India demanded Monday that Pakistan hand over several terrorist suspects in the Mumbai attacks that left 188 dead last week, including five residents of Israel and a woman who was scheduled to immigrate to Israel today, according to Agence France Presse. Funerals for the six are being held throughout the day.
The Pakistani suspects include Hafeez Sayeed, the the head of the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, which has fought Indian rule in divided Kashmir and who was blamed for the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament which almost led the two nations to war. Pakistan formally banned Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2002 after the United States and Britain put the group on their lists of terrorist organizations.
Indian officials allege that the Pakistani government has not fully enforced its own ban, allowing the group to continue operating and says that all the dead terrorists, as well as the lone gunman captured alive and arrested in the attack, were from Pakistan.
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told CNN that his government wanted proof of allegations that his country's nationals were involved. "They have given us (the names of) some of the organizations ... but that is not evidence. If they will give us evidence we are commmitted that we will extend full cooperation," Gilani said. "Let the proof come, then we will give our point of view."
Mumbai police investigators working with a team from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have painted a picture of sources in Pakistan and say they have reached a point where they will have to depend on full-fledged cooperation from Pakistan, according to CNN's sister station in India, IBN. Six Americans were killed in the attacks.
While the White House said on Monday that there was no Pakistani government involvement, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a London news conference, "What we are emphasizing to the Pakistani government is the need to follow the evidence wherever it leads. I don't want to jump to any conclusions myself on this, but I do think that this is a time for complete, absolute, total transparency and cooperation, and that's what we expect."
CNN and ABC reported that the United States warned India in October that hotels and business centers in Mumbai would be targeted by attackers coming from the sea, as happened in last week's attack. ABC said that one US intelligence official even named the Taj Mahal hotel, one of 10 sites hit in the 60-hour ordeal. It said Indian intelligence officials intercepted a phone call on November 18 to an address in Pakistan used by Sayeed, revealing a possible attack from the sea.