WikiLeaks: Pakistan Tipped Off Israel on Terror Threats in India
Pakistan wants contacts with Israel to remain secret in order not to anger anti-government Muslim militants.
The chief of Pakistan's spy agency said he had contacted Israeli officials to head off potential attacks on Israeli targets in India, according to an October 2009 U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks.
Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, told former U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson that he wanted Washington to know he had been to Oman and Iran "to follow up on reports which he received in Washington about a terrorist attack on India."
"Pasha asked Ambassador to convey to Washington that he had followed up on threat information that an attack would be launched against India between September-November. He had been in direct touch with the Israelis on possible threats against Israeli targets in India," the Oct 7, 2009 cable reported.
A Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence spokesman had no immediate comment.
Israel's anti-terrorism headquarters publicized a severe travel warning for Israelis, especially those planning to enter India only one week later, on October 15, 2009. That travel warning specified that there was a very real concrete threat of an attack on Israelis in India.
The travel warning of October 15 was a ramping up of a previous travel warning issued on the eve of the Rosh Hashanah holiday in September 2009, which conveyed fears of an attack against Israelis throughout India.
The anti-terrorism headquarters announced at that time that the terror organization that had carried out the most lethal terror attack in Mumbai in November 2008 was planning a series of attacks throughout India, especially in locations with large concentrations of Western and Israeli tourists, and possibly in Chabad Houses, as well.
In November 2009, the anti-terrorism headquarters announced that it was retracting its travel warning.
Pakistan, a conservative Muslim country, has no official diplomatic relations with Israel. Such contacts would infuriate Muslim militants waging a campaign to topple the government.
In September 2005, however, then-Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom organized a public meeting with Pakistani then-Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmoud Kasuri, with the help of Turkey
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