'Four Islamic groups suspected in UK terror plot'

Investigators probing the plot to blow up several aircraft from Britain to US suspected involvement four Islamic militant groups including Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Sunni extremist outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

The probe revealed that funds provided by a UK-based Islamic charity for earthquake relief in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has apparently been used to target planes, a media report in Islamabad said on Saturday.

"The links of the arrested suspect could not be confirmed, but the sources said intelligence agencies had put four Islamic organisations on the watch list and they included two UK-based outfits Al Mahajroon and Hizbul Tehrir, and two Pakistani organisations Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi," the daily Dawn reported.

Also Rauf Rashid, the British national of Pakistan origin, officially identified as the key suspect by Pakistan on Friday who providing the tip-off on the plot to blow up US-bound aircraft with liquid explosives as the father of Tayyab Rauf, a suspect who was arrested in Britain in connection with 7/7 London bombings, it said.

During the interrogation, Rashid Rauf unveiled the terror plot aiming to destroy at least 10 passenger aircraft in the UK, it quoted officials as saying.

The information was shared with the UK Homeland Security Department that resulted in a raid in which 21 suspects were arrested in London on Thursday, it said.

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Lashkar-e-Toiba

'Army of the Pure'

The Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), reportedly one of the largest terrorist outfits operating in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) is also suspected of involvement in the December 13, 2001 attack on India’s Parliament in New Delhi. Earlier, terrorists of the outfit had also launched an attack on the Cantonment section of the Red Fort in New Delhi on December 22, 2000. Under the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO), the Indian government banned the LeT on October 25, 2001. The US Secretary of State Colin Powell in a notification on December 26, 2001 designated the outfit as a foreign terrorist organistation.

Formation

Formed in 1990 in the Kunar province of Afghanistan, the Lashkar-e-Toiba is the military wing of the Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad (MDI), an Islamic fundamentalist organisation of the Ahle-Hadith sect in Pakistan. The MDI is based in Muridke near Lahore, Pakistan and is headed by Prof. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who is also the Amir of the LeT. Its first presence in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) was recorded in 1993 when 12 Pakistani and Afghan mercenaries infiltrated across the Line of Control (LoC) in tandem with the Islami Inquilabi Mahaz, a terrorist outfit then active in the Poonch district of J&K.

Following the US notification of the outfit as a foreign terrorist organisation, which put pressure on the Pakistani government to curb overt activities of the outfit, the top leadership of MDI initiated a reshuffle of the parent outfit. Presently, the MDI claims that it has been reorganized into two independent wings- one exclusively devoted to preaching of Islam with Prof. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed as its chief and the other to carry on its violent campaign in Kashmir under the leadership of Kashmiri scholar Maulana Abdul Wahid Kashmiri.

Objectives

The Lashkar-e-Toiba was first involved in the Mujahideen resistance against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the Nineteen Eighties and early Nineties. Subsequently, it began operations in J&K. It was actively promoted by Pakistan’s external intelligence agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), since 1996. This support was more so after another outfit, the Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA) was declared as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation by the US in 1997. The HuA was an outfit that also traces its origins to the Mujahideen movement against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Furthermore, it was also primarily composed of Pakistani and Afghan mercenaries, followed a hard-line extremist Islamic ideology and was actively promoted by the ISI, along with other outfits, to ensure that Pakistan would have control over the Kashmir insurgency and promote its objectives. Even while promoting terrorist outfits’ such as the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), which comprise local Kashmiri terrorists, the ISI infiltrates a considerable number of Pakistani and Afghan mercenaries in the state. This is to ensure control over the terrorist violence and promote an Islamic orthodoxy, a goal that the Pakistani state has been following since the Nineteen Seventies.

The LeT’s professed ideology goes beyond merely challenging India's sovereignty over the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The Lashkar's ‘agenda’, as outlined in a pamphlet titled Why are we waging jihad includes the restoration of Islamic rule over all parts of India. Further, the outfit propagates a narrow Islamist fundamentalism preached by its mentor, the MDI. It seeks to bring about a union of all Muslim majority regions in countries that surround Pakistan. Towards that end, it is active in J&K, Chechnya and other parts of Central Asia. The outfit had claimed that it had assisted the Taliban militia and Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network in Afghanistan during November and December 2002 in their fight against the US aided Northern Alliance.

Leadership and Command Structure

The outfit’s headquarters was located in the MDI’s complex at Muridke near Lahore. An unconfirmed news report on December 10, 2001, citing a Lashkar spokesperson, said that the outfit had shifted its headquarters from Muridke to Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). The report quoting the outfit’s spokesperson indicated that the LeT was shifting its headquarters since it has acquired more space in Muzaffarabad. Furthermore, the report added that unnamed observers in Islamabad had claimed that LeT was forced to move its offices due to pressure from the Pakistan government. The MDI has claimed that the LeT has shifted all its facilities and offices to PoK and the outfit has formed a new General Council under the leadership of Maulana Abdul Wahid Kashmiri, with Mr. Zaki ur Rehman Lakhwi as the 'Supreme Commander' within Jammu & Kashmir. Other members of the the General Council are - Mr. Abdullah of Anantnag (Islamabad) - Mr.Haji Mohammad Azam of Poonch - Mr. Muzammil Butt of Doda - Mr. Mohammad Umair of Baramullah - Mr. Chaudhri Abdullah Khalid Chauhan of Bagh - Mr. Rafiq Akhtar of Muzaffarabad - Mr. Aftab Hussain of Kotli - Mr. Faisal Dar of Srinagar - Mr. Chaudhri Yusuf of Mirpur - Mr. Maulana Mohammad Sharif Balghari of Baltistan - Mr. Raja Mohammad Irshad Advocate - Mr. Masood Lone Advocate.

Untill these new organisational changes, the organisational level of the Lashkar-e-Toiba was led by its Amir, Prof. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and the operational chief of the outfit was reported to be ‘commander’ Saifullah, a Pakistani mercenary. Its mercenaries are organised at district levels with ‘district commanders’ in charge. Within Pakistan, the outfit has a network of training camps and branch offices, which undertake recruitment and collection of finances.

Operational Strategies

Compared to other terrorist outfits in J&K, the LeT has commanded significant attention primarily due to two reasons. First, for its well planned and executed attacks on security force (SF) targets in the State and second, for the dramatic massacres of non-Muslim civilians. After the Kargil war of May-July 1999, (when Pakistani troops and mercenaries, including those of the Lashkar, were forced to withdraw from peaks on the Indian side of the Line of Control - LoC), the outfit launched its 'suicide attacks' strategy whereby small groups (2-5 members) of fidayeen (suicide squads) would storm a security force camp or base. In another frequently used strategy, groups of Lashkar mercenaries, dressed in SF fatigues, would arrive at remote hill villages, round up Hindu or Sikh civilians, and massacre them. These two strategies have been designed to achieve maximum publicity and extract public allegiance, mainly out of fear. On December 8, 2001, two LeT fidayeen managed to penetrate inside a security force convoy and opened fire killing one personnel. They were able to generate adequate confusion to escape from the convoy after the attack but were later killed in an encounter with another SF unit.

In some fidayeen attacks launched by the LeT, the terrorists entrenched themselves inside the camp, killing as many SF personnel as they could, before they were themselves killed. In one such instance, two Lashkar fidayeen stormed a SF base at Wazir Bagh in Srinagar, on March 26, 2001, and shot dead four personnel before being killed. In certain incidents, members of the squad are reported to have successfully fled after the initial attack. Such was the case at Mendhar in Rajouri district, on December 16, 2000 as also at Mahore, Udhampur district, on November 5, 2000.

The Lashkar-e-Toiba, according to a news report of December 17, 2001, was responsible for 35 of the 42 such suicide attacks carried out since 1999. More than the number of casualties of the security forces, it is the psychological impact of these attacks that has led to the Lashkar gaining widespread attention. Furthermore, this is also due to the security forces’ resort to extensive use of heavy fire, destroying their own buildings in the process, and causing deaths of their own personnel in friendly fire in each of the attacks.

LeT cadres, unlike other terrorists, are known to prefer death in an encounter with the security forces rather than be arrested. For instance, in 1997, the largest group of terrorists killed in clashes with the security forces belonged to the Lashkar-e-Toiba. The levels of Islamist orthodoxy of the Lashkar cadre is characterised by a level of brutality, which surpasses that of all other Pakistan-sponsored terrorist outfits active in J&K. Majority of the massacres of unarmed Hindus and Sikhs between March 1997 and October 2001 have reportedly been carried out by the LeT. One instance is the cold-blooded murder of 23 persons in Wandhama on January 23, 1988. A second instance is the June 19, 1998, massacre in which 25 members of a wedding party in Doda, Jammu were killed. The extreme level of cold-blooded brutality, which sets Lashkar-e-Toiba apart from other terrorist outfits that operate/d in Kashmir before, is evident in the Wandhama massacre, where children as young as one year old were murdered along with women and defenceless men.

Area of Operation

While the primary area of operations of the Lashkar-e-Toiba’s terrorist activities is the Kashmir valley, the outfit is also active in the Jammu region besides having undertaken isolated attacks in other parts of India. The Lashkar is reported to have conducted several of its major operations in tandem with the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen. The Kashmiri cadre of the HM provide vital knowledge of the ground conditions in the target zone, while the highly trained and motivated LeT mercenaries undertake the attack. This was also the strategy during the August 25, 2000 massacre, when a Hizb terrorist acted as a guide for a Lashkar group, which massacred 35 Sikhs at Chattisinghpora in Anantang district.

The LeT was also reported to have been directed by the ISI to widen its network in the Jammu region where a considerable section of the populace comprised Punjabis. The LeT that has a large number of activists who hail from Pakistani Punjab can thus effectively penetrate into Jammu society.

News reports, citing security forces, said that the latter suspect that in the December 13, 2001 attack on India’s Parliament in New Delhi, a joint group from the LeT and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) were involved. The LeT was also held responsible by the government for the December 23, 2000 attack in Red Fort, New Delhi. LeT cadres have also been arrested from different cities of India. On May 27, a LeT terrorist was arrested from Hajipur in Gujarat. On August 15, 2001, a LeT terrorist was arrested from Bhatinda in Punjab. The LeT has also built contacts with other Islamist extremist and terrorist outfits active in India. An arrested activist of the proscribed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), is reported to have confessed during interrogation on August 21, 2001, that two LeT terrorists had held discussions with SIMI’s Malegaon unit in Mumbai on August 6, 2001 to carry out subversive activities in the State of Maharashtra.

External Linkages

The Lashkar-e-Toiba was created to participate in the Mujahideen conflict against the Najibullah regime in Afghanistan. In the process, the outfit developed deep linkages with Afghanistan and has several Afghan nationals in its cadre. The outfit had also cultivated links with the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and also with Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network. Even while refraining from openly displaying these links, the LeT office in Muridke was reportedly used as a transit camp for third country recruits heading for Afghanistan. A news report in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks in USA has indicated that that the outfit provides terrorists for the outer circle of bin Laden’s personal security.

The outfit collects donations from the Pakistani community in the Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), and Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen. The amount of LeT funding is unknown. The LeT maintains ties to various religious/military groups around the world, ranging from the Philippines to the Middle East and Chechnya primarily through the MDI fraternal network.

Reports also indicate that the LeT receives considerable financial, material and other forms of assistance from the Pakistan government, routed primarily through the ISI. Pakistan’s security agencies are reported to be providing training to the outfit. A December 13, 2001 news report cited a LeT spokesperson as saying that the outfit wanted to avoid a clash with the Pakistani Government. He claimed, even though the government has been an ardent supporter of all Muslim freedom movements, particularly that of Kashmir, in the present conditions a clash was possible because of the sudden wedge that appeared between the interests of the government and those of terrorist outfits active in J&K.

The Pakistan Army, particularly in the borders with India (the International Border and the Line of Control - LoC) also aids members of the outfit in their infiltration, exfiltration and clashes with Indian security forces near the borders by providing covering fire.

The LeT has also been part of the Bosnian campaign against the Serbs.

The Markaz campus at Muridke in Lahore, its headquarters, was used as a hide-out for Ramzi Yousef and Mir Aimal Kansi, who was convicted and sentenced to death for killing two Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers outside the CIA’s headquarters in Washington in January 1993.

http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/jandk/terrorist_outfits/lashkar_e_toiba.htm

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