India Nails British Dope, Inc. Hand Behind Mumbai Attack

Early today, the Indian Express published a headline article, "Dawood Gave Logistical Support to Mumbai Attackers,'' identifying a leading figure in South Asian Dope, Inc. smuggling operations, Dawood Ibrahim, as a key logistical figure behind the asymmetric warfare attack on the Indian city of Mumbai over the past days.

Although currently based in Karachi, Pakistan and Dubai, Dawood Ibrahim for years was the central mafia figure in Mumbai, and in the Indian Bihar region, bordering with Nepal, smuggling gold in and out of India, and establishing links with South Asia's major opium smuggling networks. In 1999, and again in 2001, Dawood Ibrahim was linked to major terrorist incidents, including the hijacking of an Air India commercial flight, rerouted to Taliban-controlled Kandahar, Afghanistan (1999), and the assault on the Indian parliament in New Delhi (2001). Since 2003, Dawood Ibrahim has been on the U.S. State Department's list of international terrorists, for his links to Al Qaeda and to the Indian and Pakistan-based Lashkar e-Taiba (LeT). He has been identified as an asset of MI6-linked elements of Pakistan's ISI.

Dawood Ibrahim's gold smuggling operations in Dubai are part of Britain's offshore money laundering apparatus, which has existed since the time of the British East India Company's original opium war against India and China, during the 19th century. U.S. intelligence sources have recently emphasized that the British offshore operations in the Caribbean and in the British Isle of Man, have been extended to Dubai, to facilitate the destabilization of Southwest and South Asia.

Indian intelligence sources, after interrogating several of the Mumbai attackers, concluded that the attacks could not have been carried out without significant "inside'' help. The still-powerful elements of the Dawood Ibrahim apparatus, which maintain a dominant position in the Mumbai underworld, and launder massive amount of illegal gold through India's "Bollywood'' motion picture industry, have been now confirmed to have been key to the attacks.

EIR Identified the British Hand

The role of Dawood Ibrahim's Dope, Inc. apparatus, and his links to another British-sponsored key terrorist figure, Ahmed Omar Sheikh, have been highlighted by Executive Intelligence Review for nearly a decade. On Jan. 11, 2001, the editors of EIR submitted a memorandum to then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, requesting that the State Department begin a formal investigation to determine whether Great Britain should be placed on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.

That EIR memorandum, based exclusively on U.S. and foreign government documents, citing British sponsorship of international terrorist organizations, began by noting that the issue of British support for international terrorist organizations "has been recently highlighted, as the result of the December 1999 Indian Airlines hijacking, and the response of the British government to the request of one of the freed Kashmiri terrorists, Ahmed Omar Sheikh, to be given safe passage to England. Mr. Sheikh, a British national, was tried and convicted in India, for his role in the kidnapping of four British nationals and an American in 1995. He was sentenced to five years in prison in November 1998. Initially, the British government announced that it would provide Mr. Sheikh with safe passage to Britain, and would not prosecute him or make any effort to extradite him back to India.''

Although international pressure prevented Great Britain from following through on its offer to safehouse Ahmed Omar Sheikh, the Forest School and London School of Economics student was, according to Indian and U.S. intelligence sources, recruited by MI6, and deployed to Bosnia before his surfacing in South Asia. After returning to Britain from the Balkans, Sheikh dropped out of LSE and flew to training camps in Afghanistan, from where he deployed into India, and carried out the 1995 kidnapping attack. He remained behind in Afghanistan, after being freed in the Air India hijacking deal, and is now in Pakistani custody for the kidnapping and murder of the American journalist Daniel Pearl. Sheikh is also still a prime suspect in the organizing of the 911 attacks.

Larouche