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Canada News.Net
6 days ago
- Canada News.Net
26/11 Mumbai terror attack 'mastermind' Tahawur Rana wants private counsel to represent him in NIA case; court verdict on August 7
New Delhi [India], August 5 (ANI): 26/11 Mumbai terror Attack alleged mastermind Tahawur Rana has said that he wants to engage a private counsel to represent him. For this purpose, he wants to talk to his family. Patiala House Court on Tuesday reserved the order on this issue after receiving replies from the NIA and Jail authorities. The court will pronounce the order on August 7. Till now, he has been represented by a legal aid counsel. Special Judge (NIA) Chander Jit Singh, after receiving the response of jail authorities and NIA on Rana's application, reserved the order. Legal Aid Counsel Piyush Sachdev appeared for Tahawur Rana. He confirmed that the court has reserved the order for August 7. On August 1, the court disposed of an application of Rana seeking a regular telephone facility for his family in view of the denial of the facility by the jail authorities. Earlier, he was permitted to make a single call to his family. Rana is in judicial custody after NIA interrogation in the 26/11 Mumbai Terror Attack case. Rana is the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai Attack. He was extradited from the USA in April this year. Earlier, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on July 9 filed a supplementary charge sheet against Tahawur Rana in the 26/11 Mumbai terror case. The court had extended the judicial custody of Rana till August 13. This supplementary charge sheet contains procedural documents like arrest memo, seizure memo and other documents, Rana's counsel Piyush Sachdev had told ANI. The main charge sheet was filed by the NIA in December 2011. On June 9, the Court had granted Tahawwur Rana permission to make a single phone call to his family for the time being. The call was strictly conducted in accordance with jail regulations and under the supervision of a senior official from the Tihar jail authorities. Recently, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) collected voice and handwriting samples from Rana, who was extradited from the United States. The NIA had previously informed the court that Rana was confronted with substantial evidence related to the 26/11 attacks. The agency argued for further custody, citing his evasive behaviour during questioning and lack of cooperation. Senior Advocate Dayan Krishnan and Special Public Prosecutor Narender Mann represented the NIA in the proceedings, while Advocate Piyush Sachdeva defended Rana. 64-year-old Canadian businessman of Pakistani origin, Rana, was extradited recently in connection with his alleged involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. The devastating attack, orchestrated by Lashkar-e-Taiba, claimed over 170 lives and left hundreds injured. (ANI)
New York Times
09-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
What We Know About the Terrorist Groups India Said It Targeted
The spark for the latest round of escalation between India and Pakistan, the most expansive fighting between the enemies in decades, was a terrorist slaughter of civilians in Kashmir last month. A group of attackers managed to puncture the semblance of calm that the Indian government had been projecting on its side of the troubled Kashmir region, long the flashpoint of dispute between the two neighbors. The attackers came out of the woods in a scenic picnic spot and killed 26 men. The men, almost all of them Hindu, were identified by their religion, and many of them were killed in front of their wives and families, according to witness accounts. A little known group called the Resistance Front claimed responsibility. The Indian government said that the group was a front for a broader terrorist apparatus that has operated out of Pakistan, and it announced a series of strikes against Pakistan that has now broken into military conflict. Pakistan has rejected those claims. Here is what we know about the groups that India said it had targeted in its military strikes. What are the two main groups India targeted? Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was founded in the 1980s, has long been suspected of masterminding from Pakistan some of the worst terrorist attacks in India. It was added to the U.N. sanctions list in 2005. One of the deadliest attacks the group orchestrated was the 2008 slaughter in Mumbai, India's financial hub, during which more than 160 people were killed. Nearly a dozen gunmen arrived on boats and waged a day of carnage, including taking hostages at a major hotel. One of the attackers was captured alive, and much of the account of the attack's ties to Pakistan came from his confessions. He was sentenced in India in 2010 and executed in 2012. Pakistan has confirmed Lashkar-e-Taiba links to past violence in India but says that the group was outlawed and disbanded long ago. The group's founder, Hafiz Saeed, is free despite brief periods of detention, and Indian officials say that the group continues its activities through multiple cover organization and offshoots, such as the Resistance Front. Jaish-e-Mohammed, the second group that Indian officials said they had targeted in their attacks, has long had a major hand in the militancy in Kashmir. But its activities have not been limited to there. The group's founder, Masood Azhar, was imprisoned in India in the 1990s for militant activity in Kashmir but was released as part of a hostage deal in 1999. Hijackers took an Indian Airlines flight to Kandahar, Afghanistan, and demanded the release of Mr. Azhar and other militants in return for freeing the more than 150 passengers they were holding. Jaish-e-Mohammed is accused of multiple deadly attacks in Kashmir, including the 2019 bombing of an Indian military convoy that brought the two countries into a brief conflict. It was also behind a deadly attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001. What did India achieve in its strikes? India's military forces said that they had struck nine locations in Pakistan in their operation early on Wednesday morning, including facilities associated with the two terrorist outfits. How many people were killed and the extent of any damage to the groups' infrastructure was not entirely clear. The two sides had widely different claims. Indian officials, briefing lawmakers, said that they had killed about '100 terrorists' in their strikes. The Pakistani military put the number of deaths at 31. On the ground, it was clear that many of the strikes had hit facilities associated with the two terrorist groups, though it was not clear whether the facilities were current or old. In Bahawalpur, in Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province, a strike on a compound associated with Mr. Azhar killed 13 people, including 10 members of Mr. Azhar's family. It was the deadliest of the strikes. Another strike in Muridke, a town about 25 miles from the Pakistani capital, Lahore, hit a building complex previously used as Lashkar-e-Taiba's headquarters, killing three people. But Pakistani officials said that they had taken over the building in 2019 after they had banned another Lashkar front outfit. Four other sites targeted were said to be small seminaries and mosques linked in the past with the militant groups, in Punjab and in the Pakistan-administered part of Kashmir.
The Guardian
07-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Kashmir crisis: who are the groups behind Pakistan's ‘terrorist infrastructure?'
With India launching missile strikes on what it says are camps associated with militant groups inside Pakistan in retaliation for last month's massacre in Kashmir, attention has once again focused on India's claimed relationship between Islamabad and armed groups involved in attacks in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, most prominently Lashkar-e-Taiba. What is Lashkar-e-Taiba? Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is a long established Islamic salafist militant group founded in 1989 in Pakistan, and designated as a terrorist group by many countries. Its 2008 attack on Mumbai killed 166 people, including a number of foreign nationals. Founded as the armed wing of the Markaz Dawat-ul Irshad, the centre for proselytization and preaching, it emerged during the period of then Pakistani leader Zia-ul-Haq's policy of 'Islamisation' that aimed to turn Pakistan into a global centre for political Islam. Ideologically, LeT expounds a vision of a global Islamic caliphate including the reclamation of 'lost' Islamic lands through the twin efforts of preaching and armed struggle. The site of an Indian missile strike near Bahawalpur in Pakistan. Photograph: Faisal Kareem/EPA The UN Security Council says it has conducted 'numerous terrorist operations' against military and civilian targets since 1993 including attacks on Mumbai commuter trains in July 2006 and a December 2001 attack on India's parliament. While it has focused much of its militant activity in the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir, largely because of its proximity to India, LeT has a broader hostility to India. LeT's emir Hafiz Muhammad Saeed – who was arrested in 2019 and imprisoned in Pakistan for 31 years for financing terrorism – has long insisted the group's international struggle goes far beyond Kashmir and is aimed at the break up of India, including a strong element of violent antisemitism that saw it attack a Jewish centre during the Mumbai attack. What is Jaish e-Mohammed? Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), was founded by Masood Azhar on his release from prison in India in 1999. Pakistan banned the group in 2002 after it, along with LeT, was blamed for the 2001 attack on India's parliament. The group had links with al Qaeda, founded by Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban, the UN security council has said. Are Lashkar-e-Taiba and other groups supported by Pakistan? The relationship between LeT and other Islamist groups and Pakistani institutions, not least the army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency [ISI], is complicated and murky. While Islamabad has backed armed Islamic groups as proxies in Kashmir and Afghanistan in the past, the present links are more opaque. Historically, Pakistan saw support for armed groups in the 1980s and 1990s as a successful strategy, not least over the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Describing the relationship in a 2012 essay for the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, Ashley Tellis said: 'From the very beginning, LeT became a favoured ward of the Pakistani state because its local interests – fighting in Afghanistan and warring against India – dovetailed with the Pakistan Army's own ambitions: controlling Afghanistan in the west while keeping India off-balance in the east. Pakistan 'has the right to respond' to India's Operation Sindoor, says minister – video 'For over two decades … the ISI maintained strong institutional, albeit subterranean, links with LeT and has supported its operations through generous financing and, as required, combat training.' While LeT's emir denied being behind the Mumbai attack, the jailed US-Pakistani citizen and LeT operative David Headley, who conducted reconnaissance for the 2008 attack, has said he coordinated with Pakistani intelligence officers over the Mumbai attack. What is less clear is the extent of Pakistani official involvement: whether LeT has been given a long rope to operate without sharing precise details. While Pakistan strongly denies the Indian claims, Pakistan's tolerance for groups associated with LeT, despite the jailing of Saeed, undermines its assurances including LeT's 'rebranding' as a charity, Jamaat ud-Dawa (JuD) which the Australian government, among others, described as indistinguishable from LeT. 'Lashkar-e-Taiba has also operated under the alias Jamaat ud-Dawa (JuD), which was ostensibly created as a charitable organisation by the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba founder Hafiz Muhammad Saeed immediately prior to Lashkar-e-Tayyiba being banned by the Pakistani government in 2002.' Writing in 2018, on the 10th anniversary of the Mumbai attacks, Stephen Tankel of the Center for a New American Security said: 'Pakistan makes a cosmetic distinction between Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa, but the United States and the United Nations consider them to be the same organization and have designated it as a terrorist group.' What about today? Experts are less clear about the level of formal Pakistani support for groups like LeT and Jaish e-Mohammed. Some have suggested the recent political turmoil in Pakistan may have led some members of the army and ISI into a more proactive role with militant groups, as has previously occurred during times of political instability when state security institutions have felt under threat. Tankel, however, noted a more complex long-term dynamic. 'Close observers of Pakistan have recognized for years now there is another reason: Lashkar-e-Taiba not only abjures launching attacks in Pakistan, but also helps combat groups that do. 'It has not only gathered intelligence about anti-state militants – jihadists, as well as separatists in Balochistan – but also helped to neutralize them at times. Lashkar-e-Taiba has also promoted an ideological and theological counter-narrative condemning militant groups that attack the Pakistani state.'
