Mumbai Massacre was Planned by an American
John on December 7, 2009 at 12:53 pm
His name is David Coleman Headley. Actually that’s not his real name. He changed it in 2006. I wrote about Headley and his accomplice once before. They had plants to blow up Jyllands-Posten for publishing the Mohammad cartoons. It turns out he had already done a lot of work on the Mumbai attack:
[O]n five separate occasions between September 2006 and July 2008, Headley flew to Mumbai and made videotapes of potential targets for the terror attacks, including the luxury Taj Mahal hotel, the Oberoi hotel, and the city’s main train station. Following each trip to India, Headley flew to Pakistan and met with Lashkar operatives, providing his tapes as well as photographs and oral descriptions of the various locations.
On one occasion, in April, Headley even took boat trips in and around Mumbai to videotape the city’s harbor in order to assist the ten attackers who arrived by boat on November 26, 2008, to launch their assault.
In case you’ve forgotten the details, the lone surviving terrorist from the attacks confirmed that Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani terror group, was responsible for the mayhem. Headley was a key part of planning the operation that killed 173 people.
Oh, and about his real name:
After being directed by Lashkar members to travel to India, he changed his name from [Daood] Gilani to [David] Headley on February 15, 2006, for the express purpose of presenting himself in India as an American who was neither Muslim nor Pakistani.
So he assumed a Western name to avoid suspicion when planning the attack. Perhaps this is a lead worth following up with other middle Eastern men who suddenly adopt Western names?
Category: Islamic Jihad |
I think that will be difficult to follow up on without additional criteria besides the name change. Being married to a Middle Eastern woman, I can tell you that a good percentage of her male relatives have adopted Western/Westernized names. Granted, it is usually the first name only that they adopt/change, but the concept is the same: make oneself less conspicuous as an “outsider” and try to appear more “American”/”Western.” It makes it easier for them to do business here and it helps others to feel more comfortable around them.
December 7, 2009 @ 1:43 pm[...] American plotted the Mumbai terrorist… An American plotted the Mumbai terrorist attacks. So he assumed a Western name to avoid suspicion when planning the attack. Perhaps this is a lead [...]
December 9, 2009 @ 9:49 am