Even as the Hurriyat team visiting Pakistan met president Pervez Musharraf and made appropriate 'peace noises', the main driver of terror in Jammu & Kashmir, Lashkar-e-Taiba, made it clear that it was not prepared to buy the argument that dialogue could replace guns. In an indication that it did not set much store from attempts at normalcy being mounted by Hurriyat, which has often been seen to be more than receptive to signals from Islamabad, LeT boss Hafiz Saeed said: "It is a historical fact that nations have always achieved their independence through sacrifices on the battlefront." Promising to continue militancy in the Valley, he told a gathering after Friday prayers in Lahore that jehadis will "fully support the legitimate struggle for freedom of the Kashmiri people". This made it quite apparent that whatever the Hurriyet may say, the jehadis continue to see Kashmir as a religious and political cause that they are bent on achieving.
Saeed's statements were timed to offset, and even counter, the late-evening meeting of the moderate faction of Hurriyat with Musharraf. Contrary to Hurriyat's stand and the statements of Musharraf that elements hostile to the peace process should be discouraged and firmly dealt with, the LeT chief said the Kashmir issue cannot be resolved through back-channel diplomacy. The LeT founder warned Musharraf "to desist from stabbing the Kashmiris in the back in exchange of better relations with India".