Chicago: Sajid Mir, LeT handler in Pakistan, was praised by Mumbai attack co-accused Tawahhur Rana for his Chabad House attack strategy and even called him Khalid bin Walid, one of the greatest Generals in history, David Headley testified on Wednesday.
Headley, a 26/11 co-accused who has pleaded guilty, was giving his testimony on the third day of the trial of his childhood friend Rana, a Pakistani-Canadian, who has been slapped with 12 charges in connection with the November 2008
attack in which 166 persons were killed.
About the operation at Chabad House in Mumbai, Headley said Sajid Mir of the Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba told the two boys(attackers) to use mattresses and ambush the Special Forces who were descending down the
staircases. Six people were killed in the attack on Chabad house, a Jewish community centre.
According to Headley, a Pakistani-American, Rana said this strategy was tactically brilliant and that he be called Khalid bin Walid, a famous Arab military strategist during the times of Prophet Mohammed in the seventh century.
Headley also said he told Sajid Mir that he has received a compliment from Rana for his "tactical brilliance."
Headley said Sajid Mir expressed his frustration that he did not follow all his instructions - one was "I was not suppose to go back to India after the Mumbai attack and travel to Denmark."
Headley told the court that Sajid Mir was in Karachi during the Mumbai attack. He said couple of people were with him.
Sajid was in contact with the attackers via phone and he was watching TV coverage of the siege and seeing what was going on in India.
Headley during his testimony to the government prosecutor said that he had sent some emails to Rajaram Rege of Shiv Sena. Yesterday, he spoke of a plot involving LeT and ISI to assassinate Sena supremo Bal Thackeray.
He also indicated that Rana sent message for him (Headley) from Major Iqbal, who was Headley's ISI handler. This was before he took the last trip to Mumbai for surveillance ahead of the attacks.
In July 2009, the following year around the 26th Headley travelled to England, Sweden and Denmark to meet with two men of Ilyas Kashmiri and discuss the Mickey Mouse Project related to 'Jyllands Posten', the Danish newspaper which published the controversial cartoons on Prophet Mohammed. The project related to the plot to attack the newspaper.
The jury was shown 13 short videos taken by Headley of the Danish Capital Copenhagen.
"I conveyed to them what Kashmiri wanted," Headley said.
"I asked for manpower and funds for the project. It was lukewarm response ...they were not into it. "Instead of 10,000 pounds they gave me 2,000 pounds and gave no weapons," Headley added.
Headley then traveled to Copenhagen and did surveillance of the building housing Jyllands Posten. Some videos showing the surveillance Headley took in Copehagen were shown in court.
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