Professor Marvin Weinbaum, Scholar-in-Residence at the Middle East Institute, who has served in several US administrations as an expert on South Asia, told Congress on Thursday that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, responsible for the horrific 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, could surpass or replace Al Qaeda as the number one terror network worldwide.
Weinbaum also said the outfit threatens American and Western interests, and not just India as originally conceived by its sponsor, the ISI.
Weinbaum, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South Asia at a hearing titled, 'Bad Company: Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Growing Ambition of Islamist Militancy in Pakistan,' said the LeT "has evolved from being a government-sponsored Pakistani jihadi group dedicated to an insurgency in Indian Kashmir into a terrorist organization with regional and global ambitions and reach."
Consequently, he faulted Washington's focus on homeland security and Al Qaeda as failing "to take into full account of the presence of other organizations capable of surpassing or replacing Al Qaeda as a terrorist threat worldwide."
Weinbaum told lawmakers that "LeT is probably the leading candidate for such a role" because it was "the largest militant network in Pakistan, and exceeds Al Qaeda in its capacity for recruiting and fundraising across the Islamic world. Unlike Al Qaeda, LeT has strong societal roots, and enjoys the protection of the institutions of a state."
He spoke of how the LeT "is determined to use violent means to inflict damage on American and Western interests internationally."
Weinbaum, one of the country's leading experts on Afghanistan, said "until 2002, LeT had the full backing of the Pakistan military for its operations in Kashmir. When the Pakistan government curtailed assistance to Pakistani insurgents after a US-brokered ceasefire that year, the organization, with the knowledge of the ISI, shifted most of its training camps and militant operations to the western border with Afghanistan."
But, he informed the lawmakers that "despite the government official ban of LeT, Pakistan's ISI continued to consider the organization as an asset," and said, "The ISI is believed to continue to share intelligence and provide protection to LeT."
Weinbaum said, "It is a measure of the impunity with which LeT is allowed to operate in Pakistan that the authorities have been unwilling to contain LeT chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, who attracts thousands across the country with his fiery sermons. His inflammatory remarks would be expected to land him among the hundreds of disappeated political activists in the country, but although he has been periodically arrested, his house detentions have been cosmetic."
"In reciprocation for government policies, the LeT has refrained from involvement in attacks against the Pakistani army and against Pakistani civilians," he said, and noted,
"The Tehriq-e-Taliban, Pakistan's principal insurgent group, has accused the LeT of being too soft on the state of Pakistan, and other extremist groups are also skeptical of its strong linkages with ISI."
Weinbaum said that "the current leadership in Pakistan may recognize better than any previous one the danger that LeT and groups like it pose to the state. But the organization's deep penetration of the country's social fabric makes any attempts to rein it in by the beleaguered People's Party impossible without the military's full commitment."
Laying out a laundry list of concerns for the US about the LeT, the scholar said, ""If our counter-insurgency fails in Afghanistan, there should be little doubt that LeT will establish a major presence alongside the Taliban."
He noted that "while drone attacks and Pakistan raids have apparently disrupted Al Qaeda and also eliminated leaders from among Pakistan's Taliban, LeT activities have been minimally disrupted."
Weinbaum also said that the LeT "appears to be drawing strength from a deepening hyper-nationalism that has taken hold at all levels of society in Pakistan. Fed by conspiracy theories, India and the US are implicated in various plots, above all, to breakup Pakistan and seize its nuclear weapons."
He also said that "the case is easily made that LeT can provide an important tool for the Pakistan military's ability to respond to Indian aggression or for helping the country to secure a sphere of influence when, as expected, American and coalition forces' strategies will have failed in Afghanistan."
Weinbaum also argued that "the LeT's organizational infrastructure, its network in the Islamic world, and its access to funds for stepping up acts of terrorism against the state of Pakistan, make it attractive to many groups, including Al Qaeda, that seek to step up acts of terrorism against the Pakistani state and beyond."
He said it should not be forgotten that Hafiz Saeed "is believed to have many sympathizers within the Pakistani scientific community, especially in the nuclear and missile fields, by virtue of having spent decades indoctrinating the youth of Pakistan while a professor in one of the country's top engineering universities."
Thus, Weinbaum said is couldn't be dismissed that "were Pakistan to become seriously dectabilized, LeT's reputation for charity, piety and patriotism, together with its close ties to senior officers of the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment, would make it a potential vehicle to transform the Pakistani society into a Sharia state similar to that of Afghanistan in the 1990s."
"The US would then be faced in Pakistan with the jihadi-dominated stated that it has most to fear," he added.
