Agencies missed signals about Headley’s involvement in 26/11 Mumbai attacks

New York: There were a series of “missed signals” about Pakistani-American David Headley’s involve-ment in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks even though he had exchanged “highly suspi-cious” emails with his LeT and ISI handlers before and after the assault, an investigative report said.
A detailed report by the New York Times, ProPublica and the PBS series ‘Frontline’ titled ‘In 2008 Mumbai Killings, Piles of Spy Data, but an Uncomple-ted Puzzle’ said Headley’s name “did not appear” in the “stacks of intelligence reports” from India, the US and UK that began piling up following the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in 2008 that left 166 people dead.
“None of the intelligence streams from the US Britain or India had yet identified him as a conspirator,” it said. The report quoted court records and American counter-terrorism officials as saying that Headley had “also exchanged highly suspi-cious emails with his LeT and ISI handlers before and after the Mumbai attacks.”
The US’ National Security Agency collected some of his emails, but did not realise his involvement until he became the target of an FBI probe in July 2009 relating to a terror attack he was plotting with the LeT against a Danish news-paper that had published cartoons of the Prophet.
“Almost immediately” after the Mumbai attacks, Headley began pursuing the new plot against the Danish newspaper. Following a trip to Denmark in January 2009, Headley sent messages to his fellow conspirators and emailed himself a recon-naissance checklist of sorts, with terms like “Counter- Surveillance” and “King’s Square” — the site of the newspaper. “Those emails capped a series of missed signals involving Headley,” the report said, adding that the FBI had conducted at least four inquiries into allegations about his extremist activity between 2001 and 2008.
One of Headley’s three wives, Faiza Outalha, a Moroccan, had visited the US Embassy in Islamabad three times between Decem-ber 2007 and April 2008, claiming that he was a terro-rist carrying out missions in India, the report said. Follo-wing the Mumbai attack, Headley’s “unguarded ema-ils” reflected euphoria about LeT’s success. (PTI)