Headley, 50, from Chicago, was born Daood Gilani to a Pakistani father and an American mother. In March, he pleaded guilty in US federal court to laying the groundwork for the Mumbai attack as well as preparing for violence in Denmark.
According to the report, Headley said the Pakistani spy agency provided individual handlers, many of them senior officers, for all the top members of Lashkar-e-Taiba and gave them direction and money to carry out reconnaissance of prospective targets.
The group’s chief military commander, Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, was close to the director general of the spy agency, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the report said.
“According to Headley, every big action of LeT is done in close coordination with ISI,’’ the report said, using a common abbreviation for Lashkar-e-Taiba.
A senior intelligence official in Pakistan said the allegations in the Indian report were baseless. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media on the record.
“These are allegations we’ve heard before,’’ Mark Toner, US State Department spokesman, told reporters in Washington. “We believe the government of Pakistan has pledged its cooperation in bringing the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice. And we fully expect that these pledges of cooperation are going to be carried out.’’
“Pakistan itself has been, obviously, greatly touched by extremist violence, and it is also in an existential struggle with these groups. So we believe Pakistan understands the threat and is committed to working cooperatively,’’ Toner said.
ISI has long been suspected of links to terror groups. The spy agency is believed to have nurtured Lashkar-e-Taiba to attack Indian security forces in disputed Kashmir. US officials have accused ISI of working with the Taliban to coordinate attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan.
