Business as usual for Lashkar-e-Taiba

Taliban display fire power in Swat

Despite the international outcry and sanctions, after the Mumbai 2008 attacks, Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) has re-emerged stronger and capable to carry out far more outrageous attacks not only in India but also elsewhere in the world. Not only has the group survived an intense global scrutiny of its activities, it has managed to recruit and train new sets of terrorists in training camps which were set up after the Mumbai attacks.

The group head, and the mastermind of Mumbai attacks, Hafiz Saeed is not only free but is openly feted by senior Pakistan Army Generals. For instance, he was invited to an iftar party thrown by Rawalpindi Corps Commander Tahir Mahmood last September, merely 10 months after the attack that shook not only India but the entire world.

Saeed alone is not the free bird; his close aides and terrorist commanders remain active in the expanding jihadi terrain in Pakistan’s Punjab province and Occupied Kashmir. After lying low for the first three months after the attack, Saeed was back in Lahore, preaching Jihad against India, the US and Israel. Today, Saeed minces no words when he speaks against the global community. His stable of magazines and newspapers publishes stories extolling the virtues of jihad against `infidels`.

Although Pakistan made a pretence of clamping down on LeT offices and training camps, these `terror factories` were merely relocated or went under a new board. Baitul Mujahideen, where the Mumbai attackers were initially trained, is today occupied by the security forces. LeT operational commander Zaki-ur Rahman Lakhvi used to run this complex. Today, LeT has opened a new camp, a few kilometres away, in Dulai which is headed by Yusuf Muzamil, Lakhvi’s second-in-command and one of the main accused in the Mumbai attacks. Like Baitul Mujahideen, the Dulai camp is LeT’s command centre which is connected to the world with high-speed broadband internet.

 

The Dulai camp is about 39325 square yards and was rented by the terrorist group in March 2009. The rent per month is Rs 65000. So far, the group had built a mosque and 14 shelters within the complex besides a middle school named Quaid-e-Azam Academy and al Shifa Free Medical centre.

 

Elsewhere in Pakistan, LeT and its parent organisation, Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD) have managed hoodwink the world by assuming a new nomenclature, Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF), which incidentally operates from the same premises which was, till November 2008 ,occupied by the Islamic Centres of JuD. These Centres were nothing but madrasas to indoctrinate young students, recruitment and fund collection centres for jihad. In Lahore, for instance, FIF works out of Jamia Masjid al Qadsia, one of the biggest mosques in the city. In Karachi, the group runs its operations from Jamia Darasat al-Islamia (JDI)—a sprawling complex with a mosque, madrasa and a hostel besides FIF office. Before the Mumbai attack, LeT used to operate out of an office at Salman Terrace at Hassan Square in Gulshan-e-Iqbal. Likewise, there are several smaller offices in Karachi—Jamia Masjid Khalid bin-Walid on Tariq Road, Masjid Hussain-bin-Ali in Quaidabad and a mosque in Sher Shah Colony.

 

The terrorist group’s publications are freely available in Lahore and Karachi,  two cities which have considerable number of LeT cadres. These offices and centres are run by paid staff of the group, most of whom had shifted from Lahore after the crackdown. Average pay of each staffer is Rs 6000 per month.

 

According to intelligence agencies in Pakistan,  LeT today has more than 50000 trained cadres, of which 5000 are in Karachi and rest largely distributed across Punjab, particularly in Lahore, Multan and Jhelum.