ISI provides tactical, financial support to Lashkar: David Headley's 10 big revelations

David Headley, on day 2 of his deposition in a Mumbai court on 26/11 terror attack, made several revelations nailing the Pakistan Army and ISI. Headley told the court that the ISI provides financial and tactical support to terror groups like Lashkar, Hizbul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammad.

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David Headley

New Delhi,UPDATED: Feb 10, 2016 10:09 IST

On Day 2 of his deposition in a Mumbai court on 26/11 terror attack, David Headley made several revelations nailing the Pakistan Army and ISI. The Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Taiba operative told the court via video conferencing from an undisclosed location in the US that ISI provides financial and tactical help to Lashkar to train terrorists.

Here are the 10 big things Headley revealed today:

Headley told the court that both ISI and Lashkar work closely with each other. The Pakistani intelligence agency gives financial, military and tactical support to terror groups like Lashkar, Hizbul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammad, which was behind the January 2 Pathankot air base attack, Headley said.
Headley said about a year before the 26/11 attack, Lashkar operatives planned an attack on a meeting of Defence Scientists that was to be held at Mumbai's Taj Mahal hotel. Headley, who has turned approver in the 26/11 case, said that Lashkar commanders had even designed a dummy of the Taj hotel for training the attackers.
Nailing the role of ISI in the 26/11 attacks, Headley said he was tasked to recruit men in the Indian Army to gather inside information.
"I met Major Iqbal of ISI in Lahore in early 2006. He asked me to gather military intelligence from India and also try to recruit someone from the Indian military to spy. I told Major Iqbal that I would do as he asked," Headley said.
"I was working for ISI also and met many people from Pakistani Army," Headley told the Mumbai court.
Headley also said his Lashkar handler Sajid Mir had asked him to survey the Mumbai's famous Sidhivinayak temple as a possible terror target. The temple, however, was not attacked the 10 Pakistani terrorists who killed 166 people on November 26, 2008.
Headley claimed that he video-graphed Taj Hotel's second floor while staying there with his wife Faiza, as a honeymooning couple.
Headley told special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam that in November 2007, he met top Lashkar leaders when terror attacks on Mumbai were planned in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
He also said that the LeT group as a whole was responsible for the terror attacks in India, and it can be speculated that all orders came from its top commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi.
In his first deposition on Monday, Headley had said that Pakistani terrorists attempted to attack Mumbai twice before the 26/11 strikes in Mumbai.
The first attempt was made in September 2008 but it failed as the boat, which started from outside Karachi, ran into some rocks and sank. The weapons and explosives were lost in the sea. The second attempt took place a month later but terrorists failed to reach Mumbai.