MUMBAI TERROR ATTACK- A WARNING TO THE WEST

Contrary to President Zardari's claims, the LET is no "stateless actor." In fact, the LET is and always was a creature of the ISI.

Throughout the war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United States, as well as other states, all sponsored the Afghan resistance fighters or mujahedeen. But Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were principally responsible for creating and sponsoring the most radical Islamic terrorist groups within the mujahedeen's ranks. This nexus is what first gave us Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda and, later, Mullah Omar's Taliban..

As the war in Afghanistan came to an end, the ISI began to reallocate its resources. The jihadists had proven their merit as guerrilla fighters, and the ISI found it convenient to use them elsewhere. Veterans of the Afghan conflict formed the LET's first cadres, and, using Saudi cash, the ISI quickly expanded the LET's operations. By the early 1990s, the LET emerged as one of the ISI's primary instruments for waging its proxy war against Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir.

The ISI launched the full-scale jihad in Jammu and Kashmir, but it did not stop there. The LET and several sister organizations also backed by the ISI began attacking India proper long ago. Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM), another ISI creation focused on Kashmir, has often been the LET's partner in crime. So has the Hizb-ul-Mujahedeen (HM), which was founded with the ISI's help in the late 1980s. And an Indian-based organization called the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which is sponsored by the ISI and deeply connected to its Pakistani brethren, has been instrumental in launching attacks inside India. These four organizations have killed hundreds. According to the website satp.org (South Asia Terrorist Portal), these groups, along with other smaller allied jihadist organizations, are responsible for dozens of attacks inside India between September 2001 and October 2008.


Even so, Zardari's comments are not altogether meaningless. They touch upon a central fault line in this war on terror. The president of Pakistan has essentially admitted what we should all know by now: There is currently no political force inside Pakistan capable of reining in the ISI and its many jihadist allies. Zardari had hoped for improved relations with India, but he was powerless to stop the Mumbai attacks. The jihadist forces have become entrenched within Pakistani society, which is home to dozens of extremist and terrorist organizations.

Indeed, the extent of the radicalization of Pakistani society is deeply troubling. It is the direct result of decisions made by Pakistani administrations decades ago..

One result is that today the president himself is not safe. The jihadist hydra nearly killed Zardari on September 20, when a truck bomb leveled the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad. Zardari had stopped off to chat with an old friend, narrowly avoiding death. The assassins were more successful with Zardari's wife, Benazir Bhutto, who was killed by jihadists in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on December 27, 2007.

All of this has important ramifications not only for India and Pakistan, but also for the United States and the rest of the free world. There is no question that Pakistan has played an instrumental role in the war on terror. President Musharraf's regime, including friendly elements within the ISI, killed or captured hundreds of al Qaeda operatives in the wake of September 11. But it is now clear that the ISI's long-term strategy for seizing power throughout South and Central Asia by sponsoring jihadist proxies remains undeterred.

Moreover, this strategy conflicts directly with American interests. Just as the ISI created the LET and its sister organizations, the ISI has also been the primary benefactor of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Even as Pakistan gave the United States vital assistance in the war on terror, the ISI continued to sponsor America's enemies behind her back. There are numerous examples that can be cited..

Afghan president Hamid Karzai went so far as to say he knew the exact location of Taliban chieftain Mullah Omar and had passed on this information to the Pakistani government, only to have it ignored. "Mullah Omar is for sure in Quetta in Pakistan. And he knows that and I know that," Karzai told the Council on Foreign Relations in September 2006. "And we have given [President Musharraf] information. We have even given him the GPS numbers of his house, of Mullah Omar's house, and the telephone numbers."

Despite these warnings, the Taliban's leadership has remained free. The ISI has ensured their safety. But the ISI's complicity in the Taliban's and al Qaeda's terrorism goes far beyond the provision of safe haven..

A slide in the presentation claimed the ISI was supporting U.S. enemies fighting in Afghanistan. The slide read: "ISI involved in direct support to many enemy operations .??.??. classification prevents further discussion of this point." The support included "training, funding, [and] logistics."

Nash, American Commander, said multiple U.S. and Afghan intelligence reports indicated that the ISI "flew repeated helicopter missions into Afghanistan to resupply the Taliban during a fierce battle in June 2007," according to the Army Times. The ISI helicopters resupplied a "base camp" in the Tora Bora region in Nangarhar, where Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda fought pitched battles with the U.S. military and Afghan militias before retreating into Pakistan.

The ISI officers involved in the Kabul bombings were not "renegades," the New York Times reported, and the intercepts indicated that "their actions might have been authorized by superiors." U.S. intelligence officials also said "elements of Pakistan's government seemed to be directly aiding violence in Afghanistan that had included attacks on American troops" and were providing intelligence to Taliban and al Qaeda operatives on the U.S. covert air campaign targeting terror leaders in Pakistan's tribal areas. The Haqqani Network has been a prime target of these attacks; almost 60 percent of U.S. airstrikes this year have occurred in North Waziristan.

Decades ago the ISI made a pact with the devil. There is no evidence that it can be redeemed any time soon. Given the ISI's deep roots within Pakistan's culture and its capacity to drive policy even against the wishes of the elected officials, curtailing the power of this rogue agency will be difficult at best. Indeed, the ISI is now one of the principal backers of radical Islam in the world.

The allure of Islamist extremism runs deep in Pakistan's officer corps. For many, this is an ideological war. Consider what "retired" ISI general Hamid Gul, who still exerts much influence in Pakistan, said in 2003:

God will destroy the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan and wherever it will try to go from there. The Muslim world must stand united to confront the United States in its so-called War on Terrorism, which is in reality a war against Muslims. Let's destroy America wherever its troops are trapped.

The same mentality compels the ISI and its surrogates to claim territory in the name of Islam. Pakistan's jihad in India and Kashmir is not just the product of a decades-old geopolitical rivalry. For the ISI, it is part of a Manichaean struggle between the forces of Islam and the rest of the world. As Praveen Swami notes in his book, the LET's leadership has openly talked of conquering large swaths of India on behalf of Muslims. After the Kargil war of 1999, LET chieftain Hafiz Muhammad Saeed threatened, "The real war will be inside [India]." He swore his forces would "unfurl the Islamic flag on the Red Fort." As Swami explains, the Red Fort in New Delhi "has been a long-standing motif in Islamist Discourse, as old as Partition itself." It is no wonder that in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, the Indians have demanded that the Pakistanis turn Saeed over. But it is doubtful that the Pakistani military will comply.

In the current crisis, the military shows signs of closing ranks with extremist elements as fears of a conflict with India increase. Just days after the Mumbai attacks, an army corps commander described Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud as a "patriot" and said the conflict with the Taliban in the northwest was merely due to "misunderstandings." In turn, the Taliban-dominated tribes pledged to send three million fighters to the Indian frontier in the event of a conflict.

The United States is now faced with an awful truth. Pakistan is both an ally and an enemy. The attacks in Mumbai are only the latest demonstration of the tactics the ISI is willing to sponsor in its quest for power in the subcontinent and beyond. We should be mindful that ISI-sponsored terrorism is a central component of our enemies' worldwide designs. It should not come as a surprise if someday we find ISI-backed terrorists laying siege to New York or Washington, just as they lately brought carnage to Mumbai.

The above article is in abriged form.

Bill Roggio is managing editor of the website Long War Journal and adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Thomas Joscelyn is the senior editor of the Long War Journal.