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| India-Pakistan |
| Lashkar-e-Taiba denies role in Mumbai attacks |
| 2008-12-04 |
| (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Kashmiri separatist group Laskhar-e-Toiba has sought to distance itself from last week's Mumbai terror attacks by suggesting disgruntled Indian militants were responsible for the violence. In a telephone interview with Adnkronos International (AKI), Lashkar-e-Toiba spokesman Abdullah Ghaznavi said the attack was not carried out by any Kashmiri militants. "This is definitely an inside job from within the Indian establishment which helped the attackers go into Mumbai via the Arabian Sea, if they really infiltrated from Pakistan," he said. "Otherwise, tell me how the boat, on which those attackers reached Mumbai, avoided Indian naval radars guarding Indian territorial waters everywhere and how any Pakistani fisher trawler can mistakenly enter into their waters, even a mile inside, and they don't leave any stone unturned to immediately arrest him." "How come the attackers dodged them?" Abdullah Ghaznavi said. Abdullah Ghaznavi said that there must have been collusion between some elements in the Indian establishment and the militants who carried out the attacks. "Laskhar-e-Toiba does not have such capabilities." Abdullah said. "Nor do we have such penetration within the Indian establishment to carry out the attack at such a level nor did we in the past. Our activities are restricted to Kashmir and also against the Indian occupying troops in Indian-held Kashmir." Lashkar-e-Toiba was more than happy to take responsibility for its attacks, the spokesman told AKI. "If you go through our past records. If we really carried out any action against the Indian forces in Kashmir we proudly claim it but this incident we denounce. Our operations were never against the civilian population, whosoever they are," Abdullah asserted. Lashkar-e-Toiba, is the military wing of the well-funded Pakistani Islamist organisation Markaz-ad-Dawa-ul-Irshad, which was founded in 1989 and recruited volunteers to fight with the Taliban. During the 1990s, experts say Lashkar-e-Toiba received instruction and funding from Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in exchange for a pledge to target Hindus in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir and to train Muslim extremists on Indian soil. Pakistan's government has repeatedly denied allegations of supporting terrorism. Until it was banned in Pakistan in 2002, LeT claimed responsibility for several attacks. India has asked Pakistan to hand over 20 top fugitives amid heightened tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations following the deadly terrorist attacks which killed at least 188 people and injured up to 300 others. |
| Posted by:Fred |