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xtruss · 4 years

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Unsettling Questions Regarding The Mumbai Terror Attacks Of 2008

— By Elias Davidsson | 12 April, 2015 | Countercurrents.org

The traumatic attacks in Mumbai in 26 November 2008 were described as India’s 9/11. The operation was unprecedented: ten young men battled hundreds of highly trained commandos for three days in a conflict that resembled David and Goliath. The huge media coverage created the impression that all the relevant facts about this event had been reported, but this impression is false.

Was anti-terror official Hemant Karkare deliberately killed on 26/11? Most probably. But what are we to make of the attacks on the Leopold café, the Taj, the Oberoi/Trident and the Jewish center at Nariman House, all unrelated to his demise?

Even those who suspect that Indian nationalists facilitated the assassination of Hemant Karkare continue to believe that the attacks on the other Mumbai targets were executed by Pakistani terrorists. According to this line of reasoning, Hindu nationalists joined with Pakistani terrorists to coordinate a double attack. Or one of these groups somehow obtained the exact details of the other group’s plans, including their date, time and location, and piggy-backed on them, praying that there would be no last-minute changes, delays or problems. Miracles do happen, they say.

As someone who does not believe in miracles, I have some pieces of information. This was all reported at the time, but has since been condemned to the memory hole. Each piece of information cracks the official legend of 26/11. Cumulatively, they shatter it.

1. The Number of Attackers

As the smoke of 26/11 dissipated, Indian authorities insisted that exactly ten young men had fought more than one thousand Marcos commandos, NSG commandos, police and security personnel for three days.

Yet, initially, the media reported that more than 20 attackers were involved. Vilasrao Deshmukh, for example, who was at the time the Maharashtra state chief, told Indian media on 27 November 2008 that 20 to 25 terrorists had entered Mumbai, and that many of them had escaped. He was not the only source for such figures. The New York Times reported on the 28 November 2008 that ‘the number of attackers have ranged from 20 to 40, with the number depending to a considerable extent on the number of boats involved.’ On the same day, USA Today reported, citing the Associated Press, that ‘more than 30 terrorists entered [Mumbai] by ship.’ Ha’aretz reported on 27 November 2008, that ‘nine members who were arrested...60 to 70 terrorists, some of whom came to Mumbai by boat, carried out the current attacks.’ Alex Neill, head of the Royal United Services Institute's Asia security programme, estimated that ‘up to 100 terrorists would have been involved in the planning and execution of the attack' and said 'it was surprising they had managed to keep it a secret.’

Who provided the media with these figures, on what basis, and for what purpose? Why has no journalist attempted to reconcile these initial figures with the ultimate tally of ten? Rakesh Maria, at the time the Mumbai Joint Commissioner of Police, had a ready answer: ‘This confusion is more or less a creation of the media.’

As the Mumbai authorities persisted in asserting that there had been only ten attackers, the New York Times wondered: ‘[P]erhaps the most troubling question to emerge for the Indian authorities was how, if official estimates are accurate, just 10 gunmen could have caused so much carnage and repelled Indian security forces for more than three days in three different buildings.’ But the paper of record did not follow up on this ‘troubling question.’ Was it a no-go zone?

2. Were Nine Attackers Arrested?

According to the official account, only one of ten attackers, later known as Kasab, remained alive. The other nine were reportedly killed in combat. But this was not what officials had initially said.

At first, the media reported that several ‘terrorists’ had been captured alive. P.D. Ghadge, a police officer at Mumbai's central control room, told the media on the first day of the attacks that ‘We have shot dead four terrorists and managed to arrest nine suspected terrorists.’ On 27 November, both Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil declared that at least nine terrorists were captured alive. Early on 27 November, the BBC quoted the Mumbai police: ‘four suspected terrorists have been killed and nine arrested.’ On 28 November, the third day of the attacks, the BBC cited R R Patil, again to the effect that ‘nine gunmen have been arrested.’ Meanwhile, The Hindu cited Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh: ‘nine persons had been detained.’

As late as on 29 November, the Indian Express cited the Director General of Maharashtra Police, A N Roy, who said: ‘All I can tell you at this stage is that nine suspects are with us and that some of them were picked up from around the operational areas. Once we finish questioning them, many facts will emerge. The whole story will shortly unfold.’

Then nothing more was heard of these arrests. The same media that previously reported that up to nine attackers had been arrested insisted that only one ‘terrorist’ had been captured alive. This change of narrative was not accompanied by any explanation. Did public officials lie about the multiple arrests? Were they lied to? Were arrested terrorists executed in custody? These are disturbing questions that remain unanswered.

Whatever the ultimate truth, it is clear that the authorities lied to the public, either initially, or subsequently, or both. Knowing why they lied may help reveal the hidden truth behind 26/11.

3. Who Were the Alleged Attackers?

The public has been led to believe that the Mumbai attackers were properly identified. But were they?

To find out, it was necessary to determine, firstly, whether the bodies of the persons under police custody belonged to those who were observed by witnesses at the sites of killings; and secondly, the identities of the dead – from where they came, their real names, their birth dates, etc.

According to pathologists, the nine bodies presented to witnesses were burned beyond recognition. Whatever the state of the bodies, a visual identification of mutilated bodies, weeks after the events, under the prying eyes of police officials, cannot be considered a reliable exercise.

Nor were the real identities of the persons, whose bodies were held by police, determined. Their real names, birth dates, nationality and their residence addresses remain unknown. No family member came forward to identify either the bodies or the ‘sole living terrorist’, Kasab. His identity was based on what he allegedly told police officials behind closed doors.

Even the circumstances under which the nine ‘attackers’ died were not established by investigators or the Special Court. Did these alleged militants die in a military clash in Kashmir? Were they executed after being captured? Why are the precise circumstances in which they died kept a state secret?

4. Did the ‘Attackers’ Come By Sea?

A sub-story of the 26/11 legend is that the attackers arrived in Mumbai by sea. Did anyone witness their landing at the seashore?

Only one person, Bharat Tamore, testified at Kasab’s trial that he observed young men landing on the Mumbai seashore on the evening of 26 November 2008. Was his testimony credible?

Tamore said in court that at the time he was employed by the Taj Mahal Hotel. He said that on 26 November at about 9:15 pm, while he was walking to work at the Taj, located 15 minutes from his residence, he saw ‘a dinghy coming towards Badhwar Park.’ He said he saw 10 persons on the boat, wearing saffron-coloured life-saving jackets. He could see them because of the street light. According to him, they all were between 20-25 years old. Eight of the said ten persons removed their jackets and put them in the boat before getting out. Each had one haversack and one hand bag. Tamore said he saw two of the said ten persons quite closely while they were proceeding towards the main road. Since both of them were unknown in the locality, Tamore intercepted them. Both of them told him that they were students. He also saw the remaining six persons proceeding towards the main road. The two persons who were left out in the boat proceeded in the same boat towards Nariman Point. (Judgment, p. 264)

Tamore told the court that he returned home from the Taj at about 7.00 am next morning. At that time, he had seen about 3-4 policemen standing near Badhwar Park Railway Officers' colony: ‘The policemen were talking something about [an] inflatable boat. [Tamore] therefore narrated the incident witnessed by him to the said policemen’. (Judgment, p. 265) He also said he identified Kasab in an identification parade as the person who told him they were students. (Judgment, p. 266) Tamore admitted under cross-examination that he might have seen Kasab’s photograph on television before the identification parade was held. (Judgment, p. 267). The Supreme Court revealed that this identification parade was held on 28 December 2008, after Kasab’s photograph had been widely and repeatedly published (SC, p. 53). The High Court ‘[did] not attach much importance to this.’ (HC, p. 432)

The defence counsel challenged Tamore's account: it was high tide at the time, and therefore the dinghy Tamore claimed to have seen could not have reached the seashore. Tamore admitted that it was high tide at the time but did not explain how the dinghy reached the seashore (Judgment, p. 266).

When making his first report to the police, Tamore surprisingly did not mention anything regarding the incident at the Taj, where he allegedly spent the entire night (Judgment, p. 267). The court did not invite anyone to corroborate Tamore's narrative. No one, for example, confirmed that he was an employee of the Taj; that he spent the night confined in the basement of the hotel; that he did not see or hear any of the incident occurring in the hotel; that he exited the hotel shortly before 7:00 am; and that on his way home he met policemen at the shore discussing a boat. No one confirmed what he actually told the police and when he did so. These failures are particularly significant – and disturbing – because Tamore was the sole witness produced in court who claimed to have observed people landing on the Mumbai shore on the evening of 26 November 2008. These failures are compounded by the facts that he told media after the trial regarding his alleged ordeal at the Taj, facts that he apparently withheld from the court, unless he lied to the media. The court's failure to thoroughly examine Tamore's credibility can hardly be attributed to negligence or to difficulty in finding staff members of the Taj who could corroborate or invalidate his narrative. The court also did not ask the police officers with whom Tamore interacted to confirm his story. The court, obviously, did not wish anyone to challenge Tamore’s narrative.

Tamore’s name was widely publicised in the media shortly after the attacks as the key witness to the landing of the alleged terrorists at the seashore. India Today wrote on 29 November 2008, for example: ‘The six terrorists who got off at Machimar Nagar were first spotted by Bharat Tamore, a Koli (from the fishing community) who works as an assistant supervisor at the Taj.’ This report did not quote Tamore directly, and it was not revealed how India Today discovered Tamore.

After Kasab's trial, Tamore and his wife were interviewed by Rediff. In this interview, new information came to light about his alleged experience at the Taj during the first night of the attack. Here is an excerpt from that article:

When Tamore reached his locker [at the Taj] and changed at about 9.30 pm on November 26, he heard some strange thumping overhead in the hotel's coffee shop, the Shamiana. Surprisingly, it continued. And got louder and stranger in sound. Then hordes of terrified employees, on the run, came pouring back into the staff area, where Tamore still was, and shared breathless descriptions of the ongoing attack and the terrorists. ‘They recounted that they were wearing jeans, and 'sack bags' (rucksacks) on their backs and carrying bags in their hands‘ Suddenly with cold foreboding Tamore knew exactly who they were.

He then said that his experience at the Taj was not limited to what others told him:

‘They herded about 100, 150 of us into an area near the bakery and told us to stay here. At the time we thought it was a temporary attack and we would get out after it was over. Who knew they would be there for three days?! We had no water, no food. And no way of telling people at home that we were still safe. We had all turned our phones off.’

Going by this account, Tamore not only saw terrorists at the Taj and heard them giving orders, but was kept with 100 or 150 other people without water and food. Yet, surprisingly, he did not report anything about this traumatic experience to the police or the court. Indeed, the court actually affirmed that he ‘had not seen anything of the incident’ at the Taj (Judgment, p. 265-6). Did Tamore lie to the journalists, did the media invent his account or did he withhold information from the court?

Rediff finally disclosed that ‘much of early 2009 was marked by recording [Tamore’s] testimony, working with the Mumbai police's crime branch to have his deposition ready.’ Tamore added: ‘There is a little Hanuman temple near my home. Every day when I passed it I would pray that god would give me the strength to see this through properly. That I would give the right information in court. And do the whole thing correctly. It was an attack on my home, my livelihood, my country. I had to testify.’ It certainly required substantial mental and emotional strength to ‘do the whole thing correctly’ and avoid contradicting himself. Let’s hope the police were happy with his performance after having coached him for ‘much of early 2009.’

According to media reports, three further persons had seen the ‘terrorists’ landing on the Mumbai seashore: Anita Uraiyar (aka Uddaiya), who claims to have been taken secretly to the United States for debriefing after 26/11; Prashant Dhanu(r), a fisherman who testified in court but did not claim to have seen any of the attackers; and Sumit Supadia, who claimed in media interviews to have seen the attackers land on the seashore, but was not asked to testify in court.

In sum, the story of the ‘ten’ attackers landing on the Mumbai seashore rests on the testimony of a single witness who was coached by police for his court performance and whose credibility is questionable.

To enhance the credibility of the sea-landing legend, CNN-IBN reported on 27 November 2008 that seven fishermen has been arrested on the first night of the attack as suspects, reporting that ‘police found a boat loaded with explosives near the Taj Mahal.’ Nothing further was heard of that boat, the explosives or of the detained fishermen.

(5) Were the Individual Killings Investigated?

In a case of murder, criminal investigators must determine, as best they can, the circumstances under which the crime was perpetrated: who caused the victims’ injuries, when and where they were attacked, when they died and what type of injuries led to their death. The crime scene must also be documented in accordance with standardised rules.

While investigating the individual circumstances of more than 160 killings (the number of fatalities in the Mumbai events) was certainly a huge task, a great deal of significant information could easily have been assembled. There was no reason why the precise location of the bodies, when they were found, and who found them, could not be established. There was no reason why the exact circumstances in which the nine alleged attackers were killed could not be determined. There was no reason why investigators could not establish precise timelines of the unfolding of the individual episodes. There was no reason why it was impossible to determine the precise time at which the individual attacks started. These omissions had the effect of thwarting the reconstruction of the events. To compound these omissions, the authorities banned commandos, who participated in the operations, from testifying in court. Cumulatively, all these omissions indicated an intent to cover up the truth.

Surprisingly, the court found no witnesses for most of the killings – or perhaps it did not wish to find any.

Conclusion

The above account represents the tip of a deceptive iceberg regarding the mass-murder of 26/11. Some may find reopening this dossier uncomfortable. Yet both the victims and society as a whole are legally entitled to know the truth of this calamity. The Indian authorities have demonstrated a surprising reluctance to establish the truth by an independent commission of inquiry. Meanwhile, Indian governments have capitalised on 26/11 to increase military expenditure, establish a national infrastructure of mass surveillance and enhance their cooperation with the United States and Israel. India has become a national security state. Was 26/11 perpetrated to justify this development? This sinister question deserves to be examined.

(The present information was adapted from the author’s book The Betrayal of India, which is planned for publication at the end of 2015.)

Elias Davidsson is an Icelandic citizen, although he was born in Palestine in 1941 and his parents were German Jews who had to leave Nazi Germany due to the persecution of Jews. Davidsson has been a political activist for decades, beginning by opposing Iceland’s membership in NATO. He is a co-founder of the solidarity association Iceland-Palestine, and a veteran opponent of Zionism and imperialism. After publishing a ground-break book in 2013, “Hijacking America’s Mind on 9/11”, where he demonstrates the official account on 9/11 is a lie, now is finishing a comprehensive and critical study of 26/11 that may shatter many illusions. He can be reached at :

— [email protected]

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cricketloverszone · 4 years

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Sachin Tendulkar's birthday: BCCI misses "fantastic knock", many former cricketers have given a lot of wishes on social media

Birthday of Sachin Tendulkar: Master Blaster wished all the parts of the world to bat on Friday.

Sachin Tendulkar turned 47 on Friday with wishes pouring in from all parts of the globe for the cricket legend. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) posted a tribute video on its official Twitter handle on Sachin Tendulkar's birthday. "As the Master Blaster @sachin_rt turns 47, we relive one of his glorious knocks against England in 2008. He dedicated this ton - 41st in Test cricket, to the victims of 26/11 Mumbai terror attack," the caption of the video read. Current coach of the Indian cricket team, Ravi Shastri was among the first to wish Sachin Tendulkar, tweeting "Happy Birthday, Bossman. Legacy you've left behind in the sport is immortal. God bless Champ".

The Master Blaster, as he is so often referred to, played 664 international matches -- 200 Tests, 463 ODIs and one T20I.

He amassed 15,921 runs in the longest format, averaging 53.78 with 51 centuries and 68 half-centuries.

The batting phenom was just as prolific in one-day cricket, scoring 18,426 runs at an average of 44.83 with 49 hundreds and 96 fifties. Among the plethora of records, he was the first person to breach the 200-mark in 50-over cricket.

Sachin Tendulkar played just one Twenty20 International (T20I) in 2006 against South Africa in Johannesburg where he scored 10 runs.

#sachintendulkar #bcci #cricket lovers zone #indian cricket team #cricket updates #cricket #new zealand cricket team #australia cricket team #big bash league #iplcricket #ipl 2020 #ipl news #ipl न्यूज़#virender sehwag #yuvraj singh #yuvraj t20 world cup 2007 #ms dhoni #mahendra singh dhoni

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zacharycoffin · 5 years

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Pro tip: When proposing to @matyldab8 , always include a yacht 😂 . Screenshot from 'State of Siege 26/11' -- out now on @zee5premium This scene is the calm before the storm. But then things heat up. Link in bio for more. . '"State Of Siege: 26/11" is a ZEE5 Original crime thriller series centered on the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack, starring #ArjanBajwa, #ArjunBijlani, #MukulDev, #VivekDahiya, and #TaraAlishaBerry. When Mumbai was under siege in 2008, it was the NSG commandos that came to its rescue. Witness the untold stories of the brave heroes.' . Thank you team @contiloepictures , director @matthewleutwyler and creatives @antonlaines @varshaalallwani @kaibmehta and the whole team for seeing this important story through. . #StateofSiege2611 Screenplay by Joshua Caldwell, based on the book #BlackTornado by Sandeep Unnithan, Producers #AbhimanyuSingh & Roopali Singh, Cinematographer Richard Henkels , Editor Will Gordon, Production Designer Amit Waghchaure -- #statofsiege #2611 #Zee5 #Zee5Premium #Zee5Original # #2611Attack #webseries #Contiloe #Crime #Action #Thriller #Hindi #actor #artist #Bollywood #Hollywood #Matylda #ZacharyCoffin #ZC (at ZEE5 Premium) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9_TNprpmso/?igshid=11otrqba47i6j

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technologyinfosec · 5 years

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Hafiz Saeed: Pakistan anti-terrorism court adjourns verdicts in 2 cases

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore on Tuesday adjourned the hearing of two terror financing cases involving against Hafiz Saeed, the leader of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), the alleged masterminded of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, till February 18. The ATC was to initially announce its verdict against the JuD chief on February 8, reports The Express Tribune. A two-member bench headed by Justice Qasim Khan will now hear the case on February 18. Saeed is nominated in about 29 cases pertaining to terror financing, money laundering as well as illegal land grabbing. The verdict was reserved against him in two cases on February 6, Dawn news said in a report. On February 8, the ATC delayed announcing its verdict in the terror financing cases and had decided to hear arguments on February 11 (Tuesday) on the application to hear all cases first before announcing the verdict. The terror financing cases were filed by the Counter-Terrorism Department's (CTD) Lahore and Gujranwala chapters. The case filed by CTD's Gujranwala chapter was initially being heard in a Gujranwala ATC but was shifted to Lahore on the directions of the Lahore High Court. During the trial of both cases, the court recorded the statements of 23 witnesses. The JuD chief was arrested by CTD in July last year, while he was travelling from Lahore to Gujranwala. Prior to his arrest, 23 first information reports had been registered against JuD leaders at CTD police stations of Lahore, Gujranwala, Multan, Faisalabad and Sargodha in July 2019. According to the CTD, JuD was financing terrorism from the massive funds collected through non-profit organisations and trusts, Dawn news reported. These non-profit organisations were banned in April last year as the CTD, during detailed investigations, found that they had links with the JuD and its top leadership. The crackdown on JuD last year followed a warning by Paris-based Financial Action Task Force to Pakistan to deliver on its commitments to curb terror financing and money laundering. Read the full article

#HafizSaeed #Pakistan #technology #technologyinfosec

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corporatesecurity-blog · 5 years

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NSA Global Security Consultants have been forging relationships

The achievements of an organisation are a result of the coming together of many individuals, who over the years, contributed to the success of the company.

2019 marks 20 years, that we at NSA Global Security Consultants have been forging relationships and protecting lives all around the world. Along the way, we have been privileged to work with many memorable and iconic individuals, corporations, organisations and events. It has indeed been an incredible experience and journey.

To commemorate this special year, we look back at our phenomenal journey since the beginning and some of the notable milestones in our company’s history.

Founded in 1999 as Nicholls Steyn and Associates, after the acquisition of the company P3 Consultants by our founding partners Bob Nicholls and Rory Steyn, NSA Global has grown into a strong global operation over the past two decades.

The United Cricket Board of SA was to become our first ‘sporting’ client when Rory Steyn was appointed in 1999 by then MD Dr Ali Bacher, as the UCBSA’s first security consultant, to prepare for the ICC Cricket World Cup, 2003 hosted in South Africa. Our role also included the protection of the Proteas team and of all international cricket teams and match officials visiting South Africa, which continues to this day.

ICC Cricket World Cup 2003

Rory went on to become personally involved in the establishment of the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit (ICC ACU) under Lord Paul Condon.

In 2000, we signed on Boeing and Coca-Cola as new clients, a formidable accomplishment for a relatively new company. One of our initial projects with Coca-Cola was to plan and manage the security of a high-level conference to Europe, on board The Silver Whisper, a luxury cruise-liner, where both of our directors ensured the safety of a high-profile passenger list, including the likes of Nelson Mandela (together with the Presidential Protection Unit), Diana Ross, Sugar Ray Leonard and the then Coca-Cola President and CEO.

During the early 2000s, pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer became a new client and over the next 10 years we worked with them on multiple, regular trips to Africa.

In 2002 we were privileged to be appointed to manage the security of the ‘Christmas Kindness’ project in South Africa. This assignment involved months of planning to ensure that Christmas gifts could be delivered to 50 000 schoolchildren and orphans in Soweto, then remote areas of Kwa-Zulu/Natal province and Umtata in the Eastern Cape. This was truly a project that every person involved in, will never forget; where we literally witnessed big, burly, grown men cry.

2003 marked a historic change in our company’s management when Jaishankar Ramchandran, joined NSA as a shareholder and financial director. Jai brought with him more than 30 years of experience in international strategy and financial management, thus complementing the company’s positioning and offering.

In 2003 we also made our first of a number of trips to Pakistan to conduct security assessments for a proposed Proteas cricket tour there, the first cricket tour to that region post the Second Gulf War, and we then provided security to escort the team during the tour.

In 2005 we were appointed as consultants to the Security Director of the ICC Cricket World Cup, West Indies, in association with Rushmans making six visits to the West Indies for the planning of ICC CWC 2007.

2005 also saw us working with the first Basketball Without Borders event with the NBA, which set the stage for continued relationship with the NBA to date.

In 2006 we were appointed by the ICC to initially conduct assessments and then to deploy experienced staff to oversee the security of all teams involved in the ICC Champions trophy tournament in India.

Our directors Bob Nicholls and Rory Steyn also travelled to Hollywood for the first time in 2006, having been appointed as consultants to The Academy Awards, one of the highest profile events in the world. Our role was to provide training to the excellent security staff (mostly off-duty LAPD officers) who secure this event, to work the event with them and then provide an assessment of the security arrangements on completion of the event. Our relationship has continued to this day, with either Bob, Rory or both attending almost every edition of the Oscars since.

The Academy Awards

In 2006 NSA Risk Management Services (Pty) Ltd was formed in partnership with Claude Baissac, a former Kroll employee. This division would focus on strategic, geo-political risk together with private investigations and security audits.

Between 2007 and 2011, we were security consultants to the Vodacom Challenge soccer tournament, an event that every year featured matches between Kaiser Chiefs, Orlando Pirates and an English team including Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City, in different South African cities.

In 2008, we were approached by the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) to plan and provide all team security for the brand new Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament, which has since become one of the largest sports events in the world. We continued in this role for the next eight years.

During 2008, seven members of NSA under the leadership of Bob Nicholls were responsible for saving approximately 150 guests from the Taj Mahal hotel during the much publicised ‘Mumbai terror attacks’, now known as “26/11”. This event and our team’s actions received worldwide coverage and recognition at the time and in the months that followed.

Mumbai terror attacks and the NSA team responsible for saving 150 lives

In 2009, we were again appointed as security consultants to the organising committee of the ICC cricket world cup, held in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in 2010.

Starting at the Summer Olympic Games in Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016; the Winter Olympics in Vancouver 2010 and PyeongChang 2018; we have provided security consultancy and oversight for our clients Oakley and Coca-Cola SA.

Winter Olympics

In 2010 our home country, South Africa welcomed more than 3 million football fans from around the world for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. NSA was proud to be a huge part of the security details for the event’s Global Partners. We deployed around 400 protection personnel in support of three of FIFA’s Global Partners, viz.: Coca-Cola, Sony and Visa. It was a huge privilege to be involved with such an iconic event in our own country and the experience of our management team ensured that we were able to address the demands, logistical and organisational challenges in a project of this scale and to provide a safe and memorable experience for all of our clients.

FIFA World Cup 2010 South Africa

Our success in this event and the experience gained, has resulted in our involvement with these and other clients, including Continental and Adidas in subsequent FIFA tournaments in Brazil 2014 and Russia 2018.

Also, on home soil, NSA Global provided personal security to Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore at Sun City for the filming of ‘Blended’ a Happy Madison and WB production in 2013.

Between 2008 and 2019, we have provided security consultancy, training and security services to a number of India’s highest profile families and organisations, resulting in the deployment of a number of specialised staff in India, the UK and USA.

During this period we also launched our specialised medical service, resulting in the deployment of a number of highly experienced Paramedics dedicated to our clients.

Due to the ever-increasing demand in India for high quality security services, we took a decision to bring 8 of our India and Nepali staff to South Africa, to spend 2 weeks training with our instructors and learning “The NSA Way”.

We have over this period continued to high level security support to existing and new clients in an ever expanding number of territories.

In 2017, we underwent a name change and a massive brand overhaul. Our old name ‘Nicholls Steyn Associates’ had been over the years a fondly abbreviated to “NSA” by our clients. Motivated by this and our global growth, we decided to officially rename the company as ‘NSA Global’ and to adjust our logo and branding to recognise this.

From the Cricket World Cup to The Oscars to the Summer and Winter Olympics; the numerous individual clients and events that we have worked with, our projects over the years bear testimony to the hard work and dedication of our teams and our culture of customer service. Our success has been built on integrity, discretion, trust and the commitment to professionalism, competence and passion when serving our clients.

We recognise and acknowledge the contributions of all our past and present employees who have been a part of this remarkable story. In tribute, we remember our two fallen colleges Marius Potgieter and AJ Zaayman, who contributed greatly to the success of our company.

To our loyal clients who have supported our success we would like to take this opportunity to thank you. We look forward to making more memories with you in the years to come.

What an exhilarating journey it has been thus far!

Bob, Rory and Jai.

#security #securityservices #securitycompany

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u4u-voice · 6 years

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Terrorists being trained to carry out operations through sea: Navy Chief

NEW DELHI: Weeks after the Pulwama attack, Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba on Tuesday warned that there are reports about terrorists being trained to carry out operations through the sea. Addressing a gathering of global experts at the Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue here, Lanba said the Pulwama attack was perpetrated by extremists that were “aided by a State” that seeks to destabilise India. “We also have reports of terrorists being trained to carry out operations in various modus operandi, including through the medium of the sea,” he said. The 26/11 attack was carried out by 10 sea-borne terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, who hijacked an Indian fishing trawler to reach Mumbai and unleash mayhem. The Navy chief said this part of the world had witnessed multiple forms of militancy in recent years and few countries in the region had been spared. The global nature that militancy has acquired in the recent times has further enhanced the scope of this threat, Lanba said. India, however, faces a “far more serious” version of “state-sponsored” militancy, he said. “We recently saw the horrific scale of the extremist attack in Jammu and Kashmir about three weeks ago. This violence was perpetrated by extremists aided and abetted by a State that seeks to destabilise India,” the Navy chief said without naming Pakistan. On February 14, a suicide bomber of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a bus in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district, killing 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel. “We have seen how quickly terrorist groups evolve across the globe. A particular brand of militancy can well become a global problem in near future,” Lanba warned. The Indian security establishment is continuously working to address this menace, he said, noting that “it is imperative that the global community works in concert to contain and eliminate militancy in all its forms”. Lanba also emphasised the importance of the Indo-Pacific Region. “There is a renewed focus of the world on the seas. This is principally due to the geoeconomic and geopolitical significance of the maritime domain.” India is a maritime nation and, recently, there have been an increasing attention to harness potential of the maritime domain for the country’s growth and regional development, he said. This event seeks to “identify and conceptualise challenges and opportunities that lie in the waters, and evolve strategy for mutual benefits of all stakeholders,” Lanba said. “It is widely accepted that (the) Indo-Pacific Region has been growing in geopolitical significance in recent years due to economic, political and other reasons,” he said. Lanba underlined the region’s ancient and historical link with India and its significance for the country. PTI Read the full article

#News #U4UVoice

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xtruss · 4 years

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9/11 & Mumbai Attacks Were Inside Jobs: A Detailed Analysis By Elias Davidson

Elias Davidson is an author of several books, including the ‘Betrayal of India.’ GVS team sat down with him in Islamabad and tried understanding his perspective on history since 9/11.

— Magazine Desk | June 8, 2019 | Global Village Space

Most in the west may see German author Elias Davidson as he describes in his own words: “an idiot conspiracy theorist”, but he defines himself as a researcher who works like a historian. Unlike a journalist who travels from place to place, he collects and analyses all the published material, all data in public domain, and the claims made by the government agencies and then attempts to discover the truth hidden behind the trove of lies. GVS team sat down with him in Islamabad, during his recent visit, and tried understanding his perspective on history since 9/11. We offer excerpts from a detailed interview. His claims and judgments are provocative. Readers are the best judge.

GVS: What made you take interest in Mumbai terrorism?

Elias Davidson: Let us begin from 2001, that is, 9/11. I believed, like many others, that it was an operation carried out by Osama Bin Laden, a war backed by Muslim fanatics who professed that they are going to punch the noses of Americans because of what they were doing in Israel and the Muslim world. To be honest, many people in the left felt a little bit happy about it that finally, someone is banging on the head of Americans – and I believed it too. I didn’t really care about 9/11; I thought it just happened.

Until a year later, a friend of mine lent me a book by Thierry Meyssan, who was a French journalist and wrote the first critical book, “The Horrifying Fraud,” on the event. The book explained that it was not possible for a plane to enter the Pentagon and there were contradictions in the official story. So, I read it thoroughly. I checked all the sources, that is, Washington Post, New York Times, to see if he was making something up. However, I realized that he had thoroughly researched and produced the book.

I was astonished that I did not know about these things. It peeked, my curiosity, therefore I went on to investigate 9/11 and I did so for ten years. Rather early in my research, I began to pose the question, ‘who were the perpetrators and what evidence was there from the American government to say that they were Islamic terrorists?’ I searched and tried my best to find evidence, but I found none. There were four categories of evidence in my research. Firstly, the names of passengers; secondly, security videos from the airports; thirdly, witnesses who saw these people at the airport or the boarding phase; fourthly, identification of their bodily remains from the crash sites.

I looked for all this information on the FBI’s website, FBI’s documentation, which was sent to the 9/11 commission, on newspapers, and in books. I combed everything I could and found not a shred of evidence. To sum it up, I documented everything in my first book published in 2013, ‘Hijacking America’s mind on 9/11’. There is a full chapter devoted just to the absence of evidence.

In the last few years, I sue everyone who dares to mention Muhammed Atta, the alleged pilot, as a terrorist or mass murderer. They have to deal with me; I will take him to court and accuse him of defamation – I am a defender of Muhammad Atta in the world. This is a strong statement, and I stand by it because I know it is the truth. I have accused 130 German journalists about it, in another book I published in Germany. I sent the journalists a letter where I stated that I would give them a possibility to retract those accusations on Muhammad Atta and apologize or provide some evidence of their assertions.

GVS: Questioning 9/11 makes people question your credibility, how did you come around to not believing in the American statements on 9/11 in the first place?

Elias Davidson: Let me say one thing; my book was published in the United States in 2013. I commented in black and white with all the sources mentioned. The entire story of 9/11 was a lie; especially about what happened on the day, no Muslim hijackers, the two planes which had crashed were still in the air after the alleged crash time. There is documented evidence from American sources that two of the four planes were still in the air at the time of the alleged crash.

Nobody until today has challenged a single fact in the book. Why? Because there is nothing to question. This is thoroughly documented. Many people in America endorse this book. There are 14 positive reviews of this book on Amazon and zero bad ones. Anybody who is trying to challenge me, please do so. I would be satisfied because I get bored of always getting commended. Please call it wrong. I have sent letters to American professors rebut the book, but nobody takes up the challenge.

GVS: The Mumbai attack, which happened on 26 November 2008, when did you get interested in that?

Elias Davidson: After I finished this work, I began to look at other terrorist attacks, which were attributed to Al-Qaida or Muslims. I thought I’d like to see if they had the same features as 9/11, state operations and so on. I began with the London attacks in 2005. I did in-depth research on that – around 70 pages – which I published as an ebook and came to the same conclusion that it was a state operation.

There were four people, three of them were British Pakistanis, but they were not involved, and they were not the perpetrators. If they were at all involved, then they were patsies and sent with ruck sacks without knowledge of what they were doing; it was just conjecture. What is clear is that the entire official London story is a lie, so I documented it as well.

GVS: We wonder why you don’t find the official explanations convincing? Two of us were in London on the eve of 7/7, in 2005 and we saw it developing the media reports as they poured in?

Elias Davidson: It is not a question of convincing, and you could have been in London, but that doesn’t give you an advantage over me when it comes to details. You did not go through the inquests for four years; I went through all the documents of the investigation that are available publicly. It is thousands of pages long, and I went through every sentence.

I researched in-depth like I usually do and concluded that the story was a fabrication. I don’t know which agency in the UK did it. It is possible that the New York Police department was also involved as they showed an extraordinary interest in the London affairs. They even constructed the so-called bomb factory in New York – a copy of the bomb factory from Leeds – which was allegedly where the bomb was produced.

GVS: What is so surprising about that? If an attack has happened in the UK, it would worry them that a similar attack might occur in the US, so they would simulate similar exercises to know how to deal with it.

Elias Davidson: I understand, but basically, we have the same case with Mumbai, and the New York Police Department was particularly interested in the Mumbai Attacks. They sent a delegation directly, held a conference a couple of weeks later in New York, and made simulations as if they knew everything.

GVS: What do you think is the real reason for their interest?

Elias Davidson: Okay, we will come to it after we discuss London. Everybody interested in my research on 9/11 has to read my books to have an opinion about it. To say that I have any conspiracy theories is not a rational way of addressing anything of that kind. I am a scholar; I have published articles on International Law in the United States, UK, Netherlands, Iran, etc. So, I am not a ‘nobody,’ I am an expert in international law and human rights who has written comprehensive books about these things.

So, anybody who is to deal with these things will first of all have to read them and then can say that they do not agree. However, to call me a conspiracy theorist is like calling me a nut. It has to have a meaning; it should hurt me, but it is so stupid that it doesn’t deserve a response. Anyhow, conspiracies exist everywhere. Even a police investigator is a conspiracy theorist because every crime committed by people is a conspiracy. The term has no meaning basically and is ridiculous – it just a term to demean people.

GVS: Did you visit India for your research on the book?

Elias Davidson: No. Do you think it is not possible to study and come to an understanding unless you physically see the place? How do historians do it? If you want to write about something that happened a hundred years ago, what do you do? You go to manuscripts and documents. Nobody can charge you for not living there; otherwise, there will be no history.

A journalist, typically, is usually not at the scene of the crime. Sometimes he doesn’t even have access to witnesses. So, if you are working as a scholar and you know how to work with evidence, you don’t have to go and speak to a person. I don’t think that I will get more by speaking to somebody who already spoke extensively to the newspapers in India, ten years ago; he will now tell me another story or repeat it. I don’t know but it will not add very much to the investigation and what is already available is so much information and so helpful that I didn’t see a need and I knew that it would not add any value.

I knew that I would get closed doors with the police, even Vinita Kamte, the widow of the slain officer. She came to closed doors with the Mumbai police – people with whom her husband worked. Do you think me coming from Germany would find opened doors? Not. So, there was no point in going there. Moreover, I think anybody using that argument should, first of all, go on the merit of what I wrote. Is there something wrong in the book? Tell me because I am open to that. However, don’t judge me because I am in Germany. I can be in Germany and do better work than someone in India.

GVS: Has the Indian government reacted to your book on Mumbai terrorism?

Elias Davidson: They have reacted like everybody else – they have hidden under the tables – no reaction. Nobody in the official governments in India or anywhere else, no media or journalist reacts to my writings. How can they do it? They can only call me an idiot conspiracy theorist. They cannot deal with the facts which are there with all the sources.

GVS: What were the key facts that attracted you to study the Mumbai attack?

Elias Davidson: I began with London and then I went to attacks in Djerba, Istanbul, etc. These were different terrorist attacks that I studied. I wanted to write an anthology on terror attacks with different chapters, including Mumbai and Bali. So, I came to the issue of Mumbai and began to work on it, just like the others. I never went to these places because I work like a historian; taking information and studying it. So, I deliberated on all of these and tried to find a common thread to compare them.

I thought the study on Mumbai would be only 50-60 pages of research, but it grew and grew to become an entire book because the information available on the issue was huge. Also, the judgment of Ajmal Kasab had a lot of media coverage, and it was a very complex operation – comprised of 8 locations. It required much effort to study the issue and became a book of 900 pages.

It took me two years of work to write it, and I did not write it for any publisher. I just went on researching and had contacts with people in India. I am very thankful to Inspector S. M. Mushrif, who wrote the first critical book on Mumbai attacks called, ‘Who killed Karkare?’ So, I got in touch with him, told him what I was doing, and he encouraged me.

My discoveries on the Mumbai operation grew and grew, and I used only publicly sourced documents. All of these documents are cited in my book, and I have cached all of them on my website in case an article in the Indian newspapers is made to disappear later on. So, in the book, I give a number to Google, which will lead directly to my website and the original document. I don’t know of any author who goes as far as that to help the reader to check his sources. I give all of the sourced documents to the reader.

GVS: What is the significance of the assassination of Karkare?

Elias Davidson: That is very simple – nationalist Hindus threatened him because he was exposing Hindu terrorism and he was shot. He confided to different people, who confirmed that he was afraid for his life, even on the day of his murder. The current Prime Minister of India, Modi, had publicly threatened him and called him a traitor, which under Indian law is passable of a death sentence. So, he was threatened and murdered with 26/11.

GVS: What is your understanding of Ajmal Kasab, who was in Indian custody and whose confessional statement was on television?

Elias Davidson: First of all, I don’t know if his name was Ajmal Kasab because the first information we got through the Indian media was a different name, which gradually changed to Ajmal Kasab. I don’t know if it was his real name and I also don’t know who he was. He told in his stories that he was already arrested in Mumbai two weeks before, etc. Secondly, nobody from Pakistan, neither family nor officials, came to identify him personally. So, we don’t know who he was, or even the photos we have are of this guy or someone else.

GVS: There were rumors in Islamabad that Ajmal Kasab could have been a small-time spy or an infiltrator that entered India from Nepal and was there for quite some time. In his confessional statement, he spoke local Marathi; he was very fluent in the local language and hence, could not have just landed in India through the boat.

Elias Davidson: I did not look at that. Looking into that presupposes that Ajmal Kasab was legitimate and involved in the attacks. However, I don’t have any evidence for that. So, whatever he told in his confessions, which he retracted in his statements, was for me like hot air – I don’t know if he was coached. You see, someone who is held by the police has hardly any access to his lawyers and he was not interviewed by any Pakistani; how can you comment on what he said or what the police said he said. So, for me, it was all hot air.

GVS: Why do you think the Indian state was so quick to execute him?

Elias Davidson: Why should they keep him in alive? This guy was hired to play some role in these attacks by those who organized it. Maybe he was asked to be at CST, to be photographed, if he had admitted in front of people that he was asked to stand with a Kalashnikov at CST, he would have revealed the entire story. So, the best thing is to eliminate this guy.

This is what usually happens with all the so-called Islamic terrorist attacks in the west – the alleged perpetrators are typically eliminated because they do not want these people to come to court. Also, this was maybe a mistake or not, in Mumbai, but here was one case in the Boston marathon. They didn’t kill one guy, and then he was sentenced to death in America, but this usually doesn’t happen. Look at the attack in Berlin, in the Christmas market in 2016.

I wrote the first book on this attack in Germany, it sells very well and is already in the fifth edition. I showed that there was no attack at all, and it was a staged theatre. The German government accuses Anis Amri, an Indonesian guy, who rode a truck and killed twelve people. That was all bullshit. And he was murdered in Milano. The police shot him because he tried to kill the policeman. You see, all these people are eliminated before they can talk, so there is no trial. And so, the government does not have to prove the case.

GVS: In the book, you mentioned that there was no public trial, but there was a trial, and he had lawyers.

Elias Davidson: Let us put it this way – it was a sham trial. It was a judicial farce and was not open or fair. It violated all the basic rules of a fair trial. If you look at the qualifications of a fair trial according to the international human rights law, you will see that this trial violated all the necessary provisions of a fair case and in fact, Amnesty International and other human rights organizations protested against this unfair inquiry.

So, this is not only my conclusion, but many others also considered the trial unfair, which is honestly an understatement. This judge, M L Tahilyani, should be imprisoned, in my opinion, because of how he undermined justice in India and the trust of the public. A person like this deserves to be punished. There was an appeal process, but I am sorry to say that the next levels, the Bombay Court and the Supreme Court of India, abdicated their obligation to seek the truth and justice.

The Supreme Court heaped admiration for this judge. Many years ago, I met a lawyer who was entitled to represent people in the Supreme Court of India, and he told me how the institution is fantastic. His judgments impressed me a lot, so I had a positive opinion of the Supreme Court of India, but I lost all of it after reading what they wrote about the lawsuit.

GVS: Indian position is that the trial was difficult because Pakistani government was not cooperative.

Elias Davidson: There was nothing like that. This is an argument of little standing. I will give you an example; the court could have interviewed the many people who saw all kind of things around these attacks, which contradicted the official account. However, they were not invited to testify. I have named in my book, around 40-50 witnesses who saw things which completely contradict the official statement.

GVS: We had read somewhere that while official account mentioned the use of Kalashnikov AK 47 assault rifles by the attackers, the subsequent autopsy reports at the hospital do not indicate the use of automatic rifles. What do the autopsy reports show, how these people died?

Elias Davidson: There were no autopsies; I am not aware of any autopsy reports. An important point I think I should mention is that there were two parallel series of attacks in Mumbai. I call them domestic attacks and international attacks. The internal attacks began in the CST terminals, railway stations; they then proceeded to Cama hospital, which led to the assassinations of three officers and their assistants and continued to the synagogue on the way to Girgaon.

So, there were four attacks which we will call the domestic operation, which was concentrated and designed to get rid of Karkare. The international operations begun in the Leopold hotel touched the Taj Mahal hotel, Oberoi Trident, and the Nariman House Jewish center – four locations which were mostly frequented by foreigners. The other one was primarily visited by locals and poor Indians. So, there were two operations which had to be coordinated.

There was probably overall coordination of both operations, but most likely two command centers – one for the local and one for the international operation. The Mumbai police commanded the local operation led by Rakesh Maria. He was the key person in the local operation. I don’t know who ran the international operation, but I suspect that there were Americans involved. Now, if we go by that description, we have two operations which are coordinated by one body or one mind.

This mind must have been automatically connected to those who wanted to kill Karkare – the policeman investigating Hindu terrorism. It cannot be, that some people in Pakistan were doing their own thing, and others joined in precisely at the same time.

GVS: Could Karkare not have been an accidental victim of the whole episode?

Elias Davidson: Exactly, this is what the official account says. However, if you look at all the details around the assassination, you will find nothing accidental. For example, police officers who were around the place at the time of the assassination got an order to stand down and not impede. They said it publicly that they were not supposed to go to that place. So, this operation was organized so Mumbai Police would not interfere with the assassination.

Another thing is that in this domestic operation, we were told that there were two people – Ajmal Kasab and Ismail – who went from one place to another and did this killing. However, this is impossible. Why? Because the shootings in the CST continued even after the Cama hospital operation began. The Cama operation started before the end of the shootings at CST and finished by the middle of the night – far longer than the assassination. So, we had at least two to three teams; one team at CST, one at Cama hospital going on until the middle of the night, another team to assassinate Karkare and a fourth team to shoot people near the cinema. So, we had at least four teams in the domestic operation, not just a few people.

GVS: So, none of the attackers, apart from Ajmal Kasab, were identified? How many attackers were there in total?

Elias Davidson: No, not at all. I have no clue. The official story says ten, but there could have been way more. You see because witnesses reported that in each location there were more attackers. In CST, people said there were three or four attackers outside the station. In Leopold, one witness said that three people were coming on a motorbike, and one of them looked European. Moreover, all of these witnesses were never identified.

I don’t know, some of them might be mistaken, but as long as you don’t go into the details and interrogate you will never find out. One attacker, Ajmal Kasab, was captured alive on the cameras with a gun and then made a confessional statement. It was said that he was captured alive, but this was not the first news. The first news was that two people were killed at Girgaon Chowpatty, through the night the story slowly changed that he was not killed but was shot; then a doctor came and said that he was never shot. So, we have these three versions about the capture of Ajmal Kasab.

GVS: What does your research show about the rest of the nine attackers? What happened to them, their dental records, skull records, bodies, identification, etc.?

Elias Davidson: We have nothing, nothing concrete about these nine people. We don’t know where they came from; we don’t know to whom these bodies belong – we only have first names of some of them. I cannot find it because there is no information about them.

GVS: Indian authorities identified a motorboat that sunk, and they had communication intercepts between Mumbai and Karachi, the FBI had a witness, Dawood Gilani, who was American of Pakistani origin. What does your research show about all that?

Elias Davidson: About the boat, in my book, I present four witnesses who said something about it. One witness, as it was reported in the news, spoke to the police, that he saw people coming out of the boat; one person said six and another said there were eight people. However, the one who said that he saw people coming out of the boat stated something else in court; he said that he went fishing and found an empty boat.

So, there was a contradiction between what was said in court and what was said to the newspaper, so we don’t know whom he was lying to. However, in any case, his testimony got dismissed because it was unreliable. In another case, a lady said that she was taken to America, from a fishing village, to testify secretly in January. Her name was Anita, and her story is entirely surreal. She revealed that she saw six people coming out of the boat. I have an entire section on her, as it was reported in the media, both in India and abroad.

GVS: What about the satellite communication intercepts between India and the FBI?

Elias Davidson: Do you mean the telephone calls? It’s nice that you brought that up. It is the biggest blunder of the organizers. They should have been smarter about them. First of all, the phone calls were organized by the FBI in such a way that you cannot see who called. It said that the call was made from Pakistan, but the calls were transmitted from a company based in New Jersey. A company in Delaware owns the VOIP Company in New Jersey.

The FBI intercepted all the calls and later when the investigation was to be conducted, organized an interview from the court, with the owner of the company on video. The FBI connected the court to this man in Canada, through an agent in California. So, the FBI was a central agent around the calls. They intercepted all the calls. Basically, the FBI was organizing all these things.

GVS: How can you say that the FBI was organizing this? We can argue that the FBI claims to have intercepted all the calls which were made via the internet, and telephone, and the FBI got to see all that.

Elias Davidson: Well, this is one part of it. If you focus logically, the FBI has many things to worry about. How could the FBI come to the idea of intercepting calls, in the spur of the moment, between somebody in India and somewhere else? You cannot do it unless you know. Indian witnesses said that they knew telephone numbers of the attackers before the attacks.

There was foreknowledge of the telephone numbers used by the attackers. So, the foreknowledge existed already in India, and I suppose with the FBI; otherwise, they could not intercept the calls. It is not logical. You cannot intercept the call unless you know something is going on and you are alert. All that I am saying is well-documented.

GVS: Have you not talked to the Indian authorities after 900 pages of research?

Elias Davidson: Let me give you an example, if you have a criminal unless you have the power of an Attorney and unless you have the ability to subpoena people and to force them to come and interview, you cannot interview a criminal or a suspect.

GVS: However, the critical questions regarding the evidence, the nine attackers that were never identified, you could have raised questions to the Indian officials about the inconsistencies in the case.

Elias Davidson: Do you think, realistically, that a guy sitting in Germany will get answers from Indian authorities who are implicated in that? This is not realistic. I am writing letters every day to officials in India, to ask questions, and I never get any response. They don’t want to implicate themselves. I would have liked to talk to witnesses, but you can never reach the witnesses. I was talking to a victim (I will not disclose where she is), and she said that she went to Mumbai later and everyone was afraid to speak to foreigners. They are fearful for their lives.

GVS: Why do you think India organized this? What was the motivation or the goal?

Elias Davidson: It is clear that this was a massive and complex operation. My approach was, first of all, forensic. I did not think about motives in the beginning. I began to look for motives after finalizing the forensic part. I started with India, but also what could motivate Pakistan, United States, Russia, etc. As per my research I see several motives for India. One was to provide adjustment for increases in the budget for the military and the police; they pushed for that.

Secondly, and an essential thing, was to accelerate the buildup of a national security state or a domestic surveillance state or the big brother state in India; this was a program that had started earlier but accelerated automatically after Mumbai. As I discovered later, India may be a test laboratory for the United States, on how to create a big brother society in such a big country. So, it might have even been supported by Obama and the administration at the time, to use India as a laboratory for such an enormous national security state.

However, this is conjecture; what is not conjecture is that India is building a national security state. Third, politically, it helped to unite the Indian public around the threat from Pakistan and shift to the right for the BJP. Fourthly, this event galvanized the middle class in India, who were previously very complacent about national security; all at once they were on the streets to demonstrate for more security in Mumbai. After that, the security industry boomed.

Fifth, certain elite segments of the Indian society who had wanted to increase cooperation with Israel and the United States; benefited directly. After the Mumbai attacks, the interim minister resigned, and Chidambaram took over, and he was the key opener for the FBI to give them direct access to Ajmal Kasab, and all the information on Mumbai attacks. He opened the gates of India for American Intelligence, American law enforcement, etc. This was auto commanded, he said it himself, and the Americans confirmed it.

GVS: Did the FBI ever make definitive judgments about the Mumbai issue? Have you ever seen anything in which they concluded black and white? Like the Dawood Gilani case.

Elias Davidson: No, Gilani or Headley is a Red Herring. It is utterly irrelevant to Mumbai. To my knowledge, the FBI did not issue a paper to cite anything directly. What the FBI did was first, they sent a team straight to Mumbai during the attacks. Second, they got direct access to Ajmal Kasab even before he got a lawyer; they interviewed him for nine hours. Thirdly, they were participants of the phone calls.

Fourthly, they organized with the New York police department, if I remember correctly, about one to two weeks after the attack, a seminar on how to cope with such an attack. Now, at that time no investigation had been released, but the FBI and the NYPD were ready with a blueprint of how it was done. And this is documented. They had a conference with people from all over the United States, to discuss the modus operandi of Mumbai. At this time, as I said, they could not have had such information because it requires much more time to investigate such an operation.

GVS: You must have heard the Indian argument that the Mumbai attacks were orchestrated by elements in Pakistan so that there is continued hostility between India and Pakistan; otherwise, India and Pakistan could have come close to each other. What is your perspective on that?

Elias Davidson: Well, this might have been one of the reasons. I don’t think that it was the primary reason. I mentioned already the motives of India; this could have been one of the reasons. However, I stand with my investigation to think that it was not the main reasons. Pakistan was only the by-product. It is handy politically, but the main thing was the domestic and economic reasons with the United States.

GVS: However, Mumbai terrorism provided the pretext for the United States and, mostly, India to declare Pakistan as a terror-sponsoring and terrorist state. And the Pakistanis have often thought that the Mumbai attacks were arranged to get Pakistan by the neck and to take it to the Security Council as a terrorist state.

Elias Davidson: Yes, this is true and absolutely correct.

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