(The blog formerly known as) All Things Counter Terrorism

Am very much looking forward to reading part two of this. Sajid has been an obsession of mine for years.

The Man Behind Mumbai – ProPublica.

Ugh I have been so behind in the news while doing battle with chapter edits.

I am however, watching these developments with great interest. I’m especially to interested to see what, if any, material comes into open source as this case progresses on one Sajid Mir, who I have quite the fascination with, by virtue of my work in my former life. Sajid Mir is a key figure in LeT’s international network. His fingerprints are *all* over most recent and not so recent plots including Mumbai. He’s not the big boss, but the operational controller. He was the operational controller for Mumbai.

All roads lead to Sajid, in the same way that all roads led to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, when he was the operational chief of al Qaeda’s external operations section.  Except that Sajid also gets down in the weeds of it, so to speak. He can, because there is a totally different operating environment for LeT in Pakistan, where is he is apparently based, versus what al Qaeda had. If I get the time I’ll try to pull together what is out there in OS on him and write something up. But given the fact that my chapter just won’t cooperate in my efforts to squish it down, this may turn out to be more of a wish than a reality.

LeT’s international wing is quite sophisticated. Actually the entire organisation is far more sophisticated in how it operates viz al Qaeda and other groups. It’s also more regimented and its tentacles stretch into many countries outside of South Asia.I’ve long been interested in its use of Bangladesh as a backstop, its use of Saudi Arabia as a fundraising hub and then of course its established presence in many western countries. However, key to unraveling its presence, especially in the west, is understanding its organisational structure and the many tiers of membership, as well as the nature and function of its international wing and how this operates with other elements of LeT.

As I said I’ll try to write more about this later. Meanwhile if anyone has the charge sheet on Headley  (if it has been released) I’d be interested to see it. I can’t remember if I posted the Mumbai leaked dossiers on the blog or not. Will check and if I haven’t will rummage through my archive for them. They make for fascinating reading.