Pakistan dismisses claims that Mumbai attackers were trained by Pakistani militants
Officials say Indian investigators' assertions that a Pakistani group taught the attackers are unfounded. But Indian officials say the surviving gunman detailed the training by Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan — Pakistan today dismissed Indian investigators' claims that the Mumbai attackers underwent months of training at camps run by a Pakistani militant group, saying no such proof had been provided.
"There is no evidence at all about this," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq, echoing assertions by his government over the last several days that Pakistan had not been shown any information implicating groups based on its soil.
However, Pakistan appeared to be bracing itself for a potential finding of responsibility by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group, in last week's attacks on two luxury hotels and other landmarks in India's commercial capital that left more than 170 people dead.
President Asif Ali Zardari, in an interview published today in the Financial Times, for the first time specifically addresses the strong suspicion that has fallen on the group, which for nearly two decades has battled Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir.
"Even if the militants are linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, who do you think we are fighting?" the Pakistani leader said. Pakistan itself has been hit by a wave of suicide bombings and other attacks blamed on militant groups over the last 18 months, including the assassination of Zardari's wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
In another interview, the Pakistani president said his government should not be held accountable for insurgents' actions. In the past, Pakistan's powerful intelligence apparatus provided support to militant movements including Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Taliban.
"We don't think the world's great nations and countries can be held hostage by non-state actors," Zardari told Arj television, using a phrase generally taken to refer to insurgent groups.
Two senior Indian investigators were cited today by Reuters news agency as saying the lone surviving gunman had detailed the training the assailants underwent and told them it was organized by Lashkar-e-Taiba. The news agency quoted a senior Indian official as saying the men were instructed in weapons handling, bomb making and seaborne assaults.
The Mumbai attackers arrived by small craft at docks only a few blocks away from their targets.
Lashkar-e-Taiba, or Army of the Pious, was banned in Pakistan in 2002, but its founders immediately reorganized themselves as an Islamic charity called Jamaat ud-Dawa, which still operates legally in Pakistan and has denied any link to the Mumbai attacks. U.S. officials consider Jamaat-ud-Dawa a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba.
