India, US closing in on the common enemy: Lashkar-e-Taiba

New York: Indian and American military officials are working closely to fight a common enemy, Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Taiba, the US military commander for the Asia-Pacific region said on Tuesday. Admiral Robert Willard, head of the US Pacific Command, which covers Asia, said the LeT has a track record of attacks against India, but it’s also known to have singled out Americans in past terrorist attacks, as the gunmen in Mumbai seem to have done. US counterterrorism officials say the LeT has not pursued an “exclusively Kashmiri agenda” and is targeting Westerners to advance broader goals. [caption id=“attachment_228947” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Pakistani police escort Hafiz Saeed (C-in white cap), the head of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba. AFP”]  [/caption] “Responsible for many attacks in India, including the horrific attacks into Mumbai, LeT is headquartered in Pakistan, affiliated with Al Qaeda and other violent extremist organisations, and contributes to terrorist operations in Afghanistan and aspires to operate against Asia, Europe and North America,” Willard told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Lashkar’s affiliation with the Al Qaeda was noted after Al Qaeda lieutenant, Abu Zubaydah, was captured in a LeT safe house in Faisalabad, Pakistan in March 2002. The LeT has made an enemy out of the Pentagon by embedding small teams with Taliban units in Afghanistan to ambush US soldiers. Willard said that last year, they had brought anti-terrorism specialists from Mumbai to the US for special training. A lot of the intelligence sharing work with India will focus on the LeT and squeezing its sources of funding. Last year, the FBI arrested Jubair Ahmad, a Pakistani living in the Washington area, charging him of providing material support to the LeT. Before Ahmad, the US arrested at least eight other men in the US accused of having links to the LeT, charging them with “conspiracy to train for and participate in violent jihad in Kashmir.” “Our security relationship involves strategic to tactical-level dialogues, increasingly robust military exercises, security assistance, and personnel exchanges,” Willard added. Pakistan’s chief spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, helped create Lashkar two decades ago to challenge Indian control in Kashmir. Pakistani officials say that after 11 September, 2001 they broke their contacts with the group. This is out-and-out nonsense. Recently retired Pakistani military and intelligence officials are known to have directed the Mumbai attacks. Some LeT members even told “The New York Times” that a “thin line separates” the group from its longtime bosses in the Pakistan security establishment. “There is strong evidence that David Coleman Headley had an ISI handler and was an operative directed by the ISI and Lashkar during the Mumbai plot. Pakistan denies this, as you know. But we explore the evidence that has accumulated during the past three years. The US government has indicted Major Iqbal, Headley’s alleged intelligence handler, a strong sign that authorities believe in the ISI connection,” said ProPublica reporter Sebastian Rotella who has made the documentary A Perfect Terrorist on Headley. Despite pledges from Pakistan to dismantle military groups operating on its soil, and the arrest of a handful of its operatives, Lashkar has persisted, even flourished since the attacks on Mumbai. Two weeks ago, the State Department reacted to rabble rousing against India and the US by Hafiz Saeed, the head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a front group for the LeT. It asked Islamabad to stop Saeed from moving freely in Pakistan and to freeze the assets of the groups associated with him. Separately, Willard also said Washington’s policy of rebalancing toward the Asia-Pacific region has drawn China’s attention since it was unveiled last year, but did not drive Beijing’s build-up. “We’ve not seen Chinese military growth affected by the announcement, nor do we expect it to be. It has continued relatively unabated,” Willard told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “They continue to advance their capabilities and capacities in all areas,” he said at a hearing, days before China is expected to unveil its 2012 military budget at the annual meeting of China’s parliament in Beijing. Under a strategy designed to reposition forces eastward after a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, Washington will keep large bases in Japan and South Korea, deploy up to 2,500 US Marines in Australia and step up military cooperation with India and the Philippines.