London- India fears that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, blamed for the Mumbai carnage, may attempt to strike during the October Commonwealth Games in New Delhi and has voiced its concerns to the US, according to a media report. The fears were conveyed by the Indian Army leadership to Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was in New Delhi on Friday and Saturday, The Sunday Times said in a dispatch from Islamabad. LeT carried out the Mumbai attacks in November 2008 that killed 166 people and India fears that the group might target the country again.
After his arrival in Pakistan, Mullen had yesterday said that the LeT has expanded its operations to Afghanistan and the West and has become more active throughout the region. The paper said the LeT has joined forces with the Taliban in a new alliance to kill western soldiers in Afghanistan.
In the past few weeks NATO commanders are convinced that LeT are behind a string of attacks and influx of fighters into eastern Afghanistan, the newspaper said.
The issue was raised yesterday by Admiral Mullen after he arrived in Islamabad for meetings with Pakistan's powerful army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, the report said. Outlawed under US pressure in 2002, the group has continued to operate under different names. The LeT's camps have long been used by al-Qaeda for training. American officials are concerned that LeT has expanded its focus to Afghanistan and now has a more global agenda.
"Since 2008 I've watched them grow... to a terrorist organisation with global aspirations," Mullen said. "It's an organisation which is becoming more lethal, it's in Afghanistan and it's in other countries."
While the Pakistani military has taken action against terrorist groups such as the Pakistani Taliban, it has refused repeated requests from Washington to move against the Afghan Taliban or LeT, the report said. PTI
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