Article on Lashkar-e-Taiba

A well written article on the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in the New York Times today with information gleaned from interviews of ISI officials and Lashkar members. Here are some key points it makes. No credible evidence has emerged of Pakistani government involvement in the 26/11 attack but ISI officials knew of its plans and closed their eyes.

“Some people of the I.S.I. knew about the plan and closed their eyes,” said one senior Lashkar operative in Karachi who said he had met some of the gunmen before they left for the Mumbai assault, though he did not know what their mission would be.

Lashkar's membership and funding has grown since the attacks:

Since the Mumbai attacks, “our funds increased and more people wanted to join us,” a senior Lashkar operative in Karachi said in an interview. A midlevel ISI officer told The Times this year that Lashkar’s membership extended to 150,000 people.

More attacks are a certainty:

Even as new details emerge about the Mumbai attacks, senior American military, intelligence and counterterrorism officials express grim certainty that Lashkar is plotting new attacks...If there is one thing on which intelligence agencies on both sides of the border agree, it is that the consequences of a new attack by Lashkar could be devastating.

“We do fear that if something like Mumbai happens in India again, there might be a military reaction from the Indian side and it could trigger into a war,” said a senior intelligence official in Pakistan.

“Right now we cannot guarantee that it will not happen again, because we do not have any control over it.”

There is also a section about details revealed by the Pakistani investigation. Nothing surprising in all this but it is good to hear it from the horse's own mouth. Read the whole thing here.