LeT role in 26/11 confirmed, India asks Pak to act

Pakistan has finally admitted the Lashkar-e-Toiba was behind the Mumbai terror attacks.

Even though there is no official confirmation but Pakistani Prime Ministers Office has told CNN-IBN that Lashkar-e-Toiba planned and executed 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

However, New Delhi is cautious about the admission with sources in the Ministry of External Affairs saying that India is looking for more tangible action.

The sources in Pakistani PMO said that two Lashkar operatives Zaik-ur Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah have confessed to planning and executing Mumbai attacks.

Lakhvi and Shah had been picked up from a Lashkar camp near Muzaffarabad early in December. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani admitted that both Lakhvi and Shah had been detained but denied it subsequently.

Now a Wall Street Journal report quotes Pakistani security officials as saying that Shah, who heads the technology wing of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, has confessed to being one of the key planners of the 26/11 attacks.

He reportedly admitted to advising and directing the terrorists in Mumbai.

The confessions were backed by US intercepts of a phone call between Shah and one of the terrorists at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai

Earlier Pakistan's National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani hinted at the possibility of a Pakistani role to the Mumbai attacks.

"Could be…could be. I am not saying more than that because we don't have... I hate to say this we don't have proof," Durrani told CNN-IBN on Tuesday.

Now the Indian Government says there is enough evidence for Pakistan to act upon.

"What more evidence does Pakistan require than the statement of the captured terrorist and his father," Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said.

Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma said, "Under the international law it is the obligation of the State of Pakistan to take action after individuals have been named. There is overwhelming evidence. We hope that the pressure of international committee will continue."

India will prefer to wait for a formal official word from Islamabad on Lakhvi and Shah. Until then it will continue to leverage diplomatic pressures on Pakistan.

Lashkar has Docs, Engineers as recruits: report

The Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which is blamed for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, is now attracting "more young, educated men, some of whom even hold advanced degrees," a US daily reported on Thursday.

"The profile of those joining the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba is changing," the Washington Times said citing Brig. Gen. Mahmood Shah, who served the Pakistani Army in the largely ungoverned tribal areas along Pakistan's porous border with Afghanistan.

"The big change is that until a few years back most of the militants were hailing from the [Afghan] frontier, but now the scenario has changed and young men from all over Pakistan are joining," Shah was quoted as saying in a report from Lahore.

A ripe breeding ground for the new militants is southern Punjab, he told the Washington Times. Since the school system in Punjab is better than in the tribal areas, most of the new entrants to militant groups are better educated, Shah said.

The only Mumbai attacker captured, Muhammed Amir Ajmal alias Kasab, had completed only the fourth grade, according to Indian and Pakistani press reports. But in a recent interview, a Kashmir-based LeT commander told the Times that members of the group include young men with master's degrees in business administration and bachelor's degrees in computer science.

The militant commander, who goes by the name Abu Aqasa, spoke by cell phone from Lahore and answered other questions in writing, the Times said.

"We have doctors and engineers and computer specialists working for us," he said. "These people don't necessarily fight wars with us. They mainly help us spread our message in cities and villages and also help us in our dispensaries, hospitals and other charitable works."

Abu Aqasa was quoted as saying the organisation uses educated people and especially those with good communications skills to recruit supporters in religious congregations. Once a young man has embraced the militants' ideology, he is inducted into the organisation and sent for further training.

An organiser for a Lahore-based religious organisation told the Times dire economic conditions are the main reason young, educated people are being attracted to militancy in Pakistan.

"People can't find jobs and have nothing to eat," said the man, who asked not to be identified to avoid attracting attention from the police.

"Families find it attractive that if one person is sent for jihad, then that means one less mouth to feed in their house."

Hundreds of thousands have joined the group in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and that while they have been affected by a government crackdown following the attacks in Mumbai, they are still going strong, he was quoted as saying.

Kashif Alam, senior superintendent of police in Peshawar, told the Times the profile of the average militant in that northwest Pakistani city near the border with Afghanistan has changed but that the number of educated Pakistanis was actually decreasing.

"We're seeing an increase in the number of criminals who are working for these militant organisations," he was quoted as saying. "More and more of their operations are being carried out by criminals. Some of the people we have captured were found with thousands of rupees in their pockets."

However, profiles of two would-be suicide bombers captured in the tribal areas and shown to the press contradicted Alam's views, the Times said.

Ali Raza, who surrendered to the police in November, was in his final year studying mass communications. In Dera Ismail Khan, a young man wearing a jacket loaded with explosives was intercepted inside a mosque. He was later found to have completed his high school matriculation.

800 militants, including 300 foreigners still operating in J&K

Despite significant improvement in the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir, at least 800 militants, including 300 foreigners, are still operating in the state, a top police official said.

"According to information from various agencies working on the ground, the number of Pakistani militants operating in the state is around 800, including 300 foreigners," Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police Kuldeep Khoda told reporters in Srinagar.

Khoda said the security situation in the state has improved this year significantly as the number of militancy-related incidents has come down considerably.

"The militancy-related incidents have for the first time come below 1,000 and in fact less than 700 such incidents took place during the current year," he said.

Khoda said there has been a 40 per cent drop in militancy-related incidents this year as compared to 2007.

"Even the number of civilians killed in such incidents has come down from 164 in 2007 to 89 this year. It is for the first time that the civilian casualties have come down to double digits whereas in 1996, 1,413 civilians lost their lives in one year alone," he said.

The DGP said security forces achieved commendable success against terrorists during the ongoing year, eliminating 102 self-styled commanders.

Three Jaish terrorists nabbed in Jammu Proves Pakistan Army Is a Terrorist Army

Three terrorists of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) have been arrested in Jammu. One of them is a Pakistani army regular, police said on Tuesday.

"Three terrorists of the Jaish-e-Mohammad went from Karachi to Dhaka and to Kolkata and from there they came to Jammu. On specific information, we arrested them from hotel Samrat in Jammu on Sunday," state Director General of Police Kuldeep Khuda said at a press conference here.
"One of the three has been identified as Ghulam Farid alias Gulshan Kumar, a sepoy in 10 Azad Kashmir regiment of Pakistan Army. His service number is 4319184," Khuda said.

The police officer said that Farid joined Pakistan Army in 2001 and was detailed for terrorist activities in 2005. He was arrested along with other terrorists, namely Mohammad Abdullah belonging to Harpur in North West Frontier Province and Mohammed Imran, who hails from Dera Nawab in Bawalpur.
"These three had come to Jammu and they were to meet a guide, who was to come from the Kashmir Valley to Jammu and provide them weapons for specific targetting, which would be known after interrogation," Khuda said.
He added that preliminary interrogations have revealed they have received specialised training in suicide attacks and driving exlposive-laden vehicles.

Kasab belongs to Pakistan, says Sharif, also slams Zardari

Challenging Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari's assertion that there was no proof that the arrested Mumbai attacker hailed from Pakistan's Punjab province, former premier Nawaz Sharif has said that the suspect's village was cordoned off and his parents were not allowed to meet anyone.

"I have checked myself. His (Ajmal Amir Iman alias Ajmal Kasab) house and village has been cordoned off by the security agencies. His parents are not allowed to meet anybody. I don't understand why it has been done," Sharif, who hails from Punjab, said in an interview to Geo News channel.

"The people and media should be allowed to meet Iman's parents so that the truth could come out in the open," he said, adding that "We need some kind of introspection."

Zardari, who earlier acknowledged that the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage could be 'non-state' actors from Pakistan, has now said there is still no "real evidence" that the terrorists who attacked Mumbai came from Pakistan.

"Have you seen any evidence to that effect? I have definitely not seen any real evidence to that effect," Zardari told BBC in an interview this week.

Pakistani security agencies and local officials in Faridkot have launched a cover-up since India made it public that Kasab belonged to the village in Punjab province and his father acknowledged to a Pakistani newspaper, that the gunman captured in India was his son.

Sharif also slammed Zardari's rule, saying the functioning of the current Pakistan People's Party-led government is making Pakistan look like a "failed state". ( Watch )

Pakistan presents the picture of a failed and ungovernable state due to the absence of the government's writ and the country urgently needs a new roadmap to pull it out of the problems it is currently facing, he said.

The PML-N chief said the dictatorial rule of former President Pervez Musharraf had made the country ungovernable.

"Since 1977, the army has ruled the country for more than 20 years... A state subjected to frequent military intervention in politics can only become ungovernable."

He said India should have shared intelligence about the Mumbai attacks with Pakistan instead of approaching the UN Security Council.

Sharif also criticised what he described as the government's "clarifications" regarding the purported violation of Pakistani airspace by Indian fighter jets.

Noting that Pakistan was getting isolated in the international community, Sharif said there is a need to find the root causes of terrorism. He also condemned Zardari's reported statement that US drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal areas would continue.

The government should make it clear to the US that such attacks went against the country's integrity and would not be tolerated, he said.

Though the PPP-led government had been in power for ten months, there was little hope of any improvement in the affairs of the state, Sharif said, adding that it was up to the nation to decide whether to make Pakistan a failed state or a successful state.

Sharif said the PML-N wanted an independent judiciary and the repeal of the 17th constitutional amendment, which gives the President sweeping powers, including the ability to dissolve parliament and to dismiss the Prime Minister.

The PML-N will pressure the government to implement the Charter of Democracy, which according to him, was the "will" of slain PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto. Sharif and Bhutto signed the Charter in 2006 when they launched a joint movement against Musharraf while they were both in exile.

The Charter envisages wide-ranging reforms, including the scrapping of the President's powers, making the judiciary independent and clipping the powers of the military.

Why Was Pakistan Army Major-General Faisal Alavi Killed?

Is Pakistan Supporting AlQaida Taliban & Terrorist Organizations : The brother-in-law of VS Naipaul, the British novelist and Nobel laureate, was murdered last month after threatening to expose Pakistani army generals who had made deals with Taliban militants.

Major-General Faisal Alavi, a former head of Pakistan’s special forces, whose sister Nadira is Lady Naipaul, named two generals in a letter to the head of the army. He warned that he would “furnish all relevant proof”.

Aware that he was risking his life, he gave a copy to me and asked me to publish it if he was killed. Soon afterwards he told me that he had received no reply.

“It hasn’t worked,” he said. “They’ll shoot me.”

Four days later, he was driving through Islamabad when his car was halted by another vehicle. At least two gunmen opened fire from either side, shooting him eight times. His driver was also killed.

This weekend, as demands grew for a full investigation into Alavi’s murder on November 18, Lady Naipaul described her brother as “a soldier to his toes”. She said: “He was an honourable man and the world was a better place when he was in it.”

It was in Talkingfish, his favourite Islamabad restaurant, that the general handed me his letter two months ago. “Read this,” he said.

Alavi had been his usual flamboyant self until that moment, smoking half a dozen cigarettes as he rattled off jokes and gossip and fielded calls on two mobile phones.

Three years earlier this feted general, who was highly regarded by the SAS, had been mysteriously sacked as head of its Pakistani equivalent, the Special Services Group, for “conduct unbecoming”. The letter, addressed to General Ashfaq Kayani, the chief of army staff, was a final attempt to have his honour restored.

Alavi believed he had been forced out because he was openly critical of deals that senior generals had done with the Taliban. He disparaged them for their failure to fight the war on terror wholeheartedly and for allowing Taliban forces based in Pakistan to operate with impunity against British and other Nato troops across the border in Afghanistan.

Alavi, who had dual British and Pakistani nationality, named the generals he accused. He told Kayani that the men had cooked up a “mischievous and deceitful plot” to have him sacked because they knew he would expose them.

“The entire purpose of this plot by these general officers was to hide their own involvement in a matter they knew I was privy to,” he wrote. He wanted an inquiry, at which “I will furnish all relevant proof/ information, which is readily available with me”.

I folded up the letter and handed it back to him. “Don’t send it,” I said. He replied that he had known I would talk him out of it so he had sent it already. “But”, he added, “I want you to keep this and publish it if anything happens to me.”

I told him he was a fool to have sent the letter: it would force his enemies into a corner. He said he had to act and could not leave it any longer: “I want justice. And I want my honour restored. And you know what? I [don’t] give a damn what they do to me now. They did their worst three years ago.”

We agreed soon afterwards that it would be prudent for him to avoid mountain roads and driving late at night. He knew the letter might prove to be his death warrant.

Four days after I last saw him, I was in South Waziristan, a region bordering Afghanistan, to see a unit from the Punjab Regiment. It was early evening when I returned to divisional headquarters and switched on the television. It took me a moment to absorb the horror of the breaking news running across the screen: “Retired Major General Faisal Alavi and driver shot dead on way to work.”

The reports blamed militants, although the gunmen used 9mm pistols, a standard army issue, and the killings were far more clinical than a normal militant attack.

The scene at the army graveyard in Rawalpindi a few days after that was grim. Soldiers had come from all over the country to bury the general with military honours. Their grief was palpable. Wreaths were laid on behalf of Kayani and most of the country’s military leadership.

Friends and family members were taken aback to be told by serving and retired officers alike that “this was not the militants; this was the army”. A great many people believed the general had been murdered to shut him up.

I first met Alavi in April 2005 at the Pakistan special forces’ mountain home at Cherat, in the North West Frontier Province, while working on a book about the Pakistani army.

He told me he had been born British in Kenya, and that his older brother had fought against the Mau Mau. His affection for Britain was touching and his patriotism striking.

In August 2005 he was visiting Hereford, the home of the SAS, keen to revive the SSG’s relationship with British special forces and deeply unhappy about the way some elements of Pakistan’s army were behaving.

He told me how one general had done an astonishing deal with Baitullah Mehsud, the 35-year-old Taliban leader, now seen by many analysts as an even greater terrorist threat than Osama Bin Laden.

Mehsud, the main suspect in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto late last year, is also believed to have been behind a plot to bomb transport networks in several European countries including Britain, which came to light earlier this year when 14 alleged conspirators were arrested in Barcelona.

Yet, according to Alavi, a senior Pakistani general came to an arrangement with Mehsud “whereby – in return for a large sum of money – Mehsud’s 3,000 armed fighters would not attack the army”.

The two senior generals named in Alavi’s letter to Kayani were in effect complicit in giving the militants free rein in return for refraining from attacks on the Pakistani army, he said. At Hereford, Alavi was brutally frank about the situation, said the commanding officer of the SAS at that time.

“Alavi was a straight-talking soldier and some pretty robust conversations took place in the mess,” he said. “He wanted kit, skills and training from the UK. But he was asked, pretty bluntly, why the Pakistani army should be given all this help if nothing came of it in terms of getting the Al-Qaeda leadership.”

Alavi’s response was typically candid, the SAS commander said: “He knew that Pakistan was not pulling its weight in the war on terror.”

It seemed to Alavi that, with the SAS on his side, he might win the battle, but he was about to lose everything. His enemies were weaving a Byzantine plot, using an affair with a divorced Pakistani woman to discredit him.

Challenged on the issue, Alavi made a remark considered disrespectful to General Pervez Musharraf, then the president. His enemies playeda recording of it to Musharraf and Alavi was instantly sacked.

His efforts to clear his name began with a request that he be awarded the Crescent of Excellence, a medal he would have been given had he not been dismissed. Only after this was denied did he write the letter that appears to many to have sealed his fate.

It was an action that the SAS chief understands: “Every soldier, in the moment before death, craves to be recognised. It seems reasonable to me that he staked everything on his honour. The idea that it is better to be dead than dishonoured does run deep in soldiers.”

Alavi’s loyalty to Musharraf never faltered. Until his dying day he wanted his old boss to understand that. He also trusted Kayani implicitly, believing him to be a straight and honourable officer.

If investigations eventually prove that Alavi was murdered at the behest of those he feared within the military, it may prove a fatal blow to the integrity of the army he loved.

Britain and the United States need to know where Pakistan stands. Will its army and intelligence agencies ever be dependable partners in the war against men such as Mehsud?

James Arbuthnot, chairman of the defence select committee, and Lord Guthrie, former chief of the defence staff, were among those who expressed support this weekend for British help to be offered in the murder investigation.

Will Pak Really cooperate on Terror? Answer Is No

'Non-state actors' call the shots in Pakistan :

Pakistani Army General The Biggest Terrorist>>>>>>>>>>>>

The rather clumsy attempts by Pakistani security agencies to cover up the origins and links of the terrorists responsible for the Mumbai carnage are a clear sign of the lack of sincerity and seriousness with which Pakistan will crack down on the terror networks operating in that country. Demands by Pakistani authorities for sharing evidence, while legally and diplomatically correct, are little more than a diversionary tactic. Within hours of the Mumbai attack the dirty tricks department of Pakistani intelligence agencies would have got a fix on the perpetrators of the attack and have all the information needed to prosecute and punish those responsible for the outrage. And yet it took a UN ban for Pakistan to crack down on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, and that too very softly, almost apologetically.

Pakistanis are being disingenuous when they compare Mumbai with Marriott. The Islamists who blasted the Marriott hotel are waging an al Qaeda/Taliban-inspired war on Pakistan. The Mumbai attackers, on the other hand, belong to an Islamist organisation that has been and remains a close ally and instrument of the Pakistan army against India. But more than the fraternal links between the Pakistan army and jihadist militias, it is the changed power equation between the state and non-state actors in Pakistan that will block all attempts to dismantle and destroy the jihadist infrastructure. The Pakistani state has neither the capacity nor the capability, and even less the commitment, to eradicate the non-state terror machine thriving in that country.

The real state within the state in Pakistan is not the ISI or the 'ISI within the ISI' but the jihadist network in Pakistan's hinterland, Punjab. The so-called non-state actors, with the help of elements within the state structure, are today as powerful and influential as the Pakistani state. So much so that anything more than a cosmetic clampdown on the jihadists will invite a reaction so severe that the state might not be able to withstand it. So, in all likelihood, the formal government in Pakistan will probably request the informal government to lie low and let the storm pass before the latter can re-emerge in a new incarnation. The charade will finally end when the non-state actors become the state.

Even though Pakistan is under intense pressure, the seriousness of Pakistan's political leaders to tackle terrorism is still not evident. While Pakistan is faced with difficult choices, the political will is clearly missing. There are fundamental reasons to believe that the cooperation is more likely to be posturing in the hope that the pressures will fizzle out over a period of time.

Whatever action Pakistan has taken so far, it has also made it clear that this action is not due to the pressures from India. No government in Pakistan can be seen to be succumbing to its traditional rival. To what extent Pakistan is going to cooperate, will also be dependent on what the expectations of the international community are. If it is to clamp down on some terrorist groups, there can be the pretence of doing that. If it is to hand over a few terrorists and fugitives, they might also agree to that. But if it is to permanently dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has demanded, then it cannot be. For, unfortunately the Pakistani ruling elite, including the army, is in no position to do that.

The foundations of the terrorist infrastructure are so deep-rooted that it would require years of political and social engineering to make a dent on it. A political culture of violence, spawned by an intolerant interpretation of Islam and a distorted view of history, lies at the foundation of this terrorist infrastructure. Opportunistic use of religion and politics by successive governments and political groups has created a state that is no longer in control of society. The "non-state actors", which the Pakistani establishment created to pursue its strategic objectives in Afghanistan and India, have gained their own dynamism and autonomy. It will be impossible to excise them without Pakistan itself undergoing serious destabilisation.

But Pakistan is also vulnerable; it can be made to act under pressure. To make Pakistan cooperate in the fight against terrorism, whether through persuasion or coercion, is going to be a long haul. It has to be seen whether India has a creative strategy and the resilience to carry it through.

Is Pak crackdown on Jamaat an eyewash?

Deception Game Of Pakistan
Just days after launching a crackdown on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) after the UN banned it, Pakistani authorities have released four detained workers and removed police guards deployed at the home of a senior leader of the organisation. It has also been learnt that the main complex JuD is still open, casting a fair amount of doubt that Pakistan is not sincere about cracking down on the terrorists and that the clampdown is merely a hogwash.

Authorities in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir released the four detained workers of the Lashkar-e-Taiba's front organisation and also withdrew police guards posted at the home of the group's regional head, Maulana Abdul Aziz Alvi.

Chaudhry Imtiaz, the Deputy Commissioner of PoK capital Muzaffarabad, told the Dawn newspaper that police guards had been removed from Alvi's residence but he had been asked not to leave the area without informing the administration. Alvi, who heads the PoK chapter of the Jamaat, was put under house arrest in his Karyan village on Thursday.

"He had been placed under house arrest for security reasons. He is still under surveillance and cannot leave the station without prior intimation to the authorities concerned," Imtiaz said.

He said four people taken into custody from a workshop run by the JuD in Muzaffarabad had been released because they were "merely mechanics". Imtiaz said there were no instructions from the federal government to detain the "regional or second-line leadership" of the JuD.

Meanwhile, the Times, London, reported on its website on Monday that the main complex of JuD in Muridke is still open after the UN Security Council placed the group on a terrorist list.

Pakistan claims that it ordered the closure of JuD's facilities on Thursday under pressure from India and the United States. But when the Times visited the complex in Muridke, 30 miles from the eastern city of Lahore, over the weekend it was functioning normally with no sign of any police presence.

Most of the 1,600 students at the complex were away for Eid holidays
, but a dozen or so staff and about 40 others were moving freely around the buildings, none of which was sealed. Mohammed Abbas, 34, also known as Abu Ahsan, the administrator of the complex, said: "We've not had any official communication about closing. A lot of parents have been calling, afraid that it will be closed or there could be some violence, but we are telling them to send their children back."

The half-hearted raid is certain to feed scepticism about Pakistan's supposed crackdown on the movement, which is led by Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the founder of LeT.

Pak scientists offered bin Laden N-weapons before 9/11: Book

Paksitan A Rogue Nation & Nuclear Proliferator

Barely a month before the 9/11 terror attacks, two Pakistani nuclear scientists, said to be close to disgraced Abdul Qadeer Khan, met up with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and offered to supply him with atomic weapons, according to a newly released book.

Chaudiri Abdul Majeed and Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who held a series of senior posts in Pakistani nuke programme, went to Taliban headquarters in Kandahar in mid-August 2001 and spent three days with bin Laden who was keen on acquiring weapons of mass destruction, the book says.

In fact, Mahmood was said to be more close to Khan, the Father of the Islamic bomb' and the mastermind behind a vast clandestine enterprise which sold nuclear secrets to rogue states like Iran, North Korea and Libya. He also set up the pilot plant for Pakistan's uranium-enrichment programme.

However, the so-called deal did not materialise as the meeting between the Pakistani nuclear scientists and bin Laden ended inconclusively when the al-Qaeda leader, along with some of his senior associates, had abruptly left for the mountains of northwestern Afghanistan.

And, according to the book, The Man From Pakistan -- the true story of the world's most dangerous nuclear smuggler AQ Khan -- before leaving, bin Laden had told his followers that "something great was going to happen, and Muslims around the world were going to join them in the holy war". A couple of weeks later, the twin towers in New York were brought down.

The 414-page book is authored by two investigative journalists -- Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins.

A Pep talk from Lashkar chief

Pakistani Terrorists >>>>

Four days prior to the terror attack, Lashkar-e-Tayyeba commander Zaki-ur -Rehman Lakhvi gave a final pep talk to the group of 10 terrorists in Karachi, before bidding them adieu on their Mumbai mission.

“My brave soldiers. With sanity in conscience and enlightened souls, you have endured enough penance for the ultimate goal. The time has come. Henceforth, you all are fidayeen for the greater cause…” These were the last few words Lakhvi reportedly uttered to the group of 10.

Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terror suspect captured alive, is learnt to have told his interrogators that Lakhvi, presently under arrest by the Pakistani government, had given them (10 of them) the final lesson on ‘Shahdat’ (martyrdom in a religious war) in Karachi on November 22.

Kasab reportedly said that the group had been taken to a “small house” where the sermon was delivered.

“He then embraced each one of us, and repeatedly asked us to be prepared for the fidayeen (suicide) mission,” Kasab reportedly told the interrogators, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He said after Lakhvi’s sermon, they were led to a ship, Al Hussaini, at the Karachi port before they set sail for their Mumbai mission.

Kasab and the rest nine members of his team, had undergone intensive and isolated training at a place called Azizabad near Karachi for three and half months before the mission.

During the three-month stint, they were virtually cut off from the rest of the world.

While top Lashkar commander Abu Hamza had given them training in maritime operations, handling advanced weapons and explosives. Another Lashkar commander, identified as Khafa, had used PowerPoint presentations to give the group minute details of the terror operation by showing them photographs of the targeted sites in Mumbai.

Lakhvi was also a trainer in the camp while Jamat-ud-Dawa chief, Hafiz Saeed, had given motivational speeches to the group, a police officer said.

As part of the training, the group would be woken up at 2.30 am and made to recite religious verses till morning before saying the morning prayer. The physical training (commando training) would begin after daybreak, Ajmal had told his interrogators.

Islamic Terror Attack on Mumbai - Russian Expert Says Pakistan is pure Evil Islamic Terror State

Paksitan Goverment Sponsor Of Terrorism In India with The Help Of Paksitan Army LET & ISI

'Terrorist camps exist in PoK, Pakistan'

Mudasir Gujri, a top commander of the Lashker-e-Tayiba, arrested by Jammu and Kashmir Police, has confirmed that Pakistani Goverment Agencies were training terrorists in camps across the border.

Mudasir, the mastermind behind the series of blasts in Srinagar Jammu and fidayeen attack on Congress rally in April, May and July this year, has confessed to the presence of a number of training camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, state Director General of Police Gopal Sharma told reporters in Srinagar on Saturday.

He said Mudasir has revealed certain details about the LeT and the direct hand of the Pakistani agencies in training terrorists and organising subversive activities in Kashmir.

Asked if Mudasir had said anything about the Mumbai blasts, the police chief replied in the negative.

Sharma said one Abu Alqama, based in Pakistan, was controlling all terrorist operations in the Jammu and Kashmir. According to Mudasir, it was Abu Alqama who had directed him to target tourists and Amarnath pilgrims.

The Jammu and Kashmir police chief said Lashkar-e-Tayiba had a separate operational chief for other Indian states. "We had information that one Jehangir was heading the operations in other Indian states," he said.

He said Mudasir, who carries several aliases to his name, a resident of Tillar in Kishtwar area of Doda district in Jammu region, was a Pakistani national. Mudasir was motivated by one Abu Osama of Pakistan in 1999 to join the LeT and was taken to Pakistan via Hill Kaka [Images] in Poonch.

After spending four years there in different training camps, including Ibn Tamiya and Abdullah Bin Masood at Kotli in PoK, he received religious indoctrination at Markaz Tayiba at Mureed-ke in Lahore where he met top LeT leaders including Abu Abdullah Gazi, Abu Usama and several Inter Services Intelligence trainers before being finally pushed back here in August 2004 via Athmuqam.

Sharma said Mudasir was coordinating and organising attacks in the Kashmir valley, particularly in Srinagar city. He was behind the grenade attacks on Border Security Force and Central Reserve Police Force bunkers in the valley.

Sharma said Mudasir, a resident of Tilar, Kishtwar, in Doda district of Jammu region has admitted his involvement in the militancy-related incidents. It was he who distributed grenades among the militants for carrying out a series of grenade attacks in the city on April 14 and July 11 in which more than a dozen persons, mostly tourists from Kolkata, were killed and scores injured.

The police chief said Mudasir also masterminded the Fidayeen attack on a Congress rally here on May 21 in which seven police personnel were killed and Inspector General of Police K Rajinder Kumar was injured.

He said following the assault on chairman of the breakaway Hurriyat Conference in Jammu by Shiv Sena activists, Abu Alqame directed Mudasir to take revenge. However, on the direction of Abu, Mudasir sent three terrorists -- Master Bilal, Riyaz Babu and Wasim, a resident of Srinagar -- to Jammu next morning.

Sharma said Mudasir and three terrorists, since arrested, reached Jammu at 0230 hours and after hurling grenades near a bus stand returned back to Srinagar. He said Mudasir was responsible for other various grenade attacks, shootings and killings at Sopore, Srinagar and other parts of the valley.

Kasab in his own words: I am Pakistani and a terrorist

Pakistan wanted proof and now it is there in the killer's own words and in his own hand. Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone captured terrorist in Terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab

Mumbai, has written a three-page letter to the Pakistani High Commission, stating that as a citizen he was entitled to seek legal help from his own country to fight his case in Indian courts. ( Watch )

The document not only finally settles the debate about the origins of Kasab and his fellow terrorists is a major embarrassment for Islamabad which has dithered about accepting that the Mumbai attack was launched from Pakistani soil.

Perhaps, what's worse for the detractors in Islamabad is a confession contained in the letter written in Urdu. "Mein sabse bara gunehgar hoon, kitne bekasoor logon ki jaan li hain, Khuda mujhe maaf karein (I am the biggest sinner, I have killed so many innocent people, may God forgive me),'' the terrorist wrote in a repentant tone.

"Sabse bara gunehgar to mein mere maa-baap ka hoon... unke dil ko thes pahunchaya hain (My biggest crime is against my parents... I have given them immense pain).''

Kasab has also requested the Pakistani high commission to at least bury Ismail Khan's body in Pakistan. It was Khan's last wish, the letter added. Khan was the terrorist who accompanied Kasab as they spread terror from CST to Girgaum Chowpatty."Uski aakhri khwaiash thi ke marne ke baad usko Pakistan mein dafnaya jaye (His last wish was that he be buried in Pakistan after his death),'' Kasab wrote.

"We have forwarded the letter to the Union home department which, in turn, will be sending it to the Pakistani high commission in New Delhi,'' joint commissioner of police (crime) Rakesh Maria said.

The letter contains details of his nine colleagues (and himself) Pakistan may now find difficult to ignore. Additional commissioner of police Deven Bharti said the letter had minute details of each of his nine colleagues killed on 26/11. It mentions not only their addresses but also names their handlers, including four important Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives: Hafeez Saeed, Zakir-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, Kahafa and Abu Hamza.

Kasab claims he had lost his head in the swirl of the jihad brainwashing by LeT and ISI operatives.

"Bahak gaya tha mein, Lashkar ke darindon ne mukhe phansa diya (I was misled, Lashkar's devils ensnared me),'' he said.

"Pure Pakistan ko badnaam kiya hai, Khuda mujhe maaf karein (I have tarnished Pakistan's image, may God forgive me).''

The letter also mentions that they were allowed a week's leave after they had completed their arms training some time in September. "They were told they could go anywhere they wanted to and Kasab, who left home two years before that, went to his village and met his old parents. He also took their blessings, saying he was going for jihad,'' Maria said.

The State Forensic Science Laboratory has sent a report of the two taxi blasts in Vile Parle and Wadi Bunder, confirming the use of RDX and petroleum oil in the two bombs. The composition of explosives was prima facie similar to those used in the 1993 serial blasts, Maria said.

Terrorist Sponsors: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China

The United States has assembled a superficially impressive international coalition against the threat of terrorism. Many countries in that coalition, however, contribute little of significance to the fight. Even worse, the willingness of some members of the coalition to actually combat terrorism is doubtful. Indeed, given their record, some of those countries appear to be part of the problem, not part of the solution. That concern is especially acute with respect to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and China.

Saudi Arabia enlisted in the fight against terrorism only in response to intense pressure from the United States following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Even then, its cooperation has been minimal and grudging. For example, Riyadh has resisted Washington's requests to use its bases in Saudi Arabia for military operations against Osama bin Laden's terrorist facilities in Afghanistan.

Even that belated, tepid participation is an improvement on Saudi Arabia's previous conduct. The U.S. government has warned that it will treat regimes that harbor or assist terrorist organizations the same way that it treats the organizations themselves. Yet if Washington is serious about that policy, it ought to regard Saudi Arabia as a prime sponsor of international terrorism. Indeed, that country should have been included for years on the U.S. State Department's annual list of governments guilty of sponsoring terrorism.

The Saudi government has been the principal financial backer of Afghanistan' s odious Taliban movement since at least 1996. It has also channeled funds to Hamas and other groups that have committed terrorist acts in Israel and other portions of the Middle East.

Worst of all, the Saudi monarchy has funded dubious schools and "charities" throughout the Islamic world. Those organizations have been hotbeds of anti-Western, and especially, anti-American, indoctrination. The schools, for example, not only indoctrinate students in a virulent and extreme form of Islam, but also teach them to hate secular Western values.

They are also taught that the United States is the center of infidel power in the world and is the enemy of Islam. Graduates of those schools are frequently recruits for Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda terror network as well as other extremist groups.

Pakistan's guilt is nearly as great as Saudi Arabia's. Without the active support of the government in Islamabad, it is doubtful whether the Taliban could ever have come to power in Afghanistan. Pakistani authorities helped fund the militia and equip it with military hardware during the mid-1990s when the Taliban was merely one of several competing factions in Afghanistan's civil war. Only when the United States exerted enormous diplomatic pressure after the Sept. 11 attacks did Islamabad begin to sever its political and financial ties with the Taliban. Even now it is not certain that key members of Pakistan's intelligence service have repudiated their Taliban clients.

Afghanistan is not the only place where Pakistani leaders have flirted with terrorist clients. Pakistan has also assisted rebel forces in Kashmir even though those groups have committed terrorist acts against civilians. And it should be noted that a disproportionate number of the extremist madrasas schools funded by the Saudis operate in Pakistan.

China's offenses have been milder and more indirect than those of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Nevertheless, Beijing's actions raise serious questions about whether its professed commitment to the campaign against international terrorism is genuine. For years, China has exported sensitive military technology to countries that have been sponsors of terrorism. Recipients of such sales include Iran, Iraq and Syria.

Even though Chinese leaders now say that they support the U.S.-led effort against terrorism, there is no evidence that Beijing is prepared to end its inappropriate exports. At the recent APEC summit, China's President Jiang Zemin was notably noncommittal when President Bush sought such a commitment. Whenever the United States has brought up the exports issue, Chinese officials have sought to link a cutoff to a similar cutoff of U.S. military sales to Taiwan -- something that is unacceptable to Washington.

It is time for China, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia to prove by their deeds, not just their words, that they are serious about contributing to the campaign against international terrorism. In China's case, that means ending all militarily relevant exports to regimes that have sponsored terrorism. In the cases of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, it means defunding terrorist organizations and the extremist "schools" that provide them with recruits. It also means severing ties with such terrorist movements as the Taliban and the Kashmiri insurgents. The world is watching the actions of all three countries.

Pakistan is Jihad Inc’s global HQ : Pakistan Islamic Terrorism

Recently I read in the media a memo had been recorded by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, in which he reportedly expressed exasperation over the fact that the more the number of jihadi terrorists the US forces put out of action in Afghanistan and Iraq, the more the number of jihadi terrorists who come out of the madrassas to replace them.

He did not mention the country in which these madrassas are located. From the context of the memo, it was apparent these madrassas are the madrassas in Pakistan.

Last year, Jessica Stern, a counterterrorism expert at the Harvard University, brought out a very widely read study on the working of the madrassas in Pakistan, where she describes them as jihad factories. In India the problem is the same one Rumsfeld referred to. The problem which we are facing today in Kashmir is not because of Kashmiri militancy but because of large-scale infiltration of people into Kashmir from Pakistan.

Till 1993, the number of foreigners killed by the security forces in Kashmir used to come to 32. It went up to 172 per annum between 1993 and 1998. Since 1999, our security forces have been killing 951 foreign mercenaries per annum in Kashmir. The majority of them are Pakistani nationals.

I’d request the distinguished panel to read the reports, the annexures of the report of the State Department on Patterns of Global Terrorism, 2002, submitted to the US Congress in May this year. They refer to the fact that most terrorist organisations operating today in Kashmir are foreign.

The State Department report says that almost all Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists are foreigners, mostly Pakistanis from madrassas across the country and Afghan veterans of the Afghan wars. In respect to each organisation the State Department report says, in anticipation of asset seizures by the Pakistani government, the organisation withdrew funds from bank accounts. This shows how sincere or how insincere the government of Pakistan has been in acting against terrorist funding.

I would like to draw the attention of the panel also to four other recent documents of the US government. On October 14, the Department of Treasury issued an order freezing the bank accounts of a supposedly charity organisation of Pakistan called the Al Akhtar Trust.

It says the charity trust was founded by the Jaish-e-Muhammad, the same organisation whose supporters have played a leading role in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl and which has been active in Jammu and Kashmir.

This organisation is supposed to have been banned (in Pakistan) by an order issued on January 15, 2002. If it was banned, how did the Pakistan government allow it to start a charity and collect funds? The second significant observation in that order of the US Department of Treasury is the Al Akhtar Trust funded jihad not only in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but is also suspected of funding jihad in Iraq.

That means an organisation founded in Pakistan has been funding attacks on the American troops in Iraq. How did this happen? What action did General Pervez Musharraf take against this organisation?

The other order is of the US Department of Treasury. Dated October 16, it concerns Dawood Ibrahim, head of a mafia group closely involved with terrorist groups. He was involved in the explosions in Bombay in 1993, along with five others who have been given shelter in Pakistan.

The government of India has been repeatedly asking for their arrest and handing over to India so that they could be tried for terrorism. But the government of Pakistan has all the time been maintaining that they are not on Pakistani territory. This order, which has designated Dawood Ibrahim as a global terrorist, says, he had links with Al Qaeda and with the Taliban and had been helping them by placing his ships at their disposal. Two, it also says he has been living in Karachi and gives his passport number. In spite of that, the Pakistan government has denied that he is in Karachi, denied this passport belongs to him. For these reasons, when Musharraf says he has been taking action against terrorists, we in India find it difficult to believe it.

One last point. We in India are gratified by the fact that justice has at last been done to the families of victims of the Lockerbie tragedy. Your plane was blown up by a Libyan intelligence officer. He planted the explosives.

The US imposed punitive sanctions against Colonel Gaddafi. They held him responsible for allowing his intelligence agencies to blow up the aircraft. Ultimately, justice was done.

There’ve been seven instances of terrorist attacks directed against Indian civil aviation: five instances of hijacking by Sikh terrorists of Punjab; one instance of hijacking by a Wahhabi terrorist organisation of Pakistan, the Harakat ul-Mujahedeen, 1999; one instance in which an Air India plane, Kanishka, was blown up off the Irish coast, resulting in the death of over 200 civilians; and one instance in which an unsuccessful attempt was to blow up another Air India aircraft in Tokyo.

And all these instances took place when the military was in power. There has not been a single attack on civil aviation by terrorist groups from Pakistan when a democratically elected government was in power.

The people involved in the explosions have been given sanctuary in Pakistan. Is it not the responsibility of the international community to see they are brought to trial? Doesn’t it have an obligation to do justice to the families of the victims, just as it was required to do justice to the victims of Lockerbie?

Pakistan Printing Fake Indian Currency : Pakistan A Nation Of Criminals

A Pakistani government printing press in the city of Quetta is printing out large quantities of counterfeit Indian currency & US Dollar, The Times of India reported, citing a Central Bureau of Intelligence note to Indian security agencies and the finance ministry.

The rupee notes are then smuggled into India as 'part of Pakistan's agenda of destabilising (the) Indian economy through fake currency,' the daily said.

The notes are 'supplied by the Pakistan government press (at Quetta) free of cost to Dubai-based counterfeiters who, in turn, smuggle it into India using various means,' the report said.

Pakistan's intelligence agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is alleged to play an active role in the scam.

The notes 'are pushed into India by ISI through all possible channels using smugglers, underworld gangs, terrorists and general air/rail passengers', the report said.

The Indian intelligence agency picked up the trail of the counterfeiters from interrogations of a Gulf-based bookmaker who was deported from Dubai to India, it said.

The Reserve Bank of India has estimated the amount of fake currency in circulation at almost 1.7 trln rupees, the report said.

Pakistan's Economy is on its Knees Due to Manuplation

Not long ago, Pakistan was touted as the next big emerging market, whispered in the same breath as Brazil and Indonesia. Today, Pakistan’s economy is on its knees.

Back when there was cause for optimism, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, a former Citibank executive, was feted at Davos and other major conferences. Private equity funds rolled in and bankers came sniffing. The Karachi stock exchange boomed, ending the year 2007 as the sixth best emerging markets performer. Investment, particularly from the oil-rich Persian Gulf states and China, poured in. By October of 2007, Pakistan had more than US$16 billion in cash reserves, a 7 percent annual growth rate three years running, a manageable inflation rate, and a growing reputation as the next big market in South Asia.

In recent months, a sense of gloom has squashed hope. The country recently was forced to reach for the much-reviled "begging bowl" once again, negotiating a US$7.6 billion bail-out with the International Monetary Fund as it faced a mounting debt crisis. The inflation rate climbed to 25 percent, and stocks crashed, falling on average 35 percent for the year with trading volume stuck at historically low levels. All major rating agencies have downgraded Pakistan. Meanwhile, new investment has largely dried up.

Mohsin Khan, the distinguished Pakistani economist and former senior IMF official who brokered the IMF-Pakistan deal as a last hurrah before his retirement in early December, said recently that "full recovery is a long way off."

Speaking at an Asia Society event, Khan said that Pakistan will likely grow at 2-3 percent for the fiscal year 2008-2009. "Given population growth, that is effectively a recession," he said.

Economists in Pakistan are predicting significant job losses over the next two years, anywhere from 3 to 4 million, further exacerbating the crisis faced by Pakistan’s poor and struggling middle class. The economic crisis comes amid heightened tensions with India after Pakistani militants went on a killing rampage in Mumbai.

What happened to Pakistan’s economy? How did it go from emerging market star to the precipice of economic disaster? A range of reasons have been proffered from high oil and food prices to political and security volatility, but the one that seems to arise most often among analysts is the simplest one of them all: bad governance.

At key points in Pakistan’s economic descent, political leaders failed to make policy decisions that would have forestalled the decline. The dramatic spike in oil and food prices in the 2007/2008 fiscal period was met with "policy inaction," according to Khan. "They didn’t do what they needed to do when they faced these shocks, mostly because they were running for office."

As high oil and food prices tore through reserves, political turmoil gripped the country as former president Pervez Musharraf faced down judges, dissolved the judiciary, and eventually succumbed to elections, while street protests grew violent, former prime minister and Pakistan People’s Party star Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, a caretaker government tread cautiously, and political hopefuls vied for votes. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Today, Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari faces a dizzying array of challenges from security concerns in ungovernable tribal areas and the al-Qaida presence in Waziristan to the heightened tensions with India, but he also faces a larger challenge: restoring faith in democracy among Pakistanis mired in economic pain.

The influential Pakistani columnist Shaheen Sebhai recently wrote of an "over-riding sense of failure" that free and fair elections failed to restore trust between the government and the people, while the new leaders have simply "descended into the years-old hit and run, grab and go, mad race for petty political gains, major financial benefits, local and international lucrative jobs."

Dr Farrukh Saleem, the executive director of the Islamabad-based Center For Research and Security Studies said recently that Pakistan is not only haunted by a budget deficit and trade deficit, but also a "trust deficit" with the outside world: "they [the people] do not trust that the government will do the right thing," he said in a recent seminar in Islamabad.

Here is where the economy comes in. For the ordinary citizen, nothing is more important than a sense of economic security. Though Pakistan still had a long way to go, the government of Musharraf was making dents in the decades-old fight with poverty and economic underperformance. Failure by Zardari and his economic team to simultaneously provide social safety nets for the poor and navigate Pakistan’s economic recovery with skill might lead many to long for the days of the "enlightened" autocrat.

Furthermore, rising unemployment and economic insecurity combined with one of the youngest populations in the world is a hazardous social cocktail that could lead to widespread unrest - and military intervention. This will lead to a further erosion of trust with the international community (It should be noted that IMF and World Bank officials largely avoid Pakistan; they conduct their meetings with Pakistani officials in Dubai).

The silver lining in this cloud is that the IMF bail-out has prompted others to step in. The Asian Development bank, the World Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and China, are all expected to announce large loans to Pakistan’s government.

What’s more, several analysts indicate that the IMF restrictions are not nearly as onerous as they have been in past bailouts. Sakeeb Sherani, chief economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland, said in a recent seminar: "Compared to the 46 conditions accompanying the 2000 [plan] the latest US$7.6 billion IMF package carried only up to 10 performance criteria. If it can ensure good economic management there is no question why Pakistan shouldn’t fulfill those criteria."

In other words, there will be no excuse for "policy inaction" this time. Not only do Pakistan’s people deserve it, but the near-term future of Pakistan’s democracy may depend on it.

Pakistan A Biggest Terrorist Country

Pak crackdown to avoid terrorist state tag: Pak Minister

Pakistan, which has launched a crackdown on Jamaat-ud-Dawa, said the country faced the prospects of being declared a terrorist state
and left with a crippled economy if it had not acted on the sanctions imposed on the terrorist group by the UN Security Council.

"There was a resolution in the United Nations Security Council. If Pakistan had not taken steps under that, then they could have declared Pakistan a terrorist state. They could have crippled Pakistan's economy," defence minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said.

"If the whole world is on one side, Pakistan does not have the strength to face the whole world. We can fight against our enemies, but we can't fight an economic war with the whole world," he said.

Pakistan has launched a crackdown on JuD, the front organisation of the banned LeT blamed for the Mumbai terror attacks, in response to the UN Security Council's declaration of the group as a terrorist outfit, he said.

Referring to the tension sparked by the Mumbai terror attacks and reports of a possible military confrontation between Pakistan and India, Mukhtar said war was "not to the advantage of either" country.

Pakistan on Thursday had banned the JuD and placed its chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, also the founder of the LeT, under house arrest for three month. Jamaat offices across the country were sealed on Thursday night by police and security agencies. There are also unconfirmed reports that dozens of Jamaat activists have been detained.