Posted on 11/29/2008 3:06:56 AM PST by MyTwoCopperCoins
US officials fear that should the firm evidence emerge that the Mumbai terror attacks were planned and directed from within Pakistan, it would certainly escalate tension between the neighbouring countries and could also provoke an Indian military response, even strikes against terrorists, a media report said on Saturday.
Quoting the officials in Washington, The New York Times said there was no evidence that Pakistani government had any role in the attacks.
But American intelligence and counter-terrorism officials told the paper that there is mounting evidence that a Pakistani militant group, most likely Lashkar-e-Tayiba, was responsible for deadly attacks in Mumbai.
An American counter-terrorism official was quoted as saying that there was strong evidence that LeT had a 'maritime capability' and would have been able to mount the sophisticated operation in Mumbai.
However, the officials, the Times said, cautioned that they had reached no firm conclusions about who was responsible for the attacks, or how they were planned and carried out.
Nevertheless, they said that evidence gathered in the past two days pointed to a role for LeT or possibly another terrorist group Jaish-e-Muhammad, which also has a track record of attacks against India.
American and Indian intelligence services, the Times said, have used communications intercepts to tie the Pakistan-based terrorists to the strikes.
Indian officials may also be gleaning information from at least one captured gunman who participated in the Mumbai attacks.
The paper quoted an Indian intelligence official as saying that during the siege, the terrorists have been using non-Indian cellphones and receiving calls from outside the country, evidence that in part led Indian officials to speak publicly about the terrorists' external ties.
The LeT denied any responsibility for the terrorist strikes.
But American intelligence agencies were quoted as saying that the group has received some training and logistic support in the past from Pakistan's powerful spy service ISI, and that Pakistan's government has long turned a blind eye to the LeT camps on the Kashmir border.
American and Indian officials, the paper said, were pursuing the possibility that the attackers arrived off the coast of Mumbai in a large ship and then boarded smaller boats before initiating their attack.
They have for years blamed LeT for a campaign of violence against high-profile targets throughout India, including the December 2001 attack on Indian Parliament and an August 2007 strike at an amusement park in Hyderabad, the paper said, noting that at times, Indian officials have also said Jaish-e-Muhammad was responsible for the attack on Parliament.
That attack prompted the Bush administration to try to freeze LeT's assets and press Gen Pervez Musharraf [Images], Pakistan's President at the time, to crack down on the group's training operations in Pakistan, the paper recalled.
A State Department report released this year called LeT 'one of the largest and most proficient of the Kashmir-focused militant groups'.
The report said that the LeT drew financing in part from Pakistani expatriates in the Middle East, and that it used a front organisation called Jamaat ud-Daawa to coordinate charitable activities.
It said the actual size of the group was unknown, but estimated it at 'several thousand' members, the paper noted.
Recently, the Times said, some of the group's operations have shifted from Kashmir to Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas and even to Afghanistan to attack US troops.
American officials and terrorism experts were quoted as saying that the group had not sent large numbers of operatives into Afghanistan, but had embedded small teams with Taliban [Images] units to gain fighting experience.
'Afghanistan is an operating war zone, so they can get active training as the Kashmir front has slowed down a bit,' the Times quoted Seth Jones, a terrorism expert at the RAND Corporation, as saying.
The group is believed by experts to have at least a loose affiliation with Al-Qaeda [Images], the paper said, adding that in March 2002, a Qaeda lieutenant, Abu Zubaydah, was captured in an LeT safe house in Faisalabad, Pakistan.
Lashkar-e-Toiba is not known to have singled out Westerners in past terrorist attacks, as the gunmen in Mumbai seem to have done. But one counter-terrorism official told the paper that the group 'has not pursued an exclusively Kashmiri agenda' and that it might certainly go after Westerners to advance broader goals.
© Copyright 2008 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of PTI content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent.
Pakistan still has a marginally pro-US government. A bloody conflict will almost certainly lead to the creation of a nuclear armed Islamic republic.
...I am sure the good folks in Washington have it all under control.
President Obama.
I don't need to say any more.
> An American counter-terrorism official was quoted as saying that there was strong evidence that LeT had a ‘maritime capability’ and would have been able to mount the sophisticated operation in Mumbai.
Crap. Anybody who has read Frederick Forsythe’s “The Dogs of War” has a recipe book for mounting a successful small maritime raid like what happened in Mumbai.
“Good folks in Washington”?
Name two good folks in D.C., bet ya can’t do it.
Sorry, I was being VERY sarcastic.
So was I.
Good job
In any war between India and Pakistan, if I were president, I would lean towards India. They are the more stable and they are a democracy.
And the UN could kiss my a$$.
it’s better for Pakistan’s nukes to, ummm, be given to the US for safekeeping
The Indian folks are sane. The Muslims, not.
“The New York Times said there was no evidence that Pakistani government had any role in the attacks.”
The NY TIMES said and still says there is NO evidence of Iraqi involvement in the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
The NY TIMES said there was no involvement by anybody other than McVeigh and Nichols in the terror attacks in Oklahoma City in 1995 even though it was well documented that eight Iraqi soldier defectors were cheering for Iraq and Saddaham Hussein immediately after the explosions. In Jayna Davis’ book on the attack, she says the FBI refused to take her BOXES of depositions which showed that McVeigh and Nichols did not work alone and the evidence shows that the truck bomb in the parking lot could not have destroyed the building and killed all those people.
In 1996 overwhelming witness’ statements showed that missiles were used to shoot down TWA 800. The NTSB and NY TIMES suppressed the witnesses and concluded that a center fuel tank explosion was responsible for the “tragedy.” That hypothesis originated in the White House with Richard Clark.
Richard Clark you may recall was at the front of the 9/11 hearings that tried to blame Bush for the 9/11 failures.
Muslims in Pakistan are a peaceful group, the NY TIMES says they would never be involved with an attack like this, there is no evidence.
And history shows that if there is, they aren’t going to tell you about it.
Iraqi Documents Show al-Qaida Ties
Thursday, March 20, 2008 8:09 AM
The ties to the truth in subsequent posts tell a different story than the NY TIMES tells, are they lying or are they stupid? I vote lying but you won’t believe why they lie as they do.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1175272/posts?page=251
I firmly support India they are a democracy and because Hindus, even though they have their own religious fanatics, don’t try to cram their religion down anyone else’s throats.
India is no great arbiter of freedom...mostly Socialism mixed with a lot of other bad mojo...corporatism, tribalism, 15% Muslimism, bunch o’ commies,etc....India is just another powder-keg POS country that may blow the whole damn ME!
Elections are coming soon. The socialist party might be out.
The group was formed after the supporters of Maulana Masood Azhar split from another Islamic militant organization, Harkut-ul-Mujahideen.
It is believed that the group gets considerable funding by Pakistani expatriates in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world. The group is regarded as a terrorist organization by several countries including India, United States and United Kingdom.[1] Jaish-e-Mohammed is viewed by some as the "deadliest" and "the principal terrorist organization in Jammu and Kashmir".[3] The group was also implicated for the kidnapping and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl.[3]
I heard yesterday that the terrorist travelled via boat, landed, and fanned out through the city.
The JeM is also reported to have links with Sunni militant outfits operating in Pakistan such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP)and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).
Pence and Demint?
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