Investigators find Mumbai link
2008-12-31 19:21
Robert Birsel
Islamabad - Pakistani investigators have
unearthed substantive links between the gunmen who attacked
Mumbai in November and a banned Pakistani Islamist militant
group, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Ten gunmen killed 179 people in the attack on India's
financial hub that India has blamed on the Pakistan-based
Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group.
The group was set up by Pakistani security agencies in the
late 1980s to fight Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region
but was banned in 2002, after Pakistan had signed up to the
US-led campaign against terrorism.
The Wall Street Journal said in an online report on
Wednesday at least one top LeT leader, Zarar Shah, captured in
a raid early this month in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, had
confessed to the group's involvement in the attack.
"He is singing," an unidentified Pakistani security
official told the newspaper, referring to Shah.
Old hostilities revived
India's angry accusation of a Pakistani link to the assault
on Mumbai has revived old hostilities between the nuclear-armed
rivals and raised fears of conflict.
Pakistan has condemned the Mumbai attacks and has denied
any state role, blaming "non-state actors".
Pakistani government spokesmen were not immediately
available for comment on the report.
Shah's admission was backed up by US intercepts of a
telephone call between Shah and one of the attackers during the
assault, the Pakistani security official told the newspaper.
Shah told interrogators that he was one of the main
planners of the assault and he had spoken to the attackers
during the rampage to give them advice and keep them focused,
the newspaper cited a second person familiar with the
investigation as saying.
By boat
Shah had implicated other LeT members, and had broadly
confirmed the account the sole captured gunman told Indian
investigators, the second person told the newspaper.
According to Indian reports, the captured gunman told
Indian interrogators the 10 attackers trained in Pakistani
Kashmir and later went by boat from Karachi to Mumbai.
Shah was picked up with another LeT commander,
Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, during Pakistani raids on militants
launched in response to the Mumbai attack, Prime Minister
Yousaf Raza Gilani told reporters on December 10.
Pakistani authorities did not have evidence that the LeT
was involved in the attacks before the militants were arrested
in Kashmir, the security official told the newspaper.
Their arrest was based only on initial guidance from US
and British authorities, the newspaper cited the official as
saying.
'No evidence'
Pakistan has promised to prosecute anyone if sufficient
evidence is found linking them to the Mumbai attack but it has
ruled out sending any Pakistanis to India for trial.
Pakistan has repeatedly said India has not provided
evidence.
Pakistan and India have fought three wars since
independence from Britain in 1947 and came to the brink of a
fourth after gunmen attacked the Indian parliament in December
2001.
After the Mumbai attacks, India put a "pause" on a
five-year-old peace process that had brought warmer ties
although it had failed to make progress on their core dispute
over the Muslim-majority Kashmir region.
- Reuters