Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)

[omarali50]

Prodded by adverse comments from friends, I have tried to explain my reasoning for why i referred to this "bounty" as a farce (not because the US is non-serious but because the messaging is so bad): http://www.brownpundits.com/the-hafiz-saeed-farce/

[davidbfpo]

An in depth CTC research paper 'The Fighters of Lashkar‐e‐Taiba: Recruitment,
Training, Deployment and Death', published yesterday; hat tip to Circling the Lion for a reminder.

The Executive Summary opens with:

This paper is a study of over 900 biographies of the deceased militants of Lashkar‐e‐Taiba (LeT), a Pakistani militant group that has waged a campaign of asymmetric warfare against Indian security forces and civilians in the contested region of Kashmir for over two decades, as well as other parts of India more recently. (Later it explains)Specific emphasis is placed on providing insights into the following four research questions:
1) What is the general background of LeT’s localfighters?
2) How and from where are these fighters recruited?
3) What level of training do these fighters have and where were they trained?
4) Where exactly do LeT’s fighters die?

There is a lot of data to absorb in the sixty pages.

From the conclusion:

This research contributes to the evolving body of literature that suggests that poverty, limited education and time spent at a madrassa are poor predictors for determining either support for terrorism or participation in terrorism in Pakistan.

Which appeared on this SWC thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=16304

Link:http://www.ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/u...-LeT_Final.pdf

For other comments on the research see: and http://www.propublica.org/article/te...-and-brightest

What strikes me is that based on 917 LeT combatants killed between 1989-2008, based on their published biographies, and the speculation that LeT has trained far more, from the low tens of thousands to two hundred thousand, that is a remarkably low loss rate. Which once again, IIRC as Stephen Tankel concluded in his book, LeT is not about fighting, but the political struggle within Pakistan - leaving aside its long suspected role as a resource for Pakistan's not so covert conflict with India and maybe others.

See a parallel thread on militants giving up:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=15691

[davidbfpo]

A reminder of LeT's role in Afghanistan from 'The Long War Journal':

The "senior Lashkar-e-Taiba leader" and "a number of other insurgents" were captured in the district of Andar in Ghazni, the International Security Assistance Force stated in a press release. ISAF did not identify the nationality of the leader or the "other insurgents" captured during the raid.

The Lashkar-e-Taiba leader "planned and participated in multiple attacks against Afghan and Coalition forces throughout Kunar, Kandahar and Ghazni provinces" and "was actively planning a high-profile attack at the time of his arrest."

Link:http://www.longwarjournal.org/archiv...res_lashka.php

It must be a LeT day, as there is another new thread on them.

[davidbfpo]

For Ajmal Amir Kasab, the LeT recruit who killed - with another - fifty-eight commuters @ Mumbai train station, his actions were:

It [jihad] is about killing and getting killed and becoming famous.

I recommend you read this superb long article, using Kasab's own testimony, as the only gunman captured alive after the Mumbai massacre in 2008:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...a-monster.html

Dr Christine Fair, a terrorism expert from Georgetown University in Washington, DC, who has studied the recruitment of young men into terrorist organisations, describes the appeal of LeT to young Pakistani potential recruits as its having the 'Rambo factor – even more of the “wow” factor than al-Qaeda’.

Personally I think CT professionals, let alone the public and others undervalue the non-Jihad aspects of the recruiting process. I recall Germans were recruited for an IMU camp in the FATA for "a summer vacation with guns".

There are threads on the 'Mumbai Attacks and their impact' at:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=6345

[davidbfpo]

An update by Christine Fair on the LeT's non-lethal "social work":

,,offers a different take on LeT, describing how the organization has embraced social welfare activities since 9/11 and, with the cooperation of the Pakistani state, has successfully rebranded itself as a more benign entity, even as it maintains its violent role.

Link:http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/12/t.../#.UsHCTvsXluj

[SWJ Blog]

The Lashkar's Empire of Jihad

An article on SWJ Blog by Christine Fair, who writes regularly on LeT and two passages cited:

The Pakistan army and the intelligence agency it runs, the Interservices Intelligence Directorate or ISI, did not create the LeT; but they did believe that LeT, with its demonstrable superior capabilities, would intensify the conflict in Kashmir and expand the geographical expanse of the insurgency. From the early 1990s, the ISI and the Pakistan army invested heavily in LeT. The army helped to build LeT's military apparatus specifically for use against India and it designed LeT' military training regime. It co-located army and ISI personnel at LeT training bases to help execute the regime and to train the organization's trainers and this remains true to date. All senior leadership have ISI handlers, even Saeed himself. Pakistan's investments paid off: within a few years LeT became the biggest challenge to the Indian security forces in Kashmir prior to the introduction of the Jaish-e-Mohammad many years later. In 1999 LeT introduced a new kind of attack in Indian-administered Kashmir: the fidayeen attack (also spelled fedayeen). By introducing the fidayeen attack, the LeT and its Pakistani handlers aimed to reverse a three-year decline in militant activity in Indian-administered Kashmir. LeT's fidayeen missions are not "suicide attacks;" rather, high-risk missions in which well-trained commandos engage in fierce combat during which dying is preferable to being captured…

[davidbfpo]

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

[davidbfpo]

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.

[davidbfpo]

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

[davidbfpo]

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

[davidbfpo]

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

[davidbfpo]

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