(C) PAKISTAN'S ISI INVOLVED IN MUMBAI BOMBINGS, TOP POLICE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 MUMBAI 001332 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR OPS CENTER, S/CT, SCA/INS, DS, DS/IP/ITA, DS/IP/SCA, DS/ICI/PII E.O. 12958: DECL: 7/19/2016 TAGS: PREL PTER PGOV KISL CASC ASEC PK IN SUBJECT: (C) PAKISTAN'S ISI INVOLVED IN MUMBAI BOMBINGS, TOP POLICE OFFICIAL TELLS CONSUL GENERAL REF: A) KATHMANDU 1918, B) MUMBAI 1319 C) NEW DELHI 5063 CLASSIFIED BY: Michael Owen, Consul General, Consulate General Mumbai, State. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d) Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) Maharahstra's top police official told the Consul General on July 19 that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) had a clear hand in the July 7 Mumbai train bombings. P.S. Pasricha, Director General of the state police, said the bombs used in the attacks may point to an Al-Qaida link as well. Pasricha acknowledged that investigators had no smoking gun linking Pakistan or Al-Qaida to the bombings, but said that the planning and execution of the attacks pointed to clear ISI involvement. He said police now believe that material and manpower for the operation came from Pakistan via Nepal and Bihar to Mumbai, with Bihar playing a key role as a logistics hub. The police have now identified the types of explosives used in the bombings, he said. He shared the results of forensic tests with the Consulate. Pasricha said that his political masters were not pressuring the police to deliver quick results, an approach that, in Pasricha's view, was necessary to ensure that the investigation into the bombings, clearly the work of Muslim extremists, did not alienate local Muslims and help create more of the terrorists that the police were trying to combat. The briefing was the first official readout on the bombings that Pasricha had provided to anyone outside his immediate circle. He promised to update us on a regular basis. End summary. Top State Police Official Points to Pakistan, and Even Possibly Al-Qaida -------------- ¶2. (C) Consul General, RSO and Pol/Econ chief met with P.S. Pasricha, Director General of the Maharashtra state police, on July 19 to get our first official briefing on the investigation into the Mumbai train bombings. Pasricha told us this was the first full readout he provided to anyone outside the circle of his immediate political leaders. ¶3. (C) Pasricha said that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) had a clear hand in bombings. He said investigators had no direct evidence conclusively linking the ISI to the bombings, but modus operandi, tactics, logistics, and intercepted communications all pointed to Pakistani and ISI involvement. He also said that the bombs used may be a sign of Al-Qaida involvement as well. The bombs, which forensics experts have now confirmed as a mixture of RDX explosives, ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, were identical to those used in the 2002 Bali bombings and the bombings in Varanasi earlier this year. Pasricha stressed, however, that investigators had no direct evidence of Al-Qaida involvement. The Investigation -------------- ¶4. (C) Pasricha said investigators were now focusing on three different theories about the perpetrators of the bombings, each of which pointed to ISI support or backing. A total of 16 investigative teams were sifting evidence and leads to determine which of the following three theories was most likely: -- A joint operation of Lashkar-e-Taiba (L-e-T) and Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). (Previously, the local media and our lower level police contacts had both pointed to a joint MUMBAI 00001332 002 OF 004 LeT/SIMI operation as the most probable of all theories); -- A combined operation of a so-called "Gujarat Revenge Force" (GRF) and SIMI. Pasricha said the GRF was a group of Muslim extremists intent on revenging the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat that left hundreds, most Muslims, dead. Pasricha did not specify whether this group was made up mostly of local Muslim extremists, or foreigners. -- A combined operation of the ISI and the Muslim underworld. Pasricha said the police were exploring this possibility on account of the key role that underworld kingpin Dawood Ibrahim, who our Indian interlocutors widely believe to be hiding out in Pakistan, played in the serial bombings that hit Mumbai in 2003. ¶5. (C) Pasricha said that Lashkar-e-Qahar, the group that had taken responsibility for the attack, was actually a front for LeT. LeT used such fronts to distance itself from its operations, Pasricha claimed, as it wanted to portray a cleaner image in the eyes of many of its supporters and sympathizers. The Pakistan-Nepal-Bihar Connection -------------- ¶6. (C) In each case, Pasricha said, all leads were pointing to significant foreign involvement in both planning and execution of the attacks. He said police now believed that material and manpower for the operation came to Mumbai from Pakistan via Nepal and Bihar. Bihar appeared to play an important role as a logistics hub, he said. Investigators were now searching for a man from Bihar whom they believe played the key role in facilitating materials, persons and communications to the bomb sites in Mumbai. The police were also searching for two other men from Uttar Pradesh, both of whom are related to the man in Bihar. The police had been trailing the two from UP for some time before July 7, he said. On the day of the bombings communications between the two and their relative in Bihar spiked, he said. All three disappeared after the bombings. Pasricha only gave us given names of the three, but promised to follow up with their complete names. (Comment: In a separate meeting later on July 19, Pasricha asked RSO to withhold reporting on the Bihar connection, so we ask that this information be kept at close hold. We are unclear about Pasricha's motivation for the request. The Bihar lead may be so key to the investigation that he is afraid we might leak it. On the other hand, it's entirely possible that the Bihar angle may be far more speculative than he originally led us to believe, and that Pasricha wants to ensure that we don't inflate its importance. End comment.) India's porous borders were a challenge to any investigation, he told us. He said the police believed that Pakistan-based operatives regularly brought in materials via Nepal and manpower via the long border with Bangladesh. The Role of SIMI -------------- ¶7. (C) Pasricha was equally confident that the SIMI played a key role in supporting the operation. SIMI operatives were ideologically committed, computer-savvy young Muslim men who communicated almost exclusively through e-mail, he said. After the group was banned earlier this decade, many SIMI operatives went underground and changed their names. The group was loosely organized, highly compartmentalized and operated on a need-to-know basis, he said. Most SIMI members knew little about their cohorts, or about other young men who might be part of the organization, he said. The group's structure made it difficult for investigators to penetrate, he said. The Operation MUMBAI 00001332 003 OF 004 -------------- ¶8. (C) Pasricha said investigators now believed that all seven bombs were planted on the trains before the trains left the Churchgate station, the terminus of Mumbai's Western Railway in the southern part of the city. The bombs, placed in the overhead luggage racks in first class compartments, were equipped with timers to ensure that they all exploded within a short period of time. Pasricha said the police were unsure whether operatives were actually in the trains as they departed Churchgate heading north. They could have boarded in Churchgate yet disembarked before the bombs exploded. Investigators were also exploring the possibility that one of the operatives may have been killed in the explosions. The remains of only one bombing victim have yet to be identified, Pasricha said. At the same time, a group that has taken credit for the attacks, Lashkar-e-Qahar, publicly said that 15 of its 16 operatives who carried out the attack had escaped safely. Forensic experts were now examining the badly mutilated remains of the one unidentified victim to determine whether that person was in fact part of the operation. ¶9. (C) Pasricha confirmed that forensic experts were now convinced that the bombs were all a mixture of RDX, ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, most likely diesel. Pasricha said the police are not yet sure why the perpetrators used the mixture. They may have had a shortage of RDX, he said, or they might have deliberately chosen the combination to confuse investigators, since the mixture left few traces after it exploded. (Comment: Another distinct possibility is that Pasricha, or perhaps even his forensic investigators, understand little about this particular type of bomb, known by its acronym ANFO. We understand that the recipe is well known, being available both online and in publications such as the widely read "Anarchist's Handbook." End comment.) Pasricha shared a copy of the forensics report with us, which RSO forwarded to DS/IP/ITA and DS/ICI/PII. "Don't Read the Newspapers" -------------- ¶10. (C) Pasricha also told us that he implemented a policy to reign in his officers and ensure that lower-tier officers and investigators stopped talking to the press. Since the bombings, a hyperactive Indian media has been quick to attribute hot leads and accusations to unnamed police sources. Most of these leads turn out to be red herrings and are quickly dropped. When asked about the Pakistani businessmen detained in Kathmandu (ref A),a case that the media has played up in a big way, Pasricha told us he was unaware of it. "Don't read the newspapers," he told us bluntly without a hint of humor or irony. He said he designated K.P. Raghuvashni, chief of the Maharashtra state police anti-terrorism squad, as the sole official public spokesmen for the investigation, and said that anything the press reported that is not directly attributable to Raghuvashni cannot be believed. ¶11. (C) Pasricha said the Kathmandu case was typical of a press that quickly assumed that the police suspected persons simply because they were questioning them. Another case was the questioning of 11 young Muslim preachers who were detained near the Bangladesh border in the days after the bombings (ref B). Pastiche confirmed the police were questioning the group, but he acknowledged that investigators had no evidence linking them to the bombings, and that it was highly likely that the young men were entirely innocent. Politicians Not Pressuring the Police -------------- ¶12. (C) In contrast to the press, which was already beginning to MUMBAI 00001332 004 OF 004 question the effectiveness of the investigation, Pasricha's political masters were not pressuring the police to deliver quick results, he told us. Both Maharashtra Chief Minister V. Deshmukh and Home Minister R.R. Patil had given their backing to a solid, professional investigation, he said. Pasricha also claimed that Indian President Abdul Kalam, in a July 18 phone call, asked him to exercise patience and restraint to ensure police have a strong case with solid evidence. Pasricha said that such political backing was also important to ensure that the investigation, which is clearly focusing on Muslims, does not incite communal passions. The indiscriminate rounding up and killing of many innocent Sikhs in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi's assassination alienated that community and created many Sikh terrorists, Pasricha (who is himself a Sikh) said. Careful treatment of Mumbai's large Muslim community would be necessary to ensure that investigators do not create an environment that aids the type of extremism that the police are trying to combat, he said. Comment -------------- ¶13. (C) Like the Indian policy making community (ref C),the police officials leading the investigation are convinced that Pakistan played a key role in the bombings. Pasricha is a candid technocrat who nonetheless weighs his words carefully. Unlike many politicians, media commentators and spokesmen for the Hindu right, he does not give the appearance that he has an axe to grind with either Pakistan or Muslims in general. Hence his strong conviction that the bombings have a link to Pakistan is noteworthy. At the same time, Pasricha acknowledged that the police have no evidence directly linking the ISI to the bombings. Like much of what we hear from other contacts, the police seem to believe that the ISI plays more the role of facilitator and trainer, providing capacity-building types of services to other groups that enable these groups to carry out attacks on the scale of that which hit Mumbai on July 7. ¶14. (C) Pasricha's view that the police need to tread softly with western India's large and diverse Muslim community is in line with what we hear from Muslim leaders (ref B). Muslims tell us that the police, even when rounding up hundreds of young Muslim men, appear to have a clear focus, and are not indiscriminately targeting the Muslim community. Such a police approach reflects the general mood in Mumbai, where most people are not interested in laying blame on the entire Muslim community. Whether such a police approach remains tenable in the medium run will depend on the progress of the investigation and on the patience of Pasricha's political masters. End comment. OWEN