Pakistani Role in Global Terrorism

[Avinash R]

Wanted jehadi terrorists are living under pakistan state protection with tax free imports of bullet proof vehicles.

Pak allows LeT founder to import bullet proof car
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1194581

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan government has granted permission to the chief of the Pakistan-based terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, to import a duty free bullet-proof Land Cruiser, worth Rs 25 million.

According to the interior ministry sources in Islamabad, the LeT chief, who fears a possible attempt on his life by his “external enemies”, had sought the government permission to import a duty free bullet proof Land Cruiser in view of the rising number of terrorist acts across Pakistan.

The sources said that after some lengthy deliberations on the issue, the government has decided to give him a go ahead to import a fully armoured Land Cruiser for his use from Dubai.

It was for the first time that the leader of a banned jehadi group had made such a request to the government and it is also for the first time that the government has acceded to such a request.

[SSridhar]

What else ?

Another innocent Pakistani found guilty of terrorism charges.

This time, in Denmark

COPENHAGEN: Two men have been found guilty in Denmark of preparing a terrorist attack.

Hammad Khuershid, a Danish citizen of Pakistani origin, and Abdoulghani Tokhi, an Afghan, were arrested after conducting a small test blast with the same explosive that was used by suicide bombers who killed 52 commuters in London in 2005.

Khuershid and Tokhi pleaded innocent. They said the explosive was to be used for fireworks. {Yeah, right} Authorities said they believe the men were planning an attack of their own, but the target remains unclear.

The City Court in Glostrup found the pair guilty of plotting to carry out an act of terror.
Monday's verdict will be followed by sentencing later in the week.

While they were innocently trying some fireworks only, this is what the police unfortunately found

Hammad Khuershid, a Danish citizen of Pakistani origin, and Abdoulghani Tokhi, an Afghan, were arrested in an anti-terror sweep last year after Danish agents filmed them conducting a small test blast with triacetone triperoxide, which was used by the suicide bombers who killed 52 British commuters.

During the trial, prosecutors said Khuershid had links to an al-Qaida operative. Investigators found handwritten bomb-making manuals in the men's homes that prosecutors said Khuershid had copied at the pro-Taliban Red Mosque in Islamabad.

They said he also had spent time in the Pakistani region of Waziristan, a militant stronghold near the Afghan border. Khuershid has admitted he was in Waziristan, but denies receiving any military training.

[arun]

Moving from Denmark to the UK.

At least one of the terrorists, Mohammed Shabir has a Pakistani link. In this case Pakistan born :

Five men arrested on suspicion of terrorism in dramatic dawn raids

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 2:30 PM on 21st October 2008

Five men have been arrested on suspicion of terrorism after a dramatic dawn raid by police today.

Officers swooped on five residential addresses in Birmingham at around 6am this morning.

The men, aged 29 to 36, were arrested under the Terrorism Act, following a 'long and complex investigation' by the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit.

They are suspected of being involved in the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism.

The arrests took place at five addresses in the Sparkhill, Ward End, Hodge Hill, Bordesley Green and Aston areas of Birmingham.

The father of one of the men arrested said: 'My son is not bad, he is a good boy.'

Sobat Khan, 66, said he was asleep when six officers came to arrest his son, 29-year-old Mohammed Shabir, today.

He said: 'They knocked on the front door and came in, two lady police officers and four men.

'They arrested my son and told me I had to get out so they could search. They are still searching but they haven't taken anything from the house.

'I don't know when I can go back in.

'I was shocked. I had been asleep. My son didn't say anything, he just went with them.

'He is not bad, he has never been bad. All his life, I have had no trouble from him. He just goes to work, that is all.

'I said to the police, 'you think I make bombs in my house? You look.'

Mr Khan said his son had a wife and an eight-year-old child who also live with him at the address in Benton Road, Sparkhill.

He said the 29-year-old factory worker came to Birmingham from Pakistan as a six-month-old baby and had not left the country since.

Suspects arrested under the act can be held for as long as 28 days without being charged.

A police spokeswoman said the arrests were not related to any immediate plot or threat to public safety.

The police spokeswoman said: 'The properties are now being searched.

'As part of the investigation, a further residential address in Stechford, Birmingham, and two business properties in central Birmingham and Kenilworth, Warwickshire, are also being searched.'

Police are not currently seeking anyone else in relation to the arrests.

The spokeswoman added: 'The families of the men are being supported by specially trained officers and key community leaders in the relevant areas have been contacted.'

Mail On Line

[pran]

Pak allows LeT founder to import bullet proof car
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1194581

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan government has granted permission to the chief of the Pakistan-based terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, to import a duty free bullet-proof Land Cruiser, worth Rs 25 million.

According to the interior ministry sources in Islamabad, the LeT chief, who fears a possible attempt on his life by his “external enemies”, had sought the government permission to import a duty free bullet proof Land Cruiser in view of the rising number of terrorist acts across Pakistan.

The sources said that after some lengthy deliberations on the issue, the government has decided to give him a go ahead to import a fully armoured Land Cruiser for his use from Dubai.

It was for the first time that the leader of a banned jehadi group had made such a request to the government and it is also for the first time that the government has acceded to such a request.

The question is who has put such a big 'supari' on LET head honcho that caused the govt. to bail him out ?
Or The next logical question is who is he betraying now and who is sponsoring his purchase in times of economic collapse ?

[anishns]

X-posted from TIROP thread

9600 Pakistanis 'missing' after visa expiry

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/9600 ... 625727.cms

[SSridhar]

S. Korea arrests 5 Pakistanis over money transfer to Taliban

South Korean police said on Thursday they had arrested five Pakistanis over illegal cash transfers worth millions of dollars, including payments from Afghanistan’s Taliban for material for heroin production.

The five are accused of operating two “hawala” money transfer networks in South Korea since 2005, police said.

[anishns]

Don't know if this is the right thread for this.....


Bali Bombers have been executed!!!

Quote:
The three Bali bombers on death row have been executed by firing squad.

Imam Samudra and brothers Amrozi and Mukhlas were shot to death by separate firing squads at 12.15am Indonesian time, an Indonesian government spokesman has confirmed.

The executions come six years after the Kuta nightclub explosions that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians....

http://www.smh.com.au/news/news/general ... 40305.html

Why are we hosting Afzal Guru at the tax-payer's expense....???

I posted in this thread because invariably the pukis must be involved in some way....Mods please move this to the appropriate thread if needed...

TIA

[Gerard]

xpost

Report identifies UK terrorist enclaves

The report continues: "The majority of extremists are British nationals of south Asian, mainly Pakistani origin but there are also extremists from north and east Africa, Iraq and the Middle East, and a number of converts. The overwhelming majority of extremists are male, typically in the 18-30 age range.

[arun]

Dawn :

November 15, 2008 Saturday Ziqa'ad 16, 1429

Every major terror threat involves Pakistan: CIA

By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON, Nov 14: CIA director Michael Hayden has warned that every major terrorist threat confronting the world has ties to Pakistan.

In a speech to the Atlantic Council on Thursday, Mr Hayden also claimed that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was hiding in Fata.

“Let me be very clear. Today, virtually every major terrorist threat that my agency is aware of has threads back to the tribal areas,” Mr Hayden told the Washington-based think-tank.

The CIA director, however, acknowledged that Bin Laden was isolated from the day-to-day operations of Al Qaeda, although the organisation was still the greatest threat to the US.

“If there is a major strike on this country (the US), it will bear the fingerprints of Al Qaeda,” he warned.

Gen Hayden, however, depicted Al Qaeda chief as an extremely frustrated man who spent all his time trying to survive and had no time for guiding his militants.

“[Bin Laden] is putting a lot of energy into his own survival, a lot of energy into his own security,” the CIA chief said. “He appears to be largely isolated from the day-to-day operations of the organisation he nominally heads.”

Capturing Bin Laden, however, remained the US government’s top priority, he added.

“His death or capture clearly would have a significant impact on the confidence of his followers - both core Al Qaeda and unaffiliated extremists throughout the world,” he said.

After depicting Pakistan as the hub of all major terrorist activities in the world, the CIA chief also conceded that Pakistan faced a complex situation.

“While the problem looks easy from thousands of miles away, it’s extremely difficult up close because of the tribal issues,” he said.

The CIA chief said he believed the Pakistani government had been “extraordinarily helpful” in responding to this challenge. Their plan, which they started to implement in 2006, to slowly expand their reach over the Fata would have been wise and far-reaching were it not for the extreme urgency of the threat, he added.

“We’ve killed and captured more top Al Qaeda operatives with the support of the Pakistani security forces than anywhere else in the world. What remains unclear is what the end game is,” he added.

According to him, Al Qaeda was chased out of Yemen in the 1990s only to reconstitute in Afghanistan. It was run out of Afghanistan in 2001, only to disperse, setting up a rump headquarters in Pakistan and declare Iraq the “central front” of its effort.

“Where, then, does it stop? Or is this simply a case of perpetual penalty kicks?” he asked.

Mr Hayden warned that despite the losses the terrorist group had to incur after 9/11, Al Qaeda was still spreading in Africa and the Mid-East.

The CIA believes progress has been made in curbing Al Qaeda’s activities in the Philippines, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Other areas, however, are showing an increase in activity, including East Africa, the Maghreb, Yemen and Pakistan.

Mr Hayden claimed that in Pakistan Al Qaeda had established safe haven and was training a “bench of skilled operatives.”

Gen Hayden was appointed CIA director in May 2006 by President George Bush but it’s not clear whether he will retain his job when President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January.

[arun]

A lengthier version of CIA Director Michael Hayden's comment:

"Let me be very clear: Today, virtually every major terrorist threat that my agency is aware of has threads back to the tribal areas. Whether it's command and control, training, direction, money, capabilities, there is a connection to the FATA,"

AFP via Yahoo

[SSridhar]

It is good to recall, at this time, what Pakistanis themselves had to say at one point or another.

"Why is it that all terrorist plots – from the Sept. 11 attacks, to Madrid, to London, to Mumbai – seem to have roots in Islamabad? Pakistan’s military and intelligence services have, for decades, used religious parties for recruits. Political madrassas – religious schools that preach terrorism by perverting the faith of Islam – have spread by the tens of thousands."

Ms. Benazir Bhutto, Former Prime Minister of Pakistan

“Unfortunately, our recognition in the comity of nations today is only as a 'breeding ground' for religious extremism and militancy and as a country afflicted with a culture of violence and sectarianism. Every act of violence anywhere in the world is traced back to our country in one way or the other. The US, in particular, sees Pakistan as the 'ground zero' and a pivotal lynchpin in its fight against terrorism, and for all purposes, now brackets Pakistan with already 'stone-aged' Afghanistan"

Shamshad Ahmed, ex-Foreign Secretary, Pakistan

[Avinash R]

Terror mastermind gets Pak protection

http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index ... 0&Itemid=1

According to confidential reports sent to South Block, Islamabad has cleared the purchase of a bullet proof Pajero for the use of Jamaat-ud-Daawa (JuD) chief Haafiz Mohammed Syed.

The organisation is the parent body of the dreaded terror outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba and has been at the forefront of terror activities against India. While South Block is unhappy, sources say that it goes on to prove that Islamabad has done nothing credible on the ground to clamp down on terror groups.

According to sources, not only was the permission for the purchase cleared, it was even made duty-free by the government on the ground that it is a charitable organisation. The justification for the purchase was that he faced threats from external forces - which hinted at India. This has also made clear that Pakistan, instead of clamping down on terror masterminds, is busy protecting them even as their terror outfits bomb and kill thousands of innocents around the world.

Diplomatic sources say that while LeT has been banned by the US, the Muridke-based JuD was allowed by the then Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf to function despite US attempts to get his organisation listed as a terror group by the UN.

This would have ensured that its finances were restricted and its properties attached, but Musharraf requested the US officials to exempt the organisation on the plea that it was providing earthquake relief.


All those surprised, raise your hands....

LeT is part of the al qaeda and major part of it's funding comes from isi, goes to show state support for terrorism in pakistan has not ended.

[Anujan]

Report identifies UK terrorist enclaves
The report continues: "The majority of extremists are British nationals of south Asian, mainly Pakistani origin

Ah telegraph ! my favorite newspaper. Comes in handy for my regular morning pakistan. The article betrayed my expectations. I wouldnt have accepted anything less than "The majority of mischief makers are world citizens, especially from asia, mostly from south asia, mainly from pakistan"

[arun]

Pakistani connection to the Terrorist attack on Mumbai:

India has tell-tale evidence of Pak connection, say agencies

30 Nov 2008, 0000 hrs IST, TNN

NEW DELHI: Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Saturday promised to help India unearth the hand behind the Mumbai attack. Well, he will not have to work hard. For, Indian agencies have managed to lay their hands on evidence which has ripped apart Islamabad's perennial denial about the involvement of Pakistan's quasi-state actor in the terror campaign against India.

Sources said a satellite phone recovered from one of the rafts that the 10 jihadi desperados used to enter Mumbai on that fateful Wednesday night has yielded tell-tale evidence of the direct involvement of top hierarchy of ISI-backed Lashkar-e-Toiba in the Mumbai mayhem.

The satellite phone records show that the gang remained in touch with Muzammil alias Yusuf who is in-charge of Lashkar's anti-India operations. More crucially, Ajmal has told his ATS interrogators about the direct interest that Zakiur Rahman, a top-ranking jihadi and one of the founding members of Lashkar, took in the anti-Mumbai plot.

Sources said information harvested from the satellite phone, the GPS device that the jihadis used to navigate their way to Mumbai and the detailed account of Ajmal, the gang member in custody, add up to a solid body of evidence of Lashkar's direct complicity.

The Lashkar leadership was directly involved at each step of the plot -- from organising a safe house for the gang in Karachi's Azizabad locality before they set out on the deadly mission to arranging the Pakistani vessel Al Hussaini with arms and ammunition on which they travelled.

The details also appear to have formed the basis for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to forcefully speak about the Pakistani connection to the ghastly crime. Talking to media in Islamabad on Saturday, the Pakistani FM confirmed that India, in a clear reference to Singh's conversation with Pakistani PM Yusuf Raza Gilani on Friday, had spoken of the involvement of Pakistan-based organisations in the savagery.

Top government sources described the evidence as "clinching". "It is so convincing that Pakistan can refuse to take action against Lashkar only at the cost of the admission that it has lost control over its territory, or the confirmation of the charge that it connives with terrorists operating from its soil," they said.

The satellite phone was a fortuitous find for the investigating agencies. According to Ajmal, Muzammil had instructed the gang members to destroy the equipment before entering Mumbai. Fortunately for India, the jihadis forgot to carry out the brief, leaving crucial information for the investigators.

The GPS device, so programmed as to help the Lashkar operatives chart their way to India and back, is another evidence.

Muzammil is a notorious `India hand', having scripted the attack on the CRPF camp in Rampur in UP on January 1 this year. The subsequent arrests of Lashkar operatives, Fahim Ansari and others, also brought out Lashkar's resolve to target Mumbai almost a year before the jihadis actually struck. Fahim had told his interrogators from UP Special Task Force and, later, Hemant Karkare, the former chief of Mumbai ATS, that Lashkar was plotting to target important landmarks like Gateway of India, Stock Exchange and Hotel Centaur.

It is, however, rare for Zakiur Rahman, a veteran jihadi who is fondly called ‘chachu’ by the gang, to get into the frame himself. That he made an exception to get in touch with the jihadis he despatched to Mumbai speaks of the importance that Lashkar gave to the operation.

Ajmal had told interrogators that he and his accomplices were put up in a house in Karachi's Azizabad locality for a while before being asked to board a mid-sized vessel from Kajhar Creek. They travelled 20-25 km southwest before they were picked up by a group of Pakistanis on board a ship plying under the registration of Al Hussaini. The terrorists later switched to Kuber, an Indian trawler they commandeered after killing three of the occupants.

The skipper of the trawler was also killed a day later as a prelude to the indiscriminate killing spree they began, leaving explosives in the taxis they took and which went off after they had got off. They also forced employees of Taj and Trident hotels to act as their guides by killing their colleagues in front of them.

Times Of India

[Avinash R]

Terrorists trained in pakistan are convicted in church blasts

Deendar activists convicted in church blasts
http://mangalorean.com/news.php?newstyp ... tid=102004

Bangalore Nov 21, 2008: 21 Deendar activists were convicted today by a Special court in connection with the serial bomb blasts in Churches in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Goa.

The judge Shivanagoudar, pronouncing the judgement in the Parappana Agrahara Central jail here, where the Special court was located through video conference due to security reasons acquitted four others for lack of evidence. The quantum of punishment would be announced tomorrow.

The blasts had shook the state during May-July in 2000. The members of the Deendar Anjuman outfit were found guilty by the judge.

The court had tried 25 persons, who were accused in four cases of church blasts.

The then Congress Government headed by S M Krishna in Karnataka, had referred the church blast case to CoD in 2000, and the special court was set by the state government in 2005. The accused were charged under IPC section 120-B (Criminal conspiracy) and Expolsives Substances Act.

The members of the Hyderabad-based Deendar Anjuman had triggered serial bomb blasts in three churches in Bangalore, Wadi and Hubli in the state during May and June 2000. The Karnataka police, who were clueless about the persons involved in the church blasts however stumbled upon the evidence against the culprits when they were on their way to place another bomb which accidently went off in their vehicle. Two suspects were killed in the blasts and another was rescued by the police with severe burns.

The outlawed Deendar Anjuman group which had also planned to trigger bombs at the famous temple in Tirupathi, left behind leaflets of Bible Society of India to create an impression that the blast was the handiwork of Christians.

Subsequent to the blasts, the Union Government had banned the organisation, the decision of which was also upheld by a Tribunal.

Syed Zia-ul-Hassan, the prime accused and a Pakistani national was still at large and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had issued a red-corner notice against him. Hassan name also reportedly figured in the list of those most wanted by the Union Government, which was given to Pakistan by the NDA government for repartriation.

In separate incidents, the Deendar Anjuman activists also allegedly planted timer devices in a few churches in Goa and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh in May 2000.


Church blasts case: Court convicts 53
Saturday, November 22, 2008
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Nov ... updatenews

Bangalore, DHNS : A special court, hearing cases related to the serial bomb blasts in churches in Karnataka in 2000, convicted 53 members of Deendar Anjuman. Four others were acquitted in the case.

The accused were found guilty of carrying out serial blasts in churches at Hubli, Wadi (Gulbarga) and Bangalore in 2000. Hearing on the sentence will be held on Saturday in the special court of Sessions Judge, S M Shivangoudar.

Five others, including the main accused, are currently in Pakistan. Their trial will be held only after their extradition, said a release.

Two of the accused (Zakir and Siddiqi) were killed on the spot, while another (SM Ibrahim) was injured when they were transporting bombs to plant them in other churches on July 9, 2000. Police arrested Ibrahim, and he spilled the beans about Deendar Anjuman and its intention to create communal disturbances in the country, the release said.

The Corps of Detectives took up the investigation and arrested 85 persons and filed charge-sheets against them.

The accused would deliberately abandon a few pamphlets, the contents of which stated that some Hindu organisations had carried out the blasts.

The investigation team was headed by DySP VS D’Souza. For the trial of the cases, a special court was constituted at the Central Jail, Bangalore. Special public prosecutor H N Nilogal was appointed public prosecutor to conduct the case on behalf of the State government.



81 held guilty in 2000 church blasts
Friday, November 21, 2008 22:01 IST
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1208448

BANGALORE : A Special Court, which was holding trial into the 2000 serial church blasts in Karnataka, held 81 persons guilty of the crime on Friday. Special judge S M Shivanagoudar will pronounce the quantum of punishment to the guilty on Saturday.

The special court was constituted by the state government. Though the cases were initially investigated by the local police, it was later handed over to the Corps of Detectives (CoD), which filed chargesheets against the accused too.

The serial blasts occurred between May and July 2000 in various churches within Karnataka, Goa and Andhra Pradesh, creating panic among the people and leaving the police completely clueless.

However, on July 9, the perpetrators fell into a trap of their own making in Bangalore. The extremists were returning by a Maruti van after bombing churches in Jagajeevanramnagar when several bombs kept in their vehicle went off. According to police, it occurred when their van shook while negotiating a road hump. Two occupants of the van, Zakir and Siddiqi, died on the spot while the third, S M Ibrahim, sustained injuries.

Soon afterwards, the police raided Ibrahim's house at Murugeshpalya and seized several documents and a computer hard disk - which led to the arrests of several others in the three states. All of them belonged to an outfit called Deedar Anjuman (Religious Association), an unknown terrorist outfit till that time.

Deendar Anjuman

Deendar Anjuman was founded by Hazrath Moulana Siddique - alias Deendar Channabasaveshwara - at Bellampet, Gulbarga district, in 1924. Its head office was at Asif Nagar, Hyderabad. Though the organisation operated behind the façade of establishing religious equality, it had a hidden Jehadi agenda, which aimed at achieving the Islamisation of India.

Soon after the death of Moulana Siddique, his eldest son Zia-ul-Hasan became its religious head. The present headquarters of Deendar Anjuman is located at Mardan in Pakistan, where Zia is settled with his family. Though it initially claimed to be a Sufi sect, the Deendar Anjuman floated a terrorist outfit called Jamat-e-Hizbul Mujahiddin (JHM) with the patronage of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

Every year, on the second week of Muslim month of Rajab (October), a religious function resembling Urs was arranged by the Deendar Anjuman centre at Hyderabad to mark the death anniversary of its founder. Zia and his family members used to visit India and meet members of the outfit across it. They also used to visit various places in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Goa to collect funds and contact followers. The visits of Zia and his family were aimed at exhorting Muslim youths in India to get trained in Pakistan on matters relating to handling of weapons and explosives.

During one of the visits in October 1999, the family held a secret meeting of 'faithfuls' at Deendar's Hyderabad Ashram and conspired to wage a war against India. It was at this meeting that they decided to target churches, bridges and rail tracks so as to create communal tension and destabilise the Indian economy. The outcome of this meeting resulted in church blasts in Bangalore, Hubli, Batakurki and other places.

Terror track

1. On June 8, 2000, two crude bombs were set off at Saint Anne's Church in Wadi, Gulbarga District. The church was damaged and two persons were injured. Chargesheets were filed by the CoD against 19 persons and 15 faced trial in the case.

2. On July 9, 2000, bombs were set off at St Peter Paul Church in Jagajeevanaramnagar, Bangalore. Of the 29 accused, 17 accused faced trial.

3. On July 8, 2000, the group triggered off bombs blasts at the St John Luthern Church in Hubli. Sixteen persons faced trial in the case. The final blast occurred when a bomb went off accidentally while the terrorists were transporting them in a Maruti van on July 9.

In all the four cases, 27 common accused persons were tried together. Members of the Pakistan-based outfit, its present head Zia-ul-Hassan, and his four sons are still absconding. Red corner notices were issued against each of them and efforts are being done to extradite them from Pakistan. One of the accused died during the trial.

Punishment for terrorism by pakistan based organisation deendar anjuman

Death for 11 Deendar men, 12 get life term
Sunday, Nov 30, 2008
http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/30/stories ... 180600.htm

Special Public Prosecutor terms judgment in church serial blasts historic

They committed heinous crimes against humanity and the country: judge

Sentence will convey a tough message to terror elements: prosecutor

BANGALORE: A special court in Bangalore on Saturday sentenced 11 Deendar Anjuman activists to death and 12 activists to life imprisonment for their role in the serial blasts that rocked churches in Karnataka during June-July 2000.

They were held guilty on November 21 this year by special judge S.M. Shivanagoudar after a long trial and were convicted for conspiring to wage war on the country. The court tried cases of explosions at churches in Jagajivanramnagar in Bangalore, Wadi in Gulbarga and Keshavapur in Hubli. It also tried one case with regard to a blast in a van on July 10, 2000, near Minerva Mills under Magadi Road police limits in Bangalore. Pronouncing the sentence at a packed court hall on the city Civil Court premises, Mr. Justice Shivanagoudar said the charges were not trivial and the accused had a specific motive of attacking churches, using explosives to execute their motive and intended to continue the onslaught if they had not been caught by the police. Thus, they had committed heinous crimes against humanity and the country and deserved the highest punishment.

The activists sentenced to death are Mohammad Ibrahim, Sheikh Hasham Ali, Hasnuzama, Abdul Rehaman Sait, Amanath Hussain Mulla, Mohammad Sharfuddin, Syed Muneerudin Mulla, Mohammad Akhil Ahmed, Ijahar Baig, Syed Abbas Ali and Mohammad Khalid Choudhary.

Sentencing the other 12 to life, justice Shivanagoudar, citing a recent Supreme Court verdict, said they should remain in jail till their death. The 12 are Mohammad Farook Ali, Mohammad Siddiqi, Abdul Habeeb, Shamshuzama, Sheikh Fardin Vali, Syed Abdul Khader Zilani, Mohammad Ghiyasuddin, Meerasab Koujalagi, Rishi Hiremath, Basheer Ahmed, Mohammad Hussain and Sangli Basha.

H.N. Nilogal, Special Public Prosecutor said, “The sentence will definitely convey a tough message to terror elements who are seeking to destabilise the country. This is a historic judgment and it highlights the efficiency of the police force.”

Four police officers — M.B. Appanna, G.R. Hiremath, B. Mahantesh and V.S. D’Souza — were involved in the investigation, and 27 Deendar Anjuman men from Bangalore, Hyderabad and Hubli were arrested. The trial was conducted on the high-security Bangalore Central Prison premises. Because of security concerns, Mr. Shivanagoudar pronounced the sentence through videoconferencing.





23 Deendar Anjuman members held guilty

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage ... eld+guilty

Bangalore, November 22, 2008

A special court, hearing cases related to serial bomb blasts in churches in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Goa in 2000, has convicted 23 people belonging to Deendar Channabasaveshwara Anjuman group.

Of the 27 accused who were tried, four were acquitted.

Special Court Judge SM Shivana Gowdar who convicted the 23 in Bangalore on Friday, is yet to pronounce the quantum of punishment in the case which has been adjourned till December 3.

HL Nilogal, Special Public Prosecutor, argued for the state.

In 2000, six blasts were carried out by the group in Andhra Pradesh, four in Karnataka and one each in Maharashtra and Goa.

A three-member Corps of Detectives (CoD) team headed by DySP V S D'Souza investigated the church blasts at Wadi (Gulbarga District), Hubli, Bangalore and another blast in the state and filed a chargesheet before the special court.

The blasts were carried out by Deendar Channabasaveshwara Anjuman outfit founded in 1920s and the "conspiracy" was hatched at Hyderabad on October 1999, COD said.

The outfit was founded by one Hazarat Moulana Siddique alias Deendar Channabasaveshwara, the sources said.



Church serial blasts: 11 get death
30 Nov 2008, 0000 hrs IST, TNN
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Indi ... 774113.cms

BANGALORE: A local court on Saturday awarded capital punishment to 11 people and life sentence to 12 others in connection with the 2000 serial blasts in churches across Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa.

Special sessions court judge S M Shivanagoudar, who had convicted 23 people last Friday, pronounced the judgment. All the convicts belonged to the Deendar Channbasaveshwara Anjuman sect. While kingpin Zia-ul-Hassan and his four children are in Pakistan, four others acquitted. Three of the accused died while trying to escape after planting a bomb at a Bangalore church.

Special public prosecutor H N Nilogal had pleaded for capital punishment for all the 23 convicted. The group had triggered six blasts in Andhra Pradesh, one each in Maharashtra and Goa and four in Karnataka.

The CoD (Corps of Detectives) team, comprising DSPs - V S D'Souza, M B Appanna, G R Hiremath and Manthesh - investigated the three blasts in Karnataka churches at Wadi, Hubli, Bangalore and the fourth blast in which the culprits were killed in a van and filed a chargesheet before the special court.

The accused were made to believe that blasts at churches in India would trigger a civil war between Hindus and Christians. A religious leader from Afghanistan would invade and conquer India, which would be converted into an Islamic country.

The serial blasts were carried out by activists of Deendar Channabasaveshwara Anjuman, founded in the 1920s. The conspiracy was hatched in October 1999 in Hyderabad, during the death anniversary of its founder Hajrath Moulana Siddiqui. Siddiqui's son, Zia-ul-Hasan and his four sons, who migrated to Pakistan, had visited Hyderabad during Siddiqi's death anniversary.

On June 8, 2000 two bombs had exploded at St Anne's Church, Wadi in Gulbarga district of Karnataka. The CoD filed chargesheet against 19 accused. Since four of them were absconding, 15 accused faced trial. On July 8, 2000, bombs exploded at St John's Luthern Church, Hubli. The CoD filed a chargesheet against 19 accused, of which 16 faced trial.

Next day, bombs exploded at St Peter Paul Church, JJ Nagar, Bangalore, where the cops filed a chargesheet against 29 accused, of which 17 faced trial. Within minutes, a van carrying people who planted the bombs also went off accidentally on Magadi Road, where two of the accused -- Zakir and Siddiqi -- were killed and another accused S M Ibrahim was injured.

Those who were awarded capital punishmen are: Mohmad Ibrahim (40), Bangalore; Shaikh Hasham Ali (30), Hyderabad; Hasnuzama (55), Nuzvid, AP; Abdul Rehman Saith (50), Chikkaballapur; Amanath Hussain Mulla (58), Bangalore; Mohammed Sharfuddin (37), Hyderabad; Sayed Muneeruddin Mulla (40) -- Hubli; Mohd Akhil Ahmed (29), Hyderabad; Ijahar Baigh (32), Hyderabad; Sayed Abbas Ali (28), Hyderabad; Mohmad Khalid Choudhary (32), Hyderabad

Origin of the sect

At the end of the 19th century, Hajarath Moulana Siddiqui, a scholar tried to integrate all religions - Hinduism, Islam and studied all the holy scripts - including Ramayana, Mahabharata, Koran, Vachana Sahithya and Puranas. At one stage, he even argued that Islam was the base for all the religions and later called himself as reincarnation of Channabasaveshwara.

He wrote many books in Urdu and Kannada and translated some of the holy scripts. This landed him in trouble. He went on to establish Deendar Channabasaveshwara Anjuman in the 1920s and set up an ashram at Hyderabad, where he lived till his death in 1952.

Though Anjuman Ashram preached co-existence of two religions, Siddiqui's eldest son Zia-ul-Hasan migrated to Mardan, Pakistan. He and his four children would visit Hyderabad during October for the birth anniversary of his father.

In 1990s, the ashram lost its relevance. Zia-ul-Hasan and his children hobnobbed with extremists in Kashmir and the members of Jamat Hizbullah Mujahiddin in Pakistan. Whenever they visited the Ashram, they would hatch conspiracies to carry out serial blasts in India.

[arun]

Pakistani Navy connection to the Mumbai Terrorist attack.

If true this goes well beyond External affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s characterisation that “some elements in Pakistan are responsible for the Mumbai terror attacks.”:

We were trained by Pak navy: Captured terrorist


Aaj Tak Bureau
New Delhi, November 29, 2008

Azam Amir, the terrorist who was held by the Mumbai Police, has made some striking revelations regarding the Mumbai terror attacks.

Azam has disclosed that the Pakistan Navy had trained the terrorists in boating and swimming to carry out the attacks in Mumbai. Azam was arrested on Wednesday from Girgaum Chowpatty in an encounter with the police. Ismail Khan, an accomplice of Amir, reportedly died in the gunbattle.

Sources say Azam has also revealed that people from gangster Dawood Ibrahim's gang helped the terrorists from Karachi in organising the attacks.

Reports suggest that the planning for the terror attacks in Mumbai had begun almost a year ago in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir. Azam has reportedly told the police that around 20 Pakistan nationals were trained in PoK to carry out the attacks. The training in PoK went on for almost five-and-half months, during which the terrorist were taught the use of sophisticated arms and ammunition.

At the end of the five months training, all terrorists were given a months leave and were ordered to gather in Karachi after the break for training in boating, rowing and swimming by the Pakistan Navy.

They were then handed over some CDs and maps of the Taj and Oberoi hotels. The CDs and maps also had pictures of important rail stations like VT. At the end of this training a batch of 10 terrorists was set off for India via the Indian sea route.

Mumbai Police expects more details will come out during the course of their investigations.

India Today

[shiv]

cross post

Doctors shocked at hostages's torture


They said that just one look at the bodies of the dead hostages as well as terrorists showed it was a battle of attrition that was fought over three days at the Oberoi and the Taj hotels in Mumbai.

Doctors working in a hospital where all the bodies, including that of the terrorists, were taken said they had not seen anything like this in their lives.

"Bombay has a long history of terror. I have seen bodies of riot victims, gang war and previous terror attacks like bomb blasts. But this was entirely different. It was shocking and disturbing," a doctor said.

Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: "It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim's body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words," he said.

Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: "It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood," one doctor said.

The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: "Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again," he said.

Corroborating the doctors' claims about torture was the information that the Intelligence Bureau had about the terror plan. "During his interrogation, Ajmal Kamal said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis," an IB source said.

It is also said that the Israeli hostages were killed on the first day as keeping them hostage for too long would have focused too much international attention. "They also might have feared the chances of Israeli security agencies taking over the operations at the Nariman House," he reasoned.

On the other hand, there is enough to suggest that the terrorists also did not meet a clean, death.

The doctors who conducted the post mortem said the bodies of the terrorists were beyond recognition. "Their faces were beyond recognition."

There was no way of identifying them," he said. Asked how, if this is the case, they knew the bodies were indeed those of the terrorists, he said: "The security forces that brought the bodies told us that those were the bodies of the terrorists," he said, adding there was no other way they could have identified the bodies.

An intelligence agency source added: "One of the terrorists was shot through either eye."

A senior National Security Guard officer, who had earlier explained the operation in detail to rediff.com, said the commandos went all out after they ascertained that there were no more hostages left. When asked if the commandos attempted to capture them alive at that stage, he replied: "Unko bachana kaun chahega (Who will want to save them)?"

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/nov/30m ... orture.htm

[arun]

Pakistan-born man silent at terrorism trial – Summary

Posted : Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:00:29 GMT
Author : DPA

Koblenz, Germany - A Pakistan-born man who is accused of raising funds for al-Qaeda remained silent Monday at the start of his trial in Germany. Prosecutor Ulrich Boeter told the trial in the western city of Koblenz that Aleem N, 46, was an Islamist radical who had visited a terrorist camp and who believed in a jihad or holy war.

He said N was a former member of Lashkar, an Islamist movement suspected of involvement in last week's attack on Mumbai, who had changed sympathies to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda because he had been disappointed with Lashkar.

However defence lawyers portrayed N, who has silver grey hair and a neat beard, as an innocent gem merchant caught up in an international terrorism inquiry.

He made four trips to the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan between April 2005 and June 2007. Police say they found videos in his home of bombings and hostages being murdered.

He was accused of being a member of a terrorist organization, sending it funds and items including binoculars, night sights for guns and a gadget to scan for listening devices.
The trial is expected to last into next year.

Prosecutors say N, who lives in the German town of Germersheim, has had German citizenship since 1992 and has a German wife, had encouraged others to join al-Qaeda.
He was arrested on his return to Germany in February after Pakistan had detained him in 2007, then released him.

On Monday, he exercised his right to identify himself but otherwise remain silent at the start of the trial.

He has claimed to German journalists that a confession he made in Pakistan was uttered under torture.

In an account read in court, he claimed he was kept shackled in a windowless cell, was hit and was interrogated for hours on end by Pakistani and Western intelligence agents.

Al-Qaeda is the group that claimed responsibility for attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001 and is the principal target of the anti-terrorism campaigns by Western nations.

Earthtimes

[arun]

Pakistani's indulging in the national pastime of terrorism in the Philippines:

Vol. XXII, No. 94
Thursday, December 4, 2008 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES

Pakistani linked to JI arrested

COTABATO — Authorities in Mindanao have arrested a Pakistani with alleged links to a Southeast Asian extremist group for making bombs, it was announced yesterday.

Muhammand Alpariz was arrested at his apartment in Shariff Kabunsuan province by joint police and military operatives on Tuesday, local 6th Infantry Division spokesman Lt. Col. Julieto Ando said.

Found in his possession were "two 60-millimeter mortar shells rigged to improvised explosives devices" and two howitzer shells ready to be attached to similar bombs, said Southern Mindanao police head Chief Superintendent Pedro Tango.

"These bombs, if exploded, would cause extensive damage," he added.
"He did not resist arrest. He is said to be a member of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI)," Mr. Ando said without elaborating, referring to a Southeast Asian extremist network with ties to al Qaeda.

Tacurong City police chief Senior Superintendent Joel Lim-son said the suspect had been under surveillance for months before he was arrested.

"Although there was no passport recovered from him, he is a known Pakistani national," Mr. Limson said.

It was not clear how the suspect could be linked with the JI, which itself has been linked to the 2001 Bali bombings which killed over 200 people, the police statement added.

Indonesian JI bomb experts Dulmatin and Umar Patek have been hiding in Mindanao for months, sheltered by Moro extremists. It is not clear if they are related to the arrested suspect. — AFP

LINK

[ramana]

Is there a good compilation on Lashkar-e- Taiba? If not please start one soon with all the trimmings. orgins, composition, locations, activities, aliases the whole nine yards. And get th eother rascals Jaish e Mohd while at it.

[SSridhar]

Is there a good compilation on Lashkar-e- Taiba? If not please start one soon with all the trimmings. orgins, composition, locations, activities, aliases the whole nine yards. And get th eother rascals Jaish e Mohd while at it.

Here is my compilation:

LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) Sunni Wahhabi Banned by Pakistan in Jan 15, 2002.
Launched in 1991.
The Jan.15 ban order was not applicable to PoK, NA and FATA. Designated as a global terrorist group by the US.
Amir - Prof Hafeez Mohammed Saeed (a former professor of Lahore Engg. College)
Member of IIF )International Islamic Front).
Pan-Islamic jihadi organization.
Part of Ahl-e-Hadis (or Hadith)
Dominated by Punjabis. Recruits only subcontinental Muslims.
Main training centre in Muzzafarabad, PoK and has several launching camps along the LoC.
Also has training camp in Kunnar province of Afghanistan.
Reported to have over 1000 offices across Pakistan to recruit jihadis and collect funds.
Indian Parliament attack of Dec 18, 2001 was jointly mounted by LeT & JeM
Declared as "Foreign terrorist Organization" by the US State Deptt. in Oct., 2001.
Its parent body is Markaz Dawa Wa Irshad (Centre for Religious Learning and Social Welfare).
Markaz has its campus of Islamic University at Muridke, about 50 Km from Lahore. The Muridke campus is spread over 200 acres and is a self-contained one. It was built with heavy Saudi funding.
The complex has two schools, an Islamic university and a mosque, as well as paddy fields, fish farms and stables for livestock.
Annual conventions held at Muridke are attended by military and political figures.
Commander - Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi.
Markaz Dawa Wa Irshad morphed into JuD (Jamaat-ul-Dawa)
JuD Split into JuD and Khairun Naas (People's Welfare) on July 18, 2004.
JuD was put on watch list by Govt. Of Pakistan in Nov. 2003
However, Pakistan has refused to freeze the bank accounts of JuD under UN Resolution 1373 claiming it to be a charity organization.

JeM (Jaish-e-Mohammed, Army of Mohammed)
Created on 31 January 2000, eaxctly one month after Maulana Masood Azhar was released from the Indian prison.
Banned by Pakistan in Jan 15, 2002.
Headquartered in Bahawalpur.
The Jan.15 ban order was not applicable to PoK, NA and FATA
Amir - Maulana Masood Azhar
Deputy Amir - Mufti Abdul Rauf (Brother of Maulana Masood Azhar)
Formed after Maulana Massod Azhar was released from Indian jail in exchange for release of passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane IC-814.
Disappeared from house arrest in Bahawalpur in 2003.
Close friend of Osama bin Laden from his Sudan days.
Was against deployment of Pakistani troops in Somalia under the UN and took part in killing 24 Pakistani troops in Mogadishu. Also wrote a booklet against Pakistani troops in Somalia and even distributed in Pakistan.
Member of IIF.
Patron - Nazimuddin Shamzai of Binori Mosque in Karachi, who was also a teacher of both Masood Azhar and Mullah Omar of Taleban. Mufti Shamzai was killed in Karachi in May 2004
Pan-Islamic jihadi organization.
Attacked Indian Parliament on Dec. 13, 2001.
Declared as "Foreign terrorist Organization" by the US State Deptt. In Oct., 2001.
Morphed into KeI (Khuddam-e-Islam) Banned
Runs a charity organization, Al-Akhtar trust, as a front-end.
Runs a terrorist training camp in Balakot, NWFP.
Breakaway faction of KeI is Jamaatul Furqan headed by Abdul Jabbar (Banned Nov, 2003)

[Tilak]

X-Posted

US wants four ex-ISI officials declared terrorists
Thursday, December 04, 2008
By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: The US has given four names of former ISI officials, including Lt-Gen (retd) Hameed Gul, to the UN Security Council to put them on the list of international terrorists.

Government of Pakistan is aware of this move, which is considered here by some as part of an international conspiracy to target the ISI, whose reformation has already been sought by Washington.

The US embassy in Islamabad claims to be completely unaware of this move while the foreign office spokesman also did not come up with any explanation on the matter despite being approached on Tuesday.

However, Lt-Gen (retd) Hameed Gul confirmed to this correspondent that he was included in the list of those four or five former ISI officials whose names had been provided to the UN secretary-general by the US government to be included in the list of international terrorists.

Gul admitted that he had already met the foreign affairs secretary to discuss the issue. A Foreign Office source also told this correspondent that the issue had already been referred to the prime minister’s office but despite the lapse of a few weeks, no decision had been taken by the government so far. It is not clear whether or not Islamabad wants to pursue intense lobbying to stop this thing to happen.

A diplomatic source in Washington, however, told this correspondent that it would not be easy for the United States to get all these names enlisted in the list of terrorists because it would require the consent of the all the five permanent members of the Security Council.

Foreign Office spokesman Muhammad Sadiq was contacted on Tuesday to give its response on the matter but The News has not heard anything from his side till the filing of this report on Wednesday night. Off the cuff, Sadiq said he had heard or read about this but was not sure about the case.

The Pakistan embassy in Washington is not in the know of this move. Pak envoy to US Hussain Haqqani, when contacted, said he had no comment to offer as no such thing was routed through the Pakistani embassy.

However, another diplomatic source there confided to this correspondent that the US State Department had formally conveyed to the UN Security Council four to five names of former ISI officials, including Lt-Gen (retd) Hamid Gul, for inclusion in the list of international terrorists under Resolution 1267 of the Security Council.

In such a situation, those enlisted in this list of bad guys will be prevented from travelling outside the country of their residence while their assets would also be monitored and even frozen at times.

Lou Fintor, the US embassy spokesman, when contacted also said the embassy did not know anything about this. He said if this was true, then such a thing would have been dealt by the State Department and taken up directly with the UN there in Washington.

Lt-Gen (retd) Hameed Gul, however, admitted that he was aware of the move but was not sure if the prime minister had taken a decision on the issue. Believing that this is a move to target the ISI, he warned if the government of Pakistan did not protect him and others on the recommended list of terrorists, he would directly write to the UN secretary-general.

He said the government should immediately move to protect the ISI from this indirect attack from Washington. He said the United States and some other Western nations were against him for the simple reason that he did not support their war on terror which, he said, was based on Washington’s greed for energy.

He said the US and its allies in the war on terror had turned the world upside down and had made it far more dangerous than what it was before. He volunteered to present himself before any neutral enquiry commission. He said he also had the option to go to the country’s court of law but hastily added that he did not have trust in Pakistan’s judiciary.

When asked how he had come to know about this, he said, he was informed of this by a highly responsible person, who had personally seen the written US request. He hoped the government would not show callousness towards its own individuals and institutions like the ISI which, he admitted, was the first line of the country’s defence. Therefore, he must be protected from any external onslaught.

1) Hamid Gul
2) Nadeem Taj
3) Javed Nasir
4) Mahmood Ahmad

any more ??

[ramana]

SSridahr can I put it on a slide and later put on scribd?

[SSridhar]

SSridahr can I put it on a slide and later put on scribd?

Ramana, of course yes. Do let me know if you need similar info on the other 23 organizations.

[ramana]

Eventually. you got mail.

[ezra]

What is abundantly clear is that Pakistans main role in global terrorism is in providing a safe haven within its territory for the establishment of Terrorist camps for the co-ordination, recruitment, training, equipping, planning and execution of terrorist activities accross the world.

It is also apparent that many countries in the rest of the Muslim world (that exist in relative peace and tranquility) are financially and morally supporting the Terrorist camps and Pakistan.

Pakistan thus far has successfully managed to con the world and avoid liability and responsibility for the acts of terror eminating from this breeding ground of terror and have never been fully challenged on the issue by the world. The sponser of terror in the rest of the Muslim world have also to be identified and made to account.

Since India bears the brunt of the act of terrorism originating from the so called tribal regions, India has to start immediately building pressure on Pakistan to take responsibility for the actions of terrorist in this territory failing which India must reserve the right to conduct military strikes on the area in selfdefence without notice.

[ramana]

Asad Durrani to the list of four. So more like gang of five who are the grey eminences of ISI

[Rangudu]

Ramana

The Hameed Gul thing is not just Unkil. Gul is likely in on the Mumbai plot. This was not just a plan of some faceless ISI ghouls.

This is the whole TSP jihadi establishment coming together to do something to save their H&D and "unify" the country.

The four worthies are:

Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Hameed Gul
Sq. Ldr. (Retd.) Khalid Khawaja
Col. (Retd.) Ameer Sultan a.k.a Colonel Imam
Col. (Retd.) Mustansar Billah

My bet is that these are the guys who run the Osama/Zawahiri courier network as well as the drug-jihad money transfer schemes.

[arun]

X Post:

Pakistan's Jihad

In the war on terror, Islamabad is both with us and against us.

by Bill Roggio & Thomas Joscelyn
12/15/2008, Volume 014, Issue 13

Just two days after the gunmen's siege in Mumbai ended, Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari went on CNN's Larry King Live to plead his case. Even before the Indian authorities had brought the rampage to an end, they were laying blame on their neighbor to the north. And Zardari wanted the world to know they were wrong. "This is not the time to point fingers," Zardari protested. "The state of Pakistan is in no way responsible."

Instead, Zardari said, "I think these are stateless actors who have been operating all throughout the region. …….. The gunmen plus the planners, whoever they are, [are] stateless actors who have been holding hostage the whole world."

Zardari was partly right. In all likelihood, neither he nor his supporters had anything to do with the attacks. So, if you define the "state of Pakistan" as the president and his immediate cohorts, his words ring true. Of course, there is more to Pakistan's government, including its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the powerful military intelligence organization over which Zardari exerts little control. And there are good reasons to suspect that the ISI had a hand in the Mumbai attacks, which killed more than 180 people and wounded nearly 300.

The United States and India have named the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) terror organization as the main perpetrator of the attacks. Indian authorities captured the lone gunman to survive the assault, and he reportedly admitted being trained by the LET. India also claims to have intercepted phone conversations between the Mumbai attackers and one of the LET's leaders in Pakistan. The full investigation will take some time to unfold, so it is too early to name all of those responsible. It is, however, a safe bet that the LET was heavily involved.

Contrary to President Zardari's claims, the LET is no "stateless actor." In fact, the LET is and always was a creature of the ISI.

Throughout the war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United States, as well as other states, all sponsored the Afghan resistance fighters or mujahedeen. But Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were principally responsible for creating and sponsoring the most radical Islamic terrorist groups within the mujahedeen's ranks. This nexus is what first gave us Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda and, later, Mullah Omar's Taliban.

The same nexus also gave us the LET. In fact, bin Laden and his spiritual mentor, Abdullah Azzam, reportedly played instrumental roles in the LET's founding. In the late 1980s, they met with members of the Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad (MDI), an Islamist political party in Pakistan, and convinced its leaders to create a militant wing responsible for waging jihad in Kashmir. The result was the LET. And the struggle for control of Jammu and Kashmir, territory sandwiched between China, India, and Pakistan that had been disputed since the partition of 1947, would never be the same.

As the war in Afghanistan came to an end, the ISI began to reallocate its resources. The jihadists had proven their merit as guerrilla fighters, and the ISI found it convenient to use them elsewhere. Veterans of the Afghan conflict formed the LET's first cadres, and, using Saudi cash, the ISI quickly expanded the LET's operations. By the early 1990s, the LET emerged as one of the ISI's primary instruments for waging its proxy war against Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir.

The consequences of the ISI's decision are plain to see. The conflict over Kashmir was relatively terror-free in the late 1980s, but just a few years later Islamist terrorist groups were launching thousands of attacks. As Praveen Swami, a reporter for Frontline magazine in New Delhi, explains in his book India, Pakistan, and the Secret Jihad, there were only 7 terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir in 1988. In 1992, there were 3,920. The total number of civilians killed per year, including Muslims, increased from less than 30 in 1988 to more than 1,000 in 1993. Data on the number of attacks and total casualties vary by source. But according to Swami's estimates, which we find to be conservative, more than 41,000 people, including Indian forces, terrorists, and civilians, died between 1988 and 2005.

India has played its part in the violence in Jammu and Kashmir, but the prime mover has been the ISI and its jihadist proxies, including the LET. The ISI not only gives these groups safe haven and trains and supplies them, it also frequently coordinates their movements. Consider one telling example. In 1999, conventional Pakistani and Indian forces fought for control of Kargil, a mountainous district in northern Kashmir. During the coldest weeks of the conflict, the Indians ceded the highest ridges for warmer ground below. After the Indians left their positions, LET members moved in. The LET held this strategic battleground until their replacements--regulars in Pakistan's army--arrived. Such is the depth of cooperation between the LET and Pakistan's military establishment.

The ISI launched the full-scale jihad in Jammu and Kashmir, but it did not stop there. The LET and several sister organizations also backed by the ISI began attacking India proper long ago. Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM), another ISI creation focused on Kashmir, has often been the LET's partner in crime. So has the Hizb-ul-Mujahedeen (HM), which was founded with the ISI's help in the late 1980s. And an Indian-based organization called the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which is sponsored by the ISI and deeply connected to its Pakistani brethren, has been instrumental in launching attacks inside India. These four organizations have killed hundreds. According to the website satp.org (South Asia Terrorist Portal), these groups, along with other smaller allied jihadist organizations, are responsible for dozens of attacks inside India between September 2001 and October 2008.

Until this latest attack, the most devastating assault perpetrated by these groups in recent years occurred on July 11, 2006. On that day, terrorists detonated seven bombs on Mumbai's commuter rails. According to Indian officials, the LET and SIMI were responsible. The attack left more than 200 dead and 700 or so wounded.

It is in this context that 10 or more gunmen laid siege to hotels and other locales in Mumbai in late November. Far from being the work of "stateless actors," the attack was perfectly consistent with the ISI's longstanding policy of waging jihad against India and its interests. In fact, Indian authorities have reportedly found direct evidence of cooperation between the ISI and the LET in the latest attack. The ISI allegedly trained the LET terrorists responsible and provided other logistical support for the operation. Thus, when President Zardari went on CNN to proclaim Pakistan's innocence, he avoided any substantive discussion of the ISI's role.

Even so, Zardari's comments are not altogether meaningless. They touch upon a central fault line in this war on terror. The president of Pakistan has essentially admitted what we should all know by now: There is currently no political force inside Pakistan capable of reining in the ISI and its many jihadist allies. Zardari had hoped for improved relations with India, but he was powerless to stop the Mumbai attacks. The jihadist forces have become entrenched within Pakistani society, which is home to dozens of extremist and terrorist organizations.

Indeed, the extent of the radicalization of Pakistani society is deeply troubling. It is the direct result of decisions made by Pakistani administrations decades ago.

Itinerant preachers had made their way back and forth from the Arabian peninsula for centuries, carrying with them a form of Wahhabism, the official state religion of Saudi Arabia. In time, a Pakistani variant evolved into its own strain of radical Islam called Deobandism. While this made some inroads among Pakistanis, it was not until the late 1970s that Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq made it the official policy of the Pakistani state to support the Deobandis, and radical Islam blossomed.

As Charles Allen notes in his masterly work God's Terrorists, there were only 200 madrassas, or religious schools, on Pakistani soil at the time of the India-Pakistan partition in 1947. By 1972, this figure had grown to 893. Of these Pakistani madrassas, 354 (40 percent) openly espoused Deobandism. After President ul-Haq threw the full support of his military behind the movement and turned on the spigot of Saudi petrodollars, radical Islam really took off. In 2002, Allen notes, Pakistan's minister of religious affairs "put the total number of madrassas in Pakistan at ten thousand, of which …... no fewer than seven thousand" are Deobandi. It was the proliferation of Deobandi madrassas that led directly to the birth of the Taliban, which follows the Deobandi creed and continues to find new recruits among students of Islam. The most radical madrassas instruct more than 1 million students each year and provide a comfortable abode for terrorists planning attacks.

One result is that today the president himself is not safe. The jihadist hydra nearly killed Zardari on September 20, when a truck bomb leveled the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad. Zardari had stopped off to chat with an old friend, narrowly avoiding death. The assassins were more successful with Zardari's wife, Benazir Bhutto, who was killed by jihadists in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on December 27, 2007.

All of this has important ramifications not only for India and Pakistan, but also for the United States and the rest of the free world. There is no question that Pakistan has played an instrumental role in the war on terror. President Musharraf's regime, including friendly elements within the ISI, killed or captured hundreds of al Qaeda operatives in the wake of September 11. But it is now clear that the ISI's long-term strategy for seizing power throughout South and Central Asia by sponsoring jihadist proxies remains undeterred.

Moreover, this strategy conflicts directly with American interests. Just as the ISI created the LET and its sister organizations, the ISI has also been the primary benefactor of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Even as Pakistan gave the United States vital assistance in the war on terror, the ISI continued to sponsor America's enemies behind her back. There are numerous examples that can be cited.

Both NATO officers and Afghan officials have long maintained that the Taliban's Shura, or leadership council, is based in the Pakistani city of Quetta. In May 2006, Colonel Chris Vernon, then the chief of staff for Coalition forces in southern Afghanistan, told the Guardian that this was common knowledge. "The thinking piece of the Taliban is out of Quetta in Pakistan," Vernon said in an interview. "It's the major headquarters. They use it to run a series of networks in Afghanistan." Other anonymous U.S. and NATO officials backed up Vernon's statements.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai went so far as to say he knew the exact location of Taliban chieftain Mullah Omar and had passed on this information to the Pakistani government, only to have it ignored. "Mullah Omar is for sure in Quetta in Pakistan. And he knows that and I know that," Karzai told the Council on Foreign Relations in September 2006. "And we have given [President Musharraf] information. We have even given him the GPS numbers of his house, of Mullah Omar's house, and the telephone numbers."

Despite these warnings, the Taliban's leadership has remained free. The ISI has ensured their safety. But the ISI's complicity in the Taliban's and al Qaeda's terrorism goes far beyond the provision of safe haven.

Pakistani intelligence officers have been caught aiding America's foes inside Afghanistan. In December 2006, Afghan security forces captured Sayed Akbar, an ISI officer. Akbar had been tasked by Pakistani intelligence with serving as a conduit to al Qaeda, which was operating along the Afghan-Pakistani border in the Kunar region.

An aide to President Karzai told reporters that "evidence and documents [had] been seized with [Akbar] proving his destructive activities in Afghanistan." Afghan officials said Akbar confessed to conducting "illegal activities" in Afghanistan. According to Akbar, he had escorted Osama bin Laden as he traveled from Afghanistan's Nuristan province into the mountainous district of Chitral in northwestern Pakistan in 2005. While there have been numerous bin Laden sightings along the Afghan-Pakistani border, he was reported to have been sheltered in Chitral at this time. In fact, FBI agents visited Chitral in early 2006 to assess the reports.

Perhaps the most brazen example of the ISI's support for the Taliban and other terror groups operating in Afghanistan occurred in the mountainous Afghan border province of Nangarhar. Lieutenant Colonel Chris Nash, the commander of an embedded training team that advised Afghan border police, dropped a bombshell last September when his presentation on his time in Afghanistan from September 2006 to March 2007 made the rounds on the Internet.

A slide in the presentation claimed the ISI was supporting U.S. enemies fighting in Afghanistan. The slide read: "ISI involved in direct support to many enemy operations ……. classification prevents further discussion of this point." The support included "training, funding, [and] logistics."

Nash said multiple U.S. and Afghan intelligence reports indicated that the ISI "flew repeated helicopter missions into Afghanistan to resupply the Taliban during a fierce battle in June 2007," according to the Army Times. The ISI helicopters resupplied a "base camp" in the Tora Bora region in Nangarhar, where Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda fought pitched battles with the U.S. military and Afghan militias before retreating into Pakistan.

The camp was run by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami, an insurgent group long sponsored by the ISI, as well as the Taliban and al Qaeda. "A helo flew in the valley, went over to where we knew there was a base camp, landed, [and] 15 minutes later took off," Nash said. The helicopters made three separate flights to resupply the joint insurgent force. "From NDS [Afghan intelligence] sources that we had in the opposing camp, [we know] they were offloading supplies," Nash told the Army Times. Nash explained that the resupply efforts took place over the course of three months.

The most recent and damning allegation of ISI perfidy in Afghanistan was leveled by U.S. intelligence after a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into the outer wall of the Indian embassy in Kabul. Fifty-four people, including an Indian defense attaché, were killed in the July 7 bombing.

The Indian embassy bombing was carried out by the notorious Haqqani Network, run by former mujahedeen leader Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Siraj. Both Jalaluddin and Siraj have close ties with al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden.

The Haqqanis have extensive links with al Qaeda and the Taliban, and their relationship with the ISI has allowed their network to survive and thrive in its fortress stronghold of North Waziristan. The Haqqanis control large swaths of the tribal area and run a parallel administration with courts, recruiting centers, tax offices, and security forces. They have established multiple training camps and safe houses used by al Qaeda leaders and operatives, as well as by Taliban foot soldiers preparing to fight in Afghanistan.

American intelligence agencies confronted the Pakistani government with evidence of direct ISI involvement in the bombing of the Indian embassy, the New York Times reported in August. "The conclusion was based on intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack, the officials said, providing the clearest evidence to date that Pakistani intelligence officers are actively undermining American efforts to combat militants in the region."

The ISI officers involved in the Kabul bombings were not "renegades," the New York Times reported, and the intercepts indicated that "their actions might have been authorized by superiors." U.S. intelligence officials also said "elements of Pakistan's government seemed to be directly aiding violence in Afghanistan that had included attacks on American troops" and were providing intelligence to Taliban and al Qaeda operatives on the U.S. covert air campaign targeting terror leaders in Pakistan's tribal areas. The Haqqani Network has been a prime target of these attacks; almost 60 percent of U.S. airstrikes this year have occurred in North Waziristan.

In the wake of the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, the ISI reshuffled its leadership. But the changes were most likely cosmetic. As the attacks in Mumbai illustrate, the ISI continues to sponsor terrorism. Indeed, the attacks in Mumbai were yet another wake-up call for the United States and the West.

Decades ago the ISI made a pact with the devil. There is no evidence that it can be redeemed any time soon. Given the ISI's deep roots within Pakistan's culture and its capacity to drive policy even against the wishes of the elected officials, curtailing the power of this rogue agency will be difficult at best. Indeed, the ISI is now one of the principal backers of radical Islam in the world.

The allure of Islamist extremism runs deep in Pakistan's officer corps. For many, this is an ideological war. Consider what "retired" ISI general Hamid Gul, who still exerts much influence in Pakistan, said in 2003:

God will destroy the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan and wherever it will try to go from there. The Muslim world must stand united to confront the United States in its so-called War on Terrorism, which is in reality a war against Muslims. Let's destroy America wherever its troops are trapped.

The same mentality compels the ISI and its surrogates to claim territory in the name of Islam. Pakistan's jihad in India and Kashmir is not just the product of a decades-old geopolitical rivalry. For the ISI, it is part of a Manichaean struggle between the forces of Islam and the rest of the world. As Praveen Swami notes in his book, the LET's leadership has openly talked of conquering large swaths of India on behalf of Muslims. After the Kargil war of 1999, LET chieftain Hafiz Muhammad Saeed threatened, "The real war will be inside [India]." He swore his forces would "unfurl the Islamic flag on the Red Fort." As Swami explains, the Red Fort in New Delhi "has been a long-standing motif in Islamist Discourse, as old as Partition itself." It is no wonder that in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, the Indians have demanded that the Pakistanis turn Saeed over. But it is doubtful that the Pakistani military will comply.

In the current crisis, the military shows signs of closing ranks with extremist elements as fears of a conflict with India increase. Just days after the Mumbai attacks, an army corps commander described Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud as a "patriot" and said the conflict with the Taliban in the northwest was merely due to "misunderstandings." In turn, the Taliban-dominated tribes pledged to send three million fighters to the Indian frontier in the event of a conflict.

Past efforts to purge the military of officers sympathetic to or openly supportive of the extremist cause have had only limited success. Former President Pervez Musharraf conducted multiple purges of the ISI after the September 11 attacks and attempts on his own life, but they had limited effect. Recently, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, a Bhutto loyalist, tried to bring the ISI under government control, but met resistance. Within 24 hours, the announcement that the ISI would be placed under the office of the prime minister had been rescinded.

The United States is now faced with an awful truth. Pakistan is both an ally and an enemy. The attacks in Mumbai are only the latest demonstration of the tactics the ISI is willing to sponsor in its quest for power in the subcontinent and beyond. We should be mindful that ISI-sponsored terrorism is a central component of our enemies' worldwide designs. It should not come as a surprise if someday we find ISI-backed terrorists laying siege to New York or Washington, just as they lately brought carnage to Mumbai.

Bill Roggio is managing editor of the website Long War Journal and adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Thomas Joscelyn is the senior editor of the Long War Journal.

The Weekly Standard

[arun]

New York times Editorial.

Yes indeed. The silence of Gen. Kayani is deafening :

December 6, 2008
EDITORIAL

The Pakistan Connection

Pakistan’s government has fiercely denied any role in the terrorist attacks on Mumbai that killed more than 160 people. We hope that is true. But there are strong signs that the terrorists were members of the Pakistani-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a former proxy of Islamabad’s powerful intelligence service that — despite being officially banned — continues to operate in plain sight in Pakistan.

Any act of terrorism is horrifying, but the potential aftermath of this one is even more so.

India and Pakistan have already fought three wars. Both are nuclear armed. It is not hard to imagine that the attackers’ real goal was to disrupt recent efforts to improve relations — and provoke an even greater cataclysm. Everything must be done to avoid that.

India has so far shown extraordinary restraint. It will have to continue to do so as the investigation moves forward. Pakistan, which has bounced between sympathy and bluster, must provide full cooperation — no matter where the investigation leads.

Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, must face up to his country’s involvement — whether official or nearly so. We know his new civilian government is weak, and he may not be able to accede to New Delhi’s demands that all suspects be turned over to India for prosecution.

At a minimum, his government must be ready to arrest and try anyone involved in the attacks, and mete out long jail terms if they are convicted. Islamabad must finally shut down all the Lashkar training camps and recruitment activity.

We also are waiting for a forceful public repudiation of the militant groups from the Army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and his personal pledge that all ties between Pakistan’s military and the extremists will be severed. His silence is deafening.

India must share intelligence with Pakistan on the attack. Instead of boxing Mr. Zardari in, it should ask his government to arrest only people who are directly linked to the Mumbai attacks, not other incidents.

For any lasting peace, India and Pakistan must settle their dispute over Kashmir, the biggest flashpoint. India’s growing investment and intelligence network in Afghanistan also is feeding Islamabad’s insecurity and sense of encirclement. India must be transparent about its involvement in Afghanistan.

If the two countries are going to inch back from the brink, they will need strong support from the United States, China and others powers. These countries also must develop a strategy to strengthen Pakistan’s fragile civilian government and stop the country from becoming even more ungovernable.

That does not mean impunity for anyone involved in the Mumbai attacks. It means that the leaders of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services must finally realize that the extremists pose a clear and present threat to their own country’s survival.

New York Times

[arun]

British newspaper confirm's Pakistani roots of the lone surviving Islamic terrorist of the Mumbai attack :

Mumbai terrorist came from Pakistan, local villagers confirm

Saeed Shah in Faridkot, near Depalpur
The Observer, Sunday December 7 2008

An Observer investigation has established that the lone surviving gunman caught by Indian police during last week's terrorist attacks on Mumbai came from a village in the Okara district of the Pakistani Punjab.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, interrogated in custody after last month's attacks, which killed 163 people, reportedly told Indian security officials that he came from a place called Faridkot in the Punjab province. His father was named as Mohammed Amir, married to a woman named Noor. During the past week, Pakistani sources have cast doubt on the authenticity of the leaked information, which has had a predictably explosive impact on relations between the two countries.

The Observer has obtained electoral lists for Faridkot showing 478 registered voters, including a Mohammed Amir, married to Noor Elahi. Amir's and Noor's national identity card numbers have also been obtained. At the address identified in the list, a man identifying himself as Sultan said he was the father-in-law of Mohammed Amir.

A villager, who cannot be named for his own protection, said the village was an active recruiting ground for the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. 'We know that boy [caught in Mumbai] is from Faridkot,' he said. 'We knew from the first night [of the attack]. They brainwash our youth about jihad, there are people who do it in this village. It is so wrong,' he added.

According to the villager and other locals, Ajmal has not lived in Faridkot for about four years but would return to see his family once a year and frequently talked of freeing Kashmir from Indian rule.

The truth about Ajmal's origins are key to the ongoing investigation of where the attackers came from and will have a profound impact on relations between India and Pakistan. Islamabad has repeatedly said that no proof has been provided to back Indian accusations that all the gunmen came from Pakistan. The terrorist outrage has pushed the two nuclear-armed countries to the brink of confrontation but, until now, there had been no solid evidence that any of the militants were from Pakistan.

On Friday, police arrested two Indian men accused of illegally buying mobile phone cards used by the gunmen in the Mumbai attacks, in the first known arrests since the bloody siege ended. Security officials demanded the release of one of them, Mukhtar Ahmed, yesterday, claiming he was a counter-insurgency police officer who may have been on an undercover mission.

Police said another Indian citizen, Faheem Ansari, who was arrested in February in northern India carrying sketches of hotels, the train terminus and other sites that were later attacked, was being brought to Mumbai for renewed questioning.

Rakesh Maria, a senior Mumbai police officer, said he believed there was a connection between Ansari and the Mumbai attacks. 'Ansari was trained by Lashkar and sent to do reconnaissance,' Maria said.

One of the arrested men, Tauseef Rahman, allegedly bought Sim cards by providing fake documents, including identification cards of dead people, senior police official Rajeev Kumar said yesterday in the eastern city of Calcutta. Rahman, of West Bengal state, later sold them to Ahmed, Kumar said. Both men were arrested on Friday and charged with fraud and conspiracy.

Police said they were still investigating how the 10 gunmen obtained the Sim cards. Most large Indian cities, including Calcutta, where the Sim cards were purchased, have thriving black markets for Sim cards and cheap phones.

Ahmed was from the Indian portion of Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan region at the root of much of the tension between India and Pakistan, Kumar said. According to an unnamed police official in Srinagar, Kashmir's biggest city, Ahmed was a local police officer.

The Guardian

[arun]

X Posted ....... Hat tip Rangudu.

More from the Observer/Guardian Group confirming the Pakistani roots of the surviving Islamic terrorist :

Revealed: home of Mumbai's gunman in Pakistan village

Since the terrorist attacks in Mumbai 10 days ago, speculation has been rife about the birthplace of the lone surviving gunman, Ajmal Amir Kasab. India and Pakistan have clashed over reports that he came from the Punjab. Saeed Shah, after spending days travelling throughout the region, tracked down the killer's home - and his grandfather - and found conclusive proof of his identity

Saeed Shah The Observer, Sunday December 7 2008

The little house was certainly that of a poor family, with a courtyard to one side and a small cart propped up in one corner. The old man and middle-aged woman who answered the door were not the owners. No, they insisted, the owners were away.

'They've gone to a wedding,' said the old man, identifying himself as Sultan. He was, he said, Amir's father-in-law. So, that would make him Ajmal's grandfather? At last, it seemed, this was the right place.

It had taken days to get to Faridkot, a small, dirt-poor village in Pakistan's Punjab province. More than a week after the arrest of the only Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist taken alive during the terror strike on Mumbai, so little was still known about him. His name, for instance. Was he Mohammed Amin Kasab, Azam Amir Kasav? Or was he Mohammed Ajmal Amir? The name Kasai in fact means he would hail from a butcher community - that would be his caste. But it was recorded as Kasav, then later Kasab. The discrepancies reportedly stemmed from the fact that the Mumbai police officers who first questioned him were Marathi speakers and unable to communicate with the south Punjab resident in anything other than Hindi patois.

And where exactly was he from? Faridkot is what he told his interrogators, but this is a common village name. There were four candidates in the Punjab region.

Days of trying to establish which was the right one had led to a Faridkot near the Indian border, outside a town called Depalpur. The nearest city was Okara. It seemed to fit. And it was at this Faridkot that Ajmal's father was believed to live.

Initially villagers were unhelpful. No, said those approached, there was no one known here of that name. Even shown a photograph of Ajmal taken during the Mumbai siege, all swore they did not recognise him. The mayor was clear. 'There is a man who came to see me called Amir Kasab, who was worried,' said Ghulam Mustafa Wattoo. 'He told me that the Ajmal on the news was not his boy. That boy's gone away to work. There's no extremist network here.'

Was this another dead end?

As the villagers were questioned, the confusions appeared to multiply. Finally the name Mohammed Ajmal Amir, son of Mohammed Amir Iman, who ran a food stall, emerged.

At other Faridkots, including one near the town of Khanewal, villagers had been friendly and helpful, proffering tea as they shook their heads. 'No. Not from here,' they said. For a while, it appeared that this Faridkot would also prove a wasted journey. The mayor said there had been no local police investigation, suggesting that the authorities did not view this place with suspicion. But, over time, inconsistencies in the villagers' accounts heightened suspicion that this was the place. 'He [Amir] has lived here for a few years,' said one villager, Mohammad Taj. 'He has three sons and three daughters.'

Noor Ahmed, a local farmer, said: 'Amir had a stall he pushed around, sometimes here, sometimes elsewhere. He was a meek man, he wasn't particularly religious. He just made ends meet and didn't quarrel with anyone.'

Still the picture was confusing. While sometimes confirming that Amir did live in the village, and had a son called Ajmal, on other occasions locals claimed to know nothing.

Finally one villager confirmed what was going on: 'You're being given misinformation. We've all known from the first day [of the news of the terrorist attack] that it was him, Ajmal Amir Kasab. His mother started crying when she saw his picture on the television.'

Attempts to meet Amir, the father, however, were not to be successful. Villagers eventually told us that he and his wife, Noor, had been mysteriously spirited away earlier in the week.

'Ajmal used to go to Lahore for work, as a labourer,' continued the villager who feared being named. 'He's been away for maybe four years. When he came back once a year, he would say things like, "We are going to free Kashmir."'

Wresting the whole of Kashmir from Indian rule is Lashkar-e-Taiba's aim. Ajmal had little education, according to locals. But it is still unclear whether he was radicalised in the village or once he had left to work elsewhere.

It is said that from the age of 13 he was shuttled between his parents' house and that of a brother in Lahore. If he did indeed speak fluent English, as claimed in Indian press reports, he would have had to have learnt that after he left the village.

But the villager who turned whistleblower said that local religious clerics were brainwashing youths in the area and that Lashkar-e-Taiba's founder, Hafiz Sayeed, had visited nearby Depalpur, where there were 'hundreds' of supporters. There was a Lashkar-e-Taiba office in Depalpur, but that had been hurriedly closed in the past few days. The Lashkar-e-Taiba newspaper is distributed in Depalpur and Faridkot. Depalpur lies in the south of Punjab province, an economically backward area long known for producing jihadists.

Shown a picture of Ajmal, the villager confirmed that he was the former Faridkot resident, who had last visited the village a couple of months ago at the last festival of Eid.

Some locals have claimed that this Faridkot, and another poor village nearby called Tara Singh, are a recruitment hotbed for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group accused of carrying out the Mumbai attack. On the side of a building, just outside Faridkot, is graffiti that says: 'Go for jihad. Go for jihad. Markaz Dawat ul-Irshad.' MDI is the parent organisation of Lashkar-e-Taiba. In Depalpur, a banner on the side of the main street asks people to devote goatskins to Jamaat ud Dawa, another MDI offshoot.

Tara Singh is home to a radical madrasa - Islamic school - and there is another hardline seminary in nearby Depalpur. The nazim (mayor) of Tara Singh, Rao Zaeem Haider, said: 'There is a religious trend here. Some go for jihad, but not too many.'

Some reports emerging in India suggest that Ajmal may have joined Lashkar -e-Taiba less because of his Islamist convictions but in the hope that the jihad training he would receive would help to further the life of crime upon which he had already embarked. But once inside Lashkar's base, his world-view began to change.

Here, films on India's purported atrocities in Kashmir and heated lectures by fiery preachers led him to believe in Lashkar's cause. It has also been said that, when he was chosen for the Lashkar basic combat training, he performed so well that he was among a group of 32 men selected to undergo advanced training at a camp near Manshera, a course the organisation calls the Duara Khaas.

And finally, it seems, he was among an even smaller group selected for specialised commando and navigation training given to the fedayeen unit selected to attack Mumbai.

The authorities may now attempt to deny that Ajmal's parents live in Faridkot, but, according to some locals, they have been there for some 20 years. But by the end of our visit, a crucial piece of evidence had been gained. The Observer has managed to obtain an electoral roll for Faridkot, which falls under union council number 5, tehsil (area) Depalpur, district Okara. The list of 478 registered voters shows a 'Mohammed Amir', married to Noor Elahi, living in Faridkot. Amir's national identity card number is given as 3530121767339, and Noor's is 3530157035058.

That appears to be the last piece of the jigsaw. A man called Amir and his wife, Noor, do live in Faridkot, official records show. They have a son called Ajmal.

Following our last visit to Faridkot, the mayor, Wattoo, announced via the loudspeaker at the mosque that no one was to speak to any outsiders. By yesterday, Pakistani intelligence officials had descended in force on Faridkot. Locals, speaking by telephone, said a Pakistani TV crew and an American journalist had been roughed up and run out of town. It appeared that the backlash had begun.

Guardian

[Shreeman]

New York times Editorial.

Yes indeed. The silence of Gen. Kayani is deafening :

December 6, 2008
EDITORIAL

The Pakistan Connection

India must share intelligence with Pakistan on the attack. Instead of boxing Mr. Zardari in, it should ask his government to arrest only people who are directly linked to the Mumbai attacks, not other incidents.

New York Times

NYT is weirdly supportive of TSP. I doubt they will publish any of the "we found where they live" stories. As for sharing, I hope Morarji's sharing was the last.

[Rangudu]

http://thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=150979

Secret document confirms Hameed Gul wanted by US

Claims ex-ISI chief provided financial assistance to criminal groups, involved in recruiting, training seminaries’ students

Sunday, December 07, 2008
By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: A secret US document, marked as releasable to the Government of Pakistan, has linked former Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt-Gen (retd) Hamid Gul to the Taliban and al-Qaeda networks.

The two-page unsigned document had already been provided to the government, a knowledgeable source revealed to The News here on Saturday on condition of anonymity.

He said Gul had been charged in the paper with providing financial assistance to Kabul-based criminal groups and involvement in spotting, assessing, recruiting and training young men from seminaries.

The recruits are reportedly trained for attacks on the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan. The ex-general, according to the source, has been accused of assisting the Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in developing high-tech weapons.

In Washington, the State Departmentís Deputy Spokesman Robert Wood had declined to comment on earlier reports that such a list had been sent to the UN. “If we decide to send names, we will let the media know,” he responded to a question on the subject on Thursday.

But the document seen by The News reveals the US had sent the name of Lt-Gen Hameed Gul to the Government of Pakistan.

Gul is one of the five erstwhile ISI officials whose names Washington has recommended to the UN Security Council for inclusion in the list of international terrorists. When contacted by this scribe, Gul laughed off the charges which, according to him, are simply hilarious. He promised to come up with a para-wise response to the charges levelled against him on Sunday or Monday.

As per the paper, his name is spelled as Lieutenant General (retired) Hamid Gul, Hameed Gul and Haimid Gul. He was born on March 14, 1937 in Sargodha, reads the document, which says his address is Defence Colony in Peshawar, though he lives in Rawalpindi.

His passport number, according to the document, is BA479001. “Lieutenant General (retired) Hamid Gul was Director-General of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from 1987-1989.

“Hamid Gul has maintained extensive contacts over the years with Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives located in Pakistan, providing financial support and encouragement to these groups.”

It claimed: “In 2005, Hamid Gul provided general, over-arching guidance to the Taliban leadership on operational activities in Afghanistan. In 2008, Hamid Gul was in contact with the militant group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its leadership, including Baitullah Mahsud, and provided the TTP leadership and operatives with guidance on the conduct of militant operations in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.”

Since at least 2005, the paper says, Hameed Gul has also provided financial and material support to the Taliban and has supported militant training camps in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. As of late 2006, Gul allegedly directed a Taliban operative to head a militant training camp.

“Hamid Gul was a regular contact for Sirajuddin Haqqani and regularly apprised Sirajuddin of Pakistan government activity in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA),”the document continues.

Haqqani is a top Taliban commander, added to the UN 1,267 Committee’s consolidated list of individuals and entities associated with al-Qaeda or the Taliban on September 13, 2007. He was named specially designated global terrorist pursuant to EO 13224 on March 11, 2008.

“As of early 2007, Gul was involved in spotting, assessing, and recruiting young men from various Pakistani Madrassas for training in eventual attacks against US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan. The training consisted of techniques for laying mines, arson and suicide bombings. As of late 2006, Gul was also involved in the training camps.

“In late 2006, Gul provided money to a Kabul-based criminal group for every International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) member that the group kidnapped and turned over to the Taliban.

“In addition to these kidnapping-for-ransom activities, this criminal group sold weapons and explosives to the Taliban and acted as travel facilitators for Taliban members in Afghanistan.”

Gul was on the board of directors of Umman Tameer-e-Nau (UTN), a non-governmental organisation formed to help the Taliban and al-Qaeda networks develop high-tech weapons, the paper charges.

The UN 1,267 Committee added the UTN to its consolidated list of individuals and entities associated with al-Qaeda or the Taliban on December 24, 2001.

The UTN was named a specially designated global terrorist pursuant to EO 13,224 on December 20, 2001. “As of mid-2008, Gul has knowledge of the resettlement of al-Qaeda members from Iraq to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.”

[Avinash R]

'Pakistani authorities knew about terrorists traveling to Mumbai'
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/07m ... mumbai.htm

December 07, 2008

As investigations into the Mumbai terror attack are picking up pace, the links between the terrorists and Pakistan are becoming also becoming clearer. Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist who was nabbed alive during the terror attack, has revealed that Pakistan authorities had deliberately turned a blind eye when he, along with his 10 associates, traveled to Mumbai.

An Anti-Terrorist Squad official told rediff.com that according to Kasab, Pakistani authorities were aware of their boat crossing Pakistan waters and entering the Indian sea, but they were not checked or questioned even once by the maritime officials. Kasab further told his interrogators that the fishing boat Kuber was boarded in Pakistani waters, contrary to earlier reports, which suggested that they had hijacked the boat in Indian waters.

Kasab says that the terrorists reached Mumbai via Gujarat, and the last leg of their journey was covered in a dinghy. On reaching Mumbai, they split up into different groups and went about their operations.

Investigators have learnt that the guns used by the terrorists were brought in from Pakistan. Investigations have suggested that the guns were supplied from Peshawar, and the ATS is now trying to find out if the Pakistan Army [Images] procures its arms from the same place.

A day after the chief of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba denied any links with the Mumbai terror attack in an interview, Kasab told the investigators that he and the other terrorists were trained by LeT operatives and ex-army personnel from Pakistan.

He said that the entire plot was hatched by the LeT a year ago and all the terrorists underwent rigourous training under the supervision of LeT commanders and former Pakistan army officials.

ATS officials believe that Fahim Ansari, who was arrested in connection with the attack on the Central Reserve Police Force camp in Rampur, played a vital role in planning the Mumbai terror attack. "We are examining his statements and will question him in detail as we believe that he will help us join the dots in this investigation," said an ATS official.

[Rangudu]

Alleged?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1228690 ... outset-box

DECEMBER 8, 2008

Alleged Terrorist Group Steers Young Men to Fight

Mumbai Suspect, Ex-Recruits Describe How Pakistan-Based Lashkar-e-Taiba Gave Them the Motivation and Skills to Kill

By GEETA ANAND in Mumbai, MATTHEW ROSENBERG in Lahore, Pakistan, AND SIOBHAN GORMAN and SUSAN SCHMIDT in Washington

Captured terrorist suspect Mohammed Ajmal Kasab has repeatedly offered the same explanation to his interrogators for his role in the Mumbai attacks. "Islam is in danger," he says over and over, according to a senior Indian police official.
It was a message pumped into the 21-year-old by his trainers from the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to Indian police. To reinforce the message, Mr. Kasab and the nine other terrorists were shown videos of Hindu violence perpetrated on Indian Muslims, police say.

Mr. Kasab's account of his recruitment and training -- along with accounts from court papers and interviews with former recruits -- offers a portrait of how Lashkar-e-Taiba combines indoctrination with expert combat training to turn directionless, disconnected young men into deadly Islamist terrorists.

On Sunday, Pakistan security forces raided a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp where authorities believed militants linked to last month's Mumbai attack were located, a senior Pakistani official said.

Lashkar, whose teachings are often tailored specifically for attacks on the subcontinent, highlights two atrocities in the past two decades that have riled India's minority Muslim community and inspired acts of terrorism in India as well: A 1992 Hindu fundamentalist campaign to destroy the Babri Masjid, a mosque in Uttar Pradesh state, and the 2002 anti-Muslim rioting, in the town of Godhra in the western state of Gujarat, in which more than 1,000 people were killed.


The symbolism appears to have had the desired effect on Mr. Kasab. "He got a sense of purpose right away," says A.N. Roy, director general of the Maharashtra State Police. "He felt he was fighting for his religion."
Since the attacks, Indian police say Mr. Kasab has come to regret his actions and asked police to deliver a letter to his father. In it, according to Mr. Roy, he wrote in Urdu: "I did not go on the path you told me to. I did not realize that the path I was taking would lead me here. I went too far. I am now as good as dead. Nobody should go down this path."

Lashkar-e-Taiba, which started in the early 1990s and made its name challenging India's claims over Kashmir, has expanded its reach to wherever it perceives Muslims to be in danger. In the process, it has become one of the most deadly Islamic terrorist groups, a support at times for al Qaeda, and a route for Western extremists and converts to sign up for terrorism.

Foreign jihadis finding it increasingly difficult to get to al Qaeda directly have turned to Lashkar. Among the most famous Lashkar alumni: "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight in late 2001, and Dhiren Barot, who was arrested in 2004, and convicted two years later, for planning a deadly bombing plot in London and providing al Qaeda with materials to target U.S. financial buildings. Both are British citizens.

Pakistan banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, which means "Army of the Pure," under U.S. pressure in 2002, by which time thousands of young men already had trained in Lashkar camps, experts say. Despite the ban, Pakistan has allowed the group to hide in plain sight, doing little if anything to clamp down.

Lashkar's parent organization, a charitable group called Jamaat-ud-Dawa, or "Party of Preachers," is increasing in influence, especially in the central Pakistani province of Punjab, where it even arbitrates village disputes. At its headquarters in Muridke, a few hours' drive from Lahore, it runs a 75-acre campus with an Islamic university, two schools and a hospital. It has set up schools across Punjab and other parts of Pakistan where government schools are nonexistent or poorly funded.
Jamaat-ud-Dawa's educational activities, experts say, have turned it into an open door for young men from all over the world who are interested in exploring militant Islam and perhaps joining Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Lashkar-e-Taiba's founder, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, denies the group was involved in the Mumbai strikes, despite what Indian and U.S. officials say is substantial evidence. Pakistan also has cast doubt on the Indian version of events and on accounts of Mr. Kasab's testimony. President Asif Ali Zardari said he doubts the man Indian police had identified as Mr. Kasab is Pakistani.

According to police accounts, Mr. Kasab has said he is from a poor family of devout Muslims in the small, dusty village of Faridkot in Punjab. His father worked selling snacks out of a cart. One of five siblings, Mr. Kasab has said he dropped out of school when he was in fourth grade so he could help support the family, working as a casual laborer in his town of 3,000 people.

Most people in the Faridkot area work in farming or as laborers in nearby cities. The region, with its poor and undereducated population, has proved to be a fertile recruiting ground for militant Islamic groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba.

In 2005, Mr. Kasab says, according to the police accounts, he moved to Lahore, where his brother was employed. Mr. Kasab worked for a time as a casual laborer, but then got into petty crime, he told police. In search of a source for weapons to commit crimes, Mr. Kasab met with some people who turned out to be recruiters for Lashkar-e-Taiba, he said.

The recruiters persuaded him to attend a training camp, where they showed him video footage of Hindu extremists demolishing the Babri Masjid and Hindu mobs killing Muslims in the aftermath of the burning of a train full of Hindu pilgrims passing through Godhra in 2002.

The two incidents are those most cited in complaints by Indian Muslims about how majority-Hindu India has ignored and persecuted them despite India's democracy and secular constitution. Indian Mujahedeen, a terror outfit with alleged links to Lashkar-e-Taiba, cited the events in emails taking responsibility for a series of terrorist attacks in India earlier this year.

The grievances Lashkar-e-Taiba uses to motivate recruits vary depending on the target audience. One former member says he was recruited at age 16 in 1997 after a Lashkar recruiter showed him pictures of Muslim women raped and killed and dumped in mass graves in Bosnia, as well as of dead insurgents in Kashmir. In an interview, the former member said the recruiter came to his school in Gujranwala, a district close to Jamaat-ud-Dawa's headquarters, to tell the class to be pious Muslims.

"The pictures moved a lot of us and some of us even started to cry," he said in an interview.

After Mr. Kasab's first few months in a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp he felt a sense of purpose for the first time in his life, he told Mumbai police. It was his job to fight to the death to save Islam and he said he was ready to die in the jihad, police said.
At several camps around Pakistan, including a major Lashkar-e-Taiba camp in Muzaffarabad in Kashmir, Mr. Kasab underwent 18 months' training in marine warfare, weaponry and explosive use, he told interrogators, said Mr. Roy, the Maharashtra police director general.

Among the trainers were several who appeared in army and navy uniforms with names and rank badges, Mr. Roy said. The Pakistani government denies any of its military was involved in training the attackers.

The former Lashkar member also said training was provided by Pakistani military officers in uniform when he attended camp in Muzaffarabad. "They were experts," he said. "They taught us about explosives, about urban combat, how to go into buildings, clear rooms of people and hold off soldiers for as long as we could."

Lashkar-e-Taiba's camps typically give new recruits three weeks of basic weapons training, according to experts and past attendees. Volunteers begin their day with a call to morning prayers before rigorous exercises and religious instruction.
Foreign recruits are sometimes trained at a special camp, according to Yong Ki Kwon, a Lashkar-e-Taiba trainee apprehended by police in northern Virginia in 2003. Mr. Kwon became a cooperating witness for the government in its investigation of the Virginia Jihad network and pleaded guilty to weapons and conspiracy charges. He described training at several Lashkar camps in Pakistan in weapons, camouflage, reconnaissance and night maneuvers, and ambush tactics.

Ghulam, a 51-year-old former Lashkar-e-Taiba member who asked that only his first name be used, says that after his camp training in the early 1990s, he was sent to help the group's fighters in Kashmir. A Pakistani who now lives in Lahore, Ghulam says he carried weapons, ammunition, clothes and food to hideouts and safe houses across the Line of Control, the de facto border between India's and Pakistan's parts of the Himalayan region. Once, he said, his group was fired on by Indian forces as they headed back toward the line, and Pakistani soldiers opened fire to give them cover. Mr. Kasab said the members of his training group knew they were preparing to launch an attack, but they weren't told details, according to the police account.
A few days before they left their camp, a group of 10 were chosen from a larger group about double in number, police said. They were told they were attacking Mumbai and details on the plan. They knew they might die, but were promised their families would get about $3,000 if they became martyrs. For three months they were kept in isolation and communicated with one another using code names.

On Nov. 23, the group set out from Karachi, Pakistan's major port on the Arabian Sea, for a journey that three days later would deliver them to the shores of Mumbai. Mr. Kasab was the only one of the 10 Mumbai assailants captured; the rest were eventually killed by security forces, most of them after being holed up in three hotels and a Jewish center for three days as they eluded commandos.

Residents in the village where Mr. Kasab grew up said he moved out a few years ago, according to a local journalist. His father, Amir, confirmed the gunman as his son after seeing a photograph of him injured after the attacks, the journalist said. His mother burst into tears and kissed the photograph. The elder Mr. Kasab said he hasn't received any money from Lashkar-e-Taiba. "I don't sell my son," he told the journalist.
—Zahid Hussain and Jay Solomon contributed to this article.

[arun]

December 8, 2008

Pakistan’s Spies Aided Group Tied to Mumbai Siege

By ERIC SCHMITT, MARK MAZZETTI and JANE PERLEZ

This article was reported by Eric Schmitt, Mark Mazzetti and Jane Perlez and written by Mr. Schmitt.

WASHINGTON — Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based militant group suspected of conducting the Mumbai attacks, has quietly gained strength in recent years with the help of Pakistan’s main spy service, assistance that has allowed the group to train and raise money while other militants have been under siege, American intelligence and counterterrorism officials say.

American officials say there is no hard evidence to link the spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, to the Mumbai attacks. But the ISI has shared intelligence with Lashkar and provided protection for it, the officials said, and investigators are focusing on one Lashkar leader they believe is a main liaison with the spy service and a mastermind of the attacks.

As a result of the assault on Mumbai, India’s financial hub, American counterterrorism and military officials say they are reassessing their view of Lashkar and believe it to be more capable and a greater threat than they had previously recognized.

“People are having to go back and relook at all the connections,” said one American counterterrorism official, who was among several officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still progressing.

Pakistani officials have denied any government connection to the siege on Nov. 26-29, in which nine gunmen and 163 other people were killed. A Pakistani official confirmed on Sunday that security forces had initiated an operation against at least one Lashkar camp.

The Associated Press, citing militants and an unidentified senior official, reported Monday from Islamabad, Pakistan, that Pakistani troops had seized a former Lashkar camp, in the Pakistani part of Kashmir, that is now used by the group’s charity wing, Jamaat-ud-Dawa. “More than 12 people” were arrested, The Associated Press said.

The official who spoke to The New York Times gave no details about the operation he confirmed, Pakistan’s first known response against the group implicated in Mumbai. “The government of Pakistan has always said it would act on any evidence that is presented to us,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details about security operations. “We will make sure that nobody uses Pakistani territory to carry out militant activity.”

While Al Qaeda has provided financing and other support to Lashkar in the past, their links today remain murky. Senior Qaeda figures have used Lashkar safe houses as hide-outs, but Lashkar has not merged its operations with Al Qaeda or adopted the Qaeda brand, as did an Algerian terrorist group that changed its name to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, American officials said.

Unlike Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, who have been forced to retreat to mountain redoubts in western Pakistan’s tribal areas, Lashkar commanders have been able to operate more or less in the open, behind the public face of a popular charity, with the implicit support of official Pakistani patrons, American officials said.

American and Indian officials believe that one senior Lashkar commander in particular, Zarrar Shah, is one of the group’s primary liaisons to the ISI. Investigators in India are also examining whether Mr. Shah, a communications specialist, helped plan and carry out the attacks in Mumbai. “He’s a central character in this plot,” an American official said.

For years, American intelligence analysts have described Lashkar as a group with deadly, yet limited, ambitions in South Asia. But terrorism experts said it clearly had been inspired by the success of Al Qaeda in rallying supporters for a global jihad.

“This is a group that years ago evolved from having a local and parochial agenda and bought into Al Qaeda’s vision,” said Bruce Hoffman, a professor and terrorism expert at Georgetown University who has followed Lashkar closely for several years.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, which means “army of the pure,” was founded more than 20 years ago with the help of Pakistani intelligence officers as a proxy force to challenge Indian control of Muslim-dominated Kashmir.

Indian officials have publicly implicated Lashkar operatives in a July 2006 attack on commuter trains in Mumbai and in a December 2001 attack against the Indian Parliament. But in recent years, Lashkar fighters have turned up in Afghanistan and Iraq, fighting and killing Americans, senior American military officials have said.

As American, European and Middle Eastern governments crack down on Al Qaeda’s finances, Lashkar still has a flourishing fund-raising organization in South Asia and the Persian Gulf region, including Saudi Arabia, counterterrorism officials say. The group primarily uses Jamaat-ud-Dawa to raise money, ostensibly for causes in Pakistan.

The Mumbai attacks, which included foreigners among its targets, seemed to fit the group’s evolving emphasis and determination to elevate its profile in the global jihadist constellation.

Lashkar also has a history of using local extremist groups for knowledge and tactics in its operations. Investigators in Mumbai are following leads suggesting that Lashkar used the Students’ Islamic Movement of India, a fundamentalist group that advocates establishing an Islamic state in India, for early reconnaissance and logistical help.

An Indian man arrested in connection with the attacks, Fahim Ahmad Ansari, had been described beforehand by Indian newspaper reports as a former member of the Students’ Islamic Movement who met with Lashkar operatives in Dubai in 2003.

American officials said investigators were looking closely at the likelihood that the attackers had local support in Mumbai.

Mr. Hoffman said that Lashkar had developed particularly sophisticated Internet operations, and that intelligence officials believed the group had forged ties with regional terrorist organizations like Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia by assisting them with their own Internet strategies.

Although Pakistan’s government officially banned Lashkar in 2002, American officials said that the group had maintained close ties since then to the Pakistani intelligence service. American spy agencies have documented regular meetings between the ISI and Lashkar operatives, in which the two organizations have shared intelligence about Indian operations in Kashmir.

“It goes beyond information sharing to include some funding and training,” said an American official who follows the group closely. “And these are not rogue ISI elements. What’s going on is done in a fairly disciplined way.”

Still, officials in Washington said they had yet to unearth any direct link between the Pakistan spy agency and the Mumbai attacks. “I don’t think that there is compelling evidence of involvement of Pakistani officials,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on CNN’s “Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer” on Sunday. “But I do think that Pakistan has a responsibility to act.”

She said evidence showed “that the terrorists did use territory in Pakistan.”

An American counterterrorism official said: “It’s one thing to say the ISI is tied to Lashkar and quite another to say the ISI was behind the Mumbai attacks. The evidence at this point doesn’t get you there.”

Moreover, some terrorism analysts said that Lashkar’s dependence on its original sponsors had lessened in recent years. With wealthy donors in no short supply, an established recruiting pipeline and a series of training camps, Lashkar “has outgrown ISI’s support,” said Urmila Venugopalan, a South Asia analyst for Jane’s Information Group.

The protection that Lashkar operatives enjoy inside Pakistan has allowed the group to thrive at the same time that Al Qaeda’s leaders have been forced to hide in caves and occasionally transmit messages to one another using donkey couriers.

In a public statement in May, Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, called Lashkar a “dangerous Al Qaeda affiliate that has demonstrated its willingness to murder innocent civilians.”

But other terrorism analysts offer a more nuanced view of the group’s Qaeda ties.

On the one hand, Al Qaeda and Lashkar share many positions: a belief in a strict interpretation of the Koran, a desire to establish a government based on strict Islamic laws and a priority to evict United States troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. Lashkar has helped Qaeda fighters move in and out of Afghanistan. In March 2002, a Qaeda lieutenant, Abu Zubaydah, was captured in a Lashkar safe house in Faisalabad, Pakistan, according to a State Department terrorism report. Eleven detainees currently at the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are suspected of having some kind of connections to Lashkar.

But Lashkar and Al Qaeda do not always see eye to eye, terrorism analysts said. While Lashkar strives for the creation of a pan-Islamic state across South Asia, Al Qaeda aims to create an even larger entity. Al Qaeda is wary of Lashkar’s relationship with the ISI, an American official said. A spokesman for Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Lashkar’s charity wing, denied last week that the group or its founder, Haffiz Muhammad Saeed, had any connection to the Mumbai attacks. The surviving gunman in Mumbai has claimed to have met Mr. Saeed at a training camp in Pakistan.

On Friday, Mr. Saeed gave his regular sermon at his mosque in Lahore, Pakistan, where thousands listened to him denounce Hinduism, praise Islam and criticize Ms. Rice for visiting the region. Surrounded by security guards, Mr. Saeed, 63, a stocky man with a huge, untrimmed beard, spoke for 50 minutes to a rapt congregation that sat on the wide lawns of the Qadisiyyah Center in central Lahore.

“Now Condoleezza Rice has rushed to India and Pakistan because infidels are united,” he said. “If infidels do not stop their anti-Muslim activities, the Muslims are second to none in taking revenge.”

Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti reported from Washington, and Jane Perlez from Islamabad, Pakistan. Waqar Gillani contributed reporting from Lahore, Pakistan, and Margot Williams from New York.

New York Times

[SSridhar]

14 alleged Islamic extremists detained in Belgium for planning suicide attack

Authorities arrested 14 suspected Islamic extremists on Thursday with links to the al-Qaida terror network after raids in the capital and an eastern city, Belgian police said.

Police searched 16 locations in Brussels and one in the eastern city Liege overnight, confiscating computers, data storage equipment and a pistol.

``Recent information from the investigation also showed that one person was possibly planning a suicide attack,'' federal prosecutor Johan Delmulle told reporters.

He said it was unclear whether the attack would have targeted Belgium or another country.

The suspects had traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan, but it was not immediately clear if they intended to take part in fighting in the region or wanted to obtain training in special camps, police said.

It would be fair to expect some of the 14 to be Pakistanis or of Pakistani extraction.

[arun]

The three Pakistani's are Hafiz(?) Saeed , Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Haji Muhammad Ashraf.

From the article it is unclear if the Jamaat-ud-Dawa has been sanctioned :

UN adds Pakistani militants to terrorist watch list

The three Pakistanis and one Saudi named belong to Lashkar-e-Taiba.

By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers 
from the December 11, 2008 edition

WASHINGTON - A United Nations Security Council committee put three Pakistani leaders of the group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and a Saudi operative on a terrorist watch list Wednesday as new evidence surfaced that the group blamed for the Mumbai (formerly Bombay) attacks has expanded its activities and its fundraising well beyond South Asia.

A UN document obtained by McClatchy said that LeT has sent operatives to attack US troops in Iraq, established a branch in Saudi Arabia, and been raising funds in Europe. The group may also have received money from Al Qaeda, suggesting that it has close ties with Osama bin Laden's terrorist network based along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, the document said.

Although Pakistan's government outlawed LeT in May 2002, it "continues to operate and engage in or support terrorist activities abroad," the document said.

"Is there real concern about Lashkar trying to expand its footprint? The answer is yes," said a US counterterrorism official in response to questions about the document, which the UN committee reviewed before voting to add the four, to the watch list. He requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.

US intelligence officials worry that as the US-led campaign against Al Qaeda has taken a toll on its leaders, restricted the movement of its members, and curbed its financial support, Mr. bin Laden and his second-in-command, Ayman al Zawahiri, have cultivated ties with other militant Islamist groups, especially non-Arab ones such as LeT.

The UN document, which describes some of LeT's activities and fundraising, names LeT founder Muhammad Saeed as the group's "overall leader and chief," and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged military coordinator who was arrested by security forces on Sunday on the Pakistan-held side of the divided Kashmir region.

The UN Security Council Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee also added Haji Muhammad Ashraf, whom the UN document calls Lashkar's finance chief, and Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq, whom it describes as a key propagandist who once coordinated fund-raising activities in Saudi Arabia, to the watch list.

The committee said in a statement that three of the four reside in Pakistan: Mr. Saeed, who insists that he left LeT to run a charity that the US considers a LeT front organization, Mr. Lakhvi and Mr. Ashraf. It said that Mr. Bahaziq is from Saudi Arabia.

Individuals and groups placed on the UN list are subject to international sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans. LeT was included on the list in May 2005.

The US and India sought to have the UN designate the four as part of a crackdown on LeT, which is accused of training and sending the 10 gunmen who attacked two luxury hotels, a Jewish center, a train station, and other targets during a three-day rampage last month in Mumbai. More than 170 people died, including six Americans.

India also sought to have the UN committee include on the list Hamid Gul, a retired Pakistani Army general who headed the country's main intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, in the late 1980s. However, China, a close ally of Pakistan that has veto power on the Security Council, apparently blocked Mr. Gul's inclusion.

Gul, a harsh critic of the US, insists that he has no connections to any extremist groups.

The UN document said that Saeed plays "a key role" in LeT's operational and fundraising activities.

"In 2005, [LeT founder] Saeed determined where graduates of an LeT camp in Pakistan should be sent to fight, and personally organized the infiltration of LeT militants into Iraq during a trip to Saudi Arabia," the document said. "Saeed also arranged for an LeT operative to be sent to Europe as LeT's European fundraising coordinator."

Lakhvi, the group's alleged military coordinator, "has directed LeT operations, including some in Chechnya, Bosnia, Iraq, and Southeast Asia. In 2006, Lakhvi instructed LeT associates to train operatives for suicide bombings," the document said. "In 2004, Lakhvi sent operatives and funds to attack US forces in Iraq, having directed an LeT operative to travel to Iraq in 2003 to assess the situation there."

The document alleged that Lakhvi has also been involved in fundraising activities, "reportedly receiving al Qaida-affiliated donations on behalf of LeT."

Ashraf has overseen Lashkar's finances since 2003, the document said. It alleged that he traveled to the Middle East to collect money and help the "Saudi Arabia-based LeT leadership with expanding its organization and increasing fundraising activities."

Bahaziq was "credited with being the main financier behind the establishment of the LeT," which was founded in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, said the document. He then went on to become the group's leader in Saudi Arabia and coordinated fundraising with Saudi non-governmental groups and businessmen, it said.

"As of mid-2005, Bahaziq played a key role in LeT's propaganda and media operations," it continued.

The Mumbai attacks have fueled serious tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.
The Bush administration has been pressing Islamabad to crack down on LeT and other extremist groups in an effort to dissuade India from launching retaliatory military strikes against Pakistan.

Washington fears that Indian retaliation could spark a fourth Indo-Pakistan war that would free Al Qaeda and other Islamic militant groups to intensify their insurgency in Afghanistan.

CS Monitor

[arun]

The Jamaat ud Dawa has been designated a terrorist organisation by the UNSC Al Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee.

The full text of what the UNSC committee had to say follows :

10 December 2008

Security Council
SC/9527

Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York

SECURITY COUNCIL AL-QAIDA AND TALIBAN SANCTIONS COMMITTEE ADDS NAMES OF FOUR

INDIVIDUALS TO CONSOLIDATED LIST, AMENDS ENTRIES OF THREE ENTITIES

On 10 December 2008, the Security Council Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee approved the addition of the four entries specified below to its Consolidated List of individuals and entities subject to the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo set out in paragraph 1 of Security Council resolution 1822 (2008) adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations

QI.S.263.08. Name: 1: MUHAMMAD 2: SAEED 3: na 4: na
Title: na Designation: na DOB: 5 Jun. 1950 POB: Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan Good quality a.k.a.: a) Hafiz Muhammad b) Hafiz Saeed c) Hafiz Mohammad Sahib d) Hafez Mohammad Saeed e) Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed f) Hafiz Mohammad Sayid g) Tata Mohammad Syeed h) Mohammad Sayed Low quality a.k.a.: Hafiz Ji Nationality: Pakistani Passport no.: na National identification no.: Pakistani national identification number 3520025509842-7 Address: House No. 116E, Mohalla Johar, Lahore, Tehsil, Lahore City, Lahore District, Pakistan, (location as at May 2008) Listed on: 10 Dec. 2008 Other information: Muhammad Saeed is the leader of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (listed under permanent reference number QE.L.118.05.).

QI.L.264.08. Name: 1: ZAKI-UR-REHMAN 2: LAKHVI 3: na 4: na
Title: na Designation: na DOB: 30 Dec. 1960 POB: Okara, Pakistan Good quality a.k.a.: a) Zakir Rehman Lakvi b) Zaki Ur-Rehman Lakvi c) Kaki Ur-Rehman d) Zakir Rehman e) Abu Waheed Irshad Ahmad Arshad Low quality a.k.a.: Chachajee Nationality: Pakistani Passport no.: na National identification no.: Pakistani national identification number 61101-9618232-1 Address: a) Barahkoh, P.O. DO, Tehsil and District Islamabad, Pakistan, (location as at May 2008) b) Chak No. 18/IL, Rinala Khurd, Tehsil Rinala Khurd, District Okara, Pakistan, (previous location) Listed on: 10 Dec. 2008 Other information: Chief of operations of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (listed under permanent reference number QE.L.118.05.).

QI.A.265.08. Name: 1: HAJI 2: MUHAMMAD 3: ASHRAF 4: na
Title: na Designation: na DOB: 1 Mar. 1965 POB: na Good quality a.k.a.: Haji M. Ashraf Low quality a.k.a.: na Nationality: Pakistani Passport no.: Pakistani passport number A-374184 National identification no.: na Address: na Listed on: 10 Dec. 2008 Other information: Chief of finance of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (listed under permanent reference number QE.L.118.05.).

QI.B.266.08. Name: 1: MAHMOUD 2: MOHAMMAD 3: AHMED 4: BAHAZIQ
Title: na Designation: na DOB: a) 17 Aug. 1943 b) 1943 c) 1944 POB: India Good quality a.k.a.: a) Bahaziq Mahmoud b) Abu Abd al-‘Aziz c) Abu Abdul Aziz d) Shaykh Sahib Low quality a.k.a.: na Nationality: Saudi Arabian Passport no.: na National identification no.: Saudi Arabian national identification number 4-6032-0048-1 Address: na Listed on: 10 Dec. 2008 Other information: Financier of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (listed under permanent reference number QE.L.118.05.). Has served as the leader of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba in Saudi Arabia.

Also, on 10 December 2008, the Committee approved the changes specified with strike-through and underline in the three entries below to its Consolidated List of individuals and entities subject to the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo set out in paragraph 1 of Security Council resolution 1822 (2008) adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations.

QE.L.118.05. Name: LASHKAR-E-TAYYIBA
A.k.a.: a) Lashkar-e-Toiba b) Lashkar-i-Taiba c) al Mansoorian d) al Mansooreen e) Army of the Pure f) Army of the Righteous g) Army of the Pure and Righteous h) Paasban-e-Kashmir i) Paasban-i-Ahle-Hadith j) Pasban-e-Kashmir k) Pasban-e-Ahle-Hadith l) Paasban-e-Ahle-Hadis m) Pashan-e-ahle Hadis n) Lashkar e Tayyaba o) LET p) Jamaat-ud-Dawa q) JUD r) Jama,at al-Dawa s) Jamaat ud-Daawa t) Jamaat ul-Dawah u) Jamaat-ul-Dawa v) Jama,at-i-Dawat w) Jamaiat-ud-Dawa x) Jama,at-ud-Da,awah y) Jama,at-ud-Da,awa z) Jamaati-ud-Dawa F.k.a.: na Address: na Listed on: 2 May 2005 (amended on 3 Nov. 2005, 10 Dec. 2008) Other information: na

QE.A.5.01. Name: AL RASHID TRUST
A.k.a.: a) Al-Rasheed Trust b) Al Rasheed Trust c) Al-Rashid Trust d) Aid Organization of the Ulema, Pakistan e) Al Amin Welfare Trust f) Al Amin Trust g) Al Ameen Trust h) Al-Ameen Trust i) Al Madina Trust j) Al-Madina Trust F.k.a.: na Address: a) Kitas Ghar, Nazimabad 4, Dahgel-Iftah, Karachi, Pakistan b) Jamia Maajid, Sulalman Park, Melgium Pura, Lahore, Pakistan c) Office Dha’rbi-M’unin, Opposite Khyber Bank, Abbottabad Road, Mansehra, Pakistan d) Office Dha’rbi-M’unin ZR Brothers, Katcherry Road, Chowk Yadgaar, Peshawar, Pakistan e) Office Dha’rbi-M’unin, Rm No. 3, Moti Plaza, Near Liaquat Bagh, Muree Road, Rawalpindi, Pakistan f) Office Dha’rbi-M’unin, Top Floor, Dr. Dawa Khan Dental Clinic Surgeon, Main Baxae, Mingora, Swat, Pakistan g) Kitab Ghar, Darul Ifta Wal Irshad, Nazimabad No. 4, Karachi, Pakistan, Phone 6683301; Phone 0300-8209199; Fax 6623814 h) 302b-40, Good Earth Court, Opposite Pia Planitarium, Block 13a, Gulshan -l Igbal, Karachi, Pakistan; Phone 4979263 i) 617 Clifton Center, Block 5, 6th Floor, Clifton, Karachi, Pakistan; Phone 587-2545 j) j) 605 Landmark Plaza, 11 Chundrigar Road, Opposite Jang Building, Karachi, Pakistan; Phone 2623818-19 k) Jamia Masjid, Sulaiman Park, Begum Pura, Lahore, Pakistan; Phone 042-6812081 Listed on: 6 Oct. 2001 (amended on 21 Oct. 2008, 10 Dec. 2008) Other information: Headquarters are in Pakistan. Operations in Afghanistan: Herat Jalalabad, Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar Sherif. Also operations in Kosovo, Chechnya. Has two account numbers (No. 05501741 and No. 06500138) in Habib Bank Ltd. (Foreign Exchange Branch), Pakistan. Involved in the financing of Al-Qaida and the Taliban. Until 21 Oct. 2008, this entity appeared also as "Aid Organization of the Ulema, Pakistan" under permanent reference number QE.A.73.02., listed on 24 Apr. 2002 and amended on 25 Jul. 2006. Based on information confirming that the two entries Al Rashid Trust (QE.A.5.01.) and Aid Organization of the Ulema, Pakistan (QE.A.73.02.) refer to the same entity, the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee decided on 21 Oct. 2008 to consolidate the relevant information contained in both entries in the present entry.

QE.A.121.05. Name: AL-AKHTAR TRUST INTERNATIONAL
A.k.a.: a) Al Akhtar Trust b) Al-Akhtar Medical Centre c) Akhtarabad Medical Camp d) Pakistan Relief Foundation e) Pakistani Relief Foundation f) Azmat-e-Pakistan Trust g) Azmat Pakistan Trust F.k.a.: na Address: a) ST-1/A, Gulsahn-e-Iqbal, Block 2, Karachi, 25300, Pakistan b) Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Block 12, Karachi, Pakistan Listed on: 17 Aug. 2005 (amended on 10 Dec. 2008) Other information: Regional offices in Pakistan: Bahawalpur, Bawalnagar, Gilgit, Islamabad, Mirpur Khas, Tando-Jan-Muhammad. Akhtarabad Medical Camp is in Spin Boldak, Afghanistan.

The Committee’s List is updated regularly on the basis of relevant information provided by Member States and regional organizations. This is the twenty-fourth update of the List in 2008. An updated List is accessible on the Committee’s website at the following URL:

http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/consolist.shtml.

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________________________________________
For information media • not an official record


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