Foe of US and India Raises
Profile in Pakistan, by SAEED
SHAH
Ex-Professor Tied to Group Behind
Mumbai Attack Gains Prominence as Regional Tensions Grow
ISLAMABAD—The man New Delhi and Washington view as
a terrorist mastermind led a parade in the Pakistani city of Lahore to mark
Wednesday's Independence Day, further inflaming tensions between India and its
neighbor.
India last week accused Pakistan of being behind
the killing of five of its soldiers in the disputed Kashmir region. Pakistan
denies involvement in those deaths, which have cast doubt over the initiative
by new Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to reopen peace talks.
Mr. Saeed speaks at Wednesday's rally in Lahore
after leading a march to mark Pakistan's Independence Day.
The prominence of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the leader
of an unofficial parade put on by his group for Independence Day, goes to the
heart of Pakistan's ambiguous relationship with jihadist militants based on its
soil and the country's 30-year-old strategy of using extremist proxies to fight
its wars.
Officials from the U.S.—which is offering a $10
million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction—and India
say Mr. Saeed founded Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group they blame for the
2008 terrorist assault on Mumbai, which killed 166 people, including six
Americans.
India also alleges that LeT, banned by Pakistan in
2002, is supported by Pakistan's army and that the militants and the army
cooperate on some operations—charges Islamabad denies.
"We remain concerned about the movements and
activities of Hafiz Saeed," said Meghan Gregonis, a spokesperson for the
U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. "We encourage the government of Pakistan to
enforce sanctions against this individual."
Mr. Saeed led several thousand supporters through
the center of Lahore, the provincial capital of the country's most heavily
populated region—and Mr. Sharif's hometown. Authorities closed part of Lahore's
main thoroughfare, Mall Road, for the parade.
In his speech outside the provincial parliament,
Mr. Saeed lashed out at the U.S. and India, accusing Washington of deliberately
pushing its war in Afghanistan onto the streets of Pakistan and teaming up with
New Delhi to back separatist insurgents in Pakistan's Baluchistan province.
"America is trying to break up Pakistan,"
said Mr. Saeed, a 63-year-old former professor. "America is giving only
one option to Pakistan: that if we want to stay alive in this region, we have
to accept Indian supremacy here."
India's foreign minister, Salman Khurshid, said on
Wednesday that there must be "accountability for Mumbai", which
"in future" must include Mr. Saeed.
However, India hasn't called off plans to revive
peace talks with Pakistan, though no firm date has been set.
Following the Mumbai attack, Pakistan put on trial
seven LeT activists. The glacial progress of the four-year-old court case has
angered India—as did the fact that Mr. Saeed remains a free man.
Aizaz Chaudhry, the spokesman for Pakistan's
foreign ministry, declined to comment on Mr. Saeed. However, he added:
"The issue of terrorism was one of the agenda items under discussion in
our dialogue. We need the dialogue process to resume."
Despite voluminous evidence to the contrary, Mr.
Saeed denies any link with LeT. He now officially heads an outfit group called
Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which is proscribed by the United Nations as a terrorist group,
but is legal in Pakistan.
Mr. Saeed's spokesman rejected U.S. and Indian
accusations against him. "Mr. Hafiz Saeed has not threatened anyone,"
said Yahya Mujahid. "Lashkar-e-Taiba was made by Kashmiris and is run by
Kashmiris. Hafiz Saeed was never its leader."
LeT has traditionally been focused on the
mountainous region of Kashmir, a Muslim-majority area both countries claim.
There, the group can take on the Indian military with small-scale attacks,
which the Pakistani army couldn't carry out itself without risking war.
LeT fighters are also present in parts of eastern
Afghanistan.
Within Pakistan, the group argues against attacks
on its own government, security forces and citizens. That sets LeT apart from
groups Pakistan sees as menacing, like the Pakistani Taliban, who have turned
on their own country under the influence of al Qaeda.
Unlike the Pakistani Taliban, LeT is involved in
charity work, including running schools and pharmacies for the poor, and
helping with relief work for natural disasters.
For Islamabad, the LeT ideology is a useful
counterweight to the Pakistani Taliban, said Christine Fair, an assistant
professor at Georgetown University.
"For the Pakistani state, Lashkar-e-Taiba's
message of external jihad, of not killing Pakistanis, could be seen as part of
the solution," said Ms. Fair.
Ms. Fair said that in LeT's own publications, there
was evidence that Hafiz Saeed personally chose which of his activists would be
deployed in India.
Arif Jamal, author of a forthcoming book on LeT,
"Call for Transnational Jihad," said the group was the armed wing of
Jamaat-ud-Dawa, and was much larger in scale than other Pakistani extremist
outfits.
"LeT will pose a far-bigger danger and
challenge to [Pakistan] than all other groups combined," said Mr. Jamal.
"They want to wage jihad in Pakistan as well one day."
For the U.S., LeT isn't a direct terrorist threat
currently. However, Washington is concerned about its potential for global
reach.
"LeT's decision not to attack the U.S. stems
from strategic restraint, but that could change," said Stephen Tankel,
author of "Storming the World Stage," a book on LeT. "And if it
does, LeT has, or is developing, the capabilities to threaten U.S. interests at
home and abroad."
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