Five Lashkar-e-Tayiba operatives arrested in connection with the Mumbai terror strikes, including its operations chief Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, provided transport, accommodation and financial support to the 26/11 attackers, according to an updated supplementary chargesheet filed before a Pakistani anti-terror court.
Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa tells how the 2010 uprising in Kashmir gave the Lashkar-e-Tayiba a strong foothold in the Kashmir Valley
The 12-member jury of a federal court in Chicago held close-door deliberations for six hours on Wednesday against Tahawwur Rana, who is charged with involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks and providing material support to Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Tayiba, and will continue the process. The jury posed two questions to the defence and prosecution. It asked whether Pasha (Abdur Rahman, a retired Pakistani Army major), was involved with the Lashkar-e-Tayiba.
Pakistan on Thursday asked India to share any information it has on the 2001 attack on the Parliament and the Lashkar-e-Tayiba terror group so that Pakistani courts can examine the material and take action.
Cama Hospital and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus were never part of the original 26/11 terror attack plan drawn out by the Al Qaeda. It was only when the ISI decided to hand over the plan to the anti-India Lashkar-e-Tayiba that the Mumbai attacks became bloodier. Vicky Nanjappa reports
V S Subrahmanian, researcher at the Maryland University's Laboratory for Computational Cultural Dynamics, headed this project. He along with his co-author, Aaron James, tells Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa in this interview about the project and how it helps in acting as a predictor for attacks by the Lashkar.
Al Qaeda is helping and providing assistance to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba in launching terrorist attacks in India with the objective of provoking a conflict between India and Pakistan, United States Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday.
Lashkar-e-Tayiba chief Hafiz Saeed's idea of radicalising one percent of Indian Muslims to create an army of a crore was the start of the big anti-India agenda. All this was done to catch the eye of the ISI, say security experts. Vicky Nanjappa reports.
Pakistan-based militant outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba, which masterminded the Mumbai terror attacks, is 'largely intact' and 'determined to strike India again', a United States' media report said, quoting former and current members of the group and intelligence officials.
Vicky Nanjappa answers the big question: what are the bigger groups, such as the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, doing during this period of lull and calm?
Police inspector Masroor Ahmad Wani, who was critically injured when he was shot at by a Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorist while playing cricket in Srinagar in October, died at AIIMS, New Delhi, on Thursday. He leaves behind his wife, who is expecting their first child.
A 31-year-old Pakistani national has been arrested in Malaysia's Perak province on charges that he underwent terrorist training at a Lashkar-e-Tayiba camp before he arrived in Malaysia in August 2016.
Indian fell vindicated when Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley testified that the ISI had trained him in terror. But on Tuesday, Headley did a U-turn as he gave a clean chit to Pakistan's spy agency. Hoping to nail the ISI in the 26/11 case, Indian intelligence agencies say that Headley's changing versions come as no surprise to them. Vicky Nanjappa reports.
The US intelligence believes that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Kashmir-focused insurgent groups will continue to plan and execute "attacks" in India.
The trial of Pakistani-Canadian Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative Tahawwur Rana, co-accused with David Headley in the 26/11 case, is set to begin in Chicago on May 16. If insiders are to be believed, Rana is likely to implicate Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence in the Mumbai terror attacks, reports Vicky Nanjappa.
For three years now, Lashkar cadres have been pressurising their higher ups in Pakistani intelligence agency Inter Services Intelligence to battle American troops, but they have always been pulled back. The reason? The ISI does not want the only outfit that it has complete control over to go out of hand.
Post 9/11, Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley was under the scanner of the US intelligence who believed he was related to a top ISI official. While there has been indication that he could have worked as an informant for US enforcement agencies in Pakistan, today the US agencies deny it. What's shocking is that despite regular tipoffs on Headley, he was given a clean chit time and again by the US, reports ProPublica's Sebastian Rotella.
Pakistan's intelligence agencies are no longer backing outlawed groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, which will not be allowed to use the country's soil for any acts of aggression, President Asif Ali Zardari has said.
While it is a known fact that he had scouted targets for the Lashkar-e-Tayiba which carried out the 26/11 attacks, the more important aspect is the manner in which Headley goes on to explain the nexus terrorists in Pakistan have with its spy agency Inter Services Intelligence.
US President Donald Trump claimed that "five jets were shot down" during the conflict between India and Pakistan in May and repeated his assertion that the fighting ended following his intervention. India has maintained that the two sides halted their military actions following direct talks between their militaries without any mediation by the US.
Terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba has been trying for some time to let its partner Harkat-ul-Jihadi carry out subversive operations in India, as it wants to concentrate on staging a major strike in the United States. Lashkar is actively patronised by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence. After the 26/11 terror strikes, several Lashkar cadres wanted to cross over to Afghanistan and plan a strike in the US. But the ISI turned down this plan.
In a bid to continue with their activities against India the Lashkar-e-Tayiba has re-grouped yet again under a new chief called Muhammad Iftikar. After the heat was stepped up on the top leadership of the Lashkar, the terrorist group decided it was time to revamp and bring their Indian operations back to normal.
Stating that prosecution of "some individuals" of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba by Pakistan was "not enough," India on Wednesday demanded "severe action" against Hafiz Saeed, mastermind of Mumbai attacks, so that he does not remain a free man to incite more violence against the country.
"Lashkar-e-Tayiba tactics is quite obvious. It is trying to increase tensions between India and Pakistan at a time when they and their associates are particularly under pressure in western Pakistan," Barrett said in at press conference at the UN Headquarters in New York.
Terrorist groups banned by Pakistan, including the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, are expanding operations and recruitment in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, according to a secret government report.
The release of Jamaat -ud-Dawaa chief Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed is probably one of the worst thing that could have happened to India. Although the Lashkar-e-Tayiba continued to operate despite its chief being detained, Saeed's release will only motivate more youth to take up jihad, sources in the Intelligence Bureau told rediff.com.
United States Ambassador to India Timothy J Roemer, on Friday said the Al Qaeda, Taliban and Lashkar-e-Tayiba were the common enemies of both India and America.
The United Nations Security Council's sanctions committee has not received any petition from Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a front for Lashkar-e-Tayiba, to reconsider the decision declaring it as a terrorist group, a top official said on Thursday. Reports from Pakistan had said that the JUD is appealing the decision but Coordinator of Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Monitoring Committee Richard Barrett said no such petition has been received.
Police and central security personnel have arrested at least three Pakistanis, including Ajmal Amir Kamal, a resident of Faridkot near Multan in Pakistan's Punjab province. All the three belong to the suicide squad of Lashkar-e-Tayiba.
Tahawwur Rana facilitated David Coleman's foreign visits and was aware of his links to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, writes strategic expert B Raman.
Suspected Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative T Naseer, who is in the custody of the Bangalore police, has made a stunning disclosure that fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim is the primary financer for the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and also the Indian Mujahideen. Naseer says every terror strike carried out in India is funded by the D-gang.
"Get lost" was what the US officials in Islamabad told the young Moroccan wife of 26/11 accused David Headley when she informed them that her husband was planning a terror attack in India with the help of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba.
'With today's operation at Khulchohar area of Anantnag by Police along with Local RR unit in which 2 Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorists including one district commander and one HM commander Masood were neutralised, Doda district in Jammu Zone becomes totally militancy free once again,' Singh said.
Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba is acting in a more Al Qaeda-like manner after being 'infected' by the ideas of Osama bin Laden's terror network and poses the highest risk to the United States, according to a top American counter-terrorism expert.
Lashkar-e-Tayiba issued a statement recently, in which the dreaded group made it clear that the next war with India would be over water. It may sound strange that a concern of the Pakistan government is being voiced by a group which has been declared as a terrorist outfit, analyses Vicky Nanjappa.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday gave its consent for jailed Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdul Rashid, popularly known as Engineer Rashid, to take oath as MP on July 5. Additional sessions judge Chander Jit Singh will pass an order on the plea on Tuesday.
In a significant shift, Kashmiris from villages once considered strongholds of militancy have joined the condemnation of the recent massacre of 26 people in Pahalgam, raising slogans against terrorism and expressing solidarity with the victims. This unprecedented display of public sentiment across the valley marks a possible turning point in the region's fight against violence.
"I'm very glad you raised this, Ishaan. I didn't plant it. I promise you. This guy does this to his dad," Tharoor replied amid laughter from the audience.
Stephen Pound, a pro-India British lawmaker on Friday said Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Tayiba blamed for the Mumbai attacks, will not give up violence even if the Kashmir dispute is resolved. "Lashkar-e-Tayiba has tasted blood. They will not give up violence even if the Kashmir dispute is resolved tomorrow," Pound, former Chairman of the Labour Friends of India, a pro-India parliamentary lobby said.
Intelligence Bureau sleuths have unearthed yet another target of David Headley, the American national and Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative who has been arrested for carrying out terror activities on Indian soil.
