By Evan Kohlmann, NBC News Terrorism Analyst
The sole surviving terrorist of the Mumbai attacks allegedly spent 18 months training at camps run by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), a banned Pakistani militant organization with a long history of high-profile attacks in India and Indian-controlled Kashmir. And, as NBC News has reported, Indian authorities also have found the names of several high-ranking LET members in the satellite phone used by one of the Mumbai perpetrators.
So what is Lashkar-e-Taiba, and was the group truly behind the horrific attacks in Mumbai’s hotels, train station and restaurants? Lashkar’s political wing offered reporters in Pakistan a rare tour of their sprawling, 200-acre headquarters today, and allowed me to interview one of their top officials yesterday. In a phone interview, the LET’s Abdullah Muntazir repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks. “No, not at all,” said Muntazir, a chief spokesman of LET’s accused political wing, Jamat-ud-Dawa.
“The violence against the general public carried out by any individual, group, or any government--whether it is committed in Mumbai, or in Kashmir, Afghanistan, or in Iraq--that cannot be justified at any cost. And Islam does not allow its followers to kill innocent people, to target public places,” Muntazir said. “Blowing up [bombs] in public places… from my point of view, that we cannot endorse and we have no relation to such kind of things.”
During the press tour today at the group’s headquarters outside Lahore, Muntazir continued with his denials. “We are a charity organization and these premises are just an educational and medical complex,” he said. “We condemn India for putting [our leader’s] name on the list of terrorists… India is blaming us because its their habit and the moment the attacks happened in Mumbai, they started blaming us without any proof or evidence,” Muntazir told reporters today.
Controversial history
The denials aside, the LET has a long history of supporting violence and terrorist acts. At their annual “Mujahideen Conference,” held in Pakistan in November 1999, for example, former LET chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed issued a threat to the Prime Minister of India. He said that if “he didn’t withdraw from Kashmir the Mujahideen would invade his office in New Delhi,” Saeed said. “The Jihad is not about Kashmir only. It encompasses all of India… We will not rest until the whole India is dissolved into Pakistan.”
And in October 2000, when asked about the hijacking of a Saudi commercial airliner and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, Saeed responded, “Mujahideen Lashkar-e-Taiba does not favor to undertake these operations, as [such] activities are mostly advantageous to America. The real jihad, in fact, is to target the Jews… and to kill them in their own homes.”
More recently, in July 2008, a jury in London found 22-year-old Aabid Khan guilty of conspiring with others in Canada and America to attend terrorist training camps in Pakistan run by Lashkar-e-Taiba--in order to carry out terrorist attacks inside the U.S. During testimony at the Blackfriars Crown Court, Khan acknowledged that LET is “a jihadi organization which organizes training, military training.”
In my interview with Muntazir, I asked about Indian media reports suggesting that a top official with LET’s political wing may have been in contact with the Mumbai terror cell. Muntazir acknowledged that the official “is one of the central leaders” of his political group, Jamat-ud-Dawa, but countered that he “has nothing to do with such kind of acts.”
I directed Muntazir to a page from his group’s own website that quoted the top official at a Friday prayer service immediately following the events in Mumbai. The official, Hafiz Makki, said “those poor oppressed Muslims who fight in defense of their honor and rights are not terrorists… No one has the right to call a person a terrorist if he takes up arms in his defense after being subjected to terror and oppression… It does not matter whether it is the Republicans, or Democrats, NATO, or the UNO, each and every one of them is equally an enemy on Islam and Muslims.”
Unfazed, Muntazir assured me that Makki “was not defending the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks…he was generally defending Islam, and jihad, and the Muslim faith, he was not talking about the people who attacked Mumbai.”
During our interview, I also sought to have Muntazir expand on an editorial he wrote several weeks prior to the Mumbai attacks, on the victory of President-Elect Barack Obama. In a piece published on the JUD website, Muntazir had accused Obama of being a “clever opportunist.” Muntazir reflected yesterday, “I don’t think Barack Obama will change or his policies will change. We, outside the United States, consider that any President of the United States does not control the United States. We think that the Jewish lobby is controlling the United States, and he will be, of course, on the same pattern.”
With such stridently anti-American views, I asked Muntazir whether LET’s political wing still considered it possible to reach a negotiated settlement with the U.S. government. “As far is negotiation is concerned, we can’t rule out negotiation with anyone in the world… we can do and we want to clarify our position in the outside world, particularly in the eyes of the American public,” he said. “When we talk about the United States… we don’t talk about the general public of the United States, the people of the United States… but [rather], the government of the United States playing into the hands of the Jews and killing the innocent Muslims all over the world, and causing damage to the Muslims everywhere.” He paused and softened, “We don’t want to scare the Americans.”
Burning American flags
I confronted Muntazir with the cover from the latest issue of a JUD propaganda magazine, emblazoned with a depiction of the U.S. Capitol torn apart by a bolt of lightning and the U.S. and Israeli flags in flames. He explained, “If you see the covers of Time and Newsweek a few weeks ago, you will also see such kind of images… If Time or Newsweek publishes such kind of titles, they are not Al-Qaida. But if a Muslim organization publishes such kind of titles, they will say that this is Al-Qaida, they want to threaten the American public, they want to… terrorize… You have the right of freedom of speech, but we… with such kind of things, we are perceived as Al-Qaida-related people.”
I then showed Muntazir links to MP3 audio files hosted on the JUD Internet website. The Urdu-language propaganda songs feature lyrics such as, “we declare a revolt against those who are friends of America; against those who reside in Pakistan but help America… against those who have become frightened of participating in jihad; against those who promote democracy on the orders of America.” Another song on the website calls upon Pakistani Muslims: “We will fight the Americans face-to-face. Muslims know how to protect their honor in every era, and we will show this to the American President Bill Clinton. Our swords will be drenched with the blood of the infidels and our flag will fly over America—and that day is coming,” the lyrics say.
Repeating back the lyrics slowly, Muntazir stammered, “This kind of song is on our website? In Urdu?” He hesitated and asked, “When did you hear this? Honestly speaking, I don’t have knowledge about that. I will look into the matter. I can’t comment on that.”
With additional reporting by Fakhar ur Rehman in Pakistan.
