Lashkar-e-Toiba planned attacks on Indian software firms

[starroute]

From Slashdot this morning: "Militants killed in an encounter in New Delhi on Saturday night planned to attack leading software companies in Bangalore in addition to the Indian Military Academy in Dehra Dun, Delhi police said on Sunday Indian police claim the men were members of Lashkar-e-Toiba - a Wahabi militant group fighting for an independent Kashmir. Apart from maps of call centers police also recovered 100 kilos of dynamite, 10.5 kilos of RDX explosive, 450 detonators, three AK-56 rifles and a satellite phone." http://slashdot.org/articles/05/03/08/046225.shtml?tid=99

This story caught my eye because Lashkar-e-Toiba is one of those particularly dark corners of the Pakistan/terrorism/A.Q. Khan connection that was discussed in the course of the long series of Valerie Plame threads here last summer.

http://www.satribune.com/archives/feb29_mar6_04/opinion_levy.htm

We observed the Abdul Qadeer Khan affair, the incredible story of this Pakistani nuclear scientist who delivered over 15 years - freely and with impunity - his most sensitive secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. Then we learned that President Musharraf in person, after an interview from which little or nothing has been divulged, ended up granting Khan his "pardon." Case closed? End of story?

That's what the American administration, falling oddly in step with the official Pakistani doctrine, would have us believe. But knowing something of the case--and being the first French observer, to my knowledge, to have tried to alert public opinion to the extreme gravity of the situation, I believe that we are only at the very beginning this story.

<snip>

But we must not shift our gaze from the president himself, whose knowledge of Khan's dark machinations no one in Islamabad doubts, and who, at the very moment of his confounding, celebrated Khan once more as a "hero." What does Khan know of what Gen. Musharraf knows? And what does Khan's daughter, Dina, who announced in London that she has suitcases of compromising files, know?

And at last, sooner or later, we will come to the real secret: that of al Qaeda; and of Khan's links to Lashkar-e-Toiba, the fundamentalist terrorist group at the heart of al Qaeda; and the fact that this "mad scientist" is first of all mad about God, a fanatical Islamist who in his heart and soul believes that the bomb of which he is the father should belong, if not to the Ummah itself, at least to its avant-garde, as incarnated by al Qaeda.

http://www.saag.org/papers4/paper381.html

India has little reason to be gratified by the December 20 {2001} decision of President George Bush to freeze the assets of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). On the contrary, there are valid reasons to be concerned over the written formulation read out by Mr.Bush while announcing the decision.

A careful analysis of Bush's formulation would show that the real purpose is not to meet India's concerns, but to legally pre-empt any Indian campaign for the extension of the current US "war" against terrorism to cover India-centric terrorist training camps in Pakistani territory and any Indian move for retaliatory strikes of its own against LET camps in Pakistan.

<snip>

... Bush's latest statement totally reflects Musharraf's contention by saying as follows: "American power will be used against all terrorists of global reach. So today I'm adding another terrorist organization to the list of those whose assets are blocked by my executive order. Lashkar-e-Tayiba is an extremist group based in Kashmir. LAT is a stateless sponsor of terrorism, and it hopes to destroy relations between Pakistan and India and to undermine Pakistani's President Musharraf. To achieve its purpose, LAT has committed acts of terrorism inside both India and Pakistan. LAT is a terrorist organization that presents a global threat. And I look forward to working with the governments of both India and Pakistan in a common effort to shut it down and to bring the killers to justice."

The central point of the article is that the statements I boldfaced are entirely false. LET is based in Pakistan and has strong ties to the Pakistani government, previous US government policy had always acknowledged this, but between April and December of 2001, the Bush administration swallowed Musharraf's description of LET as an indigenous Kashmiri group directing its operations against Pakistan as well as India. And though the article doesn't press the point, it became clear in the course of the Plame threads that this about-face was part of the massive Bush efforts post-9/11 to cover up Pakistan's long-term support of al-Qaeda.

I don't know whether this new tack by Lashkar-e-Toiba is the start of something major or just an episode that happened to catch Slashdot's eye because of the tech connection. But I think it bears watching.

[sacxtra]

1. The BOFH plans a trip to India? n/t ;o)

[Octafish]

2. Thanks for the news, starroute!

But...aren't the Wahhabis, er, Saudis our friends?