09 November,2013 06:18 AM IST | | Agencies
When Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley suggested to his Pakistani contacts that Mumbai could be attacked, a Major Iqbal told him that if he was to scout that city, he would need to know how to record his findings.
The Taj Hotel under attack on Nov 26 in 2008
Authors Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark say in The Siege: The Attack on the Taj: "Major Iqbal gave him (Headley) what he described as classified Indian files that he said had been obtained from within the Indian police and army and which revealed their training and limitations."
The book adds that the major boasted they had a super-agent at work in New Delhi who was known as Honey Bee. The major revealed that while he (Major Iqbal) would guide Headley, the Mumbai operation was to be run by "Lashkar", (Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Pakistani terror group committed to war against India) which master-minded the Mumbai mayhem.
The 319-page book does not say who Major Iqbal is. It was Honey Bee who is said to have come up with the idea of a potential landing area in Badhwar Park, a fishing colony in south Mumbai, where Lashkar operatives could reach by sea to enter the Indian city. Eventually, in November 2008, 10 Pakistani terrorists attacked Mumbai that left 166 Indians and foreigners dead.
