India knew of Mumbai terror plot

New findings have dealt a double blow to India: that an Indian citizen helped the Mumbai plot and that Indian authorities knew of it when they interrogated him 10 months ago.

Faheem Ansari, an Indian national who was arrested in India carrying sketches of Mumbai targets in February 2008, had disclosed details of the Mumbai plot, including specific locations of where the attacks would happen, said a senior official in the Uttar Pradesh police. Such declaration will increase public pressure on Indian authorities, who could not prevent the attacks despite the fact that they had known of it for 10 months.

Ansari was recruited by the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba while in Dubai and trained in a camp in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, where he received false Pakistani citizenship. He had been living in Mumbai since 2007 for the purpose of carrying out reconaissance for the attack.

It has also been revealed that Ansari and Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only Lashkar member to survive the attacks, had been mentored by the same man, Yusuf Muzammil, one of the two master-minds of the Mumbai attacks according to Kasab.

The revelation that an Indian national was involved in the plot is likely to embarrass India, who have accused Pakistani extremists as the sole culprits in the latest terrorist attacks.

Lashkar-e-Taiba has been banned in Pakistan since 2002 and maintains links with Al-Qaida.