26/11 trial in US: Live telecast aided Lashkar-e-Taiba to change tactics, says David Headley

CHICAGO: Watching the 2008 Mumbai carnage live from Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba handlers guided the attackers on phone and asked them to change tactics to challenge the advancing commandos, 26/11 co-accused David Headley told a Chicago District Court on the third day of the trial of his childhood friend and Pakistani-Canadian Tawahhur Rana on Wednesday.

Relating the strategy followed during the 60-hour siege of Mumbai, Headley told the court that his Lashkar handler Sajid Mir was in Karachi during the Mumbai attack. Sajid Mir told Headley that a couple of people were with him. Sajid Mir 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, he said. Sajid Mir was praised by Rana for his Chhabad House attack strategy and even called him Khalid bin Walid, one of the greatest Generals in history, Headley testified.

About the operation at Chhabad House in Mumbai, Headley said Sajid Mir told the two attackers to use mattresses and ambush the Special Forces who were descending down the staircase. Six people were killed in the attack on Chhabad house, a Jewish community centre. According to Headley, Rana said this strategy was tactically brilliant and that he be called Khalid bin Walid, a famous Arab military strategist during the times of the Prophet.