ID :
38346
Wed, 12/31/2008 - 21:15
Auther :
Shortlink :
http://m.oananews.org//node/38346
The shortlink copeid
LeT leader Zarar Shah confesses involvement in Mumbai attacks
New York, Dec 31 (PTI) Top Lashkar-e-Taiba commander
Zarar Shah captured in the crackdown on militants earlier this
month in Pakistani-occupied Kashmir, has confessed the group's
involvement in terror attacks in Mumbai, a media report said
Wednesday.
Shah has also implicated other LeT members, and had
broadly confirmed the confession made by the sole captured
militant Ajmal Kasab to Indian investigators -- that the 10
assailants trained in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and then went
by boat from Karachi to Mumbai, the Wall Street Journal
reported quoting a senior Pakistani security official.
The paper said Pakistan's own investigationof terror
attacks in Mumbai have begun to show substantive links between
the LeT and 10 gunmen who tookpart in the Mumbai mission.
Pakistani security officials were quoted as saying
that a top Lashkar commander, Zarar Shah, has admitted a role
in the Mumbai attack during interrogation.
The paper quoted a person familiar with investigation
as saying that Shah also admitted that the attackers spent at
least a few weeks in Karachi, training in urban combat to hone
skills they would use in their assault.
The disclosure, it said, could add new international
pressure on Pakistan to accept that the attacks, which left
183 dead in India, originated within its borders and to
prosecute or extradite the suspects.
That raises difficult and potentially destabilising
issues for the country's new civilian government, its military
and the spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence -- which is
conducting interrogations of militants it once cultivated as
partners, the Journal said.
"He is singing," the security official said of Shah.
The admission, the official told the paper, is backed
up by US intercepts of a phone call between Shah and one of
the attackers at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, the site of a
60-hour confrontation with Indian security forces.
A second person familiar with the investigation was
quoted by the Journal as saying that Shah told Pakistani
interrogators that he was one of the key planners of the
operation, and that he spoke with the attackers during the
rampage to give them advice and keep them focused.
Shah, the paper said, was picked up along with fellow
Lashkar commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi during the military
camp raids in PoK.
The probe, the Journal said, also is stress-testing an
uncomfortable shift under way at Pakistan's spy agency -- and
the government -- since the election of civilian leadership
replacing the military-led regime earlier this year.
Military and intelligence officials, it says,
acknowledge they have long seen India as their primary enemy
and Islamist extremists such as Lashkar as allies.
But now the ISI is in the midst of being revamped, and
its ranks purged of those seen as too soft on Islamic
militants.
That revamp and the Mumbai attacks are in turn putting
pressure on the civilian leadership, which risks a backlash
among the population -- and among elements of ISI and the
military -- if it is too accommodating to India.
"The ISI can make or break any regime in Pakistan,"
retired Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, a former army chief, was quoted
as saying. "Don't fight the ISI."
The delicate politics of the Mumbai investigation, the
Journal said, have given the spy agency renewed sway just when
the government was trying to limit its influence. A Western
diplomat told the paper that the question now is what Pakistan
will do with the evidence it is developing.
The big fear in the West and India is a repeat of what
happened after a 2001 attack on India's parliament, which led
to the ban on Lashkar.
Top militant leaders were arrested only to be released
months later, the Journal noted. Lashkar and other groups
continued to operate openly, even though formal ISI links were
scaled back or closed, the diplomat was quoted as saying.
"They've got the guys. They have the confessions. What
do they do now?" the diplomat said. "We need to see that this
is more than a show. We want to see the entire infrastructure
of terror dismantled. There needs to be real prosecutions this
time."
A spokesman for Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari,
Farhatullah Babar, was quoted as saying yesterday that he
wasn't aware of the Pakistani investigation yet producing any
links between Lashkar militants and the Mumbai attacks.
"The Interior Ministry has already stated that the
government of Pakistan has not been furnished with any
evidence," he said.
The Pakistani security official, it said, cautioned
that the investigation is still in early stages and a "more
full picture" could emerge once India decides to share more
information.
Pakistani authorities didn't have evidence that LeT
was involved in the attacks before the militants' arrest in
PoK, the security official claimed. They were captured based
only on initial guidance from US and British authorities. PTI
Zarar Shah captured in the crackdown on militants earlier this
month in Pakistani-occupied Kashmir, has confessed the group's
involvement in terror attacks in Mumbai, a media report said
Wednesday.
Shah has also implicated other LeT members, and had
broadly confirmed the confession made by the sole captured
militant Ajmal Kasab to Indian investigators -- that the 10
assailants trained in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and then went
by boat from Karachi to Mumbai, the Wall Street Journal
reported quoting a senior Pakistani security official.
The paper said Pakistan's own investigationof terror
attacks in Mumbai have begun to show substantive links between
the LeT and 10 gunmen who tookpart in the Mumbai mission.
Pakistani security officials were quoted as saying
that a top Lashkar commander, Zarar Shah, has admitted a role
in the Mumbai attack during interrogation.
The paper quoted a person familiar with investigation
as saying that Shah also admitted that the attackers spent at
least a few weeks in Karachi, training in urban combat to hone
skills they would use in their assault.
The disclosure, it said, could add new international
pressure on Pakistan to accept that the attacks, which left
183 dead in India, originated within its borders and to
prosecute or extradite the suspects.
That raises difficult and potentially destabilising
issues for the country's new civilian government, its military
and the spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence -- which is
conducting interrogations of militants it once cultivated as
partners, the Journal said.
"He is singing," the security official said of Shah.
The admission, the official told the paper, is backed
up by US intercepts of a phone call between Shah and one of
the attackers at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, the site of a
60-hour confrontation with Indian security forces.
A second person familiar with the investigation was
quoted by the Journal as saying that Shah told Pakistani
interrogators that he was one of the key planners of the
operation, and that he spoke with the attackers during the
rampage to give them advice and keep them focused.
Shah, the paper said, was picked up along with fellow
Lashkar commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi during the military
camp raids in PoK.
The probe, the Journal said, also is stress-testing an
uncomfortable shift under way at Pakistan's spy agency -- and
the government -- since the election of civilian leadership
replacing the military-led regime earlier this year.
Military and intelligence officials, it says,
acknowledge they have long seen India as their primary enemy
and Islamist extremists such as Lashkar as allies.
But now the ISI is in the midst of being revamped, and
its ranks purged of those seen as too soft on Islamic
militants.
That revamp and the Mumbai attacks are in turn putting
pressure on the civilian leadership, which risks a backlash
among the population -- and among elements of ISI and the
military -- if it is too accommodating to India.
"The ISI can make or break any regime in Pakistan,"
retired Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, a former army chief, was quoted
as saying. "Don't fight the ISI."
The delicate politics of the Mumbai investigation, the
Journal said, have given the spy agency renewed sway just when
the government was trying to limit its influence. A Western
diplomat told the paper that the question now is what Pakistan
will do with the evidence it is developing.
The big fear in the West and India is a repeat of what
happened after a 2001 attack on India's parliament, which led
to the ban on Lashkar.
Top militant leaders were arrested only to be released
months later, the Journal noted. Lashkar and other groups
continued to operate openly, even though formal ISI links were
scaled back or closed, the diplomat was quoted as saying.
"They've got the guys. They have the confessions. What
do they do now?" the diplomat said. "We need to see that this
is more than a show. We want to see the entire infrastructure
of terror dismantled. There needs to be real prosecutions this
time."
A spokesman for Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari,
Farhatullah Babar, was quoted as saying yesterday that he
wasn't aware of the Pakistani investigation yet producing any
links between Lashkar militants and the Mumbai attacks.
"The Interior Ministry has already stated that the
government of Pakistan has not been furnished with any
evidence," he said.
The Pakistani security official, it said, cautioned
that the investigation is still in early stages and a "more
full picture" could emerge once India decides to share more
information.
Pakistani authorities didn't have evidence that LeT
was involved in the attacks before the militants' arrest in
PoK, the security official claimed. They were captured based
only on initial guidance from US and British authorities. PTI
