Washington: Warning that India's
transportation, economic infrastructure and political
establishment are on the LeT's radar, a US Defence Department
think tank has said the terror outfit still enjoys funding
from ISI and is also assisted by the Karachi-based D-Company
of Dawood Ibrahim.
The LeT, though having a close relationship with
al-Qaeda, will continue to evolve into a distinctive, South
Asia-centric terrorist actor in its own right while still
receiving aid from fringe elements in Pakistan's security and
intelligence apparatus and elsewhere, the Strategic Studies
Institute of the US Army War College said.
This will not only allow LeT to continue to plan future
Mumbai-style terrorist attacks in India from safe havens in
Pakistan, but will also enable it to guide and assist the
predominantly indigenous Indian Mujahideen (IM), it said.
Authored by Ryan Clarke, the 117-page report
'Lashkar-I-Taiba: The Fallacy of Subservient Proxies and the
Future of Islamist Terrorism in India' gives the first-of-its
kind detailed analysis of the outfit.
The report said the troubling fact is that the LeT has
upgraded its activities and has begun to operate throughout
India and will likely target transportation and economic
infrastructure and the political establishment as opposed to
Indian security forces exclusively.
"It has also adopted new methods of destabilisation such
as recruiting from India's troubled northeast and smuggling
militants into India by sea, a serious infringement on India's
sovereignty," it said.
"Despite being a proscribed outfit, LeT still enjoys
funding from ISI and through donations from a wide range of
domestic and overseas sympathisers, including Indian Muslims.
Further, after capitalising on the 2005 earthquake, LeT has
been able to re-establish some of its fund-raising activities
within Pakistan," the report said, despite repeated Pakistani
claims that its spy agency is no longer aiding LeT.
The LeT is also assisted by the Karachi-based D-Company
in its fund-raising activities through the illegal hawala
network.
"D-Company has well-established smuggling routes in the
region, access to materiel, a partnership with LeT, and
depends on ISI for refuge in Pakistan," the report said.
Although, LeT has a wide support base that spans several
continents, underworld don Dawood Ibrahim is the most probable
source of weaponry, given D-Company's geographic proximity to
LeT operations and the syndicate's proven ability to
clandestinely transfer enough weaponry to fight a small war on
short notice, the report said.
"This is accentuated by the fact that in Pakistan there
already exists a close relationship between organised criminal
syndicates, narcotics, money-laundering, militant activity and
small arms trafficking," it said.
LeT now also raises funds on the internet and has become
market-savvy while making legitimate investments in a range of
sectors, the think tank said in its latest report, adding the
group "is also very likely involved in trafficking Afghan
heroin, an extremely high yielding venture given the low
overhead costs and high domestic and overseas demand."
All of this has resulted in a diversification of LeT's
financial pipeline, thus reducing the possibility of it being
held hostage to a particular party, decreasing its
vulnerability to a decapitating strike and ensuring its
continued existence even if it is abandoned by Islamabad
entirely, the report noted.
According to the think tank, LeT collects donations from
the overseas Pakistani community in the Persian Gulf and the
UK, Islamic non-governmental organisations (NGOs), Pakistani/
Kashmiri businesspeople and through its parent organisation
Jamaat-ud-Dawa.
"The militant group also counts on donations from
sympathetic Saudis, Kuwaitis, and Islamist-leaning ISI
leaders.
"In addition, LeT maintains relations with extremist and/
or terrorist groups across the globe ranging from the
Philippines to the Middle East and Chechnya by means of the
Jamaat-ud-Dawa network," the report said.
Although most of LeT's monetary assets were previously
deposited in mainstream financial institutions, many of these
deposits were withdrawn and invested in legitimate ventures
such as commodity trading, real estate and manufacturing in
order to avoid seizures following former President Pervez
Musharraf's crackdown on Pakistan-based militant groups, it
said.
"This black money has likely been funneled through
numerous intermediaries and a substantial portion may have
even left Pakistan via the underground hawala system. Either
resulting from a lack of political will or of enforcement
capacity, Pakistan's measures to cut terrorist financing
remain woefully inadequate," it said.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, April 06, 2010, 18:10