Pakistani raid catches 'Mumbai mastermind'

A suspected mastermind behind the Mumbai massacre has been caught in a raid on a militant camp in Pakistani Kashmir.

The raid was the first known response to demands by India for action against those responsible for the attacks.

Troops grabbed Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi among at least 12 people taken in the raid yesterday on the riverbank camp run by the banned group Laskhar-e-Taiba.

The sole Mumbai attacker captured alive has told Indian interrogators that Lakhvi recruited him for the mission and that Lakhvi and another militant, Yusuf Muzammil, planned the operation. The three-day siege of India’s commercial capital left 171 people dead.Lashkar-e-Taiba was created with the help of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies in the 1980s to act as a proxy fighting force in Indian Kashmir.

The United States says the group has links to al-Qaida. It was not immediately clear what Pakistan intended to do with Lakhvi.

Pakistan and India do not have an extradition treaty. Last week, President Asif Ali Zardari indicated anyone arrested in Pakistan in connection with the attacks would be tried in Pakistan.

Pakistan banned Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2002, but there have been few if any convictions of its members since then. Many suspect elements within the intelligence agencies keep some links with Lashkar and other militants in the country, either to use against India or in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Pakistan and India have fought three wars over the last 60 years, two over Kashmir. In 2001, an attack by suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba militants on the parliament building in New Delhi brought the countries close to conflict.

The government convened a rare Cabinet-level meeting of the country’s defence and intelligence chiefs, but made no official comment on the raid or Lakhvi’s arrest.

The New York Times, citing unidentified American intelligence and counterterrorism officials, said today that Lashkar has gained strength in recent years with the help of Pakistan’s spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence.

Islamabad’s civilian government has denied any of its state agencies were involved in the Mumbai attacks, but said it was possible that the militants were Pakistanis. It has pledged to cooperate with India, noting it too is a victim of terrorism.

Pakistan has experienced a surge in militant violence since it sided with the West after the September 11 attacks. As part of the alliance, it allows Nato and America to truck supplies to their forces in Afghanistan through the country.

Today militants in the north-western city of Peshawar attacked a terminal for the supply trucks, torching scores of military vehicles waiting shipment.

The attack was the second in as many days on the supply line in the city, showing its vulnerability to militants that control large swathes Pakistan’s lawless regions close to Afghanistan.

It and other terminals in the city employ lightly armed security guards, aimed more at preventing theft than organised militant assaults.

Up to 75% of the fuel, food and other logistical goods for Western forces battling Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan currently pass through Pakistan.