Upon her arrival in New Delhi this week, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she expected the Pakistani regime to "cooperate fully and transparently" with India to try and bring the perpetrators of last week's terrorist outrage in Mumbai to justice. Ms. Rice's position -- though seemingly sensible -- is actually off the mark. The regime of President Asif Ali Zardari has no incentive whatsoever to cooperate with India to ensure that the terrorists who were responsible for the Mumbai attacks are actually apprehended. Pakistan has pursued a successful strategy of asymmetric warfare through jihadists since the outbreak of an ethno-religious insurgency in Kashmir in 1989. Part of Islamabad's strategy is to appear cooperative. After members of two jihadi groups, Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashkar-e-Taiba, attacked the Indian parliament on Dec. 13, 2001, for instance, then-President Pervez Musharraf nominally banned both entities. He placed their leaders under house arrest and had many of the terror groups' members arrested. On Jan. 12, 2002, he declared he would not allow Pakistani territory to be used for acts of terror. Thanks to persistent American prodding, the two sides embarked on a peace process in 2004. The two sides agreed on a cease-fire along the Line of Control, the de facto international border in Kashmir, expanded people-to-people contacts and loosened travel restrictions. Yet even in those times of apparent peace, Pakistan did not wholly abandon the jihadi option.
Upon her arrival in New Delhi this week, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she expected the Pakistani regime to "cooperate fully and transparently" with India to try and bring the perpetrators of last week's terrorist outrage in Mumbai to justice. Ms. Rice's position -- though seemingly sensible -- is actually off the mark. The regime of President Asif Ali Zardari has no incentive whatsoever to cooperate with India to ensure that the terrorists who were responsible for the Mumbai attacks are actually apprehended.
Pakistan has pursued a successful strategy of asymmetric warfare through jihadists since the outbreak of an ethno-religious insurgency in Kashmir in 1989. Part of Islamabad's strategy is to appear cooperative. After members of two jihadi groups, Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashkar-e-Taiba, attacked the Indian parliament on Dec. 13, 2001, for instance, then-President Pervez Musharraf nominally banned both entities. He placed their leaders under house arrest and had many of the terror groups' members arrested. On Jan. 12, 2002, he declared he would not allow Pakistani territory to be used for acts of terror.
Thanks to persistent American prodding, the two sides embarked on a peace process in 2004. The two sides agreed on a cease-fire along the Line of Control, the de facto international border in Kashmir, expanded people-to-people contacts and loosened travel restrictions.
Yet even in those times of apparent peace, Pakistan did not wholly abandon the jihadi option.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Fresh evidence unearthed Thursday by investigators in India indicated that the Mumbai attacks were stage-managed from at least two Pakistani cities by top leaders of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Indian and American intelligence officials have already identified a Lashkar operative, who goes by the name Yusuf Muzammil, as a mastermind of the attacks. On Thursday, Indian investigators named one of the most well-known senior figures in Lashkar, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi. The names of both men came from the interrogations of the one surviving attacker, Muhammad Ajmal Kasab, 21, according to police officials in Mumbai. While Mr. Muzammil appears to have served as a control officer in Lahore, Pakistan, Mr. Lakhvi, his boss and the operational commander of Lashkar, worked from Karachi, a southern Pakistani port city, said investigators in Mumbai. It now appears that both men were in contact with their charges as they sailed to Mumbai from Karachi, and then continued guiding the attacks even as they unfolded, directing the assaults and possibly providing information about the police and military response in India.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Fresh evidence unearthed Thursday by investigators in India indicated that the Mumbai attacks were stage-managed from at least two Pakistani cities by top leaders of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Indian and American intelligence officials have already identified a Lashkar operative, who goes by the name Yusuf Muzammil, as a mastermind of the attacks. On Thursday, Indian investigators named one of the most well-known senior figures in Lashkar, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi.
The names of both men came from the interrogations of the one surviving attacker, Muhammad Ajmal Kasab, 21, according to police officials in Mumbai.
While Mr. Muzammil appears to have served as a control officer in Lahore, Pakistan, Mr. Lakhvi, his boss and the operational commander of Lashkar, worked from Karachi, a southern Pakistani port city, said investigators in Mumbai.
It now appears that both men were in contact with their charges as they sailed to Mumbai from Karachi, and then continued guiding the attacks even as they unfolded, directing the assaults and possibly providing information about the police and military response in India.
