Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)

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Hat tip to WoTR for the superb SME Stephen Tankel's article 'Pakistani Militants and the State: friends, foes and frenemies'. A topic that is in several threads.

The donor journal's Abstract:

States commonly take one of three approaches to militant groups on their soil: collaboration; benign neglect; or belligerence. All three approaches are present in Pakistan, where some groups also move back and forth among these categories. I employ the term “coopetition” to capture this fluidity. The dynamic nature of militancy in Pakistan makes the country an excellent laboratory for exploring a state’s assessment of the utility an Islamist militant group offers, and the threat it poses relative to other threats informs the state’s treatment of that group. In this article, I put forward a typology that situates Islamist militants in Pakistan in one of the above four categories. I also illustrate how a group’s identity, objectives, and alliances inform assessments of its utility and threat relative to other threats. In addition to enhancing our understanding of militant–state dynamics, this taxonomy builds on and helps to unify earlier typologies of Pakistani militancy.

Link:http://warontherocks.com/2016/07/pak...and-frenemies/

Given his work on LeT I'd missed this in his book, but it sums up the relationship complex well:

In terms of collaboration, LeT remains Pakistan’s most reliable state-allied organization. The group is not only the military’s most useful proxy against India, but has also has carried out a propaganda campaign against al-Qaeda and the TTP, demonizing them for attacks in Pakistan. The Pakistani security services used LeT to gather intelligence on anti-state militants and, at times, to neutralize them. LeT has provided similar services against separatists in Balochistan.

There is a thread on LeT:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=13337

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An Indian newspaper reports:

Saudi Arabia has confirmed on the basis of DNA tests that the (suicide) bomber who blew himself up outside the US Consulate in the western Saudi coastal city of Jeddah two years (July 2016) ago in a foiled suicide attack was Fayaz Kagzi, an Indian national and alleged operative of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, a senior security official told The Indian Express.

Link:http://indianexpress.com/article/ind...toiba-5157858/

Note the bomber was aligned to LET and then ISIS; where was he most of the time? Saudi Arabia. With bombings in India linked to him in 2010 and 2012, plus a suspect for training the Mumbai attackers in 2008.

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A new book 'In Their Own Words: Understanding Lashkar-e-Tayyaba' by Christine Fair and the publisher's summary starts with:

This path-breaking volume reveals a little-known aspect of how Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a jihadist terrorist group, functions in Pakistan and beyond by translating and commenting upon a range of publications produced and disseminated by Dar-ul-Andlus, the publishing wing of LeT. Only a fraction of LeT’s cadres ever see battle: most of them are despatched on nation-wide ‘proselytising’ (dawa) missions to convert Pakistanis to their particular interpretation of Islam, in support of which LeT has developed a sophisticated propagandist literature.

Link:https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book...eid=80d42c7c0a

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There are several updates on LeT on the tenth anniversary of the Mumbai attacks on that thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...-impact/page10

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This FPRI paper was published in Orbis, in November 2018, by Tricia Bacon is an assistant professor at American University's School of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C,, but was only spotted today.

The Abstract:

Ten years ago, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba launched an attack that paralyzed the Indian megacityof Mumbai for days. The operation, occurring in the midst of major instability and violence in Pakistan, raised concerns that Lashkar—the Pakistani military’s most powerful proxy—had gone rogue and would now operate as an unrestrained global jihadist organization. However, it subsequently became clear that the operation in Mumbai was actually a product of Lashkar’s long-standing ties with the Pakistani military. The past ten years have further solidified their close relationship. Far from going rogue, the group has remained responsive to the Pakistani security establishment’s agenda in India, Afghanistan, and at home. The past decade has only reduced the policy options available to counter the group, while the constant danger looms that it will conduct an attack that precipitates a war between India and Pakistan—two nuclear powers.

Link:https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...98X?via%3Dihub and also available as a PDF:https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/s...62711792A1E73A

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India may finally get a Mumbai suspect:

A former Chicago businessman imprisoned for aiding terrorist groups has been arrested in Los Angeles to face murder charges in India for the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed more than 160 people, US prosecutors said on Friday. Tahawwur Rana, a Pakistani-born Canadian, has been charged in India with conspiring to plot and carry out the deadly attacks that are sometimes referred to as India's 9/11.

Link:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...e_AvgHtC7VdZz5