation for plotting attacks in India at the behest of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, scheduled for December 4 at a court in Chicago has been indefinitely deferred.
Vilas Warack, a gym instructor who met terror suspect David Coleman Headley along with filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt's son Rahul, was on Monday questioned by the National Investigation Agency, which is probing the Lashkar-e-Tayiba's plot to carry out major strikes in India. The agency recorded the statement of Warack on how he knew Headley, who was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States in October for planning attacks on the National Defence College.
The National Investigation Agency believes a Lashkar operative, who played a major role in coordinating the 26/11 attacks, operates under three aliases and is a wanted terrorist in four countries.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation's probe into the Mumbai terror attack took an unusual twist with Faheem Ansari, one of the accused, leveling sexual harassment allegations against a lady officer of the American agency, who had reportedly interrogated him in Mumbai. Faheem has moved the court with his lawyer Ejaz Naqvi, filing an application before an Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate alleging that a lady FBI officer, had "sexually harassed him."
The key to the conspiracy hatched by David Headley and Tahawwur Rana may lie in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Investigations showed that during his first visit to Mumbai in the year 2007, he stayed at the Taj Mahal hotel for nearly 10 days. As per investigations, Headley checked into room number 1809 in the Taj Mahal hotel and stayed there between April 20 and 30 2007. The IB says that this information is being verified and would prove crucial to the 26/11 probe.
Noted director-producer Mahesh Bhatt on Friday refused to comment on the reported links between his son Rahul and David Headley, a Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative nabbed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for allegedly plotting attacks in India, and said the onus is on the investigating agencies to provide an answer on the issue. According to the Mumbai Mirror newspaper, Pakistan-born United States citizen Headley's 'Rahul' was apparently Mahesh Bhatt's son.
Investigators say David Headley may have surveyed 26/11 targets and guided the terrorists's minders in Pakistan during the actual attacks.
As an immediate fall-out of the Federal Bureau of Investigation foiling a Lashkar-e-Tayiba plot to use United States nationals to carry out major terror attacks in India, the Indian Embassy in Washington has tightened visa approval norms for Pakistan-born American citizens, whose applications would now have to be cleared by New Delhi. An instruction in this regard has recently been issued by Union Home Secretary G K Pillai.
A Chicago court has given a 60-day deadline to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to complete its investigations and file an indictment into the foiled terror plot in India and Denmark by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorist group.
Investigations into the origins of the Mumbai terror attacks are still on and the Federal Bureau of Investigation continues to assist Indian agencies, authorities in the US have said, following reports that the Pakistani probe indicates that the strike was planned outside the country."I believe the investigation is ongoing as to the origins of the attacks," a National Security Council spokesman said when asked about news reports in this regard coming from Pakistan.
Giving a new dimension to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba plot to attack Indian facilities, Federal Bureau of Investigation's sleuths have recovered two inflammatory Al Qaeda videos, containing speeches by Osama bin Laden and other terrorists, from the house of Pakistan-born Canadian Tahawwur Hussain Rana, who was arrested in October. Produced by 'As Sahab Media', commonly acknowledged to be the media wing of the Al Qaeda, one of the videos is titled 'Bombing of Denmark Embassy'.
Home Minister P Chidambaram has said that the FBI's probe into a terror plot targeting India has confirmed a definite Pakistan link. Speaking to reporters after attending a passing-out parade of 61st batch of Indian Police Officers at the National Police Academy in Hyderabad on Thursday, Chidambaram said that on the advice of FBI, two or more persons have been arrested in Pakistan in connection with the same terror plot, uncovered by FBI.
Two men have entered guilty pleas to hate crime charges in the vicious attack on a Sikh taxi driver in Sacramento the United States late last year as the police and Federal Bureau of Investigation have launched a massive manhunt to nab the attackers of two other elderly members of the community.
Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Tayiba was planning to use an American national to carry out a major terrorist attack in India, US investigating authorities said on Tuesday.
An American scientist who played a key role in India's Chandrayaan mission in finding evidence of water on the Moon has been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on charges of spying for Israel, but the Indian Space Research Organisation said its security has not been compromised.
Russia on Tuesday fumed over the arrest of 10 suspected spies in the United States by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an incident reminiscent of the Cold War hostilities, warning it would be a blow to the Obama-Medvedev 'burger' diplomacy and the 'reset' in the bilateral ties.
T N Ninan writes on how the United States is handling the BP oil spill disaster and what India needed to do in the horrific Bhopal gas tragedy.
American investigators who questioned Ajmal Amir Iman Kasab, the lone terrorist captured during the Mumbai attack, are convinced he is a Pakistani national and that the terrorist strike was planned and executed by the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, diplomatic sources said on Tuesday.These findings fit in with comments by top American leaders like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Admiral Mike Mullen, the senior-most US military official, who have asked Pakistan to take quick action.
Backpacks, computers and maps were found during the searches conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and field tests turned up positive for explosives allegedly found in raids in the New York borough Queens, a media report said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) registered a case in connection with the audacious Mumbai serial attack that left over 180 people, including six Americans, dead and are helping Indian investigators in cracking codes of Internet telephony used by terrorists of Lashker-e-Taiba.
The US officials estimate that the widespread carnage could have been carried out for relatively small price tag of between $100,000 (almost 50 lakh) and $200,000 (almost 1 crore), which, they say, is the cost of machine guns, grenades, ammunition and boats used, said ABC News.
Pakistani-American terror suspect Faisal Shahzad had planned to attack four other targets if his bid to detonate a car bomb near Times Square in New York was successful, according to a television channel. Other locations that he intended to attack were Rockefeller Centre, Grand Central Terminal, the World Financial Centre and the Connecticut headquarters of defence contractor Sikorsky. Sikorsky manufactures helicopters for the US military, including the Black Hawk.
A computer programmer, who knew Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad, is among the three Pakistani men arrested during investigations into the failed plot. The three men were picked up on Thursday in a series of raids in the Boston suburbs, on New York's Long Island and in New Jersey, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation followed the money trail in the failed attack.
In a case of political espionage, an unknown "foreign entity" had hacked the entire computer systems of the US presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain this summer, triggering a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe.
Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad, the suspected Times Square bomber, attended a terrorist training camp at Waziristan in Pakistan, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has said. In a 10-page compliant file on Tuesday before the Court of Judge Nathaniel Fox, Southern District of New York, the FBI alleged that Shahzad traveled from Connecticut to New York on a sports-utility vehicle that was laden with a bomb.
In a crucial testimony, the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday told a special court trying the Mumbai terror attack case that Global Positioning System devices used by terrorists had indicated that they had come from Karachi.
A diplomat from the Qatar embassy reportedly tried to set his shoes on fire on board an United Airlines flight from Washington to Denver on Wednesday night.Mohammed al Modadi was taken into custody by federal authorities. He has been an employee of the Qatar embassy for many years, said sources. The Boeing 757 was carrying 157 passengers and six crew members.
A Pakistani-origin taxi driver, with suspected links to Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami chief Ilyas Kashmiri, has been indicted on charges of "knowingly" attempting to aid the Al Qaeda.
A US court on Wednesday fixed April 7 as the date for the preliminary hearing in the case of a Pakistani-origin taxi driver who was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Chicago on charges of providing material support and funds to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda terror group.
An Indian-American doctor couple faces a five-year prison term after being charged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for adopting unprofessional medical practises, like distributing controlled substances in their clinic described as 'pill mill', and billing the government for a whopping $8.7 million.The doctor couple, Dr Arun Sharma and his wife, Dr Kiran Sharma, MD, practised in Baytown and Texas.
All governments indulge in spin. One should not, therefore, blame the government of Dr Manmohan Singh for indulging in spin in the case of David Coleman Headley, of the Chicago cell of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, and for trying to mislead the hapless Indian public with the help of obliging journalists that the plea bargain entered into by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with Headley was not a setback, but a great triumph for Indian diplomacy.
