 "A terrorist's mind map")
THE MIND OF A TERRORIST
The Strange Case of David Headley
Author: Kaare Sorensen (Translated from the Danish by Cory Klingsporn)
Publisher: Penguin Books
Price: Rs 599
Pages: 349
David Coleman Headley, the Pakistani-American "drug dealer, informer and terrorist" born Daood Sayeed Gilani, chose the targets for the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 2008 after having reconnoitered the city for more than a year. That he was born in Washington DC to a Pakistani father and an American mother, and had an American passport, made him an invaluable asset to the sponsors of Islamist terror, Kaare Sorensen writes in The Mind of a Terrorist. In chronicling the life of "one of the few Americans who have become involved in Islamic terror at the absolute highest levels and gained access to some of the world's most sought-after men", Sorensen has delivered a page-turner, though the English translation has come three years after the Danish version.
Sorensen has for many years reported on Islamist terror, including for Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper whose cartoons on Prophet Muhammad made it the target of at least one major terrorist conspiracy, at the centre of which was none other than Headley himself. Sorensen argues that the main aim of Islamist terrorists is to create a climate of fear, and so he has tried to "get inside the mind of a terrorist". The book is an account of Headley's chaotic life - a life based on lies, deceit and manipulation - told through a detailed description of his thoughts, ideas and actions, to a large extent in his own words.
Sorensen draws substantially on the many documents, pieces of evidence and testimonies upon which Headley's trial in Chicago in 2011 was based - more than 300 unpublished emails and private letters sent by Headley to friends in Pakistan; several comprehensive interrogation reports; secret audio recordings of Headley's discussions in vehicles and offices; electronic wiretaps of phone conversations in several countries (including 284 calls made during the Mumbai attack) - as well as on his own interviews with eyewitnesses, lawyers and intelligence agents. Indeed, large parts of the book are transcripts of Headley's recorded conversations - as one can expect of an investigative journalist.
Headley, now serving a 35-year prison sentence at an undisclosed location in the US, became radicalised when American troops used Saudi Arabia as a launching pad for the 1990-91 war against Iraq. He also hated India, possibly because his school in Lahore was bombed by an Indian Air Force aircraft during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. He handed over more than 50 hours of video footage of targets in Mumbai to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which sent him an SMS at his Lahore home when live coverage of the attacks began on November 26. Headley sat glued to his TV throughout the 60-hour drama, having prayed for months that his efforts would bear fruit. After all, though he wasn't among the 10 men doing the killing that day, he "had selected their targets, he had worn his soles thin on the streets of Mumbai making his plans. He had located the beach from which they began their onslaught."
There have been other books on the three days that shook Mumbai, but The Mind of a Terrorist focuses exclusively on Headley. It, therefore, also zeroes in on his detailed planning for terror attacks on Jyllands-Posten, and his many emails, in which the terror planner both rails against the West and advocates a return to ultra-conservative Salafist Islam. Significantly, the email correspondence reveals that many of Headley's old school-mates did not agree with his views on Islam.
In 2009, the FBI became aware that Daood Gilani - who had served two prison terms for drug-smuggling - and David Headley were one and the same, and following his arrival in the US from his second reconnaissance trip to Copenhagen with a weak and unconvincing cover story, put him under surveillance and subjected him to wiretaps. His school-mate - Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian citizen living in Chicago and in frequent touch with Headley, was also put under surveillance. The wiretaps yielded a goldmine of information. It was the end of the road for the man with the mismatched pupils (one blue, one brown).
The Mind of a Terrorist reveals that US investigative agencies can be remarkably lax - the FBI twice probed Headley's activities after receiving complaints from his wives that he had links to terrorism, but let him go each time, unable to come up with concrete proof. The background checks may have been perfunctory, as in the case of the Orlando shooter Omar Mateen - either inadvertently, or perhaps deliberately so, because Headley was a double agent who worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and had penetrated the LeT (as some Indian analysts believe). Sorensen does not dwell on this at all, but then, he has no time for speculation, concerning himself only with proven and undeniable fact.
The book also shows how, once arrested, Headley quickly forgot his convictions and sang like the proverbial canary, even revealing details of the LeT terror camps in which he participated. Sorensen writes that "his cooperation is described by the American authorities as the most comprehensive ever provided by a top terrorist." Having turned approver, he was spared the death penalty, and he also ensured that he would never at any time be extradited to India, Pakistan or Denmark to face trial. (India sought his extradition for one year but the US categorically refused; Headley did, however, participate briefly - via video link - as a witness in a trial in a Mumbai court in February this year.)
Sorensen must be commended for an authoritative and, for the most part, riveting tale of a man who metamorphosed from a petty drug-smuggler interested only in easy money into a scheming jihadi - but whose convictions deserted him in the end. To paraphrase a statement by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls in the wake of the Bastille Day attack in Nice that snuffed out 84 lives, the world will have to get used to terrorism. Studying terrorists' minds, as Sorensen emphasises, will be key to formulating counter-strategies.
The Strange Case of David Headley
Author: Kaare Sorensen (Translated from the Danish by Cory Klingsporn)
Publisher: Penguin Books
Price: Rs 599
Pages: 349
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David Coleman Headley, the Pakistani-American "drug dealer, informer and terrorist" born Daood Sayeed Gilani, chose the targets for the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 2008 after having reconnoitered the city for more than a year. That he was born in Washington DC to a Pakistani father and an American mother, and had an American passport, made him an invaluable asset to the sponsors of Islamist terror, Kaare Sorensen writes in The Mind of a Terrorist. In chronicling the life of "one of the few Americans who have become involved in Islamic terror at the absolute highest levels and gained access to some of the world's most sought-after men", Sorensen has delivered a page-turner, though the English translation has come three years after the Danish version.
Sorensen has for many years reported on Islamist terror, including for Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper whose cartoons on Prophet Muhammad made it the target of at least one major terrorist conspiracy, at the centre of which was none other than Headley himself. Sorensen argues that the main aim of Islamist terrorists is to create a climate of fear, and so he has tried to "get inside the mind of a terrorist". The book is an account of Headley's chaotic life - a life based on lies, deceit and manipulation - told through a detailed description of his thoughts, ideas and actions, to a large extent in his own words.
Sorensen draws substantially on the many documents, pieces of evidence and testimonies upon which Headley's trial in Chicago in 2011 was based - more than 300 unpublished emails and private letters sent by Headley to friends in Pakistan; several comprehensive interrogation reports; secret audio recordings of Headley's discussions in vehicles and offices; electronic wiretaps of phone conversations in several countries (including 284 calls made during the Mumbai attack) - as well as on his own interviews with eyewitnesses, lawyers and intelligence agents. Indeed, large parts of the book are transcripts of Headley's recorded conversations - as one can expect of an investigative journalist.
Headley, now serving a 35-year prison sentence at an undisclosed location in the US, became radicalised when American troops used Saudi Arabia as a launching pad for the 1990-91 war against Iraq. He also hated India, possibly because his school in Lahore was bombed by an Indian Air Force aircraft during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. He handed over more than 50 hours of video footage of targets in Mumbai to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which sent him an SMS at his Lahore home when live coverage of the attacks began on November 26. Headley sat glued to his TV throughout the 60-hour drama, having prayed for months that his efforts would bear fruit. After all, though he wasn't among the 10 men doing the killing that day, he "had selected their targets, he had worn his soles thin on the streets of Mumbai making his plans. He had located the beach from which they began their onslaught."
There have been other books on the three days that shook Mumbai, but The Mind of a Terrorist focuses exclusively on Headley. It, therefore, also zeroes in on his detailed planning for terror attacks on Jyllands-Posten, and his many emails, in which the terror planner both rails against the West and advocates a return to ultra-conservative Salafist Islam. Significantly, the email correspondence reveals that many of Headley's old school-mates did not agree with his views on Islam.
In 2009, the FBI became aware that Daood Gilani - who had served two prison terms for drug-smuggling - and David Headley were one and the same, and following his arrival in the US from his second reconnaissance trip to Copenhagen with a weak and unconvincing cover story, put him under surveillance and subjected him to wiretaps. His school-mate - Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian citizen living in Chicago and in frequent touch with Headley, was also put under surveillance. The wiretaps yielded a goldmine of information. It was the end of the road for the man with the mismatched pupils (one blue, one brown).
The Mind of a Terrorist reveals that US investigative agencies can be remarkably lax - the FBI twice probed Headley's activities after receiving complaints from his wives that he had links to terrorism, but let him go each time, unable to come up with concrete proof. The background checks may have been perfunctory, as in the case of the Orlando shooter Omar Mateen - either inadvertently, or perhaps deliberately so, because Headley was a double agent who worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and had penetrated the LeT (as some Indian analysts believe). Sorensen does not dwell on this at all, but then, he has no time for speculation, concerning himself only with proven and undeniable fact.
The book also shows how, once arrested, Headley quickly forgot his convictions and sang like the proverbial canary, even revealing details of the LeT terror camps in which he participated. Sorensen writes that "his cooperation is described by the American authorities as the most comprehensive ever provided by a top terrorist." Having turned approver, he was spared the death penalty, and he also ensured that he would never at any time be extradited to India, Pakistan or Denmark to face trial. (India sought his extradition for one year but the US categorically refused; Headley did, however, participate briefly - via video link - as a witness in a trial in a Mumbai court in February this year.)
Sorensen must be commended for an authoritative and, for the most part, riveting tale of a man who metamorphosed from a petty drug-smuggler interested only in easy money into a scheming jihadi - but whose convictions deserted him in the end. To paraphrase a statement by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls in the wake of the Bastille Day attack in Nice that snuffed out 84 lives, the world will have to get used to terrorism. Studying terrorists' minds, as Sorensen emphasises, will be key to formulating counter-strategies.