Insisting on accountability for perpetrators of Mumbai attack: US

WASHINGTON: Recalling the 26/11 Mumbai Terror attacks on Monday, the US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said that the memories of the tragedy are still vivid and that Washington has continued to insist on accountability for the perpetrators of this.

Responding to the media during the State Department briefing, he further said that the US has not only held the individual operatives 'accountable' who took so many innocent lives that day, but the terrorist groups that were behind this helped to orchestrate it as well.

"The terrorist attacks that took place in 2009 in Mumbai - of course, the memories of that are still vivid. They're still vivid in India.

They are still vivid in the United States as well. We can all remember the horrific imagery of that day, the assault on the hotel, the bloodshed that resulted, and it's why we've continued to insist on accountability for the perpetrators of this, not only the individual operatives who took so many innocent lives that day, but the terrorist groups that were behind this that helped to orchestrated it as well," Ned Price said during the briefing on Monday.

It was on November 26 in 2008 when India's financial capital Mumbai faced the worst terror attack after 10 heavily armed terrorists sailed into the city.

Twenty-Six Eleven, as these attacks are often referred to, witnessed 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists coming to Mumbai via sea route from Pakistan and carrying out a series of coordinated shooting and bombing attacks across the city.

Amongst scores of people killed, there were six US citizens as well who lost their lives.

When asked to comment on a letter that the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the US, McCaul wrote to the USAID administrator, Samantha Power that USAID should stop funding for HHRD (Helping Hand Relief and Development Foundation), the State Department Spokesperson said, "I will leave it to USAID to comment on the letter specifically," noting that the letter was addressed to the Administrative powers.

Notably, the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, McCaul wrote a letter to the USAID Administration on January 24, 2023, asking her to stop funding for HHRD in the name of charity.

He said that the funding is going or they are linked to the LET and other terror organizations based in Pakistan and ISI.

He wrote the letter 14 years after the attack. In the letter, McCaul wrote, "In October 2021, USAID awarded $110,000 to Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD) through the Ocean Freight Reimbursement Program.1 This award was made despite longstanding, detailed allegations that HHRD is connected to designated terrorist organizations, terror financiers, and extremist groups. In November 2019, three Members of Congress requested that the State Department review these alleged ties to terrorism in a public letter."

"Please immediately personally review this grant to HHRD. I strongly urge you to pause this grant while you complete a thorough review of the allegations, including coordination with the the intelligence community, federal law enforcement, the State Department Counterterrorism Bureau, and the Department of Homeland Security," the letter read.

The ghastly Mumbai attacks lasted for four days killing 166 people and injuring over 300. After sailing to the city under the cover of darkness, the terrorists targeted major landmarks of Mumbai.

They however killed 6 police officials, including the city's Anti-Terrorism Squad Hemant Karkare in an ambush after leaving the hospital. In these gruesome attacks, 9 terrorists were killed and the lone survivor, Ajmal Amir Kasab, was caught and was sentenced to death at Yerwada Central Jail in Pune in 2012.