Correspondents in Islamabad | January 01, 2009
MORE evidence of a link between a Pakistan-based Islamist group and last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai has emerged after a leading member of the organisation allegedly admitted his complicity.
Zarar Shah, a top commander of Lashkar-e-Toiba, told investigators that he was in contact with the gunmen involved in the attacks, according to senior Pakistani sources.
Shah was arrested this month along with Zakiaur Rehman, another LET commander, in a raid on a militant camp in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.
Indian and Western security agencies had accused the pair of masterminding the attacks, which claimed the lives of 165 people in India's commercial capital and stoked tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations.
Shah is said to be the communication chief of LET, which was outlawed by Pakistan in 2002 but continued to operate under the banner of Jamaat-ud-Dawa.
"He is singing," a security official said of Shah. The admission, the official said, was backed up by US intercepts of a phone call between Shah and one of the attackers at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, the site of a 60-hour confrontation with Indian security forces.
A second person familiar with the investigation said Shah told Pakistani interrogators he was one of the key planners of the operation, and that he spoke with the attackers during the rampage to give them advice and keep them focused.
The source said Shah had implicated other LET members, and had broadly confirmed the story told by the sole captured gunman to Indian investigators - that the 10 assailants trained in Pakistan's part of Kashmir and then went by boat from Karachi to Mumbai. Shah said the attackers also spent at least a few weeks in Karachi training in urban combat.
The Mumbai attacks have stoked tensions in India and Pakistan, producing allegations and counter-allegations that have both countries headed towards conflict.
Pakistan recently redeployed some troops from the fight against Islamic militants towards the Indian border, and India warned its citizens not to travel to Pakistan. India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed, have fought three wars since their independence in 1947.
MORE evidence of a link between a Pakistan-based Islamist group and last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai has emerged after a leading member of the organisation allegedly admitted his complicity.
Zarar Shah, a top commander of Lashkar-e-Toiba, told investigators that he was in contact with the gunmen involved in the attacks, according to senior Pakistani sources.
Shah was arrested this month along with Zakiaur Rehman, another LET commander, in a raid on a militant camp in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.
Indian and Western security agencies had accused the pair of masterminding the attacks, which claimed the lives of 165 people in India's commercial capital and stoked tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations.
Shah is said to be the communication chief of LET, which was outlawed by Pakistan in 2002 but continued to operate under the banner of Jamaat-ud-Dawa.
"He is singing," a security official said of Shah. The admission, the official said, was backed up by US intercepts of a phone call between Shah and one of the attackers at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, the site of a 60-hour confrontation with Indian security forces.
A second person familiar with the investigation said Shah told Pakistani interrogators he was one of the key planners of the operation, and that he spoke with the attackers during the rampage to give them advice and keep them focused.
The source said Shah had implicated other LET members, and had broadly confirmed the story told by the sole captured gunman to Indian investigators - that the 10 assailants trained in Pakistan's part of Kashmir and then went by boat from Karachi to Mumbai. Shah said the attackers also spent at least a few weeks in Karachi training in urban combat.
The Mumbai attacks have stoked tensions in India and Pakistan, producing allegations and counter-allegations that have both countries headed towards conflict.
Pakistan recently redeployed some troops from the fight against Islamic militants towards the Indian border, and India warned its citizens not to travel to Pakistan. India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed, have fought three wars since their independence in 1947.
Source: The Australian
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