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55–399PDF 2010

BAD COMPANY: LASHKAR E–TAYYIBA AND

THE GROWING AMBITION OF ISLAMIST

MILITANCY IN PAKISTAN

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

THE MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTH ASIA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 11, 2010

Serial No. 111–98

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California, Chairman 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

LYNN WOOLSEY, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

BARBARA LEE, California 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

JIM COSTA, California 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

VACANT 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

RON PAUL, Texas 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina 

GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director 

YLEEM POBLETE, Republican Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTH ASIA

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York, Chairman 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

JIM COSTA, California 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

VACANT 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina 

GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

HOWARD DIAMOND, Subcommittee Staff Director 

MARK WALKER, Republican Professional Staff Member 

DALIS ADLER, Staff Associate 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Marvin Weinbaum, Ph.D., Scholar-in-Residence, The Middle East Institute .... 9

Ms. Lisa Curtis, Senior Research Fellow, Asian Studies Center, The Heritage 

Foundation ............................................................................................................ 16

Ashley J. Tellis, Ph.D., Senior Associate, South Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ........................................................................ 24

Mr. Shuja Nawaz, Director, The South Asia Center ............................................ 35

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Gary L. Ackerman, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of New York, and Chairman, Subcommittee on the Middle East 

and South Asia: Prepared statement ................................................................. 3

Marvin Weinbaum, Ph.D.: Prepared statement .................................................... 11

Ms. Lisa Curtis: Prepared statement ..................................................................... 18

Ashley J. Tellis, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ......................................................... 26

Mr. Shuja Nawaz: Prepared statement ................................................................. 37

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 56

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 57

(1)

BAD COMPANY: LASHKAR E–TAYYIBA AND 

THE GROWING AMBITION OF ISLAMIST 

MILITANCY IN PAKISTAN 

THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2010

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST

AND SOUTH ASIA,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:36 p.m. in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Gary L. Ackerman 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. The committee will come to order. While U.S. attention has focused primarily on al-Qaeda and the Afghan and 

Pakistan Taliban, the Lashkar e-Tayyiba, or LET, and other violent Islamic extremist groups in Pakistan have been growing in 

both capability and ambition. As was demonstrated in the horrific 

Mumbai attack in November 2008, the al-Qaeda model of perpetrating highly visible, mass casualty attacks appears to have migrated with enormous potential consequences for the United States. 

With a team of ten well armed terrorists, a carefully coordinated 

plan of attack, and a team of controllers back in Pakistan in constant communication with the terrorist attack team, the LET in 3 

days killed 173 innocent people, wounded 308 others, and grabbed 

hold of the entire world’s attention. Communications intercepts 

that have been made public by the Government of India include an 

attack controller broadcasting about the carnage in Mumbai. This 

is just the trailer, he said, the main movie is yet to come. 

We need to take this threat very very seriously. The LET is a 

deadly serious group of fanatics. They are well financed, ambitious, 

and most disturbingly, both tolerated by and connected to the Pakistani military, the same Pakistani military to which we are selling 

advanced arms, the same Pakistani military that objected so bitterly to legislation this Congress passed to provide a massive $7.5 

billion plus-up in American assistance to their country, Pakistan, 

because our accompanying language with all that money suggests 

that Pakistan’s military should be answerable to a democratically 

elected government. 

Lashkar e-Tayyiba, which means the army of the righteous or 

the army of the pure, was set up with help from the Pakistani military as a proxy weapon for use in Jammu and Kashmir, parts of 

India that Pakistan has contested since partition in 1947. After 

9/11 Pakistan officially banned the LET, but the reality is that it 

2

is like other Islamist terrorist groups, LET maintains a clear public 

presence and a vast recruiting network by providing extremely useful charitable and social services to millions of impoverished people 

in Pakistan. 

Public estimates suggest LET operates some 2,000 offices in 

towns and villages throughout Pakistan as well as maintaining ties 

with the Pakistani military. There is in fact no reason to doubt 

that Pakistan’s military is likely paying compensation to the families of the terrorists killed in the Mumbai attacks. These are our 

allies in the war on terror. Operational funding for the LET comes 

from charitable fundraising amongst the general population in 

Pakistan, but also depends heavily upon contributions by Pakistani 

businessmen living abroad and other wealthy individuals from the 

Persian Gulf. Let us note too, these states are also our allies in the 

war on terror. 

But it would be unfair and wrong to suggest that the LET problem is strictly confined to Pakistan and Middle East. In fact, one 

of the key facilitators in the Mumbai attacks was an American of 

Pakistani extraction. Unfortunately, the LET enjoys a substantial 

global network stretching from the Philippines to the United Kingdom. There is a temptation to think that the LET is really India’s 

problem, that the LET is just interested in the so called liberation 

of Jammu and Kashmir. While it is true that the primary area of 

operations for the LET has historically been the Kashmir valley 

and the Jammu region, the LET has also undertaken repeated and 

numerous mass casualty attacks throughout India and in particular directed at the Indian Government. 

But the idea that this group can be appeased on the subject of 

Kashmir is dangerous nonsense. The LET’s true goal is not Kashmir, it is India, and the LET is not shy about announcing that its 

intention is to establish an Islamic state in all South Asia. Neither 

does it hide or try to play down its declaration of war against all, 

all Hindus and Jews, who they insist are ‘‘enemies of Islam.’’ In the 

wake of the Mumbai attack, investigators uncovered in controller 

records and email accounts a list of 320 locations worldwide 

deemed by the LET as possible targets for attack. Only 20 of the 

targets were located within India. 

The LET has been attacking U.S. forces in Afghanistan almost 

from day one, and their forces are present throughout Afghanistan. 

The LET has been slaughtering Indians by the score for decades. 

The LET has put the world on notice that they intend to escalate 

the carnage and spread it worldwide. This group of savages needs 

to be crushed, not starting in a month, not in a year, not when the 

situation stabilizes in Afghanistan, not when things are under control in Pakistan, now, today, and every day going forward. We are 

not doing it, and we are not effectively leading a global effort to do 

it, and we are going to regret this mistake, we are going to regret 

it bitterly. The ranking member. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ackerman follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for calling 

this hearing today so we can examine the ongoing struggle with 

Pakistan to deal with radical militants seeking to undermine Pakistan’s Government and threaten regional efforts to bring stability 

and peace to Pakistan as well as Afghanistan. For a very long time 

I have been a champion of Pakistan and a co-chairman of the Pakistani Caucus in Congress because I fundamentally believe that a 

stable, democratic, and prosperous Pakistan is vital to our interests. 

And I am extremely concerned, as are many other members of 

the committee, about the increasingly negative news reports coming out of Pakistan. A new threat has emerged within Pakistan 

that may perhaps be more powerful and dangerous than al-Qaeda, 

and that is the LET you talked about. It has proven in recent years 

that it is strong, well organized, and well resourced as a terrorist 

organization. LET’s growing influence has serious implications for 

regional, national, and international security interests. 

As we all know, Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal, which would 

pose a grave threat to the entire region should it fall under the 

control of the extremists. Since the LET’s most famous attack, the 

2008 incident in Mumbai, we have seen LET expand its stated objectives of liberating Kashmir to an embrace of global jihad against 

the West. In my opinion, resolving the dispute on Kashmir should 

be a crucial component of any military plan to defeat the militants 

and stabilize Pakistan. 

I do not know how the problem in Kashmir will ultimately be 

solved, however I personally believe that the people of Kashmir 

should be given the plebiscite that they were promised by the 

United Nations back in the ’40s. I have been a very strong supporter of a plebiscite on Kashmir and to let the Kashmiri people 

have the voice that they should have for a long time. And there 

have been thousands and thousands of Indian troops up there in 

that region imposing what in effect is martial law, and it has been 

a real problem. 

And I talked to President Musharraf and Prime Minister Singh 

about this when I was over there not long ago, and they came close 

to finding a compromise when they presented a proposal to pull the 

troops out of the cities and open crossings between India controlled 

Kashmir and Pakistan controlled Kashmir and allow the people to 

largely govern themselves. If this effort had been successful, I wonder if we would be looking at a different Pakistan today. 

And I would just like to add one other thing in here before I go 

on with my statement, and that is, I really believe Kashmir, the 

Kashmir problem, could be resolved if we could get the leaders in 

Pakistan and India to sit down together and look at this from a realistic point of view. It might take the wind out of the sails of some 

of the terrorist organizations. And so, while we don’t have a lot of 

television cameras here today, I hope that this message goes out 

to anybody beyond this room that they know that I feel very 

strongly that India and Pakistan ought to sit down and work this 

out so the people of Kashmir get what they have been promised for 

the last 50 or 60 years. 

Nevertheless, the immediate problem is confronting and destroying terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and LET before they can bring 

6

down another, either the Afghan or Pakistani Government and 

once again allow the region of the world to become a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of the people as they possibly can, 

it gets no clearer than that. Much like our efforts to eliminate alQaeda though, eliminating LET is proving to be a very daunting 

task as LET enjoys a stronghold, as the chairman said, and safe 

haven in parts of Pakistan. 

Furthermore, as Jeremy Khan, author of the recent Newsweek 

article, ‘‘The next al-Qaeda,’’ pointed out, LET’s parent organization has developed a large charity arm that is popular in both Punjab and Kashmir, where it runs schools and ambulance service, mobile clinics, and blood banks. It earned tremendous good will in 

Kashmir providing assistance after the 2005 earthquake, and I was 

over there and saw some of the damage that was done. As Khan 

warns in his article, moving against it could provoke civil unrest 

or even civil war. 

And that is why I think it is important that in addition to the 

problems we face in Afghanistan and Pakistan with the Taliban 

and al-Qaeda that we really take a hard look along with our allies 

Pakistan and India in trying to resolve this problem of Pakistan 

and Kashmir and Punjab as a way of de-emphasizing this problem 

and maybe slowing down the terrorist threat that is posed by LET. 

Clearly, that is no easy task, but we can’t shy away from it as the 

stakes are too far too high. 

As Pakistan goes, so goes Afghanistan, and while I disagree with 

the President on many foreign and domestic policy questions, I do 

believe that President Obama was right a few months ago when he 

declared the conflict in Afghanistan as not a war of choice, this is 

a war of necessity, this is fundamental to the defense of our people. 

I believe the President is also right to treat Afghanistan and Pakistan as one conflict. A destabilized Pakistan can only lead to a destabilized Afghanistan because the threat in Afghanistan feeds off 

the threat in Pakistan and vice versa. 

Victory is definitely possible, but it is not going to be easy. There 

is nothing easy about war, and this is especially true in these types 

of counterinsurgency efforts. These efforts require our troops to get 

out and do everything they can to gain the support of the populace 

and help them to rebuild. However, if we and our allies, including 

the Governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan, go all in and do 

what is required, we can still win. I look forward to hearing from 

our expert witnesses regarding what they feel is the winning formula for success. 

But I want to emphasize one more time—and I realize that I 

have gone over my time, Mr. Chairman—and that is that I have 

been working on this Kashmir and Punjab issue for years now, and 

even you and I have had some debates on it over the years, and 

I don’t believe we are ever going to solve that problem up there in 

Kashmir until India and Pakistan sit down together and say, what 

can we do to solve the problem so the people in Kashmir feel like 

they have a legitimate voice as was promised to them in the ’40s, 

late ’40s. And if we can get them to do that and include in the discussions the people from Kashmir, I think that we can defang in 

large part the LET, which has become a bigger threat. And with 

that, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

7

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thanks the ranking member. We will proceed 

now to introducing our distinguished panel. Dr. Marvin Weinbaum 

is a scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute. Previously 

Dr. Weinbaum was an analyst in the Bureau of Intelligence and 

Research at the Department of State, where he focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Dr. Weinbaum has also been director of the 

South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies program at the University of Illinois, senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace, and has 

held the Fulbright research fellowships in Afghanistan and Egypt. 

Ms. Lisa Curtis is a senior research fellow on South Asia at the 

Heritage Foundation. Before going to Heritage, Ms. Curtis worked 

for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as a professional staff 

member heading the South Asia portfolio for Senator Luger, former 

chairman of the committee. From 2001 to 2003 she served as senior 

advisor to State Department’s South Asia Bureau, where she advised the Assistant Secretary for South Asia on India-Pakistan relations. 

Dr. Ashley Tellis is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Commissioned into the Foreign Service, Dr. Tellis served as a senior advisor to both the U.S. Ambassador in New Delhi and to Under Secretary of State for Political 

Affairs Nick Burns, as well as serving on the National Security 

Council Staff as a special assistant to the president and senior director for strategic planning in South Asia. Prior to his government 

service, Dr. Tellis was a senior policy analyst at the Rand Corporation. 

Mr. Shuja Nawaz is the director of the South Asia Center at the 

Atlantic Council of the United States. Prior to joining the Atlantic 

Council, Mr. Nawaz held senior positions at the International Monetary Fund, the World Health Organization, and the International 

Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Dr. Nawaz was also a newscaster 

and producer for Pakistani television and covered the 1971 war 

with India from the western front. I want to thank our panel for 

being with us today. 

Mr. BURTON. Chairman, before we go to our panel, our colleague 

from California just came and he has a short opening statement he 

would like to make if it is all right with you, sir. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Well, he can make as long a statement as he 

has. 

Mr. BURTON. Okay. 

Mr. ROYCE. That is very kind of you. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Wilson—Mr. Royce, sitting in Mr. Wilson’s 

chair. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this hearing. 

Al-Qaeda has been our focus since 9/11. Yet the LET, the Pakistani 

based jihadist group that carried out the days long rampage in 

Mumbai, India, demands our attention. We will hear words today 

on the threat from the LET, but nothing more powerfully presents 

that case than the recent documentary, ‘‘Terror in Mumbai.’’ For 

those of you who have not seen it, I really suggest you do, because 

there you see the terrorists and you hear their words as they receive instructions from the controller safe in Pakistan. 

You hear the handler, anxious for the terrorists to hit the Jewish 

Cultural Center: ‘‘Every person you kill where you are is worth 50 

8

of the ones killed elsewhere.’’ Lashkar e-Tayyiba, or ‘‘Army of the 

Pure,’’ traces its roots to Afghanistan and the war against the Soviets, where Pakistani intelligence backed it. I should also say that 

part of its intellectual roots are in the Muslim Brotherhood, and 

frankly some of the architects come out of the Middle East for the 

LET. But afterwards, Pakistan’s ISI refocused LET to fighting 

India over disputed Kashmir. 

Given LET’s deep roots within Pakistan’s security services and 

its popular charity services, Pakistan is in a delicate dance ‘‘with 

a Frankenstein of its own making,’’ notes a former top 

counterterrorism official. Reading today’s testimony, it is clear that 

another Mumbai could happen again, along with all the accompanying tensions of two nuclear armed rivals that it would bring. 

But this isn’t just India’s problem. Mr. Chairman, Frankenstein is 

going global. 

The director of national intelligence just testified that LET is 

‘‘becoming more of a direct threat’’ and ‘‘placing Western targets in 

Europe in its sights.’’ Disturbingly, an American citizen was at the 

heart of the Mumbai attacks. He is now awaiting trial. Reportedly, 

a captured LET laptop contained a list of 320 potential targets, 

many outside of India. How many are American targets? As Lisa 

Curtis will testify this afternoon, ‘‘overlooking the activities of LET 

in Pakistan is equivalent to standing next to a ticking time bomb 

waiting for it to explode.’’ Mr. Chairman, the clock is running, and 

I thank you for holding this hearing. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much. We are joined by Mr. Bilirakis. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate it so 

much. Good afternoon, and welcome to our distinguished panel of 

witnesses today. I appreciate the chairman calling this hearing and 

allowing us the opportunity to learn more about the emerging global threat of the Pakistani based terrorist group LET. I am very 

concerned with how much of the people of Pakistan have suffered 

as a result of terrorists operating in western Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

Sadly, these terrorist groups have targeted religious minorities 

and other Pakistanis who oppose them. The most recent incident 

involved the Taliban capturing and beheading a Pakistani Sikh. 

While Pakistan has cooperating with the U.S. to combat these terrorist groups, it is vital that the U.S. develop a more comprehensive strategy with Pakistan in dealing with the threat of other terrorist groups and religious extremists that threaten both Pakistani 

and international security. 

The LET involvement in the Mumbai bombings in late 2008 and 

their growing involvement in attacks on the West necessitate the 

Pakistan end all ties with these terrorist groups and work to eliminate the threat they pose to the West. In light of these challenges, 

I look forward to hearing what the panel has to say about the 

threat of the LET and their suggestions for how this threat should 

be addressed. Again I thank you for your testimony this afternoon. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. We will now go directly to our previously introduced panel. Dr. Weinbaum? 

9

STATEMENT OF MARVIN WEINBAUM, PH.D., SCHOLAR-INRESIDENCE, THE MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE 

Mr. WEINBAUM. Thank you. Lashkar e-Tayyiba has evolved from 

being a government sponsored Pakistani jihadi group dedicated to 

the insurgency in India and Kashmir into a terrorist organization 

with regional and global ambitions and reach. In the U.S. focus on 

al-Qaeda, it has failed to take into full account the presence of 

other organizations capable of surpassing and replacing al-Qaeda 

as a terrorist threat worldwide. LET is probably the leading candidate for such a role. 

It exceeds al-Qaeda in its capacity for recruitment and fundraising across the Islamic world. Unlike al-Qaeda, LET has strong 

societal roots and enjoys the protection of the institutions of a 

state. LET is determined to use violent means to inflict damage on 

American and Western interests internationally. Despite its 

transnational views that envision the emergence of a ‘‘caliphate’’ 

across the Islamic world, the organization champions militant Pakistani nationalism and thrives on its association with domestic 

charitable activities. 

LET was originally the offspring of a group called Markaz AlDawa-Wal-Irshad, which was founded in the early 1980s by a Palestinian who was for a time at least an ideological mentor to 

Osama bin Laden. This parent organization created a military wing 

which was the LET in 1990. LET was principally designed to provide Pakistan’s military with a proxy force of recruited fighters to 

augment the Islamic insurgency in India and Kashmir. But by the 

late 1990s, LET was engaged as well in training Islamic militants 

in Afghanistan and Pakistan coming from countries ranging from 

Egypt to the Philippines. 

In 2001, LET’s parent organization changed its name to Jamaatud-Dawa, and LET, the following year, was banned by the Pakistan Government, it simply folded itself into the charity organization. The organization directs a wide network of social services and 

institutions, including Madrassas, secondary schools, and a major 

medical mission. It receives funding from mosque collections, expatriate Pakistanis in the Gulf and Britain, Islamic NGOs, and Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen. 

Like other extremist organization, it also draws money from 

drugs and smuggling. There are suspicions that it gets direct financial assistance from the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency as well. When Pakistan in 2002 curtailed its assistance to Pakistani insurgents after a U.S. broke its ceasefire that year in Kashmir, the organization with the knowledge of the ISI shifted most 

of its training camps and militant operations to the western border 

with Afghanistan. 

Despite the government’s ban of LET, Pakistan’s ISI continues to 

consider the organization an asset. The ISI is believed to share intelligence and provide protection for LET. We could talk about if 

we had time Muhammad Saeed and his virtual impunity and what 

that demonstrates. Let me say that there has been reciprocation on 

the part of LET and that it has refrained from involvement in attacks against the Pakistan army and against Pakistani civilians. 

In fact, although it is very definitely part of the terrorist network 

which includes the Tehriq-e Taliban, the Pakistan Taliban, and alVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 Jul 21, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\MESA\031110\55399 HFA PsN: SHIRL
10

Qaeda and the Haqqani network, it is viewed by some of the jihadi 

groups as being too soft on the state of Pakistan, and other extremist groups are skeptical of its linkages with ISI. The current leadership in Pakistan may recognize, as it turns out, better than any 

previous government the dangers that LET and its groups pose to 

the state. 

But the organization’s deep penetration of the country’s social 

fabric makes any attempt to reign it in by the beleaguered People’s 

Party impossible without the military’s full commitment. Moreover, 

party and provincial politics in Pakistan adds a further obstacle. 

The major opposition, the Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League resists a 

challenge to the feared LET that could put at risk the party’s ascendant position in the Punjab. I assume my time has just about 

run out, unfortunately. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Weinbaum follows:]

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Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Curtis? Everybody’s full statement will be part of the record. 

STATEMENT OF MS. LISA CURTIS, SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW, ASIAN STUDIES CENTER, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION 

Ms. CURTIS. Thank you very much, Chairman Ackerman, Ranking Member Burton, and thank you very much for holding this very 

important hearing. The Lashkar e-Tayyiba was not a widely known 

group before the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, but its links to al-Qaeda 

go back over a decade, and it has long posed a threat to vital U.S. 

national security interests including promoting stability in South 

Asia and degrading the overall terrorist threat emanating from the 

region. 

Although its primary focus has been India, its sharp anti-West 

ideology, willingness to kill innocents on a massive scale, and operational ties to al-Qaeda, should have raised alarm bells in Washington long ago. Instead, the U.S. Government has tended to view 

the LET primarily through the Indo-Pakistani prism, and thus has 

not taken the group as seriously as it has al-Qaeda. That attitude 

has proved short sighted. 

The arrest of Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley at 

Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on October 3rd, 2009, may mark one of 

the most significant counterterrorism breakthroughs since 9/11. 

Headley was arrested for conspiring with the LET in Pakistan to 

conduct attacks in India and for plotting an attack on the Danish 

newspaper that first published controversial cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in 2005. Headley traveled frequently to Pakistan, 

where he trained with the LET. He also went to India where he 

scouted sights for the Mumbai attacks as well as sights for future 

attacks including on India’s National Defense College in New Delhi 

and two well known boarding schools. 

The findings from the Headley investigations have awakened 

U.S. official to the gravity of the international threat posed by 

Pakistan’s failure to crack down on terrorist groups including those 

that primarily target India. The Headley investigations are changing the way the U.S. Government views the LET. State Department Counter-Terrorism Coordinator Daniel Benjamin, for instance, recently said that the Headley investigations show the LET 

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But what is most troubling about the Headley case is what it has 

revealed about the proximity of the Pakistan military to the LET. 

The U.S. Department of Justice indictment that was unsealed on 

January 14th names a retired Pakistani Army Major as Headley’s 

handler. While the allegations do not point to any serving Pakistani army or intelligence officials as being involved in the Mumbai 

attacks, they do reveal the Pakistan army’s past support and continued toleration of the LET contributed to the group’s ability to 

conduct those attacks. 

It took several months for Islamabad to admit publicly that Pakistanis had been involved in the Mumbai tragedy. Islamabad did 

eventually arrest seven LET operatives, including those that India 

fingered as being the masterminds of the attack. However, there 

are indications that the LET as an organization continues to operate relatively freely in the country. On February 5th, for example, 

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, one of the cofounders of the LET, addressed a crowd of thousands in Lahore, Pakistan, where he called 

for additional attacks on India. Eight days later, terrorists bombed 

a German bakery in Pune, India, killing at least 15. 

Saeed’s release from jail and ability to hold public rallies sends 

a strong signal that terrorism will be tolerated in Pakistan. Now, 

the degree of control that the Pakistani intelligence services retain 

over LET’s operations remains an open question. Some Pakistani 

officials claim al-Qaeda has infiltrated the LET and that elements 

of the LET were freelancing. Regardless of whether the Pakistani 

authorities did or did not have control of the group that carried out 

the Mumbai attacks, they are now responsible for taking actions 

that close down the group. 

Therefore, the U.S. must develop policies that approach the LET 

with the same urgency as that which the U.S. deals with the threat 

from al-Qaeda. The Mumbai attacks and the Headley investigations reveal that the LET has the international capabilities and the 

ideological inclination to attack Western targets whether they are 

located in South Asia or elsewhere. The U.S. must convince 

Islamabad to take decisive action to neutralize the LET before it 

can conduct additional attacks that could well involve Western targets and possibly precipitate an Indo-Pakistani military conflict. 

Moving forward, the U.S. needs to closely monitor Pakistani actions to dismantle the LET. Merely banning the organization has 

done little to degrade its capabilities. The U.S. should also avoid 

conveying a message that the U.S. is more interested in some terrorist groups than others, which only encourages the Pakistani 

leadership to avoid confronting the LET. Washington also should 

repeat messages like that of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, when 

he wrote in a recent op-ed about the futility of trying to distinguish 

between terrorist groups that share more commonalities than they 

do differences. Lastly, the U.S. should assure Pakistani leaders 

that the U.S. will monitor closely India’s military posture toward 

Pakistan as it seeks to dismantle dangerous groups like the LET. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Curtis follows:]

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Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. 

Dr. Tellis? 

STATEMENT OF ASHLEY J. TELLIS, PH.D., SENIOR ASSOCIATE, 

SOUTH ASIA PROGRAM, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR 

INTERNATIONAL PEACE 

Mr. TELLIS. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, thank you for 

inviting me this afternoon. Last year I had the opportunity to testify before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security on the 

LET as an organization and its ideology. I won’t go over the substance of that testimony again here, but I wanted to focus on the 

issue that I was asked to, which is the impact of LET on IndiaPakistan relations. Let me summarize my testimony today in the 

form of eight propositions. 

First, let me affirm what others have said before me, that the 

LET today, after al-Qaeda, remains the most important terrorist 

group that operates in South Asia. But what is important to recognize is that it has become the spearhead of the Pakistan military’s 

campaign against India. This campaign no longer consists of fomenting insurgencies within India, as was the case in the 1990s. 

In the early 1990s, the Pakistan military sought to exploit domestic 

discontent within India, and exploit it for its own purposes. After 

1993, the strategy changed. It moved from exploiting domestic discontent to unleashing terrorism, which is aiding groups whose only 

purpose of existence is to engage in indiscriminate attacks against 

civilians throughout the length and breadth of the Indian 

landmass. 

The second proposition, LET has grown enormously in competence and its capabilities. Its capacity to engage in terrorist attacks worldwide has increased. But today, it does not need the constant operational support that it once needed from the ISI to conduct these operations. Yet, the tight organizational linkages between LET and the ISI persist to this day, even though Pakistan 

remains officially an ally of the United States in the war on terror 

and even though Pakistan officially has banned LET and its parent 

organization. 

Third, the Pakistan army and the ISI have certain objectives 

with respect to LET. They seek to modulate its terrorism, not to 

end it. They seek to modulate it in order that its actions do not embarrass the Pakistani state or provoke a major Indo-Pakistani war. 

But the record since 2001 shows clearly that they have no intentions of putting LET out of business. 

Fourth, it is important that the United States recognize Pakistan’s deep investments in the LET and cease to refer to LET as 

if it were an independent actor whose actions are intended to embarrass the Pakistani state. Rather, LET remains to this day an instrument of the Pakistani intelligence services. The investigations 

that have occurred in the context of the Headley case demonstrate 

clearly ISI’s links with the attacks that took place in Bombay. 

Fifth, it is to President Obama’s credit that he has made it an 

important objective that Pakistan target LET if a new U.S.-Pakistan strategic relationship is to be sustained. I believe a U.S.-Pakistan strategic relationship is in the interest of both countries. But 

thus far, the Pakistani state has been unresponsive to the PresiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 Jul 21, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\MESA\031110\55399 HFA PsN: SHIRL
25

dent’s entreaties to suppress LET. Sixth, the most immediate challenge that LET poses for the United States is the risk that its operations in India will provoke a crisis in India-Pakistan relations that 

end up with the threat of war. If we have been lucky to escape that 

problem so far, it has been largely because Prime Minister 

Manmohan Singh has been forebearant in terms of his response to 

Pakistan. 

Seventh, despite the provocations posed by LET’s actions, Prime 

Minister Singh has yet made another attempt to restart the dialogue with Pakistan. But by all accounts, this dialogue is unlikely 

to be fruitful in the near term for want of a suitable partner in 

Pakistan capable of conducting a dialogue that leads to the agreement that the ranking member rightly pointed out is necessary if 

we have to close the books on this group. 

Eighth and last, all U.S. efforts so far to encourage Pakistan to 

suppress the LET have failed. I think we need to face up to that 

fact. And therefore we will have to increasingly consider what is a 

very unpalatable possibility, that we might have to target LET and 

its operatives unilaterally as part of our efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Thank you very much for your attention. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tellis follows:]

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Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Nawaz? 

STATEMENT OF MR. SHUJA NAWAZ, DIRECTOR, THE SOUTH 

ASIA CENTER 

Mr. NAWAZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Congressman Burton, and members of the committee, I am honored to 

speak before you today. Today’s topic is at the heart of the dangers 

that confront Pakistan today. The Lashkar e-Tayyiba represents a 

word that has been used often, a Frankenstein’s monster created 

for the purpose of assisting the Kashmiri freedom movement but 

that ended up becoming a powerful Sunni Punjabi movement with 

an independent agenda that appears to have taken on a broader regional role. 

It was born out of the U.S. backed Afghan jihad against the Soviets and built on the training provided by that war to Punjabi fighters who could then inculcate Kashmiri fighters in their ways. Successive civil and military leaders of Pakistan supported the movement as a strategic asset to counter a powerful India to the east 

and to force it to negotiate for a settlement of the disputed territory 

by waging a war of ‘‘a thousand cuts.’’ Over time, however, the 

sponsored organization took a life of its own, finding the economically disadvantaged area of central and southern Punjab to be fertile territory for recruitment of jihadi warriors. 

In a country, Mr. Chairman, where the median age is estimated 

to be 18 years, and hence half the population of 175 million is 

below that age, the recruitment pool of unemployed and impressionable youth is large. The attraction of the militant’s message 

cannot be countered by military might alone. It has to be addressed 

at the core by changing the underlying socioeconomic conditions 

that foster militancy as a passport to a better life here and in the 

hereafter. 

LET spread its wings nationwide using its contacts to raise funds 

from the public and gradually has attained autarkic status. It spun 

off a social welfare organization, the Jamaat ud Dawa, that proselytizes on behalf of the LET while providing much needed social 

services. In doing this, the LET was playing to the weakness of the 

corrupt political system of Pakistan that failed to recognize and 

meet the basic needs of its population at large while only catering 

to the elites. 

Over time, the Inter-Services Intelligence began losing its control 

as the LET became self sufficient. But the realization that the LET 

had become autonomous was slow in being understood or accepted 

in the ISI and by the military leadership of Pakistan under General Pervez Musharraf. Now, General Musharraf did make an effort to lower the political temperature in Kashmir and began 

distancing the state from the LET. However, the process was not 

handled as well as it could have. 

Similar to the disbanding of the Iraqi army after the U.S. invasion, when thousands of trained soldiers and officers were let go, 

the LET was cut loose without a comprehensive plan to disarm, retrain, and gainfully reemploy the fighters. A dangerous corollary 

was the induction into the militancy of some former members of 

36

the military who had trained and guided them in their war in 

Kashmir. 

What should we do? I believe that it may not be too late to assist 

Pakistan in crafting a plan to reach out to the fighters of the LET 

and other Punjabi militant organizations and by involving their extended families in the process provide trainings and stipends to 

wean them away from their militant path. The extended family 

unit can play a role in ensuring against recidivism on the part of 

the fighters. 

Simultaneously it is critical to focus on drastically changing the 

Islamist curriculum of public schools, a vestige of the period of 

General Zia-ul-Hap’s rule, and invest in south and central Punjab 

to create job opportunities that would lift up the relatively backward population of this area. Mr. Chairman, enough evidence exists now to link the Sunni militant groups Sipah-e-Sahaba and 

Jesh Muhammad with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and the LET’s 

emerging role as a trans-regional force that has broadened its aim 

to include India and perhaps even Afghanistan. 

By linking with the students Islamic movement of India and the 

Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami of Bangladesh, it poses a serious threat 

to regional stability. As has been said before, another Mumbai type 

attack involving the LET might bring Pakistan into conflict, a prospect that should keep us awake at night. Now, it appears that the 

army’s recent actions has dislocated the Teriki Taliban of Pakistan, 

yet it faces a huge, and to my mind greater, threat in the hinterland in the form of the LET. 

My own research into the recruitment of the Pakistan army over 

1970 to 2005 indicates that the army is now recruiting heavily in 

the same area from where the LET springs. Unless we change the 

underlying social and economic conditions there, the Islamist militancy will start seeping into the military. Mr. Chairman, I am 

grateful that this committee is focusing on this issue, and thank 

you for allowing me to share some of my ideas. I shall be glad to 

take questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nawaz follows:]

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Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you, and thank all of you. Well, it seems 

we have a unanimity in a panel in that everybody is an alarmist. 

Now where do we go? I think there is also general agreement that 

the ISI/Pakistani military has been complicit in creating the 

Frankenstein monster, seems not to be able to control the Frankenstein monster, they are still able to influence it, and that if I am 

not mistaken everybody made reference to a belief or suspicion that 

the Frankenstein monster can live independently even were it not 

receiving substantial support from the Pakistan military. I would 

surmise if that is accurate that the Pakistan military could make 

it a little bit more difficult and uncomfortable. 

The threat that this posed in the creation of this terrorist that 

everybody considers an international terrorist group at this point, 

everybody on the panel, the question is whose responsibility is it? 

The answer to that is everybody’s, because it is international. My 

question is, in addition to how big is this Frankenstein monster—

can anybody quantify the number of people or the rate of growth 

that it might have? But what strategy might be employed and what 

expectation might there be that we get Pakistan, its military and 

the intelligence services, to determine that LET is no longer useful, 

is counterproductive, and to concur in the fact that it must be done 

away with? That is a big question. Let us start with Dr. 

Weinbaum. 

Mr. WEINBAUM. With regard to your question, Congressman, I 

think something else has to happen, and that is the attitude of the 

people of Pakistan. I think it is more than simply a decision here 

on the part of the government, which would be very difficult without a different view of particularly the charity work with which 

LET is associated, although not the name LET. We have a larger 

task here. It is part of this larger problem that we see here about 

the poisonous atmosphere that exists and the willingness of people 

to accept conspiracy theories as facts. 

So this is a formidable task, of course, but it is more than simply 

convincing the elites in Pakistan what to do, I don’t believe that 

there is any likelihood that they are going to move without a 

change of attitude by the people of Pakistan, and what that means 

is that they have to be addressing the people themselves and pointing out what counterproductive ways in which LET is operating for 

the security of Pakistan. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I think, before going down the rest of the line, 

I think the dilemma the world is facing is that all of these groups, 

whether it be Hammas or Hezbollah or LET or Robin Hood and his 

Merry Men, have captured the imagination of the general population by providing social services that governments have not provided to a rather desperate people and societies. And without being 

accused of being a wild-eyed liberal and saying, you know, thinking 

we have to just redistribute the wealth in the world, certainly you 

have to give poor people and disadvantaged people a stake in their 

own societies in those countries that we are talking about where 

there is none. That is a huge undertaking. In the mean time, somebody has to provide law and order and get rid of bad guys. You 

know, it will be generations before you can build up the economy 

of any of these places to Scandinavia. Anybody just want to comVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 Jul 21, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\MESA\031110\55399 HFA PsN: SHIRL
43

ment on that? My time is over but Ranking Member is concurring 

in my generosity to myself. Mr. Nawaz? 

Mr. NAWAZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Since I have spent a substantial portion of my life at the IMF and the World Bank, I believe that economics is at the heart of it and you have quite rightly 

identified that. But I believe that it is possible to accelerate the 

process of change, and it has to be an internal process of change, 

it is not something that will come from outside. First of all, a recognition by Pakistan that it faces an existential threat from within 

and not from outside. 

Secondly, the possibility of opening those areas where the terrorist groups and the extremists are recruiting heavily, and my research on this indicates as well as juxtaposed against the recruitment of the Pakistan military, it is central and southern Punjab. 

It is a vast area, very heavily populated, the military cannot take 

military action given the fact that it is now fighting on the western 

frontier. 

So what is the best way? The best way probably is to open up 

the economies of this. And what is the best way of opening up the 

economy of the Punjab is to open up the border with India. The moment you return to trade of 70 percent between India and Pakistan 

instead of the 2 or 3 percent that it is currently of GDP, you can 

I think overnight transform that region. The kind of employment 

generation that will occur on the Indian side of the border as well 

as on the Pakistan side of the border will make it impossible for 

people to be lured away by the kind of payments that the terrorist 

groups now make. 

Mr. TELLIS. If I may make two points. First I would like to qualify the analogy of the Frankenstein’s monster. We think of it as the 

Frankenstein’s monster. I don’t think the Pakistani state thinks of 

the LET as a Frankenstein’s monster, because the LET as Dr. 

Weinbaum has pointed out has been very careful not to attack 

state interests in Pakistan, to maintain its links with key institutions like the Pakistani intelligence services. And so the idea that 

somehow this is a organization that is going to turn back and bite 

the Pakistani state, that urgency is certainly not shared by key institutions in Pakistan. 

Secondly with respect to dealing with the challenge, LET certainly has two streams. There is a civilian stream that is focused 

on its charities, but there is a very distinct military stream that 

is involved in its operations, and there is no reason why in principle the Pakistani state cannot make a distinction between these 

two streams. These are two different categories of people. The people who go out to do charitable work are not the people who do the 

gunrunning and who do the killing. If the Pakistani state decided 

that it wanted to go after the military components while leaving 

the civilian or the charitable components aside, it could. The reason 

it won’t is because it does not really accept the fundamental analogy of the Frankenstein’s monster. 

Ms. CURTIS. Mr. Chairman, if I might just emphasize Dr. Tellis’s 

point that we may be missing the forest through the trees here. 

There are steps that the Pakistan Government, namely the Pakistan military and intelligence services, can take. Number one, they 

can prevent Hafiz Muhammad Saeed from making provocative 

44

statements calling for attacks on India. That has nothing to do 

with charity work. They can disrupt the ability of this group to 

train on Pakistani territory, to finance itself. 

And I also want to point out I don’t see the LET as having this 

broad support base in Pakistan. In fact, I would like to quote Pakistan’s former Information Minister, Sherry Rehman, who said 

shortly after Hafiz Muhammad Saeed made this very provocative 

statement, she said this in Parliament, ‘‘What is the point of our 

innocent civilians and soldiers dying in a borderless war against 

such terrorists when armed, banned outfits can hold the whole nation hostage in the heart of Punjab’s provincial capital?’’ So the 

point is, this group is not widely supported in Pakistan, in particular by the civilian leadership, and if we want something done, 

we need to prevail particularly on the Pakistan military to take 

steps to prevent this group from being able to operate militarily. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Burton? 

Mr. BURTON. You know, I have been involved along with the 

chairman probably for 15 or 20 years on the Kashmiri and Punjab 

issue, and I believe after all the years I have talked to people from 

Kashmir and Punjab and Pakistan and India that until you solve 

the problems up in Punjab and Kashmir you are never going to 

solve the problems that you are talking about today, it just is not 

going to happen. You know, it is just not going to happen. 

Now, you have got a nuclear power in Pakistan and you have got 

a nuclear power in India, and if all hell breaks loose, it is going 

to be a mess there. Everybody knows that, it could disrupt the 

whole region. And then you have got of course Iran over there trying to develop a nuclear capability, it just could be a horrible situation. But the thing that bothers me is that for 20 years now, and 

the chairman and I have had our differences over this, there has 

been no resolution of the Kashmir province. 

Since 1947 when they had partition, the U.N. resolution that 

dealt with Kashmir has never been carried out, there has never 

been a plebiscite on that up there. India has claimed it, and there 

has been a lot of reasons why some royal leaders up there have 

ceded some of the territory to India, which I am not sure they had 

the ability to do, but nevertheless it has continued to be a problem, 

and the people in Kashmir where a lot of this has started, they are 

not going to stop. And they are going to get support from people 

who are sympathetic to them from military or religious standpoint. 

And so I don’t know why our learned experts here, and I know 

you are very knowledgeable, and the people in the military in India 

and in Pakistan, don’t realize that everybody is walking around 

with a fuse in their hand that could blow up at almost any time. 

The Mumbai attack could have precipitated something but cooler 

heads did prevail. But I have seen, they have brought me pictures 

time and time again of people who had been disemboweled and 

sewed up and thrown in rivers up there in Kashmir and the people 

who had been tortured and killed in Punjab by the military, and 

I am sure there is atrocities coming the other way as well, but it 

is not going to go away. 

And you know, I don’t know how many hearings we have had on 

these subjects but there have been a lot of them, and everybody 

talks about, today it sounds like predominantly that Pakistan and 

45

their connection with the LET and other things are mainly responsible and I am sure there is a lot of blame there, but there is blame 

on the other side too. And I wish all of the experts and the people 

in the governments involved as well as the United States would 

make as their number one goal resolving the issues that have been 

prevailing for a long, long time, and that is resolving the issue of 

Kashmir. 

And I think the only way to do that is to get the Pakistani Government and the India Government and the people in Kashmir together and resolve some way for them to solve that problem in 

Kashmir that has been existing since 1948. And until you get that 

done, you are not going to solve this problem. And India can’t attack Pakistan because if they do Pakistan has got the ability to retaliate with a nuclear weapon and vice versa. And so the killing is 

going to go on, and the festering that is created from this impasse 

is just going to grow. 

And I just asked my staff how many people live up there, and 

there is at least 10 million people, so there is a reservoir of people 

to become terrorists. A lot of these young people, I mean they hear 

their parents and they see the things that is happening with the 

Indian troops occupying that area and they have seen the atrocities 

on both sides, and they say, you know, to hell with it, let us just 

fight them, we will kill them. And it just gets worse and worse and 

worse. 

So that is why I went over there and I talked to Prime Minister 

Singh personally, and I talked to President Musharraf personally, 

and they had opened a small opening in the border so that there 

could be some communication and traveling back and forth. But as 

far as moving troops back from Kashmir, even 50 miles or 25 miles 

so that they could feel a little autonomy there and actually start 

discussions on how to solve the problem, you know, I just don’t 

think it is going to be resolved. 

And I think as the chairman said, you know, this is kind of like 

the Gordian knot. And the Gordian knot by Alexander was not untied, he just chopped it in two, and I think the way to chop this 

in two is to get the parties together. And the United States has 

been working in the Middle East between the Palestinians and the 

Israelis for years, and the Egyptians and the Lebanese and all the 

countries involved, Jordan, to try to solve their problems. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Gentleman is yielded an additional 5 minutes. 

Mr. BURTON. Well, I am not going to take that much time, Mr. 

Chairman, I am just feeling exasperated, and I know you feel that 

way too because we have talked about this on the floor, this has 

been going on forever, and it is an issue that could blow up at any 

time into something much larger than what we have seen in 

Mumbai or any of the other attacks over there. And all we do is 

we keep talking about who is at fault and who is doing this and 

who is doing that. We ought to look at the U.N. resolutions of the 

late ’40s, which are still in effect, and we ought to try to live up 

to those. And there has got to be some way to do that and to cut 

through this Gordian knot. 

And I really appreciate the expertise of the people here, but I get 

so frustrated because I see the killing and I see this thing festering 

and getting into a bigger and bigger problem because there is no 

46

way to exhaust the kind of weapons these people can get, and they 

are going to be more and more sophisticated, and then you have 

got nuclear weapons. I mean we keep talking about it and tinking 

around with it, but nothing gets done and we run the risk of a 

major conflagration which could erupt if not now, 2 years in the future, 5 years in the future, because we aren’t realistically looking 

at how to solve the problem. 

And the way to solve the problem is to do like we are trying to 

do between Palestine and Israel and get these people together and 

find out what they can all live with. And then if you do that, you 

start to do as I said earlier in my remarks, defang the terrorist 

groups. Because the reason they were originated is not just because 

of poverty, it is because they hate the Indians and they want their 

autonomy and they want the plebiscite they were promised and all 

that other stuff. So it is a combination of things. You can respond 

if you want to. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Any takers? Dr. Weinbaum? 

Mr. WEINBAUM. If I could just add on to the problem in a way. 

Because, without discounting the importance of LET in terms of 

the reconciliation between India and Pakistan and the spoiler role 

that it can play, I don’t think we have given enough attention this 

afternoon to LET as a global organization. I believe that it has 

demonstrated that in the past its members, for example, took part 

in the Balkans, they were involved in the war in Tajikistan. What 

we see here is a capacity on the part of the LET that certainly 

which reaches into Afghanistan. 

If we should fail in Afghanistan, I think there is no doubt that 

the LET would become along with the Taliban a force here which 

has implications that go beyond just this area. I might mention 

that we know of at least 17 countries where the LET has chapters. 

So my point here is that, as much of a concern as the LET poses 

to Pakistan and to Indo-Pakistani relations, LET is evolving into 

something which is far greater, an organization which has by its 

own statements has global ambitions, and what I am also saying 

it is also developing a global capacity. 

Ms. CURTIS. Just quickly, you talked about the problem and a 

possible resolution as being a plebiscite. But frankly, in my visits 

to the region I haven’t heard support for the idea of a plebiscite. 

And in fact I think one of the most significant things that has happened over the last decade was President Musharraf actually dropping Pakistani insistence on having a plebiscite, and in fact he 

made a very important statement in December 2006 where he said 

Pakistan would be willing to give up its claim on Kashmir if four 

things happened. 

He said, if the line of control that divides Kashmir was made irrelevant—which means people could freely pass back and forth, 

goods could pass back and forth—two, if Kashmir was given greater autonomy, three, if both sides could figure out a joint mechanism to interact, to have the two sides of Kashmir, Pakistani Kashmir and Indian Kashmir, interact. So he made a very forward looking proposal, and as we know from Steve Coll who wrote about this 

in the New Yorker magazine not too long ago, they were very close 

to coming to some kind of agreement or understanding on Kashmir. 

47

So I think the point is the two sides are capable of moving forward. And I agree, they should sit down and do this, but I think 

we have to look at what right now at this moment, 2010, is preventing that. And I think that is where we have to in a sense, you 

do have to assess blame. If you want them to really get back to 

genuine negotiations then we have to look at what is holding that 

up at this particular moment. 

Mr. BURTON. I just want to make a couple comments. The plebiscite was promised in 1948. I know what he said, and I think that 

is great, that is a great step in the right direction, because I talked 

to President Musharraf just about that. And the other thing I 

would like to say is that this is a breeding ground for the expansion of the LET, in my opinion. And I think that if we could figure 

out a way to solve this problem, as President Musharraf laid out, 

I think it would be a step in the right direction, which could possibly lead, maybe not, could possibly lead to helping reduce the aggressiveness of that organization. Because an awful lot of that 

stems from what was been going on for 20 years in Kashmir and 

that whole region. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. We will try to come back. Mr. Connolly? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would ask 

unanimous consent that my opening statement be entered into the 

record. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Without objection. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And welcome to all 

of our panelists. I am going to try to squeeze in four questions, so 

if we could all be concise, that would be great. First question, what 

in your opinion is in fact the current nature of the relationship between LET and ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service? Who wants 

to begin? Mr. Nawaz? 

Mr. NAWAZ. Well, yes, Congressman, I would be happy to address 

that. As I stated in my opening remarks, I think that relationship 

has changed over time, and that after President Musharraf made 

a decision to distance himself from the groups that were operating 

in Kashmir that there was a kind of a hands off approach, and I 

think it was not a part of a comprehensive plan. And it has backfired, as a result of which the group has basically become completely independent. But I did mention that the former trainers 

and associates from the ISI perhaps now have an opportunity of 

independently working with the LET. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, let me ask a follow-up question to that, because we have the same kind of problem frankly with the ISI and 

the Taliban. Are we to believe that the ISI can operate sort of a 

rogue mission independent of the central Government of Pakistan, 

or is it done with a wink and a blink from the central Government 

of Pakistan? Because we hear denials about that relationship with 

the Taliban as well, and yet we know that there are deep historical 

ties between the two. 

Mr. NAWAZ. I don’t believe the ISI acts independently of the government or the power centers in Pakistan, and I use my words very 

carefully. I think at the operational level, and particularly when 

you refer to Fatah, the border region, because of the nature of the 

recruitment pool of the operatives at the field there is a tremendous amount of ambivalence, because you have to go into the tribal 

48

system and recruit people there. So you cannot have 100 percent 

control over people in the field. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Anyone else on this? Dr. Tellis? 

Mr. TELLIS. Let me answer that as specifically as I can. The relationship between LET and ISI is still extremely tight, and there 

are four specific dimensions of that relationship. The ISI protects 

the LET leadership, it gives safe haven to the cadres, and it provides protection to the leadership, that is number one. Two, it provides the organization with intelligence on specific threats to the 

organization and specific targets that may be of interest to the organization. 

Three, it provides campaign guidance when required. LET does 

quite well on its own and can do scouting of its own targets independently today, but there have been instances where ISI has continued to provide campaign guidance. And four, ISI continues to 

provide infiltration assistance, particularly when LET operatives 

have to go to third countries using the assistance of ISI stations. 

So there are four distinct ways in which LET and ISI operations 

continue to be coordinated. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. 

Ms. CURTIS. I would just reiterate, I don’t think ISI is a rogue 

operation, and they do have tight links with the Lashkar eTayyiba. But I would say what is most dangerous, it seems to be 

when you have these retired officials. In my opening I talked about 

the Headley investigations and how the U.S. affidavit names a 

former Pakistani Army Major as being the actual handler for 

Headley. And so the question is, did he leave on his own volition? 

Is he retired because that provides more deniability? So these are 

a lot of the questions that I think need to be asked. 

Mr. WEINBAUM. I just have one comment, and that is to repeat 

something I said earlier, that as far as Pakistan is concerned, the 

LET does not present the same kind of threat that many of the 

other organizations, Lashkar Jhangvi particularly, are threats to 

the state of Pakistan. So that there is an opportunity here for a 

modus vivendi so that they share common objectives. Therefore, to 

the degree in which LET continues to do so, and it is a question 

about whether it will continue to do so, there is no reason for the 

ISI as such to turn against it. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, and my time is up, Mr. Chairman, 

and I got one question in. Thank you. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Stick around. Mr. Royce? 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Chairman. Dr. Tellis: Of the amalgam of 

jihadists that operate in Pakistan, is it safe to say that the LET 

receives the least amount of scrutiny from the Pakistani Government? 

Mr. TELLIS. That is correct. 

Mr. ROYCE. A recent Newsweek article reported that ‘‘unlike alQaeda which is on the run and largely confined, LET operates terrorist training camps more or less in the open’’ in Pakistan. I would 

ask you, is this an accurate description of this, do people agree that 

this is? 

Mr. TELLIS. That is correct, and they have an annual meeting 

which is often attended by important political personalities in PakiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 Jul 21, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00052 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\MESA\031110\55399 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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stan. And the annual meeting is essentially a jamboree for jihadists 

that takes place in Muridke, and it is an open event. 

Mr. ROYCE. But some of the officials that attend, are they parliamentarians? 

Mr. TELLIS. There are both elected officials and there are officials 

from more shadowy parts of the Pakistani Government that attend 

these meetings. 

Mr. ROYCE. And if I could ask Dr. Weinbaum, you note in your 

testimony that LET’s chief, Hafiz Saeed, because of his work with 

young people during his time at an engineering university became 

in your words, you said he is believed to have many sympathizers 

within Pakistan’s scientific community, especially in the nuclear 

and missile fields. 

Mr. WEINBAUM. Correct. 

Mr. ROYCE. People have often asked how many al-Qaeda sympathizers are in Pakistani security establishment. You know, your 

question strikes us that maybe we are asking the wrong question. 

Maybe the real question we should have been asking ourselves is, 

what about LET elements in the nuclear field? And have you given 

some thought to that? 

Mr. WEINBAUM. Well, I believe that what we have here is obviously just circumstantial evidence. 

Mr. ROYCE. Yes. 

Mr. WEINBAUM. But what we do know, and obviously we are concerned about——

Mr. ROYCE. Well, their membership is 150,000 people, according 

to Newsweek, in Pakistan. 

Mr. WEINBAUM. Well, again, how do you separate Jamaat-udDawa, the charity wing, from the political military wing that LET 

constitutes? that is very blurred. And it is really the strength of the 

organization is the fact that it has this charity persona. 

Mr. ROYCE. No, I understand that. 

Mr. WEINBAUM. Yes. 

Mr. ROYCE. Well, so let me ask Lisa a question here. British 

Pakistanis have been known to use the ‘‘Kashmir escalator’’ after 

getting introduced to LET or others in Kashmir, then they connect 

with al-Qaeda operatives. And last year a British official estimated 

that 4,000 people were trained in this way since 9/11, and it accounted for three out of four of the serious terrorist plots faced by 

the UK. Now, of course many of these people also could get into 

the United States without a visa, right, because they are British 

citizens. How deep are the LET ties within the British and French 

Pakistani communities in your view, and how are we working with 

the British on this? 

Ms. CURTIS. Well, there was information that one of the London 

subway plotters was actually trained at an LET camp, so I think 

there are some connections there. But in terms of the U.S. and 

whether or not we are working with the UK, I think I raised in 

my testimony that I don’t think the U.S. Government has given the 

LET the attention that it deserves. 

Mr. ROYCE. And that goes to another point I was going to ask 

you about, Ms. Curtis. Have we gotten to that point where we approach the LET as we approach al-Qaeda? You say no, but we have 

got the Headley case as you point out. He was born in the United 

50

States to a Pakistani diplomat and a Philadelphia socialite. He was 

charged in December with providing material support to the LET 

for scouting locations for the Mumbai terror attack. He made multiple trips to India taking videos of the hotels and restaurants in 

advance in order to carry out these attacks. What would you tell 

U.S. policy makers regarding the need to change our view of the 

LET? 

Ms. CURTIS. Well, I think we need to focus on the masterminds 

of the attack. Yes, Headley was a facilitator, he scouted sites, but 

what is important is his handler, who was directing him, who was 

really the one on the other line of the cell phone telling the killers 

who to kill, who to murder. So that is why it goes back to Pakistan 

and focusing on taking down the LET in Pakistan. Because yes 

they do have an international network and we need to work with 

our allies in focusing on that international network, but if you have 

the masterminds directing the other arms of this operation, then 

you will go a long way to decimating it. 

So again I come back to how important it is to focus on disrupting that leadership in Pakistan, convincing the Pakistan military that this group is a threat not only to India, to the international community, but also eventually to themselves, and that 

they do have an international viewpoint. I think that is what I 

would tell our policy makers to focus on. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Ms. Curtis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Bilirakis? 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate it very 

much. I have a couple questions. And I know you touched on this 

but maybe you can elaborate a little more or the panel can. Is the 

Pakistan Government as a whole seriously interested in combating 

religious extremism or are there divisions within the country and 

government that prevent the government as a whole from being 

able to take immediate steps to address these threats? 

Mr. NAWAZ. Maybe I can attempt to reply to that, Congressman. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you. 

Mr. NAWAZ. I think in the last couple of years particularly, the 

people of Pakistan have put pressure on the government and the 

military. And the military particularly now recognizes the growing 

threat from within. I think this is being reflected in the support 

that was given to the Pakistan army in its operations in Swat and 

in the renewed operations in Fatah. And this is something that we 

should perhaps capitalize on, which is to strengthen these movements. 

And also to build up on an earlier point, to recognize that if you 

change the landscape and effect it particularly in the recruitment 

area of the LET which is the Punjab, not just the economic landscape but return Islam to the predominant Sufi Islam that dominates Pakistan as a religious entity, that is really where the 

strength is going to lie because you will yank the carpet from 

under the feet of these groups. 

And then finally, I think on the external front, as the ranking 

member has said a number of times, if you could just go back to 

the road map that had already been achieved in the composite dialogue between India and Pakistan, it exists on paper and I can confirm that President Musharraf has personally confirmed to me the 

51

outlines of that agreement. It is the question of going back and 

picking it up from there, for which the current reopening of the 

dialogue is a very good sign. This has to be a multifaceted effort, 

I don’t think there is any silver bullet solution to it. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, sir. Anyone else on the panel? 

Mr. TELLIS. If I may take a crack at that. I think in principle 

Pakistan as a country has come to the point where they recognize 

that they cannot avoid dealing with the challenges of religious extremism. But it breaks down once you start looking at different 

groups within Pakistan. The body politic, the public, are clearly 

sick and tired of the deterioration that has taken place in Pakistani 

politics. You get poll after poll that shows people having absolutely 

no appetite for sustaining these groups anymore. 

The civilian regime, the regime of President Zardari, I think very 

much shares that conviction as well. Where uncertainties arise are 

the Pakistani military and intelligence services. And there it is not 

that they don’t recognize the nature of the problem, it is that they 

are deeply conflicted about the utility of some of these players to 

their own interests. And so you get a truly schizophrenic attitude 

where the Pakistani military and intelligence services want to confront the problem but they want to confront it selectively and they 

want to pick and choose. 

And there are some terrorist groups that affect their own interests adversely whom they are content to go after, and there are 

other terrorist groups who they think they can live with because 

they are assets in the military’s campaign against India and Afghanistan. Now, as long as this schizophrenia exists in the national 

security establishment, the kinds of problems that you are alluding 

to will continue to persist. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you. 

Ms. CURTIS. Yeah, I just want to also highlight that. I think that 

there is thinking within the Pakistani security establishment that 

you can support some terrorists or tolerate some terrorists and 

fight others. I think this is counterproductive. I think the reality 

is that these terrorists they get stronger and stronger, they have 

such a virulent ideology, and the LET is a case in point, that they 

will eventually go off on their own and start attacking the state. 

Now, the LET has not started attacking the state yet but they 

are extending their sights internationally, more Westerners are becoming involved in their attacks, a more pan-Islamist ideology. So 

I think it is almost there is a lack of strategic thinking within the 

Pakistan military establishment that doesn’t understand that by 

supporting some of these groups you are actually undermining your 

overall ability to get a handle on the terrorism problem in your 

own country. And Secretary Gates tried to explain this in an oped that he wrote which ran in a Pakistani daily a few weeks ago. 

But I think we need to keep hammering home that point, that it 

is bad policy for them to try to support some terrorists and fight 

others. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, appreciate it. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. We have about reached that time, but what I 

think I would like to do, rather than let you all go right now, because as soon as you are halfway down the hall you are each going 

52

to say, I wish I had another half a minute, I would have said X. 

You each have 45 seconds to fill in the blank if you would like. 

Mr. WEINBAUM. To sum up what I said in my statement. LET’s 

reputation for charity and piety and patriotism together with its 

close ties to the senior officers of the Pakistan military and intelligence establishment give it the potential I believe to transform 

Pakistan society into a Sharia state similar to that of Afghanistan 

in the 1990s. I don’t see that as imminent, but I think that that 

potential exists. The U.S. therefore would be faced in Pakistan with 

a jihadi dominated state that it has most to fear and a global 

threat that I believe dwarfs al-Qaeda. Thank you. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Ms. Curtis? 

Ms. CURTIS. I guess I would just like to reiterate what Congressman Royce quoted out of my testimony, that if we just keep allowing this group to exist we are sitting next to a ticking time bomb. 

I think it does pose a threat to U.S. interests. It is a very short 

step to go from the attacks in Mumbai, in which of course six 

Americans were killed, it is a very short step for them to then, you 

know, target a strictly Western target. And I think that we need 

to take this problem more seriously and raise it to the top of our 

agenda with Pakistan. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Dr. Tellis? 

Mr. TELLIS. I would just like to end by responding to the remarks 

that the ranking member made because I think they are very important. There is no doubt in my mind that we have to find ways 

to resolve the issues relating to Kashmir, but I think resolving 

Kashmir is not going to solve the problems relating to LET. I always find it interesting that the people conducting the murder and 

mayhem in the subcontinent today are not Kashmiris, the people 

who actually are deprived of all their political rights, they are not 

conducting the murder and mayhem. 

The murder and mayhem is being conducted by groups that have 

absolutely no connections to Kashmir, and to my mind that tells 

me a story, the fact that this is a group that has operations in 21 

countries, that has an ideology that is completely anti-Western, 

that is opposed to modernity and secularism and all the kinds of 

values that we take for granted. This group is not going to be satisfied by dealing with the issues of Kashmir. So we have to deal with 

Kashmir, but it is not going to solve this problem. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Nawaz? 

Mr. NAWAZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to make two 

points. First of all, I agree with Ashley Tellis that resolving the 

Kashmir problem by itself is not going to remove this threat because the aim of these groups is to leverage themselves into a position of power inside Pakistan and to take control. They are going 

to face a very uphill task because the majority of the population 

doesn’t believe in their brand of Islam or their tactics. Secondly, I 

think we need to support the ideas of the people of India and Pakistan for peace. 

A recent simultaneous poll conducted by the Times of India and 

the Jang newspaper group in Pakistan indicates that 70 percent of 

the people polled want peace between India and Pakistan. I think 

that is the kind of movement that needs to be supported from within and from outside, because once you achieve that you create ecoVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 Jul 21, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\MESA\031110\55399 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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nomic openings and those openings will allow the people of Pakistan and India to prosper and remove these terrorist groups from 

their midst. Thank you. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Thank the entire panel, you have 

been very very helpful, very informative, and very persuasive. The 

committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:01 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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