The arrest of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) activists near Baghdad in Iraq recently has come as a shot in the arm of the intelligence agencies here which so far had trouble convincing their American counterparts about the Pakistani-based jehadi group being part of the international network of fundamentalist terror.
| I guess some people are slow to catch on. I think the attitude is probably that India has an ax to grind in the affair and that their intel is sometimes self-serving. But I'll be very surprised if they're wrong in this case... |
The Lashkar operative nabbed by US forces in Iraq, Dilshad Ahmad, was responsible for many terror strikes in India. The Pakistani national from Bahawalpur, Dilshad Ahmad, looked after most of the infiltration bids into J&K between 1997 and 2001.
| Funny thing, that. Iraq's being infiltrated, too... |
He himself crossed into India on at least half a dozen occasions to oversee the functioning of the Lashkar cells operating in J&K and other parts of the country. Pre-9/11, US authorities viewed Lashkar terrorists as "freedom fighters" - a notion they persisted with till the terror assasult forced them to dump and clamp a ban on the Muridke-based Wahhabi outfit. Intelligence agencies here hope that Ahmad's arrest will help the American counter-terror officials recognise Lashkar's affiliation with al-Qaeda and others committed to the goal of global jehad. |