LeT trained Shahzad to fight in Kashmir: Report

Washington, May 20 (PTI) Pakistani-American Faisal
Shahzad, arrested in connection with botched Times Square car
bombing plot in New York was trained by LeT in a terrorist
camp in Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir to be infiltrated into the
Indian side, a top commander of the terror group has said.
But, the 30-year-old son of a former Pakistani Air
Vice Marshal wanted to go to Afghanistan to fight US troops.
Shahzad, financial analyst in Connecticut, visited
Pakistan in mid-June 2006 to receive training at a camp
belonging to LeT, according to the commander at LeT's main
base of operations in Dulai, a village 25 km south of
Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
"Shahzad came to us for training... He stayed with us
for three months and we provided him with the basics. Then he
went back to the US," the commander was quoted as saying by
the Canadian magazine Maclean which did not mention his name.
The Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) commander, however, denied
his group had anything to do with the May 1 foiled attack in
New York's Times Square.
"We told him we wanted to send him to Kashmir to fight
the Indian occupation. But he refused. He said he wanted to
fight Americans and that Afghanistan is where he wanted to go.
We were hesitant... But we told him, okay, do your training
and we'll see after that," he said.
"He wanted to do something big," the LeT commander
said. For us, that was dangerous. We don't want attention
on us, and we were worried that Shahzad's personal agenda
would get him captured and bring the spotlight on us."
He said that Shahzad was brought to the LeT camp by
another member of the organisation.
"He was an eager recruit... Very intelligent but also
very intense, and driven to make his mark for the sake of
Islam," he said.
Shahzad was arrested at John F Kennedy International
Airport in New York, while he was trying to flee to Pakistan
via Dubai.
The camp at Dulai, the group's headquarters, was built
a little over a year and a half ago after the previous
headquarters were closed by the Pakistani army, it said.
According to the LeT commander, Shahzad came to the
old headquarters, and from there was taken to a camp further
into the mountains for his basic training.
When that training was complete, he was instructed to
return to the US and told not to make contact with the LeT for
the next six months on the ground that he will be under watch
by US authorities.
"After six months, we tried to contact him," said the
commander, "but we received no response, not from emails or by
telephone. We thought, well, okay, so maybe he's had a change
of heart... We have thousands of recruits who come to us for
training. It doesn't affect us if one of them is lost." PTI