Did America keep mum on 26/11?

Vir Sanghvi, Hindustan Times

Did the Americans have detailed advance information about the 26/11 plot which they did not share with India, only passing on a watered-down warning? And was there an American spy within the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba who kept Washington (or Langley) informed of terror acts planned against India —  even if this information was never handed over to us?

It is certainly beginning to look that way.

When Headley was first arrested, the Americans declared that they had foiled a plot to kill a Danish cartoonist. Then, more details began to trickle out. The terror suspect, we were told, was a US citizen of Pakistani origin. He had some links with the LeT. He had visited India. He may have been part of an advance team for 26/11.

Indian investigators, intrigued by these reports, flew to Washington to meet Headley. They were denied any access to him. They tried to work out if Headley was in fact somebody they themselves had been looking for. They had asked the CIA if it had any information about an American who, their sources had told them, was part of the LeT. They received no real cooperation.

Then, even as the Indian media were obsessing about Headley's friendship with Mahesh Bhatt's son, investigative journalists in America tracked down court papers pertaining to Headley's arrest on drug charges in 1998. These papers showed that Headley had been convicted and sent to jail. But after 9/11, he had been set free and sent to Pakistan to work as an undercover agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

According to US journalists, Headley had been given a new passport in the American name of David Headley (his American mother's maiden name is Headley) rather than his original name of Daood Gilani. He flew around the world, entering and leaving the US at will, avoiding the sort of attention that a convicted drug criminal was certain to attract at US airports.

Further, suggested US journos, the DEA assignment may have been a cover. After 9/11 America was under pressure to infiltrate Pakistan's terror groups and many undercover agents were sent into Pakistan for this purpose.

Upto this point, we had two stories. The first was the version of the US government that it had arrested a terrorist. The second was the version favoured by the US media that this 'terrorist' had actually been sent to Pakistan by the Americans as an undercover agent.

American journos, on the whole, refused to believe that he worked only for the DEA and thought that he was probably in the pay of the CIA. But, many said, Headley had clearly gone rogue, becoming a double agent and owing true loyalty to the LeT.

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