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CSS Analysis in Security Policy CSS ETH Zurich No. 132 • April 2013 LASHKAR-E-TAIBA: LOCAL ORGANI- SATION, GLOBAL AMBITIONS The Pakistani jihadist group Lashkar-e-Taiba has been labelled as potentially the next al- Qaida. It has shown both the desire and the capacity to attack Western nationals. The group has gained a certain degree of state protection in Pakistan by compartmentalising its activities into violent and non-violent components, and selectively cooperating with security agencies. Due to its global ambitions, growing operational presence, and internal dynamics, it now poses a serious threat to international security. trace LeT’s organisational evolution from its genesis and the development of institu- tional contacts with Pakistani state agen- cies, before examining how growing prox- imity to al-Qaida and internal pressures have led the group to develop an extra-re- gional concept for jihadist operations. The brief will conclude by offering an assess- ment of the threat posed to the West and suggestions for combating it. Origins of LeT LeT was created on 22 February 1990 as the armed wing of a proselytising organi- sation based in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Known as the Markaz Da’wa wal-Irshad (MDI – Centre for Preaching and Guid- ance), this organisation subscribed to the Ahl-i Hadith school of Muslim jurispru- Reuters / Jayanta Shaw dence. The Ahl-i Hadith had common- The burning Taj Hotel in Mumbai: This attack placed LeT in the focus of public attention. 27 November 2008. alities with the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia and with other strains of puritanical or With the threat of major attacks by al- riety in 2008. That year, its cadres carried “Salafist” Islamist thought. Qaida increasingly remote, attention out a sea-borne suicide raid on the Indian has turned to jihadist groups of similar city of Mumbai, killing 25 foreign tourists One of MDI’s most prominent founders ideological persuasion. Among the most and 141 locals. After the attacks, it became was Abdullah Azzam, a radical Palestinian prominent of these is a Pakistani organi- evident that the targeting of Western na- cleric based in Pakistan. He formulated the sation named Lashkar-e-Taiba (“Army of tionals had been prioritised. This came as a idea of a borderless jihad that would unify the Pure”). US security officials believe that surprise to counterterrorism experts, who present and past Muslim territories into this group poses the single-biggest threat had hitherto assumed that the group’s re- a global Caliphate. His protégé, Osama to Western interests in South Asia. Its ties gional focus was limited to South Asia. bin Laden, hijacked this concept to legiti- with the Pakistani state make it difficult mise the formation of a pan-Arab jihadist to combat, and the growing sophistication LeT has always had global ambitions, but group named al-Qaida. Bin Laden aspired and reach of its overseas operations has managed to conceal these behind a re- to lead a mercenary army that would fight become a matter of serious policy concern. gionalist narrative. Over 20 years, it has for Muslim interests worldwide. Azzam evolved into a triple-faceted militia that responded by backing the creation of LeT LeT was well-known to the international is a charitable organisation domestically, as a rival group with an identical ideology counterterrorism community throughout a guerrilla force regionally, and a terrorist and mission, consisting mostly of Pakistani the 2000s, but only attained public noto- network internationally. This analysis will cadres. © 2013 Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich 1 CSS Analysis in Security Policy No. 132 • April 2013 themselves being gunned down. This tac- The LeT leadership structure tic negated the need for an escape route. It was less demanding logistically and less Hafiz Saeed LeT Leader vulnerable to intelligence-led disruption. SDGT 27 May 2008 From 2002 onward, LeT also attacked un- protected civilian targets with the aim of Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi Yahya Mujahid Abdul Rehman Makki Haji Muhammad Ashraf generating a higher death toll. Operations chief Spokesman External affairs chief Finance chief SDGT 27 May 2008 SDGT 1 July 2009 SDGT 4 November 2010 SDGT 27 May 2008 Throughout this period, the ISI retained control over LeT operations at the strate- Azam Cheema Sajid Majeed gic level, but its personnel in the field were Intelligence chief Transnational susceptible to “reverse indoctrination”. SDGT 4 November 2010 operations SDGT 30 August 2012 Many intelligence officers assigned to su- pervise LeT ended up assisting provocative SDGT: date of designation as Specially Designated Global Terrorist by US authorities terrorist attacks that severely vitiated In- do-Pakistani relations. Former members of Despite the factional rivalry out of which Since neither had extensive operational the Pakistan army’s Special Services Group it had been born, LeT proved amenable to contacts with Palestinian groups, though, (SSG) provided training and advice for car- outreach by al-Qaida. The instrumental their common worldview did not lead to a rying out mass-casualty assaults in urban link was a marriage alliance between the common strategy. Al-Qaida remained a de- areas. Their professional input is believed family of LeT operations chief Zaki ur-Reh- territorialised network of Arab exiles, while to have crucially enabled LeT in carrying man Lakhvi and a senior bin Laden aide. LeT developed into a bureaucratised militia out its largest operation to date: the Mum- Lakhvi was a guerrilla leader and not a re- with official patronage. bai terrorist attack of 2008. ligious scholar, so he symbolically placed LeT under the overall leadership of Hafeez Connections with Pakistani The Mumbai attack was a paradigm- Saeed, a Pakistani Ahl-i Hadith cleric asso- military changing event. According to disclosures ciated with both Azzam and bin Laden. The main reason for LeT’s growth after from arrested LeT cadres, it was assisted 1990 was the protection and assistance it by mid-ranking ISI officers, who provided From its inception, LeT had a close ideologi- received from the Pakistani army and the funds, contacts, and weaponry for the raid. cal kinship with al-Qaida. The Arab group Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), respectively. Following the assault, the then-ISI chief donated US$ 2 million for the construction LeT understood that the Pakistani military even admitted to US officials that “rogue of LeT’s headquarters and main training establishment was keen to wage a proxy operatives” from the agency might have complex, situated near the Pakistani city war in Indian Kashmir. Its leaders decided been involved. His admission, together of Lahore. Both groups set out to build a to strategically purchase Pakistani indul- with other indications suggesting partial name for themselves in the international gence for their ‘reconquest’ of India by complicity from state actors, raised ques- jihadist community by providing qual- tactically cooperating with the ISI in Kash- tions as to whether close ties with the Pa- ity instruction in military tactics to a new mir. They calculated that the “liberation” kistani establishment had restrained LeT generation of jihadists, who were expected of Kashmir would in any case provide a or emboldened it. to fight in “wars of liberation” across the springboard for further jihadist offensives world. They developed similar syllabi and into India by encouraging rebellion among Hitherto, conventional wisdom among even had common trainers. the country’s large Muslim minority. counterterrorist analysts held that ISI control over LeT kept the group’s focus However, their respective ethnic composi- Operating in the ethnically and linguisti- limited to low-impact actions. The scale tions caused their operational priorities to cally distinct Kashmir region was not easy, of the Mumbai attack, coupled with the differ. Al-Qaida was focused on promoting however. LeT was an overwhelmingly for- systematic targeting of Western tourists, regime change in the Middle East, since it eign organisation whose cadres needed threw these assumptions into doubt. In- saw control of the Arab world as key to es- local guidance in order to carry out guer- stead of submitting to Pakistani calibra- tablishing a Caliphate. LeT, in keeping with rilla attacks. Although ISI intermediaries tion, the jihadist group had leveraged its its Pakistani roots, was primarily focused arranged some degree of local assistance, contacts with the country’s military and on leading a Muslim reconquest of India Indian security forces countered this by intelligence community to launch more – a country that, its leaders asserted, had highlighting LeT’s doctrinaire nature, lim- sophisticated international operations, us- historically been part of the Muslim realm iting the degree to which the group could ing techniques pioneered by al-Qaida in before Western colonisation. Each group gain an ideological foothold. By 1998, the early 1990s. trained its cadres for subversive activities heavy losses due to Indian intelligence in its primary target area. penetration had thinned the LeT ranks. Learning from al-Qaida Like al-Qaida, LeT had a dual identity: it This difference in priorities was rhetorical- The jihadist group adapted by importing was both a training platform for free- ly papered over by a common antipathy to a tactic from the Middle East: the suicidal lance jihadists from across the world – a Israel. Both al-Qaida and LeT agreed that or ‘fedayeen’ raid. Instead of launching kind of “terrorist university” – and a direct the State of Israel represented an abomi- hit-and-run assaults, LeT gunmen would sponsor of terrorist attacks. It synergised nation on Muslim peoples imposed by the storm security outposts and kill as many this duality to boost its striking power. West, and that it had to be annihilated. soldiers or policemen as they could, before Talent-spotters in the Pakistani diaspora © 2013 Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich 2 CSS Analysis in Security Policy No.

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