| More on the internationalization of the LeT, which definitely supports the Indian belief that they've taken on being the legitimate face of the International Front with al-Qaeda's leadership having to go underground as a result of the US pursuit of them. |
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) has quickly become one of the world's leading terrorist training organisations, according to an Australian terrorism expert. "Before Afghanistan changed, these people would have received training at al-Qaeda camps," said Clive Williams, director of terrorism studies at the Australian National University. "Now, because there are not al-Qaeda training camps, they get their training at affiliate organisations like LET." Mr Williams said on Friday that after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, LET had broadened its training operations and recruited al-Qaeda instructors who had fled Afghanistan. He said LET now "acted as a de facto training organisation" for al-Qaeda. LET had mobile training facilities and was known to have trained fighters from around the world, he said. "It's the organisation that was involved in training (David) Hicks before he went on to Afghanistan, and also it was involved with (Willie) Brigitte the year before, plus there have been charges in the United States against Americans training at LET camps," he said.
Its focus is Kashmir, but the training provided to individuals from around the world could be put to other uses, Mr Williams said. "The concern is that people get training in bomb-making and then they go back to wherever they came from, like Brigitte went back to France, and then they wait until they get orders to go somewhere," he said. Mr Williams warned that groups such as LET now considered Australia an enemy. "The message that goes out to these affiliate groups is that Australia is one of these countries that's aligned against the Muslim world, so there is no question they would be anti-Australian as well." He said there were probably people in Australia sympathetic to the cause, and he would be surprised if there had not been local money for LET. |