ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Breaking weeks of silence on a highly sensitive subject, Pakistani authorities acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that the lone surviving gunman in the Mumbai, India, attacks is a Pakistani national.
Authorities here have been extremely reluctant to formally acknowledge Pakistani links to the shooting rampage in India, even though Indian officials had almost immediately identified the captured gunman, Ajmal Amir Kasab, as a Pakistani.
Pakistan has been under heavy U.S. pressure to move against militants based on its soil who are suspected of having planned and aided the attacks that left more than 160 people dead.
However, India’s swift finger- pointing in the wake of the onslaught angered and offended Pakistanis. Many people here do not accept the Indian contention, backed up by U.S. intelligence, that the banned Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out the shootings.
Pakistan’s weak civilian government has tried to strike a balance between meeting international expectations that it will carry out a thorough investigation of its own while avoiding the appearance it is knuckling under to the demands of its archrival, India.
So strong is the taboo surrounding any acknowledgment of Pakistani ties to the case that Kasab’s nationality was at first confirmed here only by Pakistani officials speaking on condition of anonymity. Hours later, Information Minister Sherry Rehman said in a terse text message: “We are confirming Kasab is Pakistani, but investigations are ongoing.”
The other nine known gunmen were killed in the attacks.
India this week presented Pakistan with a 100-page dossier of evidence, including what it said were transcripts of intercepted calls between the gunmen and their handlers in Pakistan during the assault on targets including luxury hotels, a train station and a Jewish center.
The transcripts painted a chilling portrait of the methodical nature of the attacks. Excerpts indicated the gunmen repeatedly called their handlers for instructions as they rounded up hostages.
“We have three foreigners, including women,” a gunman reportedly said in one such call.
“Kill them,” came the reply.
At another point during the three- day siege, handlers urged the gunmen to continue with the killings despite their fatigue. The transcripts also recorded the gunmen confessing to a key blunder — having left behind a satellite phone on a hijacked vessel used to sail to Mumbai from the Pakistani port of Karachi.
Although India and Pakistan have engaged in a degree of saber- rattling in the weeks since the attack, Pakistan made new efforts to cool some of the harsh rhetoric of recent days.
“Pakistan does not want war,” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Wednesday.
