Formed in 1990 in the Kunar province
of Afghanistan, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (also known as Jama’at-ud-Da’awa)
is based in Muridke near Lahore in Pakistan and is headed by Hafiz
Muhammad Saeed.
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.
- Proscription
The LeT is outlawed in India under
the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
It was included in the Terrorist Exclusion
List by the US Government on December 5, 2001. The US administration
designated the Lashkar-e-Taiba as a FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization)
on December 26, 2001. It is also a banned organization in Britain
since March 30, 2001.
The group was proscribed by the United
Nations in May 2005.
The military regime of
Gen. Pervez Musharraf banned the Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan on January
12, 2002.
- Objectives/Ideology
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 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.
Hafiz Saeed, a scholar of Islam, has
said that the purpose of Jihad is to carry out a sustained struggle
for the dominance of Islam in the entire world and to eliminate the
evil forces and the ignorant. He considers India, Israel and US to
be his prime enemies and has threatened to launch Fidayeen (suicide
squad) attacks on American interests too.
The Lashkar-e-Taiba does not believe
in democracy and nationalism. According to its ideology, it is the
duty of every 'Momin' to protect and defend the interests of Muslims
all over the world where Muslims are under the rule of non-Muslim
in the democratic system. It has, thus chosen the path of Jihad as
the suited means to achieve its goal. Cadres are drawn from the Wahabi
school of thought.
Jihad, Hafiz Saeed said during the
All Pakistan Ulema Convention held on July 17, 2003, at Lahore, is
the only way Pakistan can move towards dignity and prosperity.
The LeT has consistently
advocated the use of force and vowed that it would plant the 'flag
of Islam' in Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi.
- Leadership and Command Structure
The outfit’s headquarters
(200 acres) is located at Muridke, 30 kms from Lahore, which was built
with contributions and donations from the Middle East, with Saudi
Arabia being the biggest benefactor.
The headquarters houses a Madrassa
(seminary), a hospital, a market, a large residential area for ‘scholars’
and faculty members, a fish farm and agricultural tracts. The LeT
also reportedly operates 16 Islamic institutions, 135 secondary schools,
an ambulance service, mobile clinics, blood banks and several seminaries
across Pakistan.
LeT publishes its views and opinion
through its Website (http://www.jamatuddawa.org/), an Urdu monthly
journal, Al-Dawa, which has a circulation of 80,000, and an Urdu weekly,
Gazwa. It also publishes Voice of Islam, an English monthly, and Al-Rabat
- monthly in Arabic, Mujala-e-Tulba - Urdu monthly for students, Jehad
Times - Urdu Weekly.
Hafiz Muhammad Saeed is the Amir (chief)
of Lashkar-e-Taiba. While Yahiya Mujahid serves as the spokesman of
the outfit, Maulana Abdul Wahid is one of the senior leaders. Abdullah
Muntazer is the ‘Spokesman for International Media’ and editor of
the outfit’s Website. Saeed’s son Talha reportedly looks after the
LeT activity at its base camp in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan
occupied Kashmir. Saeed’s son-in-law, Khalid Waleed, is reportedly
part of the LeT office in Lahore.
According to a November 2005 report
of Rediff, the LeT leadership consisted of: Hafiz Mohammed Saeed (Supreme
Commander); Zia-Ur-Rehman Lakhvi alias Chachaji (Supreme Commander,
Kashmir); A. B. Rahman-Ur-Dakhil (Deputy Supreme Commander); Abdullah
Shehzad alias Abu Anas alias Shamas (Chief Operations Commander, Valley);
Abdul Hassan alias MY (Central Division Commander); Kari Saif-Ul-Rahman
(North Division Commander); Kari Saif-Ul-Islam (Deputy Commander);
Masood alias Mahmood (Area Commander, Sopore); Hyder-e-Krar alias
CI (Deputy Commander, Bandipora); Usman Bhai alias Saif-Ul-Islam (Deputy
Commander, Lolab); Abdul Nawaz (Deputy Commander, Sogam); Abu Rafi
(Deputy Divisional Commander, Baramulla); Abdul Nawaz (Deputy Commander,
Handwara); Abu Museb alias Saifulla (Deputy Commander, Budgam);
Its cadres 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.
It comprises cadres mostly from Pakistan
and Afghanistan and a sprinkling of militants from Sudan, Bahrain,
Central Asia, Turkey and Libya. Funded, armed and trained by the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISl,
the external intelligence agency of Pakistan), it has presently a
little over 750 cadres (this number keeps changing) in Jammu and Kashmir
(a vast majority of the foreign mercenaries operating in the Valley).
The policy making apex body consists
of Amir (chief), Naib Amir (deputy chief) Finance chief etc. At the
field level, it has Chief Commander, Divisional Commander, District
Commander, Battalion Commander and down below on army pattern.
- Area of Operation
While the primary area of operations
of the Lashkar-e-Taiba is Jammu and Kashmir, the outfit has carried
out attacks in other parts of India, including in New Delhi, Mumbai,
Bangalore, Hyderabad, Varanasi, Kolkata, Gujarat, etc. It reportedly
has cells in many cities/towns outside Jammu and Kashmir.
The LeT has been able to network with
several Islamist extremist organizations across India, especially
in J&K, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat.
LeT is actively engaged in subversive activities in the States of
Maharashtra, West Bengal, Bihar, Hyderabad, Delhi, Haryana and Uttar
Pradesh at the instance of ISI to expand the frontier of violence
outside J&K by subverting fringe elements. Of all the Pakistan-based
terrorist groups, the LeT is the only group with support bases across
India.
The Lashkar-e-Taiba has training camps
spread across Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). Its camps,
recruitment centres/offices are spread across the length and breadth
of Pakistan and PoK in Muzaffarabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Islamabad,
Rawalpindi, Karachi, Multan, Quetta, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Gilgit (in
the Northern Area of PoK), etc. LeT reportedly has 2,200 offices across
Pakistan.
The LeT allegedly carried out the
terrorist attack at the Indian Institute of Science campus in Bangalore
on December 28, 2005, in which one person was killed; Earlier, on
October 29, 2005, it engineered the serial explosions in New Delhi
killing at least 62 persons; It is also suspected to have carried
out the Varanasi attack on March 7, 2006 in which 21 civilians died
and 62 others were injured; Three suspected LeT terrorists were shot
dead during an abortive attempt to storm the headquarters of Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu organization, at Nagpur
in Maharashtra on June 1, 2006; The LeT, according to Mumbai Police,
carried out the 7/11 serial bombings in Mumbai in which at least 200
people were killed.
Arrests made during March-April 2004
near Baghdad brought to light links between the LeT and Islamist groups
fighting the United States military in Iraq. In March - and possibly
even earlier - United States forces detained Pakistani national Dilshad
Ahmad and four others in Baghdad. Ahmad, a long-time Lashkar operative
from the Bahawalpur area of the province of Punjab in Pakistan, had
played a key role in the Lashkar's trans-Line of Control (LoC) operations,
serving between 1997 and 2001 as the organisation's commander for
the forward camps from where infiltrating groups of terrorists are
launched into Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistani military support. Ahmad
is believed to have made at least six secret visits to Lashkar groups
operating in J&K during this period.
- Training and Operational Strategies
The outfit provides training
to both militant cadres and the Ulema (religious scholars). Its militant
cadres are given two months training in the handling of AK series
rifles, LMGs, pistols, rocket launchers and hand grenades. It also
provides a 21-day training programme called Daura-e-Aam and a three
months specialized training programme called Daura-e-Khas.
The Ulema are provided with a 42-days
course. At the time of induction, the young recruits are made to go
through a fresher course called Bait-ur-Rizwan.
Lashkar-e-Taiba is credited for having
initiated the strategy of Fidayeen (suicide squad) attacks in J&K.
It has formed two sub-groups called 'Jaan-e-Fidai' and 'Ibn-e-Tayamiah'.
While the first group consists of highly motivated terrorists, the
second comprises terrorists suffering from incurable diseases.
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 and secondly, for the 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 Fidayeen strategy whereby small groups
(2-5 members) of Lashkar cadres would storm a security force camp
or base. In another frequently used strategy, groups of Lashkar cadres,
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 suicide
squad cadres managed to penetrate inside a SF convoy and opened fire
killing one soldier. 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.
- Links
It is closely linked to the Inter-Services
Intelligence, the Taliban
and al Qaeda.
India’s National Security Adviser
M. K. Narayanan said on August 11, 2006, that the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba
is part of the "al Qaeda compact" and is "as big as and omnipotent"
as the international terror network. "The Lashkar today has emerged
as a very major force. It has connectivity with west Asia, Europe....Actually
there was an LeT module broken in Virginia and some people were picked
up. It is as big as and omnipotent as al Qaeda in every sense of the
term," he told a private news channel. Asked how significant the al
Qaeda connection was in India, Narayanan said LeT was the "most visible
manifestation" of the al Qaeda in India.
LeT has an extensive network that
run across Pakistan and India with branches in Saudi Arabia, United
Kingdom, Bangladesh and South East Asia.
The outfit collects donations from
the Pakistani community in the Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic
Non-Governmental Organisations, and Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen.
It receives considerable financial, material and other forms of assistance
from the Pakistan government, routed primarily through the ISI. The
ISI is the main source of LeT's funding. Saudi Arabia also provides
funds.
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 al Qaeda fraternal
network.
The LeT has also been part of the
Bosnian campaign against the Serbs.
It has allegedly set up sleeper cells
in the U.S. and Australia, trained terrorists from other countries
and has entered new theatres of Jihad like Iraq.
The group has links with many international
Islamist terrorist groups like the Ikhwan-ul-Musalmeen of Egypt and
other Arab groups.
LeT has a unit in Germany and also
receives help from the Al Muhajiraun, supporter of Sharia Group, (Abu
Hamza Masari- of Mosque Finsbury Park, North London) and its annual
convention is regularly attended by fraternal bodies in Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, Yemen, Bahrain, Oman, Kosovo, Bangladesh, Myanmar, USA, Palestine,
Bosnia, Philippines, Jordan, Chechnya, etc.
It also has links with the International
Sikh Youth Federation (Lakhbir Singh Rode).
- Links
The outfit collects donations from
the Pakistani community in the Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic
Non-Governmental Organisations, and Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen.
It receives considerable financial, material and other forms of assistance
from the Pakistan government, routed primarily through the ISI. The
ISI is the main source of LeT's funding. Funds also come from some
sources in Saudi Arabia.
Finances are also generated through
Hawala transaction and through infiltrating groups and other conduits.
According to Mohammad Omar Rana, the
expenditure on its militia alone is around 35 crores of rupees per
annum.
- Weaponry
AK series rifles, LMG/HMG's, Hand
Grenades, Rockets, Pistols, Mortars, Anti-tank mines, Anti personnel
mines, Anti Aircraft Gun, Remote Control Device, explosive devices
and sophisticated communication system.