Confessed terrorist claims Pak’s top spies knew nothing of Mumbai attacks

David Headley, the former U.S. drug informant who has confessed to planning the November 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai with the assistance of Lashkar-e-Taiba and officers from Pakistan's intelligence agency, testified on Tuesday that the seniormost officers in the spy agency were not aware of the plot, reports Reuters.

"The higher officers (did not know)," Reuters said Headley told a federal court in Chicago when asked by a defense attorney for accused co-conspirator Tahawwur Rana if all of the Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) knew of the planned attack that killed 160 people.

"I was only in contact with him (Major Iqbal of the ISI) but I suspect his colonel knew about it," Headley said. Earlier, Headley testified that Iqbal, who has been indicted in the attack along with five other Pakistanis, provided guidance during Headley's surveillance work in Mumbai, the agency said.

This new wrinkle, revealed in cross examination, will come as a blow to Indian authorities (and media here), which have to this point treated the Headley revelations as definitive proof that the Mumbai attacks were funded, planned and coordinated by the ISI as an official exercise, rather than a clandestine operation conducted by rogue agents.