Terrorist LeT Organization Of Pakistan financing HuJI in Bangladesh

A Top Indian militant detained has confessed his active links with LeT and said the Pakistan based terror outfit has been financing HuJI operations in Bangladesh, even as he has been remanded to police custody.

Mufti Obaidullah, a top operative of India's Asif Reza Commando Force used six mobile phones and had regular contact with Ameer Reza, chief of ARCF working with the Pakistan-based militant outfits, Detective Branch (DB) of police sources has said. He sent SMS to Reza and others in Pakistan. Obaidullah on July 17 said that he knew Reza "quite well."

An official familiar with the Obaidullah's interrogation said that Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Toiba was financing the Bangladesh based Huji.

Deputy commissioner Monirul Islam of DB told The Daily Star, "The call lists of the mobile phones used by Obaidullah show that he made calls to Pakistan regularly and often to India." ARCF is called Indian branch of LeT.

"He talked to Ameer Reza every day over the phone. But we are yet to find out the subjects of their conversation."

ARCF had claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack on the American Centre in Kolkata in 2002 while he was charged with the task of organizing the outfit in Bangladesh.

Police had said on July 17 that they have arrested Obaidullah after one and a half months of manhunt while he was hiding in Bangladesh for the past 14 years.

Pakistan President Zardari admits terrorism nurtured by govt for tactical use

In an astonishingly candid admission - a first by any Pakistani head of state - president Asif Ali Zardari has admitted militants and terrorists were wilfully created by past Pakistani governments and nurtured as a policy to achieve tactical objectives.

``Militants and extremists emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralized but because they were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve short-term tactical objectives. Let's be truthful and make a candid admission of the reality,'' he said at a gathering of civil servants in Islamabad on Tuesday night.

``The terrorists of today were heroes of yesteryear until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well,'' Zardari said, emphasising that Pakistan can't be left alone at this stage of the war on terror. He also pointedly said that the future generations won't forgive the current leadership if it does not take corrective measures.

India has long charged Pakistan with sponsoring terrorism in Kashmir by providing arms, ammunition and training to the militants who have been engaged in a war of secession. Zardari's admission is bound to create a major flutter in Islamabad, particularly within the Army, which has historically been the author of Pakistan's India policy.

``Pakistan is a frontline state in the war against terror and we have pledged to eliminate this scourge. I have taken charge of the country at a difficult time and will meet the challenges facing the country,'' he said.

Criticising former military rulers of Pakistan - in itself an act of derring-do - Zardari said concentration of power in one individual was against the spirit of democracy and good governance; power must be dispersed. ``Too much power in one hand lasts for a short time,'' he said. ``For power to be effectively used for long lasting public good, it must be dispersed as widely as possible,'' he added.

These admissions come days after Zardari, in an article in an American daily, accused the US of fomenting militancy in Pakistan.

``The West stood by as a democratically elected (Pakistani) government was toppled by a military dictatorship in the late '70s. Because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the West used my nation as a blunt instrument of the Cold War. It empowered a Gen. Zia dictatorship that brutalized its people, decimated our political parties, murdered the prime minister who had founded Pakistan's largest political party, and destroyed the press and civil society,'' Zardari wrote in the Washington Post.

``Once the Soviets were defeated, the Americans took the next bus out of town, leaving behind a political vacuum that ultimately led to the Talibanization and radicalization of Afghanistan, the birth of Al-Qaeda and the current jihadi insurrection in Pakistan.''

``The heroin mafia, which arose as a consequence of the efforts to implode the Soviet Union, now takes in $5 billion a year, twice the budget of our Army and police. This is the price Pakistan continues to pay,'' wrote Zardari in the article, `The Frontier Against Terrorism'.

It wasn't evident whether Zardari was referring to the Taliban or terrorists operating in Jammu and Kashmir. The Pakistan Army is currently engaged in a debilitating war with the Taliban in the Swat Valley. Of late, it has shifted focus to the militants operating in the South Waziristan in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the border with Afghanistan.

Zardari further said dialogue was the chief ``weapon'' his government would deploy for national reconciliation. ``We intend to keep all political forces together in a harmonious relationship as we can't afford political games and confrontational politics,'' he said.

Responding to suggestions by former civil servants, he said he was taking several measures to improve governance, tackle militancy and extremism, apart from strengthening institutions and devolving power.

Is Pakistan Terrorist Group Lashkar E Toiba the New Al-Qaida?

The evidence is tumbling out of the closet: Pakistan's creation Lashkar-e-Taiba is not merely allied to al-Qaida but can now be described as the new al-Qaida. With the UN Security Council listing LeT leaders Arif Qasmani, Mohammad Yahya Mujahid and Abu Mohammed Ameen al-Peshawari as terrorists allied to al-Qaida, yet another veil is being ripped off Pakistan's terror claims.

The three, banned under a UN Security Council resolution adopted on June 29, are not mere footsoldiers of the Lashkar. In fact, the resolution brings out their importance for LeT and al-Qaida.

It says, ``Arif Qasmani has worked with LeT to facilitate terrorist attacks, to include the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai, India, and the February 2007, Samjhauta Express bombing in Panipat, India. Qasmani utilized money that he received from Dawood Ibrahim to facilitate the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai, India.''

The resolution added, ``Mohammed Yahya Mujahid is head of LeT's media department. In that capacity, Mujahid has issued statements to the press on behalf of LeT on numerous occasions. Fazeel-a-Tul Shaykh Abu Mohammed Ameen al-Peshawari, leader of the Ganj Madrassah in Peshawar, Pakistan, was providing assistance to the al-Qaida network.''

The dangerous part in all of this is that while the US and Pakistani armies are targeting the Taliban, the ISI continues to shelter the Lashkar, a greater threat to India and the world.

It is openly acknowledged in counter-terrorism circles that the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai were masterminded by the ISI and executed with commando precision by the LeT. Increasingly, the LeT is emerging as more than a mere Pakistani terror outfit. It's now revealed to have strong connections with al-Qaida and globally on par with it.

LeT's primary target continues to be India, with the aim of weakening it and establishing a caliphate here. It is for this mission that LeT receives the bulk of its funding from the ISI and is so close to the Pakistan army that some of its retired officers are the chief combat trainers for the LeT, which has, in turn, been training Taliban-Qaida fighters.

Over the years, al-Qaida has found great use for the extensive network of LeT — its charitable arm, JuD, is an effective front for its terror activities. Several years ago, ISI brought the LeT and Dawood's organized crime network together — thus bringing about a marriage of interests.

Recently, Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer who is in charge of Obama's Af-Pak strategy review, was quoted as saying, ``I think we have to regard the LeT as much a threat to us as any other part of the al-Qaida system.''

While LeT and al-Qaida are yet to launch joint operations, there is ample evidence of the two entitites marching together on the jihad highway. Security expert B Raman says al-Qaida is finding Arab recruitment for jihad more difficult, and has come to rely on LeT's extensive network of Pakistan diaspora jihadis, who are being trained and sent off on missions or as sleeper cells.

In 2006, national security adviser M K Narayanan described LeT as part of the "al-Qaida compact", and "as big and omnipotent" as the former. "The Lashkar today has emerged as a very major force. It has connectivity with west Asia, Europe... It is as big as and omnipotent as al-Qaida in every sense of the term," he said.

After the Mumbai attacks, David Kilcullen, US counter-insurgency expert, told a panel that counter-terror officials in Europe had found CDs of al-Qaida's recent urban warfare tactics that matched those used in Mumbai.

A significant number of Qaida leaders like Abu Zubaydah have been found from LeT safe-houses, while reports say over six Guantanamo bay detainees were LeT operatives or trained in LeT camps. Top intelligence officials in India say that their information shows LeT and al-Qaida share "cadres, ammunition and funds."

According to the South Asia Terrorism portal, LeT has an extensive network that run across Pakistan and India with branches in Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Bangladesh and South East Asia. It gets donations from Pakistanis in Gulf, UK, Islamic NGOs and Pakistani businessmen. But main source of funds is ISI and Saudi Arabia. It maintains ties to groups in Philippines, Middle East and Chechnya, been part of the Bosnian campaign against Serbs, set up sleeper cells in Australia and US and been active in Iraq. It even has a unit in Germany.

Farhana Ali, terrorism analyst with RAND Corporation, said in a post-Mumbai discussion, "The internationalisation of LeT has made it a potent force, capable with its capabilities but also in its membership. In this way LeT is far greater in power than al-Qaida."

Selig Harrison, author of `Pakistan: State of the Union', points to a more dangerous threat from the LET. "Disarming LeT should be the top US priority in Pakistan because it would greatly reduce the possibility of a coup by Islamist sympathisers in the armed forces. The closet Islamists in the Army and the powerful ISI are not likely to risk a coup in Islamabad unless they can count on armed support from Lashkar-e-Taiba and its allies to help them consolidate their grip on the countryside."