NBC News: "Pakistani militants deny role in Mumbai terror attacks"

By Evan Kohlmann

NBC News: Pakistani militants deny role in Mumbai terror attacks

The sole surviving terrorist of the Mumbai attacks allegedly spent 18 months training at camps run by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), a banned Pakistani militant organization with a long history of high-profile attacks in India and Indian-controlled Kashmir. And, as NBC News has reported, Indian authorities also have found the names of several high-ranking LET members in the satellite phone used by one of the Mumbai perpetrators.

So what is Lashkar-e-Taiba, and was the group truly behind the horrific attacks in Mumbai’s hotels, train station and restaurants? Lashkar’s political wing offered reporters in Pakistan a rare tour of their sprawling, 200-acre headquarters today, and allowed me to interview one of their top officials yesterday. In a phone interview, the LET’s Abdullah Muntazir repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks. “No, not at all,” said Muntazir, a chief spokesman of LET’s accused political wing, Jamat-ud-Dawa.

“The violence against the general public carried out by any individual, group, or any government--whether it is committed in Mumbai, or in Kashmir, Afghanistan, or in Iraq--that cannot be justified at any cost. And Islam does not allow its followers to kill innocent people, to target public places,” Muntazir said. “Blowing up [bombs] in public places… from my point of view, that we cannot endorse and we have no relation to such kind of things.”

During the press tour today at the group’s headquarters outside Lahore, Muntazir continued with his denials. “We are a charity organization and these premises are just an educational and medical complex,” he said. “We condemn India for putting [our leader’s] name on the list of terrorists… India is blaming us because its their habit and the moment the attacks happened in Mumbai, they started blaming us without any proof or evidence,” Muntazir told reporters today.

Controversial history
The denials aside, the LET has a long history of supporting violence and terrorist acts. At their annual “Mujahideen Conference,” held in Pakistan in November 1999, for example, former LET chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed issued a threat to the Prime Minister of India. He said that if “he didn’t withdraw from Kashmir the Mujahideen would invade his office in New Delhi,” Saeed said. “The Jihad is not about Kashmir only. It encompasses all of India… We will not rest until the whole India is dissolved into Pakistan.”

And in October 2000, when asked about the hijacking of a Saudi commercial airliner and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, Saeed responded, “Mujahideen Lashkar-e-Taiba does not favor to undertake these operations, as [such] activities are mostly advantageous to America. The real jihad, in fact, is to target the Jews… and to kill them in their own homes.”

[Click for more on the MSNBC.com website]

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