ISLAMABAD A seven member team of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is likely to visit Pakistan next week to grill the six persons accused of involvement in 26/11 Mumbai attacks and currently being held by Pakistani authorities.
'The FBI team would question the six accused, who are being held in Pakistan and would also meet the Pakistani investigators working on the case to discuss their findings so far,' a well placed source revealed.
The government, it is said, agreed to direct interrogation of the accused by FBI after intense international pressure.
'There was exchange of information taking place between FBI and Pakistani investigators, but so far the government was reluctant to allow direct access of the foreign sleuths to the accused,' the source said.
The US team is primarily interested in questioning the accused on the basis of the preliminary findings shared by Pakistan with India and the US. 'The main objectives before the team are to establish the authenticity of Pakistani findings and get further information from the accused.'
The six persons to be interrogated by the FBI team include masterminds Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah; main facilitator of the attack Hamad Amin Sadiq; Abu Alqama alias Mazhar Iqbal; Javed Iqbal; and another unidentified suspect.
The authorities had accused eight people of being behind the attacks, but were able to arrest only six of them, while another two still remain at large.
It is expected that the information gleaned from the detainees would then be passed on by the US to the Indian investigators to help them further their probe.
FBI and Indian investigation agencies have been cooperating under a joint anti-terror mechanism and the US investigation agency, it is said, had helped the Indians put together the dossier that was eventually shared with Pakistan. India also provided FBI access to Amir Ajmal Kasab the lone surviving attacker. FBI sleuths interrogated him for nine hours.
Furthermore, FBI provided India with the details of calls made by the attackers via the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), a satellite phone and documents relating to the Global Positioning System used by the terrorists while sailing from Karachi.
The forensic examination of the bullets used by the terrorists in Mumbai was also a part of the evidence collected by FBI for the Mumbai Police.
Alongside this cooperation between the US and India on Mumbai attacks, an exchange of information mechanism between the US and Pakistan also kept working.
Most importantly the detailed dossier was provided to Pakistan through the US. The information provided in the dossier was acted upon by Pakistani authorities.
In one instance the GPS coordinates given in the dossier were used to conduct raids in Karachi on two houses used by the terrorists. In one of those raids a dinghy used for training of the terrorists was recovered.
Although, it is not officially acknowledged but background interviews suggest that the Indians and the Americans are satisfied rather 'pleased' with the action taken by Pakistan against elements accused of involvement in the attack.
