How dangerous is Lashkar-e-Taiba to the west?

By Myra MacDonald - Analysis

LONDON (Reuters) - Should the west be worrying as much about Lashkar-e-Taiba as al Qaeda?

The group blamed for last year's attacks on Mumbai has a formidable training and logistics infrastructure, and a global network of sympathizers used to raise funds for its Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) charitable wing.

That makes it a danger not just to India -- which is demanding action against the Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT) as the price for resuming peace talks with Pakistan -- but also a potential threat to the west given its strong base and global reach.

"Al Qaeda does not command those kinds of resources any more," said Praveen Swami at Indian newspaper the Hindu.

Based in Pakistan's heartland Punjab province, the group was once nurtured by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to fight India in Kashmir.

But a rare decision to target westerners and Jews along with Indians in the Mumbai attacks has added to worries the group might eventually turn its sights on the west.

"The attitude of the United States toward the LeT is quite different from what it was before," said Kamran Bokhari, Middle East director for global intelligence company Stratfor.

Analysts who have studied the LeT say, however, that the group remains very much focused on India and Kashmir.

"India is still the number one enemy, but LeT's priorities are shifting, or at least expanding," said Stephen Tankel, at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence in Washington.

Tankel, who is working on a book on the LeT, said it was "clearly now folding westerners and Jews into terrorist attacks in India" as well as fighting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.

"But this is still different from planning and prosecuting an attack on British soil or American soil," he said.

THE ACADEMIC INFLUENCE

Born out of a group founded by university professor Hafiz Saeed to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, the LeT was dubbed by one analyst as "the thinking man's jihadi group."

Even after 9/11 it initially managed to stay under the radar of western governments because of its focus on Kashmir, while its refusal to hit targets inside Pakistan allowed it to retain a strong base there despite being formally banned.

But the attitude of western governments toward the LeT has been changing, fueled by worries about it training western recruits in bomb-making or helping them make their way through Pakistan to join al Qaeda.