LeT poses grave threat to India: US

Lalit K Jha
Washington, Jun 3 (PTI) Describing LeT as an al-Qaeda-
like organisation, the Obama administration has said the
Pakistan-based terrorist outfit, which carried out the Mumbai
attacks, poses grave threat to India and could also harm the
United States.
"LeT is a terrorist organisation. It could be construed
as a threat to the United States, certainly to India. It is
al-Qaeda-like in its strength and organisation," Homeland
Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said at a Washington-based
think tank last evening.
Fresh from a week-long trip to India where she held talks
on homeland security issues, Napolitano said the US had in the
past 10 years mainly focused on al-Qaeda, which was
responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
As a result, sometime, one did not know that there were
other groups as well, of which LeT would be one, she said.
The Homeland Security Secretary said that LeT was one of
the major topics of discussions with her Indian counterparts.
"The discussion was in several parts: what is the state
of intelligence with respect to LeT, I am not going to discuss
that in public.
"Second is what is the tactics and techniques they use
for example – look at the Mumbai attack... Is our country
prepared if there would be a very similar attack? Do we have a
small boat strategy? Can we protect our harbours from
infiltration? What about soft targets like hotels? Are they
better prepared than before to handle this? she said.
"Who would do the command and control if a similar attack
by LeT were going to occur now or in future?"
Napolitino that all these were discussed during her trip
to India.
Not willing to talk about intelligence information on
LeT, she said a lot of information about the outfit is
publicly available, according to which this Pakistan-based
terrorist group have had activities outside of India.