The American ‘disclosure’ comes in the wake of sanctions clamped against eight key Lashkar operatives on Thursday. Swami says, ‘the statement does not detail precisely what kind of security Mir is charged with providing his superior, but an Indian intelligence official based in New Delhi said Mir is responsible for ensuring secure communications and screening visitors to deter assassination plots’.
Mir, formerly a close Lakhvi aide, recruits jihadis from the western nations for the LeT cause. One of them is David Headley, Pakistani-American, who prepared the ground for 26/11 attack by a carrying out a reconnaissance of the targets in Mumbai.
Frankly, there is little news in the news.
PTI reported from Islamabad on October 25, 2011 that Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was secretly communicating with LeT cadres from prison. He has been using mobile phones to contact other members of the banned LeT, the despatch said quoting Western diplomatic sources. The contacts have been intercepted by many intelligence agencies, including those of the US, the sources told PTI. These contacts had been going on for "many months", said a source familiar with the tracking of Lakhvi’s clandestine communications by intelligence agencies.
PTI’s exclusive went on to add: “US officials alerted their Pakistani counterparts about the intercepts and asked them to ‘shut down’ the contacts but no action had been taken so far by officials at Adiala Jail or other authorities”, two officials of two different countries, who did not want to be named, told PTI. ‘These intercepts show Lakhvi remains a key player in the affairs of the LeT despite being in custody for over two years’, said an official”.
US has eyes and ears across Pakistan. Raymond Davis who pushed US-Pak ties to a near flash point early 2011, was said to be a part of these ‘eyes-ears’ and his cell was reportedly tracking the LeT and its front organisation, the Jamaat-ud-Dawah. Some reports even said that Davis was part of an elaborate setup to track the existence of Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in Pakistan at that time.
Lakhvi was jailed along with six other suspects charged with planning, financing and facilitating the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. They were arrested by the Pakistan Army on December 7, 2009 at Shawai Nullah near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The trial is taking place in an anti-terrorism court but has made no headway with the prosecution and defence adopting delaying tactics. .
Pakistan also placed LeT founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and other JuD leaders under house arrest after the UN Security Council declared the JuD a front for the LeT. Saeed remained a ‘state guest’ for hardly six months; he was however freed on the orders of the Lahore High Court within six months.
Pakistan’s Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had declined to confiscate Lakhvi’s cell phone, ProPublica reported last year. He “rejected a U.S. request that the authorities take away the cell phone Lakhvi was using in jail, according to the memo to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the National Security Council.”
Lakhvi has been LeT’s overall military chief and is a member of its powerful general council. He is alleged to have directed operations targeting the Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir, and routed dozens of Lashkar operatives to Chechnya, Bosnia and Iraq.
