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Pakistan begins probe into Lashkar role

ISLAMABAD: Despite public denials, the Pakistan government appears to have begun investigations, on the basis of evidence shown to it by the United States and Britain, into the alleged involvement of the Lashkar-e-Taiba in the Mumbai attacks.

The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday reported unnamed Pakistani security officials as saying Zarar Shah, a LeT operative arrested in a raid on the militant outfit in Muzaffarabad on the Pakistan side of Kashmir, had confessed to his group’s role in the Mumbai attacks.

“He is singing,” the Pakistani official told the newspaper, which also reported another person familiar with the investigation as saying that Shah told investigators that he was one of the key planners of the operation, and he spoke to the gunmen during the attacks “to keep them focussed.”

Zarar Shah is reported to have corroborated the account of Ajmal Amir, the lone surviving gunman, that the attackers were all from Pakistan and spent time in Karachi training in urban combat.

Diplomatic sources said that in some sections at the highest levels of the government, there was a growing willingness to accept that the LeT might be involved in the Mumbai attacks, even though statements from the government would not reflect this.

“They have seen the evidence, they acknowledge that it indicates this could be the work of the LeT, and they have started some investigations,” a top diplomat here said. “But their posturing in public has to be different.”

This difference may also affect the extent to which action could be taken, the diplomatic sources said.

Major-General Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistan’s National Security Adviser, told CNN-IBN on Tuesday that Ajmal Amir may be a Pakistani national, but there is no proof yet.

The U.S. and Britain are said to have shown evidence of the alleged LeT involvement, especially transcripts of phone conversations between the gunmen and their alleged handlers in Pakistan.

Pakistani officials have also been shown logs of telephone calls made by the gunmen to Pakistan, and according to one report, one of the numbers was that of Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the LeT commander who is believed to have masterminded the operation.

Lakhvi was also picked up from the Muzaffarabad camp along with Zarar Shah, and according to the Dawn newspaper, pressure is growing on Pakistan to extradite him.

The newspaper reported from Washington that the U.S. gave Pakistan a taped conversation between Lakhvi and one of the Mumbai gunmen. According to the report, American audio experts had checked the tape and concluded that the speaker was Lakhvi.

It is not clear if the U.S. taped this conversation on its own or was provided the transcript by India.

According to the Dawn report, there appears to be a difference of opinion in the top power circles here on whether to accept the evidence that the U.S. has provided. The paper said officials were reluctant to accept the intercepts of Lakhvi’s conversation as authentic, while the Pakistan embassy in Washington was insistent that the Pakistani authorities now needed to take steps to satisfy the international community.

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