Two LeT kingpins put on US terror list

The United States on Wednesday imposed financial sanctions on two founding members of the Pakistan based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) held responsible for the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks after naming them as terrorists.

However, it still held back from sanctioning the Pakistani state and its intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) despite assertions from official American circles that outfits such as the LeT and Haqqani group are the "virtual arm" of ISI.

Designating Zafar Iqbal and Hafiz Abdul Salam Bhuttavi, US Treasury Department's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, David Cohen described them as two of the "most significant leaders" of LeT that has been on the US terrorist list since 2001.

"Over the past 20 years, Iqbal and Bhuttavi have been responsible for fundraising, recruitment, and indoctrination of operatives," he said. "By targeting the core of LeT's leadership, today's action aims to degrade its ability to facilitate its terrorist activities."

The sanctions bar US citizens from doing business with the two men and freeze any assets that they may hold under US jurisdiction.

According to the Treasury, Iqbal co-founded LeT in the late 1980s with its current head, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed.

In 1989 or 1990, the department said, the two men traveled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to seek financial support from Osama bin Laden, then head of Al Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for the Sep 11, 2001 attacks on the US.

As of late 2010, Iqbal was in charge of the finance department of LeT, also known as Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the department said.

Bhuttava was identified as a founding member of LeT and a deputy to Saeed. The Treasury said Bhuttava served as acting emir of LeT "on at least two occasions, including when Saeed was detained in the days after the November 2008 Mumbai attack and held until June 2009."

Bhuttavi also helped prepare the operatives for the November 2008 Mumbai attacks by delivering lectures on the merits of martyrdom, and is responsible for LeT's madrassa network, the department said.

The US commission that investigated the Sep 11, 2001, attacks warned in its final report that some madrassas have become "incubators for violent extremism."

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/98900" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-91f7ce77cece65bf1431f82e2c7a8f28" value="form-91f7ce77cece65bf1431f82e2c7a8f28" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="86297096" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.