By Sanjeev Sharma New Delhi, Nov 26th : .The US Senate held hearings in 2009 about the lessons learned from the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
They clearly revealed the connection between Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The Senate hearings had inputs from FBI and NYPD.
They discussed in detail the LeT’s role as the perpetrators of the horrendous Mumbai attacks.
The hearings revealed that LeT was founded in part by three individuals, one being Osama bin Laden’s mentor.
They said that it was quickly linked to ISI because its motivations, worldview and leadership were very compatible with those of the ISI.
It was stated that LeT was one the main beneficiaries of the generosity of the Pakistani intelligence services, due to its strong commitment towards jihad, which was seen as particularly valuable by the ISI in Pakistan’s ongoing war with India.
However, LeT’s goals have always transcended South Asia.
“If you look at the LeT website, if you listen to the remarks made by Hafiz Saeed, the leader of the LeT, and read its numerous publications, there are recurrent references to both Israel and the US as being co-joined targets of LeT objectives in addition to India, and there is frequent reference to the Zionist-Hindu-Crusader axis, which seems to animate a great deal of LeT’s antipathy to liberal democracy, which it sees as being implacably opposed to Islam,” the testimonies added.
Indian intelligence services at that time had determined that LeT has a terrorist presence in at most 21 countries around the world.This terrorist presence can take many forms, from liaison and networking to the facilitation terrorist acts by third parties, fundraising and procurement of weapons and explosives, recruitment and training of volunteers for suicide missions, creation and operation of sleeper cells in the US and actual armed conflict.
US officials testified that LeT is a threat to regional security and global security that is second only to al Qaeda.Its ideology is the reason.
Its ideology is shaped in part by the Ahl al-Hadith Saudi Wahhabism school.Its objectives are to create a universal Islamic Caliphate primarily through preaching and jihad.
Both these instruments are considered co-equal in LeT’s world view.
Officials said that LeT’s primary objective is the “recovery of lost Muslim lands”, which it refers to as lands that were once governed under Muslim rulers but have since passed to other political dispensations.
LeT has been collaborating with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan since 1987, when it was pursuing the goal of creating this universal Islamic Caliphate.
LeT’s mission to recover lost Muslim lands has led it to open theatres all over the world.
According to officials, “We have identified LeT presences in areas as diverse and as Palestine, Spain Chechnya Kosovo, Eritrea, and Chechnya.”
(Sanjeev Sharma can be reached at Sanjeev.s@ians.in)
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