Lashkar-e-Taiba

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT; ur, ; literally ''Army of the Good'', translated as ''Army of the Righteous'', or ''Army of the Pure'' and alternatively spelled as ''Lashkar-e-Tayyiba'', ''Lashkar-e-Toiba'', ''Lashkar-i-Taiba'', ''Lashkar-i-Tayyeba'') is a militant Islamist organisation operating against India in Pakistan. The organization's stated objective is to merge the whole of Kashmir with Pakistan. It was founded by Hafiz Saeed, Abdullah Azzam and several other Islamist mujahideen with funding from Osama bin Laden during the Soviet-Afghan War.

The organization is designated as a terrorist organisation by Pakistan, India, the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Russia, Australia, and the United Nations (under the UNSC Resolution 1267 Al-Qaeda Sanctions List). Though formally banned by Pakistan, the general view of India and some Western analysts is that Pakistan's main intelligence agency continues to give LeT help and protection. The Indian government's view is that Pakistan, particularly through its intelligence agency, has both supported the group and sheltered the group's leader Hafiz Saeed; It has been accused by India of attacking military and civilian targets in India, most notably the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, the 2008 Mumbai attacks and the 2019 Pulwama attack on Armed Forces.

Objectives

While the primary area of operations of LeT's terrorist activities is the Kashmir Valley, their professed goal is not limited to challenging India's sovereignty over Jammu and Kashmir. LeT sees the issue of Kashmir as part of a wider global struggle. The group has adopted maximalist agenda of global jihad though its operations have so far been limited to Kashmir. The group justifies its ideology on verse 2:216 of the Quran. Extrapolating from this verse, the group asserts that military jihad is a religious obligation of all Muslims and defines the many circumstances under which it must be carried out. In a pamphlet entitled "Why Are We Waging Jihad?", the group states that all of India along with many other countries were once ruled by Muslims and were Muslim lands, which is their duty to take it back from the non-Muslims. It declared United States, India, and Israel as "existential enemies of Islam". LeT believes that jihad is the duty of all Muslims and must be waged until eight objectives are met: Establishing Islam as the dominant way of life in the world, forcing disbelievers to pay jizya (a tax on non-Muslims), fighting for the weak and feeble against oppressors, exacting revenge for killed Muslims, punishing enemies for violating oaths and treaties, defending all Muslim states, and recapturing occupied Muslim territory. The group construes lands once ruled by Muslims as Muslim lands and considers it as their duty to get them back. It embraces a pan-Islamist rationale for military action.

Although it views Pakistan's ruling powers as hypocrites, it doesn't support revolutionary jihad at home because the struggle in Pakistan "is not a struggle between Islam and disbelief". The pamphlet "Why do we do Jihad?" states, "If we declare war against those who have professed Faith, we cannot do war with those who haven’t." The group instead seeks reform through dawa. It aims to bring Pakistanis to LeT's interpretation of Ahl-e-Hadith Islam and thus, transforming the society in which they live.

LeT's leaders have argued that Indian-administered Kashmir was the closest occupied land, and observed that the ratio of occupying forces to the population there was one of the highest in the world, meaning this was among the most substantial occupations of Muslim land. Thus, LeT cadres could volunteer to fight on other fronts but were obligated to fight in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The group was also said to be motivated by the 1992 demolition of the Babri Mosque by Hindu nationalists, for attacks directed against India.

In the wake of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, investigations of computer and email accounts revealed a list of 320 locations worldwide deemed as possible targets for attack. Analysts believed that the list was a statement of intent rather than a list of locations where LeT cells had been established and were ready to strike.

In January 2009, LeT publicly declared that it would pursue a peaceful resolution in the Kashmir issue and that it did not have global jihadist aims, but the group is still believed to be active in several other spheres of anti-Indian terrorism. The disclosures of Abu Jundal, who was sent to India by the Saudi Arabian government, however, revealed that LeT is planning to revive militancy in Jammu and Kashmir and conduct major terror strikes in India.

Leadership

* Hafiz Muhammad Saeed – founder of LeT and ''aamir'' of its political arm, JuD. Shortly after the 2008 Mumbai attacks Saeed denied any links between the two groups: "No Lashkar-e-Taiba man is in Jamaat-ud-Dawa and I have never been a chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba." On 25 June 2014, the United States declared JuD an affiliate of LeT.
* Abdul Rehman Makki – living in Pakistan – second in command of LeT. He is the brother-in-law of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. The US has offered a reward of $2 million for information leading to the location of Makki.

* Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi – released on bail from custody of Pakistan military

– senior member of LeT. Named as one of the masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. On 18 December 2014 (two days after the Peshawar school attack), the Pakistani anti-terrorism court granted Lakhvi bail against payment of surety bonds worth Rs. 500,000.
* Yusuf Muzammil – senior member of LeT and named as a mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks by surviving gunman Ajmal Kasab.
* Zarrar Shah – in Pakistani custody – one of LeT's primary liaisons to the ISI. A US official said that he was a "central character" in the planning behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Zarrar Shah has boasted to Pakistani investigators about his role in the attacks.

* Muhammad Ashraf – LeT's top financial officer. Although not directly connected to the Mumbai plot, after the attacks he was added to the UN list of people that sponsor terrorism. However, Geo TV reported that six years earlier Ashraf became seriously ill while in custody and died at Civil Hospital on 11 June 2002.
* Mahmoud Mohamed Ahmed Bahaziq – the leader of LeT in Saudi Arabia and one of its financiers. Although not directly connected to the Mumbai plot, after the attacks he was added to the UN list of people that sponsor terrorism.
* Nasr Javed – a Kashmiri senior operative, is on the list of individuals banned from entering the United Kingdom for "engaging in unacceptable behaviour by seeking to foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs."
* Abu Nasir (Srinagar commander)

History

Formation

In 1985, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed and Zafar Iqbal formed the ''Jamaat-ud-Dawa'' (Organization for Preaching, or JuD) as a small missionary group dedicated to promoting an Ahl-e-Hadith version of Islam. In the next year, Zaki-ur Rehman Lakvi merged his group of anti-Soviet jihadists with the JuD to form the ''Markaz-ud Dawa-wal-Irshad'' (Center for Preaching and Guidance, or MDI). The MDI had 17 founders originally, and notable among them was Abdullah Azzam.

The LeT was formed in Afghanistan's Kunar province in 1990 and gained prominence in the early 1990s as a military offshoot of MDI. MDI's primary concerns were dawah and the LeT focused on jihad although the members did not distinguish between the two groups' functions. According to Hafiz Saeed, "Islam propounds both dawa and jihad. Both are equally important and inseparable. Since our life revolves around Islam, therefore both dawa and jihad are essential; we cannot prefer one over the other."

Most of these training camps were located in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and many were shifted to Pakistan Administered Kashmir for the sole purpose of training volunteers for the Kashmir Jihad. From 1991 onward, militancy surged in Indian Kashmir, as many Lashkar-e-Taiba volunteers were infiltrated into Indian Kashmir from Pakistan Administered Kashmir with the help of the Pakistan Army and ISI. As of 2010, the degree of control that Pakistani intelligence retains over LeT's operations is not known.

Designation as terrorist group

On 28 March 2001, in Statutory Instrument 2001 No. 1261, British Home Secretary Jack Straw designated the group a Proscribed Terrorist Organization under the Terrorism Act 2000.

On 5 December 2001, the group was added to the Terrorist Exclusion List. In a notification dated 26 December 2001, United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, designated Lashkar-e-Taiba a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Lashkar-e-Taiba was banned in Pakistan on 12 January 2002.

It is banned in India as a designated terrorist group under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

It was listed as a terrorist organization in Australia under the ''Security Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Act 2002'' on 11 April 2003 and was re-listed on 11 April 2005 and 31 March 2007.

On 2 May 2008, it was placed on the Consolidated List established and maintained by the committee established by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1267 as an entity associated with al-Qaeda. The report also proscribed Jamaat-ud-Dawa as a front group of the LeT. Bruce Riedel, an expert on terrorism, believes that LeT with the support of its Pakistani backers is more dangerous than al-Qaeda.

Aftermath of Mumbai attacks

According to a media report, the US accused JuD of being the front group for the prime suspects of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the organization that trained the 10 gunmen involved in these attacks.

On 7 December 2008, under pressure from the US and India, Pakistani army launched an operation against LeT and raided a ''markaz'' (center) of the LeT at Shawai Nullah, 5 km from Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-controlled Pakistan Administered Kashmir. The army arrested more than twenty members of the LeT including Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai attacks. They are said to have sealed off the center, which included a madrasah and a mosque alongside offices of the LeT according to the government of Pakistan.

On 10 December 2008, India formally requested the United Nations Security Council to designate JuD as a terrorist organization. Subsequently, Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations Abdullah Hussain gave an undertaking, saying,

A similar assurance was given by Pakistan in 2002 when it clamped down on the LeT; however, the LeT was covertly allowed to function under the guise of the JuD. While arrests have been made, the Pakistani government has categorically refused to allow any foreign investigators access to Hafiz Muhammad Saeed.

On 11 December 2008, the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on JuD, declaring it a global terrorist group. Saeed, the chief of JuD, declared that his group would challenge the sanctions imposed on it in all forums. Pakistan's government also banned the JuD on the same day and issued an order to seal the JuD in all four provinces, as well as Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. Before the ban JuD, ran a weekly newspaper named ''Ghazwah'', two monthly magazines called ''Majalla Tud Dawaa'' and ''Zarb e Taiba'', and a fortnightly magazine for children, ''Nanhe Mujahid''. The publications have since been banned by the Pakistani government. In addition to the prohibition of JuD's print publications, the organization's websites were also shut down by the Pakistani government.

After the UNSC ban, Hindu minority groups in Pakistan came out in support of JuD. At protest marches in Hyderabad, Hindu groups said that JuD does charity work such as setting up water wells in desert regions and providing food to the poor. However, according to the BBC
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