LeT aims to target India's political establishment: think tank

I / Washington April 06, 2010, 13:50 IST

Warning that India's transportation, economic infrastructure and political establishment are on the LeT's radar, a US Defence Department think tank has said the terror outfit still enjoys funding from ISI and is also assisted by the Karachi-based D-Company of Dawood Ibrahim.

The LeT, though having a close relationship with al-Qaeda, will continue to evolve into a distinctive, South Asia-centric terrorist actor in its own right while still receiving aid from fringe elements in Pakistan's security and intelligence apparatus and elsewhere, the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College said.

This will not only allow LeT to continue to plan future Mumbai-style terrorist attacks in India from safe havens in Pakistan, but will also enable it to guide and assist the predominantly indigenous Indian Mujahideen (IM), it said.

Authored by Ryan Clarke, the 117-page report 'Lashkar-I-Taiba: The Fallacy of Subservient Proxies and the Future of Islamist Terrorism in India' gives the first-of-its kind detailed analysis of the outfit.

The report said the troubling fact is that the LeT has upgraded its activities and has begun to operate throughout India and will likely target transportation and economic infrastructure and the political establishment as opposed to Indian security forces exclusively.

"It has also adopted new methods of destabilisation such as recruiting from India's troubled northeast and smuggling militants into India by sea, a serious infringement on India's sovereignty," it said.

"Despite being a proscribed outfit, LeT still enjoys funding from ISI and through donations from a wide range of domestic and overseas sympathisers, including Indian Muslims. Further, after capitalising on the 2005 earthquake, LeT has been able to re-establish some of its fund-raising activities within Pakistan," the report said, despite repeated Pakistani claims that its spy agency is no longer aiding LeT.

The LeT is also assisted by the Karachi-based D-Company in its fund-raising activities through the illegal hawala network.

"D-Company has well-established smuggling routes in the region, access to materiel, a partnership with LeT, and depends on ISI for refuge in Pakistan," the report said.