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Two
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)
operatives arrested by the Delhi police on August 10, have confessed to their
role and disclosed that they have been directed, monitored, and inducted by
Pakistan’s
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
and Army. The confessional statements of Abu Anas and Abrar Ahmad was potent enough for the Joint Commissioner of Police to call a press conference to reveal that Army officers, LeT ‘commanders’, and ISI agents meet regularly to review operations. Anas and Ahmad claim that ISI gives their ‘commanders’ updates on Indian security apparatus so they can plan new ways to infiltrate and strike sensitive positions.
The two had entered India through Nepal and left a bag with passports, 2 kilograms of RDX, and personal material at a luggage facility at the Lucknow Railway station.
While this part of the story checked out, the other stories of involvement of a Brigadier and Major from the Pakistan Army and regular planned terrorists activities have not been independently verified.
Indian counter-intelligence agencies say that they have busted over 70 LeT modules nationwide in the last 14 months giving them an idea that the organization has an agenda that goes beyond
Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). Officials say that the LeT is collaborating effectively with other Pakistan-based groups, developed strong links in Bangladesh and Nepal, and has become part of a larger network created by Osama bin Laden along with Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). The Islamic International Front (IIF), believed to be an offshoot of al Qaeda, is the new umbrella organization that matrix-manages terror activities across the world.
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Last week, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan says that LeT is the Indian front for the Al-Qaeda and has recruits not just from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. He also revealed that the LeT
has provided assistance to the
Jemaah Islamiah and other Al-Qaeda offshoots in Indonesia. The US has so far ignored the LeT because of its view that its activities were confined to India and Indonesia but the London liquid-bomb plot busted such parochial thinking. Of course, the
US has already banned the Jamat-ul-Dawa (JuD) supposedly based on Indian input. Notwithstanding its claims as a charitable organization, recent reports of misuse of charitable funds sent to Pakistan to help October 2005 earthquake victims by the JuD for terrorist activities, confirms Indian assertions that the JuD is only a front for the LeT.
In an Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accused Pakistan of continuing to support terrorist organizations and not fulfilling its promise of January 2004 to curb terrorist activities from its soil. Despite independent information on Pakistan’s continued support for terrorism and from other nations, Pervez Musharraf’s Government continues to reject this charge. It is not clear if this attitude is because of denial of responsibility or lack of awareness of the existence of these groups.
Either way, such attitude only comes in the way of furthering peace talks between the two nations .
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