Headley issue: US says expects both countries to live up to responsibilities

U.S. Department of State Assistant Secretary Philip J. Crowley.

Amidst reports suggesting that the Barack Obama administration was upset by Indian officials going public with details of the disclosures made by suspected Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative David Headley, the United States has said that it fully expected both countries to live up to their responsibilities in this regard.

"Well, we value the cooperation between India and the United States on law enforcement and combating terrorism; it’s important. It does place responsibilities on both countries," US Assistant Secretary of State Philip J Crawley said at the daily briefing at the State Department on Wednesday.

"We fully expect both countries to live up to their respective responsibilities," he said, adding that he was not going to make any comment specifically on the issue.

Asked if the recent statements by Union Home Secretary G K Pillai and National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon were a breach of the understanding that the two countries had in the matter, Mr Crawley said, "I’m just going to simply say that our cooperation is significant. It is a vital dimension of our relationship. It’s important for both sides. And when – and in this cooperation there are responsibilities that we both have, and I’ll leave it there."

Asked if he was aware of the statements made by the two Indian officials, Mr Crawley said, "Yes."

The US had granted a team of Indian investigators direct access to Headley, a US national of Pakistani origin held in Chicago who is believed to have been a part of the conspiracy behind the November 26, 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai in which 166 people were killed.

A team from India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) had conducted a series of interviews with Headley in the first week of June this year. There was apparently an understanding between the two sides that details of the information provided by Headley would not be made public.

Headley pleaded guilty on March 18, 2010 in the Northern District of Illinois to 12 federal terrorism charges, admitting that he participated in planning the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, as well as later planning to attack a Danish newspaper.

Headley had travelled several times to India before the 26/11 attacks and had conducted a recce of the sites where the attacks were carried out. More recently, it has come to light that Headley had visited the area in Pune where the German Bakery is located. A blast in the bakery in mid-February had killed 17 people and injured about 50 others.

As part of the plea bargain, he had agreed to testify in any foreign judicial proceedings held in the United States by way of deposition, video conferencing or letters rogatory.

Headley and another suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Pakistani national, had been arrested by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Chicago in October last year for allegedly conspiring to carry out terrorist attacks in Denmark and India.

Mr Pillai had said in a recent newspaper interview, on the basis of the disclosures made by Headley, that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had controlled and coordinated the 26/11 attacks.

This week, Mr Menon told a seminar on terrorism here that that what Indian officials learnt from Headley had confirmed many of the things they knew before.

"And it’s really the links between the official establishment and with existing intelligence agencies , it’s that nexus which makes it a much harder phenomenon for us to deal with. Unfortunately what we know and what we see suggests that these links or this nexus in fact will not be broken soon. If anything, it is getting stronger," he said.

NNN