Pakistani spies face questions over old jihadi assets

By Simon Cameron-Moore - Analysis

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - When Pakistan's spy chief goes to India to share information over a militant attack on Mumbai, one of his tasks will inevitably be to convince the Indian leadership that his own agency was not involved.

Pakistan's eight-month-old civilian government has already made clear how appalled it is at the havoc wreaked by Islamist militants in a raid in which at least 124 people were killed.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has ordered the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief, Lieutenant-General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, to go to India after a request from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"I'm sure the military believes it is important for the ISI to try to disassociate itself from any link to militants responsible for this attack," said Ayesha Siddiqa, an Islamabad defense analyst.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan has the most anti-Indian, anti-Western and best-organized militant groups in South Asia, some of which have fallen under the thrall of al Qaeda leaders hiding there.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group based in Pakistan's central province of Punjab, is prime suspect in the attacks on Mumbai, according to Indian media reports.

L-e-T along with the Jaish-e-Mohammad group pioneered "fedayeen attacks," or suicidal missions, against Indian forces in the late 1990s, infusing jihadi fervor into a separatist revolt in Indian Kashmir.

Like al Qaeda, L-e-T's pedigree is Wahabi, the Muslim sect that sprang out of the Arabian Peninsula. Well organized, and well funded it was said to have been one of the groups most favored by ISI handlers in the past, according to security analysts.

Critics say Pakistani agencies' failure to treat all militants as enemies has risked destabilizing the state.

Pakistan has become a victim of militancy with almost daily attacks on security forces in the northwest and bomb blasts in cities, including one that destroyed Islamabad's Marriott hotel in September.

NOT EVEN UNDERGROUND

India has long accused Pakistan of nurturing jihadi groups to fight in the disputed Kashmir region, while Afghanistan believes the Pakistani military has allowed the Taliban sanctuaries.

Pakistan says it only provides diplomatic and moral support for the Kashmir freedom struggle.

L-e-T and Jaish were accused of carrying out the attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001, which brought the two nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of war in mid-2002.

Both groups were banned by Pakistan, but critics say it was just window-dressing, and these groups still operate under different guises and their headquarters resemble militia camps.