Latest Pakistan bomb a failed attempt to hit Inter-Services Intelligence Agency?

At least 23 are dead in the latest bomb detonated in Pakistan. The NYT reports that the car bomb that rammed into a wall housing emergency response services in Lahore was likely intended to decimate the local nearby branch of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI).

Recall that after the Mumbai bombings, the ISI raided camps of the militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, the group that is widely believed to have been responsible for the bombings. Some suggested that there were hidden ties between the ISI and LeT. View my previous posts on the topic here.

Under pressure, Pakistan government raids Kashmiri militant camp

Under intense pressure from India and the international community to cooperate with investigations following the Mumbai attacks which claimed 164 lives, Pakistan has continued raids on militant camps in the areas of Kashmir that are under its control.   While Pakistan has issued public denials that the attackers were from its country, these camps the Pakistani military have been targeting are reported to have links to Lashkar-i-Taiba (LeT), the militant jihadi group originally formed to fight for a Pakistani controlled Kashmir and suspected to be behind the attacks. Following the attacks, India had specifically named various high-level figures in LeT, including Yusuf Muzammil and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, as part of its demands that Pakistan cooperate with the investigation and hand over persons of interest in this attack as well as earlier ones. “Early reports indicated that Lakhvi, a suspected mastermind of the Mumbai attacks, was arrested although it was later denied by CNN sources.”

View my earlier posts on this developing story here.

LeT has been formally banned from Pakistan since another severe series of attacks on the Indian parliament in 2001 and has has denied involvement in these recent attacks; however, Mohammed Amjal Kasab, the sole surviving terrorist captured in the wake of the attacks told investigators that he was trained by LeT and both Indian and U.S. investigators have established a connection by calls placed to members of LeT from the satellite phone recovered from a boat hijacked by the terrorists en route to Mumbai.

View CNN’s full report here.

Pakistanis unite in mistrust of India

Washington Post Foreign Service reports:

As more details emerge about alleged Pakistani links to the three-day siege in India’s financial capital last week, a rare national unity is coalescing in Pakistan, centered on its old enemy. Although debate continues about how to manage attacks on politicians and government institutions by armed Pakistani groups, the Indian accusations against Pakistan after the Mumbai attacks have reminded many of India’s 60-year role as the primary security threat here.

…Tensions with India have prompted pledges of support for the government even from the Taliban, the growing insurgent force based on the tribal agencies of the country’s North-West Frontier Province.

This week, several leaders of armed Islamist groups in that region vowed to lay down their arms against the government and stand with Pakistan’s military in the event of a clash with India — a turnaround for groups that in the past six years have killed more than 1,200 Pakistani troops.

That promise of assistance has not gone unnoticed in Islamabad.

In a briefing with reporters after the Mumbai attacks, several top officials of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, said they welcomed the offers of support from Nazir and Taliban leaders such as Baitullah Mehsud.

Only a year ago, Mehsud, who reportedly commands thousands of foot soldiers in his native South Waziristan, was Pakistan’s most wanted man.

Rahimullah Yusufzai, a Pakistani journalist based in the northwestern city of Peshawar, said the current mood among insurgent leaders such as Nazir and others in the region is sharply anti-Indian and pro-Pakistani. But Yusufzai cautioned that an opportunistic impulse lies beneath the groups’ recent avowals of support for the government against India.

“Right now, these are only statements. They are offering support, but they are also saying that in return for their support the military must stop its operations in the tribal areas, in Swat and other places,” Yusufzai said. “They are trying to seize the moment and say, ‘Look we’re not anti-state, not anti-Pakistan.’ But the government has to be careful. It should not respond by pulling out troops.”

Many ordinary people in northwestern cities such as Peshawar are wary of expressions of national unity and more inclined to empathize with India’s position, Yusufzai said. Hundreds of civilians have been killed and wounded in insurgent attacks this year, and the mounting violence has sensitized the population to the government’s failure to rein in terrorists within Pakistan.

“There is a feeling that these jihadi groups need to be cut down to size,” Yusufzai said. “People here have seen up close the results of their activities, so they are probably more inclined to believe some of the Indian accusations.”

Before the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan was already deeply divided over how to deal simultaneously with the internal threats posed by extremist groups and the external pressures from countries such as India and the United States. Since the attacks, that fracture has given rise to a heated public debate. (see full article)

After decades of diplomatic brinkmanship with India, many ordinary Pakistanis are skeptical of India’s assertions of a Pakistani tie to the massacre in Mumbai. Yet many also appear to agree that another armed conflict with Pakistan’s nuclear rival in the region should be the last option on the table.

Consequences if India suspects Pakistan of Mumbai attacks…

NYT reports that the Mumbai terrorist attacks have come as steps towards peace were made; the worry is that a connection exists between Pakistan and the Mumbai attacks. The Hindustan Times, a prominent Indian news organization, reported that Indian security forces believed that the militant group Lashkar-i-Taiba had a hand in the attacks from their base of operations in Pakistan.

Even if there is no Pakistani involvement, the suspicion will stall any progress towards peace between the two countries for a while. Furthermore, the focus of the Pakistani military will be on India and not on dealing with extremist insurgents in its lawless northwest region.

View story here.

Update: the specific fear is not only that insurgent radical groups such as Lashkar-i-Taiba would be responsible, but that the Pakistani intelligence services such as the Inter Services Intelligence Agency might have sponsored or supported the actions of such groups.

Lashkar-i-Taiba reportedly has “operated joint training camps in Pakistan with al-Qaeda and the Taliban” and used to receive proxy support from Pakistani intelligence services to fight the Indian army over disputed territory in Kashmir. According to MSNBC.com, analysts suspect that Lashkar-i-Taiba “continues to enjoy the backing of some Pakistani politicians and security officials.”

View story here.

Airstrike in Pakistan kills suspected British terrorist mastermind

Washington Post reports that an air strike reportedly carried out in Waziristan, northwestern Pakistan by unmanned U.S. Predator drone aircraft killed at least 5 Islamist fighters, 3 of whom were foreign. One of those 5 was Rashid Rauf, a suspected al Qaeda operative with dual British and Pakistani citizenship and rumored ringleader in a 2006 plot to blow up commercial airliners in Britain.

Rauf was also reported to have ties to a radicalized splinter of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, as well as the Pakistani terrorist group, Jaish-i-Muhammad, which is thought to be behind the killing and beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl.  Rauf was last seen publicly before he escaped from police custody almost a year ago last December and, until a few days ago, his whereabouts could not be confirmed.