.Lashkar-e-Taiba Served as Gateway for Western Converts Turning to Jihad
Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani group suspected in the Mumbai attacks, has a history of documented links to al Qaeda and has trained many of the militants who have landed in U.S. and British jails since 9/11.
The group is of particular concern to intelligence officials and terrorism experts because it has become a major gateway to jihad for some disaffected people in the West, including converts to Islam.
Lashkar has been enmeshed in Pakistan's long struggle with India over the disputed territory of Kashmir, but it has also been a training hub for militant Islamic fighters who joined conflicts in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya. The group has received funding from donors in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, including from an al Qaeda financier, according to U.S. government testimony and Central Intelligence Agency records.
Westerners who have passed through Lashkar-e-Taiba's training camps include Australian al Qaeda operative David Hicks, convicted "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and Dhiren Barot, the mastermind of a failed gas-cylinder bombing plot in London who prepared detailed blueprints for al Qaeda of buildings in New York's financial district, according to information that emerged in legal proceedings. Mr. Barot, a British subject and a Hindu who converted to Islam, trained with Lashkar, then became an instructor at a mujahideen camp in Afghanistan and joined al Qaeda.
High-ranking al Qaeda operative Abu Zubayda was captured in late 2002 in a Lashkar safe house in Faisalabad, Pakistan. Al Qaeda recruits from Lashkar were among those killed when the U.S. carried out missile strikes against training camps in Afghanistan in the wake of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
"Lashkar and al Qaeda have been intertwined for a number of years," an FBI counterterrorism analyst, Sarah Linden, testified in a Virginia terrorism trial last year.
Not all experts agree. "I don't necessarily see that's true," Christine Fair of Rand Corp. said of the contention that there are considerable links between Lashkar and al Qaeda. "Lashkar-e-Taiba has, in general, operated only against India and Afghanistan. They're fighting us in Afghanistan as a Taliban ally."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, at a news conference in India on Wednesday, sidestepped a question about whether al Qaeda was linked to the Mumbai attacks. "Whether there is a direct al Qaeda hand or not, this is clearly the kind of terrorism in which al Qaeda participates," she said, comparing the intent to damage the Indian economy with the effort to destroy the U.S. economy on 9/11. "We are not going to jump to any conclusions about who is responsible for this," she said.
The U.S. government has extensive evidence of Lashkar's efforts to kill Americans. Much of it is contained in court statements by U.S. officials in proceedings in courts in the U.S., France and the U.K.
In recent years, since al Qaeda has re-established its base of operations in Pakistan, some officials contend its ties with Lashkar and similar Pakistani militant groups have grown tighter. "We see the Pakistanization of al Qaeda," said Afghanistan's ambassador to the U.S., Said T. Jawad. "Pakistanis are moving higher up in al Qaeda, and more Pakistanis are getting recruited to carry out operations."
Lashkar-e-Taiba, whose name is translated as Army of the Good, was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. in late 2001.
After involvement in the Soviet war in Afghanistan, it joined the dispute over Kashmir and received money, weapons and training from the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency, terrorism specialists say.
The U.S. pressured Pakistan to outlaw Lashkar and other militant groups in 2002, but the group retains a public presence under its parent organization Jamaat-ud-Daawa, an Islamic educational and charitable group. Foreigners who come to its camps are put on the "express lane" to jihad missions, said Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism specialist who has testified about the group in U.S. trials.
After 9/11, the group increasingly functioned as a training ground for foreign fighters who wanted to join the Taliban. More than a half-dozen of the Guantanamo Bay detainees captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 were accused by the Defense Department of receiving training, arms, funding or documents from Lashkar camps in Pakistan.
Lashkar also has been under scrutiny in the British inquiry into the London Underground bombings of July 7, 2006. One of the four suicide bombers behind the attack visited Lashkar's compound near Lahore, Pakistan.
WSJ
The group is of particular concern to intelligence officials and terrorism experts because it has become a major gateway to jihad for some disaffected people in the West, including converts to Islam.
Lashkar has been enmeshed in Pakistan's long struggle with India over the disputed territory of Kashmir, but it has also been a training hub for militant Islamic fighters who joined conflicts in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya. The group has received funding from donors in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, including from an al Qaeda financier, according to U.S. government testimony and Central Intelligence Agency records.
Westerners who have passed through Lashkar-e-Taiba's training camps include Australian al Qaeda operative David Hicks, convicted "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and Dhiren Barot, the mastermind of a failed gas-cylinder bombing plot in London who prepared detailed blueprints for al Qaeda of buildings in New York's financial district, according to information that emerged in legal proceedings. Mr. Barot, a British subject and a Hindu who converted to Islam, trained with Lashkar, then became an instructor at a mujahideen camp in Afghanistan and joined al Qaeda.
High-ranking al Qaeda operative Abu Zubayda was captured in late 2002 in a Lashkar safe house in Faisalabad, Pakistan. Al Qaeda recruits from Lashkar were among those killed when the U.S. carried out missile strikes against training camps in Afghanistan in the wake of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
"Lashkar and al Qaeda have been intertwined for a number of years," an FBI counterterrorism analyst, Sarah Linden, testified in a Virginia terrorism trial last year.
Not all experts agree. "I don't necessarily see that's true," Christine Fair of Rand Corp. said of the contention that there are considerable links between Lashkar and al Qaeda. "Lashkar-e-Taiba has, in general, operated only against India and Afghanistan. They're fighting us in Afghanistan as a Taliban ally."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, at a news conference in India on Wednesday, sidestepped a question about whether al Qaeda was linked to the Mumbai attacks. "Whether there is a direct al Qaeda hand or not, this is clearly the kind of terrorism in which al Qaeda participates," she said, comparing the intent to damage the Indian economy with the effort to destroy the U.S. economy on 9/11. "We are not going to jump to any conclusions about who is responsible for this," she said.
The U.S. government has extensive evidence of Lashkar's efforts to kill Americans. Much of it is contained in court statements by U.S. officials in proceedings in courts in the U.S., France and the U.K.
In recent years, since al Qaeda has re-established its base of operations in Pakistan, some officials contend its ties with Lashkar and similar Pakistani militant groups have grown tighter. "We see the Pakistanization of al Qaeda," said Afghanistan's ambassador to the U.S., Said T. Jawad. "Pakistanis are moving higher up in al Qaeda, and more Pakistanis are getting recruited to carry out operations."
Lashkar-e-Taiba, whose name is translated as Army of the Good, was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. in late 2001.
After involvement in the Soviet war in Afghanistan, it joined the dispute over Kashmir and received money, weapons and training from the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency, terrorism specialists say.
The U.S. pressured Pakistan to outlaw Lashkar and other militant groups in 2002, but the group retains a public presence under its parent organization Jamaat-ud-Daawa, an Islamic educational and charitable group. Foreigners who come to its camps are put on the "express lane" to jihad missions, said Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism specialist who has testified about the group in U.S. trials.
After 9/11, the group increasingly functioned as a training ground for foreign fighters who wanted to join the Taliban. More than a half-dozen of the Guantanamo Bay detainees captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 were accused by the Defense Department of receiving training, arms, funding or documents from Lashkar camps in Pakistan.
Lashkar also has been under scrutiny in the British inquiry into the London Underground bombings of July 7, 2006. One of the four suicide bombers behind the attack visited Lashkar's compound near Lahore, Pakistan.
WSJ
posted by madtom at 8:40 PM
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