No "expert" would think this is a 'new' menace. B
International terror experts ponder new menace 4:00AM Monday Dec 15, 2008 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/print.cfm?c_id=2 <http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/print.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10548029&pnu m=0> &objectid=10548029&pnum=0 The commando-style siege blamed on Lashkar-e-Taiba in Mumbai last month is raising new concerns in the United States intelligence community, both about the tactics used and the unsettling possibility the operation was conducted independent of al Qaeda. That could mean there is a new global terrorist organisation to combat, requiring the resources and attention now focused on combating Osama bin Laden's organisation. "People are looking closely at whether [Lashkar] is trying deliberately to raise its profile vis-a-vis other terrorist organisations and/or its geographic footprint," a US counterterrorism official said. Lashkar-e-Taiba is a militant Islamic group - based in Kashmir and banned in Pakistan - that has been blamed by India and also US National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell as the likely perpetrator of the Mumbai attack. While the assessments aren't finished, US counterterrorism officials assume the Mumbai attack heralds a change in Lashkar-e-Taiba's agenda, expanding its targets from Kashmir and India to include American, Israeli and Western interests. It is still unclear whether al Qaeda played a role in planning, supplying or timing the attack, according to US intelligence officials. The groups are loosely allied. Lashkar signed on to bin Laden's Islamic Front for Jihad against America and Israel in 1998. Since the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan, Lashkar fighters have been detected among militants in combat against American forces. If al Qaeda did not play a direct role in the Mumbai attacks, it is possible Lashkar was trying to impress al Qaeda, auditioning to become an official franchise of the organisation. That would raise Lashkar's global profile; the benefit to al Qaeda would be the spread of its jihadist brand. A third possibility is Lashkar acted on the same extremist philosophy that guides al Qaeda, but carried out its attack independently. That would mean Western intelligence agencies now have to be concerned with two groups capable of spectacular international terrorist attacks, said Bilal Saab, a research analyst at the Brookings Institution. Anit Mukherjee, a former Indian Army officer and counterinsurgency expert, said al Qaeda's involvement would force the US to broaden operations in Pakistan to target Lashkar and Jaysh-e-Muhammed, which is another Kashmiri extremist group that Mukherjee said conducted an attack with Lashkar on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. "American officials didn't want to take on [those] terrorist organisations," Mukherjee said. Traditionally limited to Kashmir, Lashkar's operations in the last seven years have included spectacular attacks in India - including the 2006 Mumbai train attack that killed around 200, according to Indian and US intelligence officials. It was put on the US terrorist organisation list in December 2001. Pakistan formally banned it in 2002. However, it maintains some 2200 offices across Pakistan for recruitment, fundraising, and social services, according to a US intelligence report. It is estimated to have up to several thousand members, almost exclusively Pakistanis from outside Kashmir. "It's not as if they're an unknown new kid on the block. But Mumbai certainly ratchets up [Lashkar's] profile," the US counterterrorism official said. A US intelligence official said the focus on determining al Qaeda's role, if any, distracts from the central problem: armed groups with extremist ideologies who have safe havens from which to launch attacks. No matter who planned it, Saab, the Brookings analyst, believes the commando tactics used by the 10 gunmen in Mumbai were meant to make an international splash. Suicide bombings could have killed as many people, but Saab believes the attackers were aiming for a lengthy operation that would draw the eyes of the world. US counterterrorism officials agree. "The classical objective of terrorism is to make everyone watch," Saab said. - AP (F)AIR USE NOTICE: All original content and/or articles and graphics in this message are copyrighted, unless specifically noted otherwise. All rights to these copyrighted items are reserved. 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