It never said, "FOR INVOLVEMENT IN MUMBAI ATTACK!"
UN declares Jamaat-ud-Dawa a terrorist front group
By BILL ROGGIODecember 11, 2008
The United Nations Security Council has added Pakistan-based terrorist group and four of its leaders to the list of entities and organizations known to support al Qaeda and the Taliban. The declaration came the same day that Pakistani officials said they would act against the Jamaat-ud-Dawa if the United Nations declared it a terrorist group as part of Resolution 1267, which also known as the al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee.
The Security Council listed Jamaat-ud-Dawa as an alias of the proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group. India and the United States have said Lashkar-e-Taiba was behind last month's three-day terror siege of Mumbai, India.
Hafiz Saeed has been listed as the leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. The UNSC also listed Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Haji Mohammad Ashraf, and Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq as senior members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Lakhvi is listed as the terror group's chief of operations. Ashraf is the group's chief of finance. Bahaziq, a Saudi national who served as the leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba in Saudi Arabia, is a senior financier.
The UNSC also updated two groups already listed under Resolution 1267 as supporting Lashkar-e-Taiba. Al Akhtar Trust has been identified as financing Lashkar-e-Taiba. The UN noted Al Akhtar Trust maintains regional offices in the Pakistani cites of Bahawalpur, Bawalnagar, Gilgit, Islamabad, Mirpur Khas, and Tando-Jan-Mahammad, as well as in Spin Boldak in Afghanistan.
The Al Rashid Trust also provides support to Lashkar-e-Taiba. Al Rashid Trust operates in the Afghan cites of Herat Jalalabad, Kabul, Kandahar, and Mazar Sharif. The group also runs operations in Kosovo and Chechnya.
Jamaat-ud-Dawa has long been known to be a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Saeed renamed the Lashkar-e-Taiba to Jamaat-ud-Dawa in 2002 after Lashkar was banned by the Pakistani government. Pakistan never acted against the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Instead, Saeed and his leaders rebranded the group as a Muslim charity to mask the operations of Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The Jamaat-ud-Dawa has established an organization that rivals Lebanese Hezbollah. The group succeeded in providing aid to earthquake-ravaged regions in Kashmir in 2005 while the Pakistani government was slow to act. Lashkar is active in fundraising across the Middle East and South Asia, and has recruited scores of Westerns to train in its camps. Jamaat-ud-Dawa actively fundraises on the Internet at its website.
Pakistan vows to act
The Indian and US governments led the charge to get Jamaat-ud-Dawa added to UNSC Resolution 1267 list of terror groups. Getting the group added was by no means assured; China blocked India's efforts to do this three times over the past several years.
The UN's action against Jamaat-ud-Dawa requires nations to freeze the group's assets, ban the individual terrorists from traveling, and prevent the supply of weapons, technology, and other aid to the group.
The Pakistani government signaled earlier this week that it would act against Jamaat-ud-Dawa if the UNSC added the group to the terrorist list.
Pakistan's ambassador to UN Abdullah Hussain Haroon signaled Pakistan would take action against the terror group after the UN meeting, including shutting down training camps on Pakistani soil. "After the designation of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) under (resolution) 1267, the government on receiving communication from the Security Council shall proscribe the JUD and take other consequential actions, as required, including the freezing of assets," Haroon said.
Earlier this week, Pakistani security forces raided Lashkar camps and offices and rounded up two senior members of the terror group thought to be involved in the Mumbai attack. Lakhvi and Zarar Shah were detained over the past several days, along with a handful of Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters.
Shah is a communications expert who set up the network that allowed the Mumbai attackers communicate with Lashkar-e-Taiba commanders in Pakistan, according to Indian intelligence officials. He also serves as a key liaison between the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency.
Pakistan has rounded up senior terrorists and Taliban leaders in the past, only to allow them to go free. Saeed has been placed under house arrest at least two times since 2001, but the restrictions were quietly lifted. Numerous al Qaeda and Taliban leaders have been set free, exchanged for hostages, or escaped under questionable circumstances.
Read more:
UN declares Jamaat-ud-Dawa a terrorist front group - The Long War Journal
Profile: Lashkar-e-Taiba - Central & South Asia - Al Jazeera English
Profile: Lashkar-e-Taiba
Pakistani-based armed group claimed responsibility for many of the attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir since 1999.
Last Modified: 03 Apr 2012 10:13
The Lashkar-e-Taiba, or Army of the Righteous, consists of mostly radically religious Pakistanis and is said to have been born out of an ultra-orthodox version of Sunni Islam.
Formed in the mid-1990s, the group has claimed responsibility for most of the daring guerrilla attacks against civilian and military targets in Indian-administered Kashmir since 1999.
The group, which was banned in Pakistan in 2002, is also said to have been responsible for the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, and most notably, the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
The LeT is said to have trained 10 of the gunmen involved in the attacks in Mumbai, which resulted in the deaths of 166 people.
Lashkar-e-Taiba and al-Qaeda operate separately but US analysts claim they help each other when their paths intersect.
Bounty
Current Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed is an academic who turned towards fundamentalist activism in the early 1990s.
Saeed is wanted by the United States, India and the United Nations as a terrorist leader but he operates openly in Pakistan, giving public speeches and appearing on TV talk shows. The US has offered a $10m reward for the capture of Saeed.
The 62-year-old leader has also proudly declared that he and al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahri had the same teacher.
Hafiz Saeed was placed under house arrest in Pakistan for a one-month after the Mumbai bombings [AFP]
Despite allegations of terrorism, Saeed maintains that he has no connection to the LeT and is instead the head of Jama'at-ud-Da'wah, which he considers a charitable organisation.
The US declared Jama'at-ud-Da'wah a foreign terrorist organisation in 2008, saying it is front for LeT.
Da'wah, which is one of Pakistan's biggest charities and known across the country for its relief work after a 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, has long denied all terror accusations.
The LeT has said that militant forms of jihad are "absolutely obligatory" both in self-defence and in response to what they believe to be injustice or oppression towards Muslims the world over.
In practice, Lashkar's theatre of operations has been largely confined to Indian-administered Kashmir.
In a pamphlet entitled "Why Are We Waging Jihad?" the group said it aimed for the restoration of Islamic rule over all of India. It also declared India, Israel and the United States as existential enemies of Islam.
However, the group in 2009 publicly declared that it is seeking a peaceful resolution in the Kashmir conflict and that it does not have global jihadist aims.
However, India and the US believe Lashkar-e-Taiba is still active and has a hand in several anti-Indian operations.
