US says shared information with India after Headley’s another wife’s terror link expose

WASHINGTON - The United States said on Sunday said that the threat information of general nature was shared with India after it appeared that another wife of David Headley, the key conspirator in the Mumbai attacks, informed American authorities about her husband plotting a terrorist attack.

Pakistan based terrorist outfit Lahkar-e-Toiba attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008 in a coordinated manner killing 166 people.

Less than a year before LeT terrorists killed 166 people in Mumbai, a Moroccan woman went to American authorities in Pakistan to warn them that she believed her husband was plotting an attack, The New York Times reports.

“Had we known about the timing and other specifics related to the Mumbai attacks, we would have immediately shared those details with the government of India,” said Mike Hammer, spokesman of the National Security Council, White House.

It was not the first time American law enforcement authorities were warned about Headley, a longtime informer in Pakistan for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.

Two years earlier, in 2005, an American woman who was also married to the 50-year-old Headley told federal investigators in New York that she believed he was a member of the militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba created and sponsored by ISI.

In the four years between the wife’s warning and Headley’s capture, Lashkar sent Headley on reconnaissance missions around the world. During five trips to Mumbai, he scouted targets for the attack using his US passport and cover as a businessman to circulate freely in areas frequented by Westerners.

He met in Pakistan with terrorist handlers, including a Pakistani army major accused of helping direct and fund his missions, according to court documents and anti-terrorism officials.

In March, Headley pleaded guilty to charges of terrorism in the Mumbai attacks and to a failed plot to take and behead hostages at a Danish newspaper. (ANI)