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December 04, 2008
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Thursday
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Zilhaj 5, 1429
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US official blames Lashkar for attacks
By Our Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Dec 3: Director of US National Intelligence Mike McConnell has directly blamed Lashkar-i-Tayyaba for the Mumbai attacks, increasing pressure on Pakistan to eliminate the group that the US spy chief said was also responsible for other terrorist attacks inside India.
“The same group that we believe is responsible for Mumbai had a similar attack in 2006 on a train and killed a similar number of people,” said Mr McConnell, speaking at Harvard University. “Go back to 2001 and it was an attack on the parliament.”
The Lashkar is already on the US State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organisations, which describes it as one of the largest and most dangerous terrorist outfits in South Asia with close links to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The department also lists a dozen names the group uses to hide its true identity, urging US allies, including Pakistan, to ban all these groups and prevent those associated with them from regrouping.
Pakistan outlawed the LT after the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament but Indian officials allege the ban has not been enforced.
The United States also has quietly backed the Indian claim, saying that Pakistan has allowed LT and the people associated with it to function under various pseudonyms. But US officials avoided giving public statements on this issue.
Mr McConnell’s decision to directly blame LT for Mumbai attacks, however, indicates a major departure from this practice.
It seems to support India’s demand — conveyed to Washington by the visiting Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon — that the United States should now publicly support India’s call for eliminating Lashkar and other similar groups and catch those associated with them.
Diplomatic sources in Washington say that the Indians are willing to take direct military action against alleged terrorist hideouts in Pakistan if Islamabad failed to do so. They are using the same argument that US President-elect Barack Obama did when he declared that the US had the right to hit terrorist targets inside Fata.
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