26/11 attacks’ handler, once claimed to be dead, arrested in Pak

New Delhi: Years after denying his presence and even claiming he was dead, Pakistan has reportedly arrested Sajid Mir, a top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative and the main handler of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

Mir, involved in the November 2008 siege — when a team of 10 men carried out coordinated attacks on multiple targets in Mumbai, has been sought by both the US and India for over a decade. As many as 170 people of various nationalities — including six Americans were killed in the terror attack.

The case appears to have been brought to a head by Pakistan’s desire to extricate itself from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) international terror-financing watchlist, Nikkei Asia reported.

Hammad Azhar, Pakistan’s former finance minister in the recently ousted government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, and the man in charge of negotiations with the multilateral watchdog for the past three years, told the media outlet that Pakistan took measures against Mir and other designated terrorists that were “satisfactory” to the FATF.

The task force has been keeping Pakistan on its Grey List, used to monitor and isolate non-compliant countries.