WikiLeaks' new posts include CIA fears about Headley

Washington: The CIA fears that the growing instances of homegrown terrorists like David Headley would make other nations believe that the US is an "exporter of terrorism" and prompt them to reduce cooperations with it, according to fresh secret documents posted by WikiLeaks.

In the classified papers posted by the whistleblower website, the CIA concluded that foreign governments would be less likely to cooperate with the US on detention, intelligence-sharing, and other issues in the wake of increasing number of home grown terrorists.

"Primarily we have been concerned about Al-Qaida infiltrating operatives into the United States to conduct terrorist attacks, but Al-Qaida may be increasingly looking for Americans to operate overseas," said the document.

Referring to Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Headley, the documents said, "LeT induced him to change his name from Daood Gilani to David Headley to facilitate his movement between the US, Pakistan and India."

Headley had confessed to plotting the Mumbai attacks and LeT's role in it. The leaked document notes that Pakistani-American Headley conducted surveillance in support of the LeT for the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.

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Expressing concern over such home grown terrorists, the documents said, "If the US were seen as an exporter of terrorism, foreign partners may be less willing to cooperate with the United States on extra-judicial activities, including detention, transfer, and interrogation of suspects in third party countries."

The CIA termed it as a thought-provoking document. "These sorts of analytic products - clearly identified as coming from the Agency's 'Red Cell' - are designed simply termed it to provoke thought and present different points of view," CIA spokesperson Marie Harf told PTI.

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"As a recent victim of high-profile terrorism originating from abroad, the US Government has had significant leverage to press foreign regimes to acquiesce to requests for extraditing terrorist suspects from their soil.

"However, if the US were seen as an exporter of terrorism, foreign governments could request a reciprocal arrangement that would impact US sovereignty," the document said.

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The documents running into a few pages said contrary to common belief, the American export of terrorism or terrorists is not a recent phenomenon, nor has it been associated only with Islamic radicals or people of Middle Eastern, African or South Asian ethnic origin.

"This dynamic belies the American belief that our free, open and integrated multicultural society lessens the allure of radicalism and terrorism for US citizens. Late last year five young Muslim American men travelled from northern Virginia to Pakistan allegedly to join the Pakistani Taliban and to engage in jihad."

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