LeT continues to plan attacks from Pak: US govt report

From Lalit K Jha
Washington, Jun 4 (PTI) LeT, an "extremely capable"
terror group with a sophisticated regional network, continues
to plan its operations from within Pakistan, a US government
report has said, warning that militant safe havens inside that
country pose greatest threat to American national security.
"Despite international condemnation for its November
2008 attacks in Mumbai, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) continues to
plan regional operations from within Pakistan. LeT is an
extremely capable terrorist organisation with a sophisticated
regional network," the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
said in its 51-page report Friday.
"It (LeT) continues to view American interests as
legitimate targets. While the Government of Pakistan has
banned LeT, it needs to take further action against this group
and its front organisations, which find safe haven within
Pakistan," it said.
Despite increased efforts by Pakistani security
forces, al-Qaeda terrorists, Afghan militants, foreign
insurgents and Pakistani militants continue to find safe haven
in portions of Pakistan's Federally administered Tribal Areas
(FATA), NWFP or Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province and Balochistan,
it said.
In the report titled 'Combating Terrorism: US
Government Should Improve Its Reporting on Terrorist Safe
Havens', the GAO said al-Qaeda and other groups such as the
Haqqani network used the FATA to launch attacks in
Afghanistan, plan operations worldwide, train, recruit and
disseminate propaganda.
The Pakistani Taliban -- under the umbrella moniker
Tehrik-e-Taliban or TTP -- also used the FATA to plan attacks
against the civilian and military targets across Pakistan, it
said.
Outside the tribal belt, the Quetta-based Afghan
Taliban and separate insurgent organisations such as
Hizb-e-Islami Gulbuddin used areas in Balochistan and NWFP for
safe haven, the GAO report said.
"Islamist Deobandi groups and many local tribesmen in
the FATA and the NWFP continue to resist the government's
efforts to improve governance and administrative control," it
said.
The GAO report said that despite the August death of
the Pakistani-Taliban's leader Baitullah Mehsud and Pakistani
military operations throughout FATA and NWFP, the Pakistani-
Taliban, al-Qaeda and other extremist groups remained
dangerous foes to Pakistan and the international community.
Noting that the US government has not fully addressed
reporting requirements to identify US efforts to deny safe
haven to terrorists, the GAO recommended that the National
Security Council (NSC) improve reporting on assessments of
US efforts to address the issue of terrorist safe havens.
"US officials have concluded that various terrorist
incidents demonstrate the dangers emanating from terrorist
safe havens, such as the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai,
India, planned, in part, from safe havens in Pakistan, and the
attempted (US) airliner bombing on December 25, 2009, planned
from safe havens in Yemen," it said.
According to the GAO, the State Department has made
few changes to the 15 terror safe havens identified in its
report since April 2007. Since that report, it has removed two
terrorist safe havens — the Afghan-Pakistan Border and
Indonesia — from the 'Country Reports on Terrorism'.
State Department officials explained that the
Afghan-Pakistan Border was removed in 2009, but Afghanistan
and Pakistan are each still identified as terrorist safe
havens to highlight the different safe haven issues facing
each country, it said.