According to satellite images from around 2008, the safe-house where the terrorists were trained is located in ‘Pathan Colony’, around 6 km south-east of Thatta town.
New Delhi: Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif revealed nothing new when he admitted to Pakistan’s involvement in the 26 November, 2008, terror attack on Mumbai in which 166 people were killed.
Although much has been reported and written about how the 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists sailed to Mumbai by boat after being trained in and around Karachi, little has been known about the exact sites of their training.
One of the purported revelations that followed Sharif’s statement was made by an anonymous Pakistani Twitter user, who referred to a “small training camp” established near Thatta in Sindh province.
Everyone familiar with the 26/11 investigation knows Ajmal Kasab, the only attacker caught alive in the 2008 carnage, was trained by the Pakistan Special Service Group (SSG), an elite commando force, and the ISI, somewhere east of Karachi. The support provided by the Pakistani navy’s SSG unit at Gharo, Thatta district, has also been reported.
Also, the village of Dhabeji in Thatta district has been under the spotlight for its alleged terrorist leanings as well as holding the first important ‘jalsa’ by Jaish-e-Mohammed founder Maulana Masood Azhar, which was attended by many wanted terrorists.
These small bits of information, put together with satellite imagery from around the time of the attacks, seem to yield a complete picture of the training site.
Epicentre Thatta
The Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists who carried out 26/11 were possibly trained by the Pakistani navy’s special commandos in consultation with the country’s notorious Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI.
They were supposedly housed in tents pitched outside an ISI safe-house. The idea of putting up trainees in tents finds favour within the intelligence agencies to provide the recruits a feel of the ‘tough life’.
According to satellite images, the safe-house is located in ‘Pathan Colony’, around 6 km south-east of Thatta town. The house merges easily with the houses in the vicinity, but its special fence and the tents can’t be hidden from satellites and a pair of well-trained eyes.
Although segregated from the rest of the colony, the house offers easy access to the road. It is suspected the safe-house is still being used by the ISI.
The training ground
The training of these specially chosen terrorists was allegedly carried out in an abandoned sugar mill, with the site offering perfect security for the operation.
The main sheds of this facility resemble Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), one of the sites targeted by the terrorists. The other two concrete buildings can be easily identified as surrogates for Cama Hospital and the BMC building adjacent to the CST. These could have been used to provide training for room-to-room killing and fighting.
The facility has two main entrances, as observed in satellite images from 2006. Since the southern entry point was permanently closed, the eastern twin gates were possibly used.
As seen in the images, the exit gate of the eastern side was blocked by a truck/trailer and the in gate manned, with a tent pitched right in the middle of the road. This small tent merged well with the surroundings, thus providing complete security while not raising alarm.
The river and the sea
The Indus river flows barely 500 metres from the abovementioned locations, and could have provided an excellent source for under water and surface training. The river also offers easy access to the Arabian Sea, through which the terrorists had sailed to Mumbai’s shores undetected.
The remaining part of the story is widely known, involving the cowardly killing of unsuspecting and unarmed passengers, hospital patients and hotel guests that shocked the world. No wonder then that admissions like Sharif’s send reverberations around the world.