Terror group Lashker's spreading tentacles in India

Indian counter-intelligence agencies have busted over 70 modules of the Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Taiba (LET) across the country in the last 14 months, giving the authorities a fair assessment of its vast reach and potential to create havoc across the country.

It is a matter of concern for the Indian security agencies that LET has emerged as the most active of the Pakistan-based organisations in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of India.

Along with other Pakistan-based groups - some of them with strong links in Bangladesh and Nepal- LET has become part of the larger network of Osama bin Laden's Islamic International Front (IIF) that is an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, the current global metaphor for terror.

National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan told NDTV last week that Lashker was a front for the Al-Qaeda in India and had spread its tentacles far and wide outside Kashmir and had recruits not just from Pakistan but from India and Bangladesh as well.

The other associates of LET in the IIF are the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), including its new wing called the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ).

The US had chosen to ignore the LET threat because the LET had initially confined its 'jihad' to India and provided assistance to the Jemmah Islamiyah and other Al Qaeda offshoots in Indonesia.

The American intelligence officials based in Pakistan did not pay the same attention to monitoring its activities as that of Al Qaeda and the other Pakistani terror organizations as it conveniently did not issue any threats against the US or target American nationals or its interests.

The US even appeared to overlook the fact that Abu Zubaidah, then number 3 in the Al Qaeda hierarchy, was arrested in March 2002 from the house of an LET leader at Faisalabad in Pakistani Punjab, says security expert B. Raman.

When LET changed its name to Jamaat-ul-Dawa (JUD) to escape Musharraf regimes ban order of January 15, 2002, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, its founder, changed its identity, calling it a charitable organisation.

"We don't have any direct quarrel or confrontation with America, but we want the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to be stopped," Saeed told Reuters in an interview in May 2006.

He denies links with the LET. "Jamaat (JUD) is not involved in any terrorist activity inside or outside the US," Saeed said.

He rejected the terrorist tag when India named his group in the wake of July 11 Mumbai terror blasts. He blames India for giving a bad name to JUD. "All this is being done at the behest of India," he alleged.

He maintained that his charity only gave "moral support" to those fighting "foreign occupation" in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kashmir.

Saeed's house arrest was announced last Thursday, though it is unclear when it was executed and why. Reports from Washington and London now indicate that it was done under western pressure.

The news of his arrest was blacked out by many Pakistani publications. Those who took note confined their reports to quoting the administration and JUD spokespersons.

JUD, on its part, has reportedly reorganised its structure on the Al Qaeda pattern and has vastly expanded its activities by buying up properties to augment its income.

The Friday Times (Jan 17-23, 2003), reported: "The Jamaat-ul-Dawa (JUD), formerly known as LET, is snapping up properties across Pakistan. Sources told the weekly that recent real estate purchases by the JD amount to about Rs. 300 million."

"It has reportedly bought four plots of land in Hyderabad division (in Sindh) and six others in various Sindh districts. The total price tag is about Rs.200 million. Recent purchases in Lahore have cost it Rs.100 million," the weekly said.

Pakistani media reports indicate that JUD has been receiving funds from abroad.

Its role in aiding the earthquake victims in Pakistan-administered Kashmir last October, though viewed with suspicion by the US, had made it popular, giving boost to its role as a charity organisation.

(IANS)

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