US warned India about possible city attack

INDIA received a warning from the United States before last week’s attacks in Mumbai that militants were plotting a waterborne assault on the city, a senior US official said yesterday as domestic intelligence officials said they were aware of a Pakistan-based plot.

Another US official added that there is reason to suspect the assailants were part of a group at least partly based across the border in Pakistan.

As the evidence of the militants’ links to Pakistan mounts, a list of about 20 people — including India’s most-wanted man — was submitted to Pakistan’s high commissioner to New Delhi on Monday night, said India’s foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee.

The revelations come as the Indian government faces widespread accusations of security and intelligence failures after suspected Muslim militants carried out a three-day attack across India’s financial capital, killing at least 172 people and wounding 239.

India has already demanded Pakistan take “strong action” against those responsible for the attacks, and the US has pressured Islamabad to co-operate in the investigation. America’s chief diplomat, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will visit India today.

A Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of intelligence information, said that the US passed on information to India about a potential attack on Mumbai from its long waterfront. But the official would not elaborate on the timing or details of the US warning to Indian counterparts.

Another American official said the assailants could have been at least partly based in Pakistan — the closest the US has come to laying blame for the attacks. The State Department official, who requested anonymity, was careful to say not all the evidence is in.

Indian officials continued to interrogate the only surviving attacker, who reportedly told police that he and the other nine gunmen had trained for months in camps in Pakistan operated by the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

In Pakistan, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi pledged full co-operation. Qureshi said Pakistan has offered a “joint investigative mechanism and joint commission”.

He didn’t say when the offer was made.