Squawk wrote:If I have a chance, I'll go in to a bit more detail.
The attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore bears all the hallmarks of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), who are also attributed to being behind the Mumbai attacks in November last year that killed 170 or so people. The LeT has links to the Pakistani Intelligence Services.
Who are the LeT?
The LeT is the military wing of the MDI, a Pakistan based Sunni (Wahabi) Islamic fundamentalist organisation centered on Muridke, near Lahore, and Muzaffarabad in Pakistan.
The LeT is one of the three largest and best-trained groups fighting in Kashmir against India and is closely associated with a number of militant Islamic groups active in the India/Pakistan region, including Jaish-i-Mohammed with whom it was implicated by the Indian Government in the attack on the Indian Parliament building. The LeT is organised on a military structure under an Amir with regional commanders being responsible for military districts. It is a highly secretive organisation that often seeks to conceal the identities of its senior members.
The LeT has primarily operated within Kashmir and India's Jammu region although it has also been implicated in attacks in New Dehli and Mumbai. It uses hit and run tactics but has also used suicide squads to target Indian security forces and police stations.
Funding for the LeT is derived from the Pakistani diaspora, particularly in the Persian Gulf and the United Kingdom, through a network of front organisations and charities. Islamic non government organisations also provide funding to the LeT.
The LeT aims to liberate Muslims within the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir and to merge these with Pakistan. It aims to create an Islamic state covering Pakistan and Kashmir with regional areas covering Muslims in north and south India. The Amir of the LeT, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, has called for jihad to create an Islamic state in Pakistan and for jihad to be waged against un-Islamic states, citing Chechnya and Afghanistan as models for such an international jihad.
Most LeT members are recruited through madrassas (Koranic schools) in Pakistan. The LeT runs training camps, some of which are mobile camps, within Pakistan, in Pakistan controlled areas of Kashmir (at Kotli, Sialkot and Samani) and it had trained in Afghanistan until late 2001.
The LeT maintains links with Islamic extremist groups in the Middle East and Chechnya, including Jaish-i-Mohammed. Links between al-Qa'ida and other Islamic terrorist groups such as LeT tend to be personal and ideological. These groups cooperate where this is to their mutual advantage, including both in training and in undertaking operations. LeT and al-Qa'ida share some common objectives and LeT members would be likely to be influenced by statements by Osama bin Laden and his close associates.
The Regional Situation on the Sub-continent
Pakistan is a tribal country comprised of many cultural and religious groups. It is between Afghanistan and India, with the “Federally Administered Tribal Areas" in the west. Three FATA areas (of about 8?) are currently controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban and Islamic fundamentalists are enraged that Pakistan has contributed to the cause of the western infidels in the so-called ‘War on Terror’. Right now, numerous fundamentalist Islamic terrorist organizations are seeking to politically destabilize the region. The Pakistani government is vulnerable because of a number of factors, including the diversity of ethnic and religious groups that make up its population. This mean s that if they decide to support the west in the war on terror, they alienate some of the population. If they decide not to support the west on seeking out the Taliban in the high country between Afghanistan, FATA and Pakistan, they alienate another section of the population. In short, the Pakistani government can’t win domestically with either decision, never mind the international pressures.
The Mumbai attacks in November last year were clearly designed to create a wedge between India and Pakistan. It is clear that those perpetrators and the Lahore perpetrators have much in common – the type of attack, (a small , flexible and well armed group divided into pairs on foot – Mumbai had about 12, Lahore 12 also). The training of these two groups is clearly very similar and I’d guess that both groups – if not trained together - were trained at the same place. This sort of training is estimated to take around 6 months. Both groups (Mumbai and Lahore) had escape plans – the Mumbai cell failed in this aspect though whereas the Lahore cell succeeded.
The difference between the two attacks is that the Mumbai attack targeted Westerners and symbols of the West and was sustained over 70 hours. The Lahore attack ' targeted ' Sri Lankans – hardly in the category of Western infidels and also Sri Lanka is not a country that has not been associated with the War on Terror - it has its own cultural divide with the Tamil population and the LTTE or “Tamil Tigers”. In contrast, The Lahore attack lasted 15- 25 minutes. 12 well trained and sophisticated gunmen made a lightning assault. The security detail were the principal casualties - very few civilians were casualties (unlike Mumbai) and the attackers all successfully escaped (ie to fight another day). After taking out much (if not all) of the security detail, they could have stormed the buses and individually killed the passengers in the same way as the Mumbai attackers stormed their targets and developed strongholds. They didn’t. If they were so well trained and coordinated – why did they only have one go at launching a RPG and why did it miss such a large target as a bus? How did the perpetrators get away ? (Probably with some support from elements within the Pakistani Intelligence Service). If the Lahore attackers really wanted to kill the Sri Lankans, why did only 25 bullets hit the bus when they were so well armed? Why not attack at their hotel dining room, or at any another point on the route from the Hotel to the Ground? They had good intelligence to know the route had been changed at late notice and they would have done reconnaisance of the bus’ route – note that this was day 3 of the Test so they had two days beforehand to do route surveillance.
The attack Lahore was clearly symbolic - right outside the stadium. It was undertaken in open space where there would be fewer civilian casualties than in a crowded street downtown. If the attack was in a narrow street, the damage could have been far more effective and the outcomes much more severe. The location of the attack also gave the perpetrators multiple escape options.
If they had killed Sri Lankan cricketers they would have done their cause an injustice by alienating many of those who’s support they seek to create a fundamentalist Islamic state. Also, they didn’t target the Pakistani cricketers – why not? Because the outcome of that would have been even worse for their cause. Why was it that on the first two days of the Test the two team buses left together but on this day, the Pakistan team’s bus left 5 minutes later than the Sri Lankan’s bus? A conspiracy theorist would suggest that the LeT’s links to the Pakistani Intelligence Service enabled this to be arranged.
Best of all for the LeT, they got international attention and all 12 perpetrators got away – not one died or was caught. The LeT does not focus on suicide missions and even the Mumbai event was not that.
The LeT has made its point and can now sit back and enjoy the ramifications – which are
The LeT have now been active in Islamabad, New Delhi and Lahore (as well as Mumbai).They are demonstrating a growing capability.
Cricket will be gone, deriving a troubled nation of a sport that brings the country’s mixed population with a strong sense of collective morale.
Politically, the pressure in Pakistan and across the sub-continent is enormous – first Bhutto’s assassination, then Mumbai and now this event. All against a backdrop of Pakistan backing the west (at least on the face of things) and 3 FATA provinces being in the control of the Taliban and the Taliban advancing closer to Islamabad.
Pakistan is now fighting so much – it is under pressure from within, from FATA and the Taliban, from the LeT, from India and from the West. All against the backdrop of a Global Financial Crisis (noting that Mumbai is the financial capital of India and that attack in part was designed to have a significant economic impact on India).
Pakistan cannot compete economically with India and both countries have nuclear weapons.
In short, all of this adds up to Pakistan being embroiled in a “war” designed to fracture it as a country, enabling Islamic fundamentalists to take control, thumb their noses at the infidels and establish a caliphate built on holy Jihad.
