Mumbai bombing suspect points to Pakistani aid

NEW DELHI - An American convicted in the 2008 Mumbai attacks said Pakistan's main spy agency was deeply involved in planning that strike, monitoring the preparations and providing funding and advice to the attackers, according to an Indian government summary of his interrogation.

The report gives the strongest indication of the involvement of Pakistani authorities in the attack, which killed 166 people, paralyzed India's business capital and froze peace efforts between Pakistan and India.

Under questioning by Indian officials, David Headley painted a detailed picture of how intertwined Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency was with the Lashkar-e-Taiba group accused of carrying out the attack, according to the report.

Headley, 50, from Chicago, was born Daood Gilani to a Pakistani father and an American mother. In March, he pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to laying the groundwork for the Mumbai attack as well as preparing for an attack in Denmark.

According to the report, Headley said the Pakistani spy agency provided individual handlers - many of them senior officers - for all the top members of Lashkar and gave them direction and money to carry out their reconnaissance of prospective targets.

The group's chief military commander, Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, was close to the director general of the spy agency, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the report said. "According to Headley, every big action of LeT is done in close coordination with ISI," the report said, using an abbreviation for Lashkar-e-Taiba.

A senior intelligence official in Pakistan said the allegations in the Indian report were baseless. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media on the record.

"These are allegations we've heard before," U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters in Washington. "We believe the government of Pakistan has pledged its cooperation in bringing the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice."