12 Terrorists Were Trained for 26/11 Mumbai Attacks, Not 10: Abu Jundal

This is a retelling, in our own words, of the story reported by the Indian press in early July 2012, based on interrogation disclosures attributed to Abu Jundal. These were interrogation claims, not court findings.

During his interrogation after his June 2012 deportation from Saudi Arabia, 26/11 handler Zabiuddin Ansari, alias Abu Jundal, reportedly told investigators that twelve terrorists — not ten — had been trained at Lashkar-e-Taiba camps for the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. According to the reported disclosures, two of the twelve dropped out before the operation went ahead, leaving the ten who sailed to Mumbai.

Jundal's disclosures were the basis for a series of headline-grabbing reports through the summer of 2012, each adding detail to what Indian investigators said they were learning about the attack's planning in Karachi. Around the same time, the Mumbai police crime branch was trying to get custody of Jundal from Delhi — having failed to convince the court in its earlier attempt — to question him about his role in cases registered in Mumbai, including the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul.

Investigators treated Jundal's statements as intelligence leads to be corroborated rather than as established fact: interrogation disclosures from a cooperating terror suspect can mix genuine information with self-serving invention. But the 12-not-10 claim, if verified, meant the conspiracy had spare capacity — and that two more trained men existed somewhere.

Based on Indian press reporting on interrogation disclosures (July 2012).