LAHORE: A year after the 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai that literally shook the Indian commercial capital, the Pakistan-based pro-Kashmiri jehadi group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), which was accused of carrying out the gory episode, largely remains unbroken and is determined to pursue its jehadi agenda under the guise of Jamaatul Daawa (JuD) led by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed.
Dreaded for its guerrilla operations in Jammu & Kashmir and known for the infamous suicide attack on the Red Fort in New Delhi, the Lashkar-e-Toiba or the Army of the Pure once again hit international media headlines in the wake of the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai and the subsequent allegations of its involvement. However, twelve months later, despite repeated assurances by the Pakistan government that it would take concrete steps to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure of the jehadi groups operating from its soil, no measures have been taken to contain the activities and growth of the Jamaatul Daawa, the cover name for the Lashkar-e-Toiba. With the prime objective of establishing an Islamic state in South Asia and uniting all Muslim majority regions in countries that surround Pakistan, the LeT was launched in 1989.
Two decades later, the LeT is considered to be one of the most effective jehadi groups operating in Jammu & Kashmir and involved in guerilla activities, largely due to its extraordinary growth in size, enormous resources as well as fame. However, it was in November 2008 that the over-ambitious jehadi agenda of the LeT/JuD combine finally landed Pakistan in serious trouble in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks, placing massive international pressure on Islamabad to proceed against their leaders. The Mumbai attacks also prompted the United Nations Security Council to ban the Jamaatul Daawa as a terrorist organisation and tag its chief a terrorist. Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Hafiz Mohammad Saeed were subsequently named by Mumbai police in a charge sheet for their alleged role in hatching the criminal conspiracy to execute the 26/11 terror strikes on the Indian financial hub.
Reeling under intense international pressure in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, the Pakistan government incarcerated a clutch of LeT leaders, detained Lashkar founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and the chief operational commander of the LeT, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, besides raiding militant camps countrywide. These actions fanned hopes that the Lashkar-e-Toiba and its parent body, the Jamaatul Dawa (JuD) – would now be dismantled and defanged. However, a year after the 26/11 terror attacks, no concrete action seems to have been taken at the official level to contain the JuD activities – amidst frequent international media reports that its activists continue to raise funds and recruit fresh cadres to wage jehad in Jammu & Kashmir.
Although the incumbent spokesman of the JuD Yahya Mujahid strongly refutes these reports, saying the Jamaat was a peace loving Islamic welfare organization having nothing to do with any jehadi activity, there are those in the diplomatic circles of Islamabad who still insist that the JuD and the LeT are one and the same thing and working in tandem with each other to further the Kashmir cause with the tacit backing of the Pakistani intelligence establishment. That the LeT is still functional and carrying out its activities freely in Pakistan has already been confirmed by a former JuD spokesman Abdullah Muntazir in an interview with a foreign news agency.
In a November 24, 2009 news report run by the Reuters and carried by the Pakistani print media, Abdullah has been quoted as saying that the Lashkar-e-Toiba has opened several new training camps in Azad Kashmir (AJK). He further said that the Pakistan authorities had closed many LeT training camps in Azad Kashmir after the Mumbai terrorist attacks but that had had a limited impact. The report went as saying that although the LeT is officially banned in Pakistan, the group is unofficially tolerated as the only militant group not believed to have been involved in attacks inside the country. “The LeT cadres are seen as a kind of civil defence force in the event of war with India and going after the group now would create a new enemy when Pakistan is concentrating on defeating the evil of Taliban in northwestern regions”.
In parts of Punjab, one can still see the JuD banners urging young boys to join the JuD-LeT combine for waging jehad against the forces of infidels. These banners furnish contact details of local offices for the eager. In rural Punjab, JuD has been a big draw because of its charity work, providing as it does free education, board and lodging, an allure the poor find difficult to resist. These students, even as they study, are allegedly indoctrinated in jehad and imparted military training. From them would then be recruited the foot soldiers of the LeT, willing to fight and die for Islam, a strategy it has adopted for years now. The JuD activists are also visible outside mosques in Punjab’s rural areas, distributing pamphlets and periodicals that preach the virtues of waging jehad in Kashmir. The donation boxes of JuD that had disappeared following 26\11 have reappeared at mosques and other select public places countrywide.
As the sprawling Muridke headquarters of the JuD came under intense media scrutiny after the Mumbai attacks, the Punjab government was asked to bring under its administrative control the educational institutions functioning there. This measure prompted the JuD leadership to shift its base to Lahore’s Jamia al Qadsia Mosque, from where a virulent campaign against the United States, Israel and India is now carried out. In fact, many international terror experts believe that the LeT’s self- definition has undergone a change. Instead of positioning itself as an anti-India group, waging jehad to free Kashmir, it has begun to talk of saving Islam, and bringing South Asia under the banner of Islam. Observers feel the success story of the LeT-JuD combine can be ascribed to the support it has received from the mighty intelligence establishment which keeps pursuing its so- called geo-strategic agenda which runs at cross purposes with that of the elected government.
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