Lashkar-e-Taiba

Lashkar-e-Taiba, Islamist militant group, begun in Pakistan in the late 1980s as a militant wing of Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad, an Islamist organization influenced by the Wahhābī sect of Sunni Islam. It sought ultimately to establish Muslim rule over the entire Indian subcontinent. Though based in Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba initially operated in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, on the Pakistan-India border, but by the first decade of the 21st century the group had expanded its reach farther into India. Jammu and Kashmir was claimed by both India, a largely Hindu country, and Pakistan, a largely Muslim country, and the dispute gave rise to many armed groups within Jammu and Kashmir.

One of the largest groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir, Lashkar-e-Taiba was extremely pro-Pakistan regarding control of the region. The group opposed any concessions to India. Further, its leaders expressed the desire to establish Islamic rule throughout India. The group took part in several attacks targeting non-Muslim civilian populations in Jammu and Kashmir in an effort to create a Muslim state.

Many of Lashkar-e-Taiba’s members were Pakistani or Afghan. It was believed that the group had ties with Afghanistan’s Taliban government and with the wealthy Saudi extremist and al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Fighters from Lashkar-e-Taiba and another militant Muslim group, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, were killed in August 1998 when U.S. cruise missiles struck bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan, and a senior al-Qaeda official was captured in a Lashkar-e-Taiba safe house in Pakistan in March 2002.

Early activities

Lashkar-e-Taiba made its first incursions into Jammu and Kashmir in 1993. In the late 1990s it was alleged that Lashkar-e-Taiba received funding from agencies of the Pakistani government, an allegation the government denied. The group began operating in the Jammu region, which had large numbers of non-Muslims. Working in conjunction with Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba began a program of attacks against Hindus and Sikhs.

Lashkar-e-Taiba attacks were often aimed at civilians. Beginning in 1999, Lashkar-e-Taiba conducted a series of suicide attacks against Indian security forces, often targeting seemingly secure headquarters. In such attacks, Lashkar-e-Taiba forces were outnumbered and eventually killed, though not before killing Indian troops and causing extensive damage.

In 2000 Lashkar-e-Taiba had a falling out with Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, which had declared a short-lived cease-fire with India. The group lost more allies in 2001, after the September 11 attacks on the United States led to the removal of the Taliban government in Afghanistan by U.S.-led military forces. On December 13 that year, Lashkar-e-Taiba undertook a suicide attack on India’s parliament complex in the capital, New Delhi, in conjunction with Jaish-e-Mohammed, another militant group. In response, the United States government froze the U.S. assets of Lashkar-e-Taiba and declared it a terrorist organization. Under pressure from the United States to crack down on such militant groups and to avoid a war with India, the government of Pakistan banned the group in January 2002 and arrested its leader, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, but he was released a few months later. He established a charity organization known as the Jamaat ud-Dawa, which became widely viewed as a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Following a cease-fire accord between India and Pakistan in 2003, Lashkar-e-Taiba was believed to have moved most of its operations to northwestern Pakistan, an area bordering Afghanistan over which the central government did not have control. The organization also increasingly focused its activities on India itself.

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Targeting Mumbai

Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives were believed to have continued their attacks throughout the first decade of the 21st century. Those incidents primarily aimed at Indian security forces. In 2006, however, the group was implicated in a considerably more deadly attack against civilians in Mumbai (Bombay), India’s most-populous city. On July 11 of that year, multiple bombs tore through Mumbai’s commuter train system during the evening rush hour, killing more than 180 people and injuring some 800 more. The bombs were all placed in first-class train compartments in an apparent effort to target India’s professional class. Following the attack, which India linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, Pakistan once again detained Saeed and once again released him, claiming that India’s investigation was biased.

Two years later, in the evening on November 26, 2008, 10 gunmen landed boats in Mumbai, spread out to popular tourist destinations, and began shooting people. The gunmen, who were well-armed and well-trained, eventually met up in two luxury hotels and a Jewish outreach centre. They took hostages at all three locations and held off Indian police and military for three days. More than 170 people died in the attacks, including nine of the attackers. One was captured alive, however, and confessed that he was a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, that he had trained in Pakistan, and that the attackers had come to Mumbai by boat from Karāchi. He was convicted of murder in India in 2010 and was executed in November 2012.

Theretofore, Pakistan had been reluctant to appear to give in to Indian pressure over Lashkar-e-Taiba’s activities, but the solidity of the evidence, combined with pressure from the United States and the United Nations, spurred the country to raid Lashkar-e-Taiba camps and arrest several operatives linked to the Mumbai siege. Pakistan also made public in July 2009 an investigation that reached largely the same conclusions as India’s, acknowledging that Lashkar-e-Taiba had indeed planned and launched the attack from Pakistan.

Formal charges were brought against those Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives detained in Pakistan in October 2009; the trial did not begin until May 2012, however, because of various delays and controversies, including accusations that one of the defense lawyers had a fake law degree. The Pakistani government did not link Saeed with the attack conclusively, however, and he claimed to have renounced violence. He was nonetheless repeatedly placed under house arrest.

In the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, the organization continued to be considered a threat, in particular because of its efforts to connect with militant Muslims worldwide. Several people trained in Lashkar-e-Taiba camps were arrested or linked to terrorist attacks in Great Britain. David Headley, an American of Pakistani extraction, was arrested by U.S. authorities in October 2009 on charges that he had helped Lashkar-e-Taiba plan the 2008 Mumbai attacks. He pleaded guilty to a number of charges and in January 2013 was sentenced to 35 years in U.S. federal prison. In September 2015 a Mumbai court convicted 12 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba on charges connected with the 2006 train bombings. The charges included criminal conspiracy and membership in a terrorist group; 5 of the 12 were also convicted of murder.

In 2019 a suicide bombing by Jaish-e-Mohammed in Jammu and Kashmir mounted international pressure on Pakistan to crack down on militants operating illegally within its borders. Saeed was arrested and charged later that year with involvement with a proscribed organization. He was sentenced to more than five years in prison in 2020 but planned to appeal his conviction.