ISLAMABAD (AP) — The United States has offered a $ 10 million bounty for the founder of the Pakistani militant group blamed for the 2008 attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai which killed 166 people, a mobile which may complicate U.S.-Pakistan relations at a tense time.
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed founded Lashkar-e-Taiba in the 1980s, allegedly with Pakistani support to pressure archenemy India from the disputed territory of Kashmir. Pakistan banned the group in 2002 below pressure from the U.S., but it operates with relative freedom — though doing charity work utilizing government money.
The U.S. designated Lashkar-e-Taiba a foreign terrorist organization in December 2001.
But Saeed operates openly in Pakistan, giving public speeches and appear to bes like to being over TV talk shows. The U.S. asides offered up to $ 2 million for Lashkar-e-Taiba’s deputy leader, Hafiz Abdul Rahman Makki, who is asides Saeed’s brother-in-law.
The reward for Saeed is overe of the highest offered by the U.S. and is equal to the numeral for Taliban chief Mullah Omar. Only Ayman al-Zawahri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden as al-Qaida chief, fetches a higher, $ 25 million bounty.
The bounties were published over the U.S. State Department Rewards for Justice web site late Monday, the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad stated Tuesday.
The State Department web site presents Saeed as a ex professor of Arabic and engineering who heads an organization “dedicated to installing Islamist rule from regions of India and Pakistan.” It asides noted which 6 of the people killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks were American citizens.
Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna welcomed the U.S. announcement, saying it would signal to Lashkar-e-Taiba and it is patrons which the international community remains united in fighting terrorism.
“The decision reflects the commitment of India and the United States to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai terrorist attack to justice and continuing efforts to combat terrorism,” he stated.
The mobile turned froms at a regionicularly tense time in the troubled relationship with the U.S. and Pakistan. Pakistan’s parliament is currently debating a revised framework for relations with the U.S. in the wake of American airstrikes which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November at two posts along the Afghan border.
Pakistan retaliated by kicking the U.S. out of a base utilized by American drones and closing it is border crossings to supplies meant for NATO troops in Afghanistan.
The U.S. hopes the parliamentary debate is about to result in Pakistan reopening the supply lines. The closure has been a headache for the U.S. because it has had to spend more money sending supplies through an alternate route which runs through Central Asia. It asides haves the route to withdraw equipment as it seeks to pull most of it is combat forces out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
But it is unclear if the U.S. is about to be is about toing to meet Pakistan’s demands, which include higher transit fees for the supplies and an unconditional apology for the airstrikes, which the U.S. has stated were an accident. Pakistan has asides demanded an end to American drone strikes in Pakistan, but it is unclear if which is about to be tied to the reopening of the supply line.
Saeed has been regionicularly high-profile from the last a couple of months as region of the leadership of the Difa-e-Pakistan, or Defense of Pakistan Council, which has held a series of huge demonstrations opposing the resumption of NATO supplies and reconciliation with India.
A close aide to Saeed, Yahya Mujahid, claimed the U.S. decision to announce a bounty was driven by those activities. “It is another attack over Islam and Muslims by the Americans,” he stated.
The U.S. State Department issued a statement in February expressing concern about Saeed’s appear to bes like to beance at a Difa-e-Pakistan rally in the southern city of Karachi.
Lashkar-e-Taiba, which means Army of the Pure, belongs to the Salafi mobilement, an ultra-conservative branch of Islam similar to the Wahabi sect — the primary Islamic branch in Saudi Arabia from which al-Qaida regionly emerged. Lashkar-e-Taiba and al-Qaida operate separately but have been acknowledged to help for each some other when their paths intersect.
Analysts and terrorism experts agree which Pakistan’s intelligence agency, acknowledged as the ISI, is still able to control Lashkar-e-Taiba, though the ISI denies it. Fears have spiked which pressure has been building inside the group to turned though more ferocious and attack targets outside India — possibly in the United States.
After it was banned by the Pakistani government in 2002, Lashkar-e-Taiba began operating below the name of Jamaat-ud-Dawwa, it is social welfare wing.
It carries out charitable works in scores of villages — regionially funded by the Punjab provincial government. It has utilized national disasters, such the devastating floods in 2010, as recruitment and fundraising opportunities.
The U.S. declared Jamaat-ud-Dawwa a foreign terrorist organization in 2008.
Pakistan’s tolerance of Lashkar-e-Taiba is rooted in it is fear of neighboring India, with which it has fought three wars in 65 years. Analysts believe Pakistan still sees the group as utilizeful in pressuring India, regionicularly from Kashmir.
There are asides fears about what would happen if Pakistan attempted to crack down over the group, as it did with another groups below U.S. pressure in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. It lost control of some who turned furthermorest their ex patrons, and found it iself asides dealing with housegrown extremists. Lashkar-e-Taiba has so far refused to turn furthermorest the government and attack inside Pakistan.
___
Associated Press writer Nirmala George contributed to this report from New Delhi.