NEW DELHI: For all the protestations that the Jamaat-ud-Dawa is a charitable organisation and Hafiz Mohammed Saeed is an injured innocent, it's clear that the organisation and Saeed's family, in particular, have been in the crosshairs of US government for several years and a couple of Saeed's family members are already in US custody.
As the Lashkar-e-Taiba grew in stature, profile and links to violent terrorism in Pakistan, curiously, its amir Saeed's family kept making tracks to the US to live and work there over the past decade.
Over the years, LeT aka Jamaat-ud-Dawa has morphed from an ISI-sponsored terror outfit against India to become a global jihadist organisation with increasing ties to Al Qaeda.
The US has been on its trail for some time now, but could not do much because the JuD had sprouted roots in almost all areas of Pakistani life. The Mumbai attacks resurrected US security agencies' interest in this outfit.
And the reason for that, sources said, was that Saeed's family had been making determined tracks to the US -- to live there as imams and preach and raise funds for jihad.
The evidence for that came in bits and pieces. The first to land in the US was Muhammad Masood, Saeed's brother, who arrived in 1987 on a J-1 exchange visitor visa. He lived in the Boston area, working odd jobs until he started teaching at the Islamic Academy of New England at the Islamic Center of New England in Sharon, Massachusetts. Masood was arrested in November 2006 and charged with visa fraud and other unnamed crimes. Read more ...
As the Lashkar-e-Taiba grew in stature, profile and links to violent terrorism in Pakistan, curiously, its amir Saeed's family kept making tracks to the US to live and work there over the past decade.
Over the years, LeT aka Jamaat-ud-Dawa has morphed from an ISI-sponsored terror outfit against India to become a global jihadist organisation with increasing ties to Al Qaeda.
The US has been on its trail for some time now, but could not do much because the JuD had sprouted roots in almost all areas of Pakistani life. The Mumbai attacks resurrected US security agencies' interest in this outfit.
And the reason for that, sources said, was that Saeed's family had been making determined tracks to the US -- to live there as imams and preach and raise funds for jihad.
The evidence for that came in bits and pieces. The first to land in the US was Muhammad Masood, Saeed's brother, who arrived in 1987 on a J-1 exchange visitor visa. He lived in the Boston area, working odd jobs until he started teaching at the Islamic Academy of New England at the Islamic Center of New England in Sharon, Massachusetts. Masood was arrested in November 2006 and charged with visa fraud and other unnamed crimes. Read more ...
Source: Times of India
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