The 32 of Lahore / Pakistan
/Sixteen years later, the findings of several international police investigations and dozens of studies, triggered after an Islamist commando attack on Mumbai on November 26-29, 2008, have been largely overlooked, if not obscured.
On the course of the attack cf. https://www.sdbrnews.com/sdbr-news-blog-en/the-wests-disregard-for-islamist-massacre
We have already discussed why Mumbai is the target of terrorist groups from Pakistan. The more ambiguous role that Pakistan’s government has played for the past 30 years will be discussed later.
But before doing so, it should be clarified who were the terrorists who killed 165 people, including 26 foreign tourists, and injured 304 in Mumbai on 26 November 2008?
Who were the commando members ?
After the Mumbai attack, suspicion quickly focused on “Lashkar-e-Taiba” (LeT), a large jihadist group based in Pakistan. Although nominally banned by the Pakistani government since 2002, “LeT” has organized conspicuous fundraising rallies and operated urban recruitment centers without any official interference.
He had previously launched the concept of suicide attacks resulting in mass casualties in South Asia, apparently on the advice of a former Pakistani army special operations operator**.
Anecdotally, the website Wikipedia (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lashkar-e-Toiba ) classifies this Islamist group as far right (a teacher’s contribution to Sciences Po). There is definitely no limit to ideological stupidity...
Lashkar-e-Taiba threat
The capture of one of the terrorists in the November 26, 2008, attack, Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, revealed objective evidence about the commando’s members, their means and motives, and their links to the Pakistani government.
Intercepted alive, Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab was further questioned by the FBI because of the US nationality of some of the commando’s victims, which corroborated investigative evidence gathered by the Indian Police. For the first time, India had managed to capture a suicide bomber alive and interrogate him.
Testimony of Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab
Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab was the son of Mohammed Amir Kasab, a resident of Faridkot village in Okara district, Punjab province, Pakistan.
He said that along with many others, including the nine terrorists who were killed in the 26/11 attack, he had been trained at the Laskhar-e-Taiba training camps in Muridke (50 kms north of Lahore), Manshera (north of Islamabad), and Muzaffarabad (near Karachi).
All these camps were necessarily known to the Pakistani authorities...
He said that the original group consisted of 32 men, who were trained like him. They were trained in the use of firearms (AK47 Kalashnikov rifles and 9 mm pistols), ammunition and grenades, and the manufacture and use of explosive devices (IEDs).
They were also trained in interrogation concealment techniques and pain tolerance. Finally, they were indoctrinated to become suicide bombers....
Exacting selection among terrorists
Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab said that a group of 13 people were eventually selected (out of the 32 who left) to participate in attacks in India. Six of the 13 were sent on operations in Kashmir.
Three new members were then integrated into the group, which eventually made a group of 10 to go to Mumbai.
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab provided the names and identities of the nine other commando members***, all of whom were eliminated by the Indian police force.
One of the three new members was Ismail Khan who became the head of the formed group.
The 10-member group was informed of the Mumbai operation in mid-September 2008.
At the time, all 10 members of the group were held in solitary confinement in a house near Karachi, and all contacts between the group and other members of jihadist groups were interrupted.
The group was closely monitored by Zaki-Ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Abu Hamza, Yousuf aka Muzammil and Kaahfa, all senior LeT officials. The first three are known to the intelligence services of many countries.
The history of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group
A remarkable article by Mary Sisson in “Encyclopedia Britannica” tells the story of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lashkar-e-Taiba :
“Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamist militant group, began in Pakistan in the late 1980s as a militant wing of Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad, an Islamist organization influenced by the Wahābī sect of Sunni Islam. It sought to establish a Muslim regime throughout the Indian subcontinent. Although based in Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba initially operated in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, on the Pakistan-India border, but by the first decade of the 21st century the group had extended its reach further into India.
Jammu and Kashmir has been claimed by both India, an 80% Hindu country (about 1.1 billion people), and Pakistan, a 97% Muslim country (about 233 million people), and the conflict has spawned numerous armed groups within Jammu and Kashmir.
Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the largest groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir, was extremely pro-Pakistani for control of the region. The group opposed any concessions to India. Moreover, its leaders have expressed a desire to establish an Islamic regime throughout India.
The group has taken part in several attacks against non-Muslim civilians in Jammu and Kashmir with the aim of creating a Muslim state there.
Many of the Lashkar-e-Taiba members were Pakistani or Afghan. The group was believed to have links to the Afghan Taliban government and the wealthy Saudi extremist and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Fighters from Lashkar-e-Taiba and another militant Muslim group, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, were killed in August 1998 when US cruise missiles struck Bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan, and a senior al-Qaeda leader was captured at a Lashkar-e-Taiba shelter in Pakistan in March 2002.
First activities
Lashkar-e-Taiba first made incursions into Jammu and Kashmir in 1993. In the late 1990s, it was alleged that Lashkar-e-Taiba had received funds from the Pakistani government, an allegation that the Pakistani government denied. The group began operating in the Jammu area, which had a large number of non-Muslims. In collaboration with the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba launched a program of attacks against Hindu civilians and Sikhs.
Beginning in 1999, Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out a series of suicide bombings against Indian security forces, often targeting highly secure command centers. In those attacks, Lashkar-e-Taiba forces were outnumbered and were eventually killed, but not before killing Indian troops and causing extensive damage.
In 2000, Lashkar-e-Taiba had a dispute with Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, who had declared a short-lived ceasefire with India. The group lost other allies in 2001, after the September 11 attacks on the US led to the overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan by US-led military forces.
On December 13, 2001, Lashkar-e-Taiba, in collaboration with Jaish-e-Mohammed, another militant group, carried out a suicide bombing on the parliamentary compound in New Delhi, India’s capital. In response, the U.S. government has frozen the assets of Lashkar-e-Taiba and declared it a terrorist organization.
Under pressure from the United States, to repress these militant groups and avoid a war with India, the Pakistani government banned the group in January 2002 and arrested its leader, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (opening photo)... who was released a few months later. He founded a charity, known as Jamaat ud-Dawa, which is widely considered a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Following a ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan in 2003, Lashkar-e-Taiba was believed to have moved most of its operations to northwestern Pakistan, an area bordering Afghanistan over which the central government had no control. But the organization has increasingly focused its activities on India itself.” Mary Sisson
Mumbai targeted
The Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives appear to have continued their attacks throughout the first decade of the 21st century, targeting mainly Indian security forces.
In 2006, the group was involved in a much more deadly attack on civilians in Mumbai, as discussed in our December 9 article: https://www.sdbrnews.com/sdbr-news-blog-en/the-wests-disregard-for-islamist-massacre
On 11 July 2006, several bombs destroyed Mumbai’s commuter rail network during the evening rush hour, killing more than 180 people and injuring some 800 others. The bombs were all planted in first-class train compartments, in an apparent effort to target executives of Indian companies.
Following the attack, which India linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, Pakistan re-arrested Saeed... But released him again, claiming that the Indian investigation had been flawed...
And two years later, it was the attack on the Taj Mahal and the other places described in our previous article...
Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, having been captured alive, confessed that he was a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, he had trained in Pakistan, attackers had arrived in Mumbai by boat from Karāchi, etc. He was convicted of murder by an Indian court in 2010 and executed in November 2012.
This investigation revealed a lot of things, and Western leaders would do well to reflect on India’s experience with Islamist terrorism.
Today, at 74, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, a great terrorist leader, lives very well in the Lahore region of Pakistan... AE
Notes :
*https://icct.nl/publication/decade-2008-mumbai-attack-reviewing-question-state-sponsorship#_edn3
** Saleem Shahzad, Inside Al Qaeda and the Taliban (London: Pluto Press, 2011)
*** Les 9 terroristes éliminés:
(i) Ismail Khan (25 yrs) r/o Dera Ismail Khan, NWFP, Pakistan
(ii) Babar Imran @ Abu Akasha (25 yrs) r/o Multan, Pakistan
(iii) Naser @ Abu Umar (23 yrs) r/o Faisalabad, Pakistan
(iv) Shoaib @ Abu Saheb (21yrs) r/oShakkargarh Naroval, Sialkoat, Pakistan.
(v) Nazir @ Abu Umer (28 yrs) r/o Faisalabad, Pakistan
(vi) Hafiz Arshad @ Abu Abdar Rehman (Bada - 23 yrs) r/o Multan, Pakistan.
(vii) Javed @ Abu Ali (22 yrs) r/o Okara, Pakistan
(viii) Abdur Rehman @ Abu Abdar Rehman (Chhota - 21 yrs) r/o Arifwala, Multan Road, Pakistan.
(ix) Fahadulla (23 yrs) r/o Ujrashah Mukim, Rasur Road, Okara, Punjab, Pakistan.
Crédits photos: ONU, AP
