U.S. sharpens focus on Lashkar-e-Taiba
Intelligence officials say the group blamed in the Mumbai attacks may be broadening its aims, perhaps to even succeed Al Qaeda should the terrorist network falter.
Reporting from Washington — The terrorist attacks in Mumbai may mark a new focus on Western targets by the group widely thought responsible for the plot, prompting concern among U.S. intelligence officials that Lashkar-e-Taiba is emerging both as a more potent threat to American interests and as potential successor to Al Qaeda.
Senior U.S. intelligence officials said the attacks had triggered a reexamination by CIA analysts of the Pakistani group's potential to follow the strikes last month in Mumbai with a long-term campaign against Western targets.
"We have seen a potential broadening" of Lashkar-e-Taiba's ambitions, said a senior U.S. intelligence official. "By taking a page out of Al Qaeda's playbook, it exalts itself as a movement."
The Indian government and Western intelligence officials have cast strong suspicion on Lashkar-e-Taiba and an affiliated group called Jamaat ud-Dawa, a self-described charitable and educational organization, in relation to the Mumbai violence.
Lashkar-e-Taiba, which translates roughly to "Army of the Pure," has long worked with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups and sent operatives to fight alongside insurgents battling U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, officials said.
"What you're looking at in Mumbai is something that they themselves did, beginning to end," a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said. "And to me that's a very different thing."
U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitive nature of the subject.
The choreographed assault on India's financial capital left more than 170 people dead, the vast majority of them Indian citizens. But the gunmen killed at least six U.S. citizens, and seemed particularly focused on Western targets.
The attackers opened fire on a cafe frequented by tourists and seized the headquarters of a Jewish outreach organization, where six Jews were killed during two days of terror.
The gunmen also swept into luxury hotels favored by foreigners, the Oberoi and the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, shooting diners and setting fires as they held off elite Indian troops. Several witnesses said that the gunmen checked passports of trapped guests, separating American and British tourists from the others.
No specific warning
