The Mind of a Terrorist

by Kaare Sørensen

  “It is sad that Pakistanis are committing suicide after losing cricket matches to India. But they are not sacrificing their lives to protect the honour of the raped Kashmiri women. To watch a cricket match we would take a day off work. But for jihad, we have not time!”

  The day after the attack, the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, came to Pakistan to discuss the Mumbai attack with Pakistani authorities.

  Headley wasn’t far from the attack on the roundabout. Lahore was his hometown, and he followed the details in the news and on the Internet. The man who had brought terrorism to India now saw his own city as the scene of a similar attack.

  He was convinced that the whole thing had been put into motion by the Indian intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing—known as RAW—but probably carried out by local Pakistanis or other agents.

  “The logical conclusion is fucking India. (Forgive my French.) It benefits only them,” he wrote in an email.

  “One look at this operation and it is evident that these guys were not Mujahideen, if they had been, the SL [Sri Lankan] team would have been dead. But one very small point gives me pride. The Indians with 600 commandos and 2000 cops were unable to protect their guests and got people killed from all nationalities in Mumbai but we, on the other hand, by the Grace of God, were able to protect the lives of our guests and gave our own lives to protect them.”

  Then secretary of state Hillary Clinton condemned the men who carried out the attack and called it an “eerie replica” of the Mumbai attack.

  But even if there were many shared qualities, the two attacks couldn’t be compared, as a well-informed Headley wrote. “I do believe, however, that the guys who brought you Mumbai will bring you some thing ‘sweet’ in ‘incredible’ India to avenge this attack, in the near future,” Headley wrote, adding that his evaluation was “just a guess or maybe a prayer.”

  The truth, though, was another story.

  Headley himself had been asked to find targets for a new, large attack in India.

  The Mumbai attack had shattered relations between India and Pakistan, and all diplomatic connections had been put on ice. But on the other hand, the attack hadn’t itself brought about the desired result. There was no war. No escalation of the fighting in Kashmir. No Indian surrender of Kashmir.

  And thus, the factions in Lashkar, together with Ilyas Kashmiri, once again had their sights on India. They wanted to take back Mumbai.

  This time, Headley was to find several Israeli hotels in India that could be targeted. A house in Goa apparently often used as a vacation spot by Israeli soldiers was also to be investigated as a potential target.

  Israel’s carpet bombing of the Gaza Strip around New Year’s had particularly made Kashmiri angry. He knew that an effective attack in Israel would be difficult to pull off, but the many Indian hotels filled with Israelis would be obvious, easy targets.

  All they needed to do was wait for the right moment.

  It would be Headley’s last mission before going to Denmark.

  The words formed themselves into a proper will.

  Headley had sat in front of the keyboard at his computer shortly before midnight on the day of the terrorist attack in Lahore. He was in the process of writing an email to “dear doctor” in Chicago.

  Headley had thought about it a lot in the last few months, and no longer had doubts about being ready to sacrifice his life. The cause was worth it. He wanted to dedicate himself completely to the struggle against India and the West. That could easily bring certain consequences.

  “As I am traveling and things are so bad these days, I would like to leave a few instructions with you in case of my death or in case I am incapacitated for some reason,” Headley wrote to Rana.

  He predicted, evidently, that he might end up either in a prison or in a coffin.

  He was also afraid. Had he already been discovered? Would the Indians be ready to arrest him when he next landed? Would he travel of his own accord right into the lion’s mouth and give them the chance to detain him in the airport? It wasn’t unrealistic to think he might be subjected to torture.

  Headley was aware that the email might be intercepted and read by foreign intelligence services, so he didn’t refer to Mumbai, Denmark, or terrorism at any point.

  Most important of all were Headley’s wives.

  “M2”—as he referred to Faiza Outalha, his wife from Morocco—would be taken care of in particular should Headley himself no longer be able to.

  “Please get her to Canada as soon as possible. Till that time comes send her 350 dollars per month thru Pasha. Communicate with her thru him and dont give her your numbers, even if you call her, as the number doesn’t show up on card calls. When she does get the visa give her Canadian 6000 dollars and ticket and instructions,” Headley wrote.

  “M1”—his wife Shazia, in the secret apartment in Chicago—was another story.

  “Sit with her and decide whether she should return home immediately, or after 1 year, or after 2 years. We will play this by ear if I am incapacitated, if I die then use your best judgment,” wrote Headley, giving detailed instructions about his children.

  “I would like my sons to get into Aitchison after their Hifz, so if you can swing it, great, and if not then whatever is the next best option.”*

  He also weighed his accounts to determine precisely what he owed to various people and instructed Rana as to how he should ensure that, among other things, Headley’s investments in some shops in Dubai could continue without problems.

  Some of the shop owners owed Headley significant sums of money, and even if he was dead or in prison, Headley wanted these matters taken care of. Shop by shop, he indicated the amount of the rent and when it had last been paid.

  The last point in his will was his father’s house in Pakistan, of which Headley said he owned 60 percent.

  “I want my sons to keep that house at ALL costs … I want this issue settled as soon as possible as I fear the other heirs of my father may have a change of niyyat [heart] after my departure or incapacitation,” Headley wrote, finishing with these words: “That’s all, my old friend. Salaamun alaikum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh.”

  May Allah’s peace, mercy, and blessings be with you.

  * * *

  Exactly one hundred days after the Mumbai attack, Headley landed once again in India.

  Even though he was behind the country’s worst terrorist attack in recent history, there was nobody waiting for him in the airport in the capital, New Delhi.

  It was pure routine.

  Headley moved around by bus, train, and airplane to investigate different spots said to be popular vacation destinations for Israelis. He kept far from Mumbai and his two friends, Rahul Bhatt and Vilas Varak.

  At one point, Headley came across a funeral ceremony in the city of Pushkar. While there he got to talking with a Jewish couple and their friend. Over a group breakfast, Headley got a travel tip for a good Jewish hotel in Goa. Shortly thereafter, he traveled to Goa, stayed the night at the place, and added it to his list of potential terrorism targets, though he noted that it was far from optimal.

  Headley’s hate for the Jewish people and the state of Israel was enormous. He doubted the Holocaust, and if it really had happened, then no more than six thousand Jews lost their lives, according to Headley.

  “This seems to be the best thing that ever happened to them. They are milking it till today. They justify all their murders and bombings and ‘pre-emptive’ actions in the name of the Holocaust. I have to say had all those Jews been alive today, they and their offspring would only have compounded our misery. They would probably have needed some additional Muslim lands to accommodate their population.”

  An article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz had at one point described a tradition in which Israeli soldiers received a T-shirt upon completing a sniper training course. “One shot, two kills,” it said on the T-shirt beneath an illustration of a pregnant Muslim woman framed in crosshairs. Another
T-shirt showed a woman in a hijab kneeling next to her child, who lies on the ground before her, bleeding from his head—again seen through crosshairs. Here, the caption was “Better use Durex”—a well-known brand of condom.

  The fact that a majority of Israelis had done military service was for Headley one more reason that it was legal to kill “any Israeli, anywhere in the world.”

  “That’s why I feel so much happiness when any of them is beheaded. Nobody deserves it more. I feel no sorrow for their kids or their old and feeble. They are all the same to me,” Headley wrote, explaining that he wasn’t speaking in the name of Islam, but with his own “cheap feelings.”

  “Have you seen any Muslim ‘terrorist’ or other organization or group or country from any sect, Shia or Sunni, ever celebrating the killing of Infants? Or seen the using of any religious text, Gita, Talmud or Bible, as toilet paper, as the Danes did with the Quran last year and Israelis continue to do and post it on the net? There is no comparison between the lofty ideals of Islam and these gutter religions. Now personally I pray that God would give me the opportunity to catch one of these bastards and cut their throats open, to please Him.”

  In New Delhi, Headley also investigated the national defense academy and a residential area for aspiring officers known as Raksha Bhavan. A bus filled with soon-to-be officers traveling on a daily route between the two locations had “minimal security measures” and would be a “very vulnerable target,” Headley noted, filming both the bus and the route.

  Headley was particularly enticed by the idea of striking the Indian soldiers. He guessed that a well-coordinated attack against the bus and the academy would cost more Indian officers their lives than all the wars between Pakistan and India together.

  The Lashkar people already had a man from Rawalpindi in Pakistan in mind for an attack on the Indian military. But the man had had his Indian visa application denied because he had a long beard.

  “Shave your beard and try again,” came the message from Lashkar. That’s how it would have to be.

  Back in Pakistan, Sajid Mir had bad news.

  Several people with Lashkar connections had been arrested, and now the terrorist organization was under pressure to keep a low profile. Sajid Mir and his cohort feared that an attack on Denmark would require far too many resources and quite possibly would be discovered while planning was under way.

  There was no option but to put Copenhagen on hold, perhaps forever, he explained to Headley at a meeting in Lahore.

  Pasha’s prediction had been right. When it came down to it, they didn’t have the guts.

  Headley was angry. Cowards, that was what they were. Attacking Denmark was the most important thing they could do, he thought. There wasn’t even a choice; it was a damn responsibility. Sajid Mir knew that full well.

  Sajid Mir was, on the other hand, furious about Headley’s trip to India. Sajid hadn’t approved it, and he didn’t care for elements in Lashkar using Headley without his approval. Not even if it was to plan an attack in India that would be greater than Mumbai.

  Sajid Mir was also mad to learn that Headley had spoken of his participation in the Mumbai attack to a man by the name of Haroon, who was later arrested in Pakistan.

  And it certainly didn’t make things better that a Glock pistol that Sajid Mir had once given Headley had, in a roundabout way, come into the possession of this Haroon, who possibly used it in a murder or a kidnapping attempt.

  You must leave Lahore, he’ll rat you out, and then they’ll come after you, Sajid Mir warned.

  Major Iqbal, Headley’s connection to the Pakistani intelligence service, showed up at the house in Lahore. He was deeply worried. Kasab—the one survivor of the “boys” from the Mumbai attack—had revealed far too much, Iqbal explained.

  Pack everything up that has the slightest connection to Lashkar and leave your house for a while, he ordered. Don’t contact me. I’ll contact you.

  Altogether, it was a big mess.

  Headley decided to remain quiet about the trip to Waziristan and his new connection to Ilyas Kashmiri. It was hardly the time to talk about that.

  * Aitchison College is a tradition-rich and prestige-filled boys’ school in Lahore. Hifz is Qu’ran school.

  13

  CUT THEIR HEADS OFF

  Northern Pakistan

  May 2009

  American unmanned drones could frequently be spotted or heard in the sky over North Waziristan.

  Headley looked up.

  With small cameras, the drones carefully scanned through bazaars, caravans, and villages in search of the slightest trace of wanted terrorists from Taliban, al-Qaeda, or Lashkar. Sometimes, they were successful.

  One early morning, unmanned aircraft had fired two missiles at a religious school in the village of Daande Darpkhel, near Miranshah. Seven Taliban insurgents were killed when the bombs razed two buildings with a resounding bang. At least three women and two children also lost their lives.

  The death toll was reported to be as high as eight children dead and eighteen injured.

  It was like that with nine out of ten attacks, Headley noted, remarking ironically that “anti-American feelings are a little over a 100%.”

  Headley had driven to Miranshah after the incident with Sajid Mir. Now he saw the refugee camps for the displaced Afghans who had lived in the area since the war with the Soviet Union ended, twenty years earlier. And he saw how life was in the poverty-stricken Pakistani tribal areas.

  Headley had no issue identifying himself with the global jihad, which was represented in the Miranshah bazaar by Chechens, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Russians, Bosnians, some people from a few EU countries, and of course, the Arab brothers.

  He estimated that roughly every third inhabitant of the town was a foreigner who had come to fight.

  “The foreign fighters, I was told, come here for some R&R—rest and relaxation—while waiting to join the fight in nearby Afghanistan,” Headley wrote in his notes from the trip. “Drones can be seen and heard almost constantly overhead and people have learned to live with it. These are a very Independent minded and fearless people.”

  Officially, the Pakistani army was at war with the Taliban, but it seemed to be a halfhearted effort, Headley noted.

  The people in the region weren’t afraid of the Pakistani soldiers. On the contrary, they laughed at them. During the trip, Headley himself had seen many checkpoints that had been abandoned by the army. When a military convoy drove by, he had seen the angst in the soldiers’ eyes.

  The actual front must be over a hundred kilometers away, Headley thought.

  The real threat was the small drones in the sky. They were controlled remotely by young American soldiers sitting in safety and drinking cola while they killed freely, using the small buttons on their joysticks.

  It was yet another sign of the Americans’ cowardice and another reason that Americans were so hated by the locals, Headley thought. Several thousand had been killed by these invisible machines of death—and many of them were innocent civilians.

  On the other hand, a thorough investigation cited in the Pakistani media had shown that people in the area were most afraid of the holy warriors, and thus welcomed the Americans with open arms.

  “Such a statement can only come from some soft idiot, totally oblivious to this culture and divorced from reality, writing from the safety of his air-conditioned office, far, far away,” Headley thought.

  He wrote many emails about the trip to his old classmates. But at no time did he reveal the real reason for traveling in the volatile region: he had come to meet with the one-eyed Ilyas Kashmiri for the second time. He wanted to be a soldier in Brigade 313.

  During the long trip from Lahore to Miranshah, Headley had stopped in the city of Banu to switch his rental car’s license plates for stolen ones as a security measure.

  Before meeting Kashmiri he went down to a gun shop in the city where locals bought and sold rifles, ammunition, and handguns.

  Kashmiri arrived in
Miranshah in his military jeep, surrounded by a number of heavily armed men. He greeted Headley and the two went into the same house where they had met a few months earlier when they first spoke of an attack on Jyllands-Posten.

  Now, the house was filled with suicide vests. They were for “an operation,” Headley learned.

  The men spoke of the drones in the sky above them. Headley said that they would never escape them. If they should manage to shoot a few down, the Americans would just build ten new ones. They had the money for it.

  But Kashmiri had an answer for that, too.

  He dreamed of attacking Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest producer of weapons, and killing the American company’s director, Robert J. Stevens. Among other things, Lockheed Martin was behind the Hellfire missiles used by the drones in Pakistan. Kashmiri figured that killing the director would frighten the company and make it stop delivering to the American military.

  The terrorist leader told Headley that he had men in the United States who had already begun the initial assessments of Lockheed Martin’s headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, just a half-hour’s drive from the White House. Perhaps Headley could help with those plans at some point, Kashmiri suggested. They’d have to see about that.

  The two men agreed, however, that the most important thing right now was an attack in Denmark.

  The men discussed the possibility of a more “generalized” attack in Copenhagen. They could attack Copenhagen Central Station or other public places where there were lots of people. It would send the same signal as an actual attack on Jyllands-Posten’s offices, which were more difficult to access.

  They wanted to attack the official Denmark. As prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen had refused to apologize for the cartoons. Headley considered that to be among Denmark’s crimes. Recently, Rasmussen had been elected secretary general of NATO. That was how the West rewarded the man who had refused to intervene against the drawings. That was offensive.

  Kashmiri revealed a secret to Headley: over the course of several years, he had been working on building a network of faithful Muslims who had already been placed in Europe as “sleeper cells.” These were people with steady jobs, residence permits, and in some cases, even passports and new citizenships. But they were people who were still loyal to him, nonetheless.