Posted on 12/14/2001 5:07:46 AM PST by BERZERKER
The government on Friday blamed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba for Thursday's terrorist attack on the Parliament House complex saying it has 'credible evidence' and formally asked Islamabad to arrest the leadership of LeT and another militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad and freeze the organisations' assets.
In a significant development, Pakistan High Commissioner Ashraf Jehangir Qazi was on Friday summoned by Foreign Secretary Chokila Iyer and made out a demarche setting out the three demands, which included stopping of the activities of the two organisations.
In the demarche, India has demanded that Pakistan stop the activities of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed.
Secondly, their leadership, which is known to Pakistan, should be taken into custody and thirdly, to put curbs on the financial assets of these groups and their access to these assets.
"There is credible technical evidence that Thursday's terrorist attack on the seat of democracy and sovereignty of Indian people was the handiwork of a terrorist organisation based in Pakistan - Lashkar-e-Tayiba," External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh told reporters in Delhi.
Asked to expand on what was meant by technical evidence, he said there were 'obvious difficulties' in explaining this as many agencies of the government have many means of obtaining intelligence.
Singh said New Delhi wishes to emphasise that the demands in the demarche were in accordance with necessary international obligations and commitment in countering terrorism.
Patterns of Global Terrorism -2000
Released by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
April 2001
Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT) (Army of the Righteous)
Description
The LT is the armed wing of the Pakistan-based religious organization, Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad (MDI)--a Sunni anti-US missionary organization formed in 1989. One of the three largest and best-trained groups fighting in Kashmir against India, it is not connected to a political party. The LT leader is MDI chief, Professor Hafiz Mohammed Saeed.Activities
Has conducted a number of operations against Indian troops and civilian targets in Kashmir since 1993. The LT is suspected of eight separate attacks in August that killed nearly 100, mostly Hindu Indians. LT militants are suspected of kidnapping six persons in Akhala, India, in November 2000 and killing five of them. The group also operates a chain of religious schools in the Punjab.Strength
Has several hundred members in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, and in India's southern Kashmir and Doda regions. Almost all LT cadres are foreigners--mostly Pakistanis from seminaries across the country and Afghan veterans of the Afghan wars. Uses assault rifles, light and heavy machineguns, mortars, explosives, and rocket propelled grenades.Location/Area of Operation
Based in Muridke (near Lahore) and Muzaffarabad. The LT trains its militants in mobile training camps across Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Afghanistan.External Aid
Collects donations from the Pakistani community in the Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic NGOs, and Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen. The amount of LT funding is unknown. The LT maintains ties to religious/military groups around the world, ranging from the Philippines to the Middle East and Chechnya through the MDI fraternal network.
Israel to the world: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists (PA)."
Now India to the world: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists (Pakistan)."
This could get very messy.
No doubt. I bet Colin Powell is the busiest man in North America these days. And I wish it were someone else in that position, like Lawrence Eagleburger.
India will fight these terrorists itself and win. But we are on the same side as India. I am glad to see Washington under a more conservative leadership and is now beginning to see it that way.
Even if Saddam Hussein is gone tomorrow, is the Iraqi regime going to change? Or Iranian? Or Syrian? Probably not. Another year, another five --- they will have weapons of mass destruction. Is there any doubt they will use them?
The initial belligerence --- not only present, in general, --- tends to polarize the bystanders. I would expect, therefore, that our success in Afghanistan will solidify animosity towards the West in places like Egypt and Pakistan. I would not be surprised at all if in no more than a couple of years these governments fell. If so, then what?
Meanwhile, this is exactly what the Chinese saying advocates as wisdom: sitting on a hill and observing two tigers battle each other. The fact that China is not directly involved is to her advantage --- to continue economic build up and bide time. This too may change, of course, if there is a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan.
Needless to say the role of Russia and the buffer zone between her and the rest of the Middle Asia is a big question also. It's been all but forgotten by the press that it is the Russian communism that is dead; the rampant nationalism, is alive as well as at all other times.
Finally, given the leftist leaning and multi-cultyuralist confusion within the NATO countries, I am not so sure that treaty may be taken for granted.
It's a ripe time for a remapping of the world.
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