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Pak Offers to Aid India in Terror Investigation
Pakistan on Tuesday offered to set up a joint inquiry into last week's terror attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai and said it would cooperate with India as it investigates the three-day siege of the country's financial capital.
Good thing, too. Who knows more about terrorism than the Paks?
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi extended the offer in a statement broadcast on national television, as pressure mounted from both India and the United States for cooperation in unraveling the attack. "Both countries will benefit from bilateral engagement. This is not the time for finger-pointing. Terrorism is a major challenge. It is a common enemy," Qureshi said.

The attacks by a band of 10 gunmen killed 174 and injured nearly 300.

Qureshi delivered his remarks as members of Pakistan's National Assembly held a special session in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad to discuss the country's response to the Mumbai assaults. Indian officials have pinned responsibility for the attacks on Pakistan-based elements of Lashkar-i-Taiba, a militant group linked to several previous terrorist attacks in India. The sole gunman to be taken alive, they say, has admitted that Lashkar was behind the terrorist rampage across the city.

In Mumbai on Tuesday, police commissioner Hassan Ghafoor provided new details about the elaborate attack and the men thought to be behind it. They left from Karachi via ship, he said, hijacked a fishing trawler near international waters to carry them near the Indian coast, then used rubber boats to complete the trip. They arrived with five timed bombs, two of which were placed in taxis -- a tactic to create confusion and a sign of their sophistication.

He said the investigation so far has produced no evidence that the group had "immediate, local support," or that any of its members had visited Mumbai beforehand to gather information or surveil the attack sites.

However, Ghafoor said members of the group "were trained by ex-army officers, some for a year, some for more than a year." The training took place in Pakistan, Ghafoor said, though he did not say specifically that former Pakistani officers were involved.

"It was a suicide attack," Ghafoor said. "There was no hope, no intention, of staying alive."

Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's minister of information, said that the country's top intelligence official, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, would brief a parliamentary committee meeting about possible steps Pakistan might take amid rising tension between the two countries. "We must try to dampen down the discourse of conflict and work for peace in the region," Rehman said.


Posted by: Fred 2008-12-03
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=256456