India picked up intelligence in recent months that terrorists were plotting attacks against Mumbai targets, an official said yesterday, as the government demanded that Islamabad hand over suspected terrorists believed to be living in Pakistan.
A list of about 20 people — including India’s most-wanted man — was submitted to Pakistan’s high commissioner to India on Monday night, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said.
India has already demanded Pakistan take “strong action” against those responsible for the attacks.
The diplomatic wrangling comes as the government faces widespread accusations of security and intelligence failures after suspected Muslim militants carried out a three-day attack across Mumbai, killing 172 people and wounding 239.
Indian officials continued to interrogate the surviving attacker, who reportedly told police that he and the other nine gunmen had trained for months in camps in Pakistan operated by the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
India’s foreign intelligence agency had received information as recently as September that terrorits based in Pakistan were plotting attacks against Mumbai targets, a government intelligence official familiar with the matter said.
The information was relayed to domestic security authorities, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the details. But it’s unclear what, if anything, the government did with the intelligence after that.
The famous Taj Mahal hotel, scene of much of the bloodshed, had tightened its security with metal detectors and other measures in the weeks before the attacks, after being warned of a possible threat.
But the security precautions “could not have stopped what took place,” Ratan Tata, chairman of the company that owns the hotel, told CNN. “They [the gunmen] didn’t come through that entrance … They came from somewhere in the back.”
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met yesterday with top security aides to review any government lapses.
Among the prisoners sought by India is Dawood Ibrahim — a powerful gangster, the alleged mastermind of 1993 Mumbai bombings, and India’s most-wanted man — and Masood Azhar, who was freed from an Indian prison in exchange for the release of hostages aboard an Indian Airlines aircraft hijacked on Christmas Day 1999.
Pakistan would consider India’s request and respond after receiving the list, Pakistani Information Minister Sherry Rehman said.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
TAIWAN ISSUE: US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on the first day of meetings that ‘it wouldn’t be a US-China summit without the Taiwan issue coming up’ There were no surprises on the first day of the summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday, as the government reiterated that cross-strait stability is crucial to the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the world. As the two presidents met for a highly anticipated summit yesterday, Chinese state media reported that Xi warned Trump that missteps regarding Taiwan could push their two countries into “conflict.” Trump arrived in China with accolades for his host, calling Xi a “great leader” and “friend,” and extending an invitation to visit the White House
RSS