LeT's operations chief
By Zahid Hussain, in Islamabad, and Jeremy Page, in Delhi
Pakistani security forces have raided a training camp used by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the militant group blamed for last month's attack on Mumbai, and arrested at least 12 of the group's activists, government officials said today.
One Pakistani official told The Times that among those arrested was Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, LeT's operations chief, whom Indian officials have accused of masterminding the Mumbai attack.
The raid last night near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, was Pakistan's first attempt to respond to mounting pressure from India and the United States to take action against LeT after the Mumbai strike.
It is unlikely to satisfy either Delhi or Washington unless Islamabad follows up by prosecuting those arrested and taking further action against other militant groups linked to attacks on Indian soil.
"We've seen before how Pakistan will arrest some militants, keep them for a couple of months and then release them when the world's not paying attention," said B. Raman, a former head of the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing (India's MI6).
"It must not be allowed to do that this time. They have to prosecute these people and dismantle the whole terrorist infrastructure," he told The Times.
Pakistani security officials refused to confirm or deny publicly the raid or the arrests of the activists from LeT, which is thought to have close links to Pakistan's poweful Inter-Services Intelligence agency. But government officials, speaking off the record, said that Pakistani troops raided a large compound belonging to Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), the parent organisation of LeT, about three miles outside Muzaffarabad. Read more ...
Pakistani security forces have raided a training camp used by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the militant group blamed for last month's attack on Mumbai, and arrested at least 12 of the group's activists, government officials said today.
One Pakistani official told The Times that among those arrested was Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, LeT's operations chief, whom Indian officials have accused of masterminding the Mumbai attack.
The raid last night near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, was Pakistan's first attempt to respond to mounting pressure from India and the United States to take action against LeT after the Mumbai strike.
It is unlikely to satisfy either Delhi or Washington unless Islamabad follows up by prosecuting those arrested and taking further action against other militant groups linked to attacks on Indian soil.
"We've seen before how Pakistan will arrest some militants, keep them for a couple of months and then release them when the world's not paying attention," said B. Raman, a former head of the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing (India's MI6).
"It must not be allowed to do that this time. They have to prosecute these people and dismantle the whole terrorist infrastructure," he told The Times.
Pakistani security officials refused to confirm or deny publicly the raid or the arrests of the activists from LeT, which is thought to have close links to Pakistan's poweful Inter-Services Intelligence agency. But government officials, speaking off the record, said that Pakistani troops raided a large compound belonging to Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), the parent organisation of LeT, about three miles outside Muzaffarabad. Read more ...
Source: Times Online
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