Indian investigators said on Monday the militants who attacked Mumbai underwent months of commando training in Pakistan, raising tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours as recriminations mounted in India.

The Pakistan based militant group, Lashkar-e-Tayiba, has denied being behind the Mumbai attacks and said it condemned them. However a police officer close to the interrogation told Reuters that the training was organised by Lashkar, and conducted by a former member of the Pakistani army.

Here are some details about the group

WHO ARE THE LASHKAR-E-TAYIBA?

- Lashkar-e-Tayiba - The army of the pure is a militant offshoot of Markaz Dawatul Irshad, an Islamic charity and educational organisation. Markaz Dawatul Irshad has since been renamed as Jamaat-ud-Dawa and was at the forefront of relief work after the 2005 earthquake killed 73,000 people in Pakistani Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province.

- The Pakistan-based Lashkar made its name fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.

- It was founded in 1989 by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and Zafar Iqbal. Saeed was a former teacher of Islamic studies at Lahores University of Engineering and Technology.

- Lashkar based its philosophy on Wahhabism, the austere brand of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia, and has relied on donations from overseas.

- The groups objective is to introduce an Islamic state in South Asia and to liberate Muslims residing in Indian administered Kashmir.

WHAT HAVE THEY DONE?

- The militant group rose to prominence after it carried out attacks across the Himalayan region in 2000/2001. It claimed responsibility for the attack on an army base in New Delhis historic Red Fort which killed three in late 2000. It also claimed responsibility for an attack on Srinagar airport in January 2001 that killed five Indians along with six militants and an attack in April 2001 against Indian border security forces.

- In December 2001 gunmen raided Indias parliament killing 14 people. India accused the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Tayiba groups of being responsible. It was this incident that nearly brought India and Pakistan to the brink of a fourth war. Lashkar denied it was involved.

- The group was blamed for bomb attacks on markets in New Delhi that killed more than 66 people in October 2005 although they denied it at the time.

COUNTER MEASURES

- Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf banned the two groups accused of the attack on Indias parliament in January 2002. It had already been banned in India in October 2001 and was also designated as a foreign terrorist organisation by the United States.

- The United States froze the assets of four prominent members of Lashkar in May 2008. The four included Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, described by the Treasury as Lashkars chief who has played a major role in the organisations operational and fund-raising activities.

- It named the others as Pakistan-born Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the chief of operations, Haji Muhammad Ashraf, the chief of finance, and India-born Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq, described as the main Lashkar financier in the 1980s and 1990s.