Karachi, Pakistan: Ten months after the devastating attacks in Mumbai by Pakistan-based militants, the group behind the assault remains largely intact and determined to strike India again, according to current and former members of the group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and a range of intelligence officials.
Mastermind and the war camp: LeT founder Hafiz Saeed (in white) seen with his aides and a police officer at his residence in Lahore on 2 June. KM Chaudary / AP
Despite pledges from Pakistan to dismantle militant groups operating on its soil, and the arrest of a handful of operatives, LeT has persisted, even flourished, since 10 recruits killed 163 people in a rampage through Mumbai last November.
Indian and Pakistani dossiers on the Mumbai investigations, copies of which were obtained by The New York Times, offer a detailed picture of the operations of a LeT network that spans Pakistan.
Among the organizers, the Pakistani document says, was Hammad Amin Sadiq, a homeopathic pharmacist, who arranged bank accounts and secured supplies. He and six others begin their formal trial on Saturday in Pakistan, though Indian authorities say the prosecution stops well short of top LeT leaders.
Indeed, LeT’s broader network endures, and can be mobilized quickly for elaborate attacks with relatively few resources, according to a dozen current and former LeT militants and intelligence officials from the US, Europe, India and Pakistan.
In interviews with The Times, they presented a troubling portrait of LeT's capabilities, its popularity in Pakistan and the support it has received from former officials of Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment.
Pakistan’s chief spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, helped create LeT two decades ago to challenge Indian control in Kashmir. Pakistani officials say that after 9/11 they broke their contacts with the group. No credible evidence has emerged of Pakistani government involvement in the Mumbai attacks, according to an American law enforcement official.
But a senior American intelligence official said the ISI was believed to maintain ties with LeT. Four LeT members, interviewed individually, said only a thin distance separated LeT and the ISI, bridged by former ISI and military officials.
One highly placed LeT militant said the Mumbai attackers were part of groups trained by former Pakistani military and intelligence officials. Others had direct knowledge that retired army and ISI officials trained LeT recruits as late as last year.
“Some people of the ISI knew about the plan and closed their eyes,” said one senior LeT operative in Karachi who said he had met some of the gunmen before they left for the Mumbai assault, though he did not know what their mission would be.