RAND study said Pakistan is very likely to take minimal steps

The RAND study said Pakistan is very likely to take the
minimal steps needed to defuse the present crisis while still
retaining a capacity to use militants in the future.

"If LeT operated with some degree of complicity from the
military and intelligence agencies, the Mumbai attack offers a
number of disturbing implications," it said.

The attack among other things suggests that attacking
India with the aim of weakening it remains the ambition of at
least some key elements in the Pakistani security
establishment, it noted.

"No doubt the Mumbai attack will allow LeT to expand its
recruitment and fundraising."

The study noted that while India understands the costs of
military action, from its point of view there are also costs
to not responding.

Given India's beliefs about the origins of the various
attacks perpetrated on its soil, it exhibited exceeding
restraint in the aftermath of the 2006 LeT attack on Mumbai's
suburban train network, the study said.

"Pakistan has likely concluded from the events since the
December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament complex and
prior, that India is unable or unwilling to mount a serious
effort to punish and deter Pakistan for these attacks."

For the foreseeable future, the study said, India is
likely to remain a target of Pakistan-based terrorism.

"This is due, among other things, to India's
inability (and indeed that of the international community) to
compel Pakistan to dismantle the terrorists infrastructure
comprehensively; to Pakistan's inherent incapacities to do so
even it had the will; and to the expanding participation of
Indians in Islamist violence with varying degrees of
assistance from Pakistan and Bangladesh," the study noted.

With the Mumbai attack, LeT demonstrated that it has the
ability and the will to internationalise its targets, the
study said, adding it has now assumed a "larger role in the
larger jihadi landscape."

Pakistan will remain a destination where individuals
radicalised abroad can go to obtain training from militant
groups, it said.

Thus, containing the threat posed by militants in
Pakistan is an international challenge with few mechanisms to
support it, the study said, adding that more than ever, India
and her partners need to forge more robust counter-terrorism
and law enforcement links.

The study said the focus on Pakistan following the Mumbai
carnage should not obscure the likelihood that the attackers
had local assistance or that other recent terrorist attacks in
India appear to have been carried wholly or partially by
Indian nationals.

"Local radicalisation is a major goal of the terrorists
and will remain a major political and social challenge in
India," it said.

The study said that since attacks against high-profile
soft targets are relatively easy and cheap to mount, such
institutions will remain targets of future attacks.

In this context, the study noted that the protection of
those targets presents particularly difficult challenges.
"Many of India's oldest symbolic buildings were not built with
security considerations in mind or in exposed location."

Iconic institutions that are likely to be potential
targets of terrorist attack must work with local police and
intelligence agencies to receive timely alerts about possible
threats, it suggested.

The study also said the Mumbai attack attests to ongoing
shortcomings--if not outright failure--in the United States'
efforts to manage its various security interests in Pakistan
and the region. PTI GSN