‘Most glaring example’ of Pakistan ‘misleading’ world: Story of LeT’s Sajid Mir

Sajid Mir, a commander of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, was among the chief planners of the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

He had been pronounced untraceable or dead until a few months into 2022, when it was reported that the Pakistanis had arrested him so they could show they were taking action that was required of them by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the world’s terrorist financing watchdog.

Pakistan was at the time negotiating with the FATF to get off the “grey list” of “jurisdictions under increased monitoring” for having failed to prevent international money laundering and terrorism financing.

The FATF took Pakistan off the watchlist in October 2022. The US Department of Justice says “Mir is [now] believed to be residing in Pakistan”.

Sajid Mir: Most Wanted in US, India

According to the FBI’s List of Most Wanted, Mir has used two dates of birth – January 1, 1978 and January 31, 1976 – which, if accurate, would suggest he is in his late 40s now.

He was born in Lahore and, according to the Rewards for Justice Program of the US Department of State, he has been “a senior member of LeT since approximately 2001”. There is a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his arrest and conviction under the program.

The FBI’s Most Wanted list says Mir speaks Urdu, Arabic, English, and Hindi, and is known by aliases including Sajid Majeed, Ibrahim Shah, Wasi, Khali, and Muhammad Waseem. He has “skin discoloration on his face” and “a scar on his left cheek and his right eye”.

In the assessment of Indian intelligence agencies, Sajid Mir’s organisational abilities make him “the most dangerous man in Pakistan”, “more dangerous than all the rest put together”, The Indian Express has reported earlier.

In 2001, as a member of the Lashkar’s international wing, Mir was recruiting jihadists from several countries to fight the Americans in Afghanistan. He came on the security radar in the US the following year, after the FBI arrested 11 Islamist militants in Virginia.

In 2003, Mir plotted bomb attacks in Sydney through an Afro-Caribbean LeT recruit named Willie Birgitte. The plot was foiled, and Birgitte revealed Mir’s role during his trial in France.

The French investigating magistrate Jean Louis Brugiere determined that Mir was a senior officer in the Pakistan Army, and a part of the ISI. The magistrate also established a clear link between the LeT and the Pak Army.

Sajid Mir’s role in 26/11 attacks

Investigations have revealed Mir’s central role in planning and directing the 26/11 terrorist attacks.

Mir is said to have talent-spotted David Coleman Headley, the chief scout of the attack sites, whom he recruited into the LeT in 2005. By 2006, Mir had begun to actively plan the Mumbai attacks, collaborating with Pakistan Army officers who have been named in FIRs and court documents.

Mir personally trained and briefed all the 10 terrorists who arrived in Mumbai from Pakistan. “He was most probably present in the Lashkar control room in Karachi during 26/11,” an official said.

As the attack unfolded, Mir gave the terrorists instructions over the phone in real time. Investigators have determined that it was Mir who instructed one of the terrorists at Chabad House to kill a Jewish hostage after talks for a prisoner swap failed.

Officials said Mir also had close links with Tahawwur Hussain Rana, Headley’s friend and collaborator who was recently extradited from the US to face justice in India. Headley is serving time in America after negotiating a plea bargain deal.

Escaping justice for years

Among the 166 people killed in the Mumbai attacks, six were Americans. He was indicted in a US District Court in Illinois on April 21, 2011. A warrant of arrest was issued against him, and on August 30, 2012, the US designated Mir a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT).

Two Red Corner Notices were issued against Mir at India’s behest, in 2010 and 2019. “The Central government believes that Mir is to be notified as a terrorist under the UAPA (Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act),” an Indian government notification issued on October 27, 2020 said.

A Red Notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a fugitive who is wanted either for prosecution or to serve a sentence.

But nothing was heard of Mir until three years ago, even though US authorities believed that he was a free man in Pakistan.

Then, on June 24, 2022, Nikkei Asia reported that “Pakistan has arrested the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks after years of denying his presence and even claiming he was dead.”

The report said that “the case appears to have been brought to a head by Pakistan’s desire to extricate itself from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) international terror-financing watchlist.”

The report quoted a former Pakistani official who was aware of the case as saying, “Pakistanis have acknowledged to both India and to America that a man called Sajid Mir…whom Pakistan had long said was either dead or not locatable… They have actually found where he is.”

However, no details of his apparent prosecution or sentencing emerged.

In June 2023, China blocked a proposal by the US and co-designated by India to blacklist Mir under the 1267 Al Qaida Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council as a global terrorist and subject him to an assets-freeze, travel-ban, and arms embargo.

At the United Nations’ counter-terror meeting at the time, Indian diplomat Prakash Gupta said: “If we cannot get established terrorists who have been banned across global landscapes proscribed by the United Nations – for petty geopolitical interests – then we really do not have the genuine political will to sincerely fight this challenge of terrorism.”