Word: kashmir
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...religious lectures at Muridke. Former LeT militants who have passed through the center say it was never a training camp in the traditional sense. While would-be militants learned to swim and fight there, advanced weapons training was left for the camps in the Pakistani-controlled section of Kashmir. Only a handful of students were sent out on actual combat missions. Instead, most focused on religious doctrine. Parents in the local village who send their children to the Markaz for school say the education is good, though ideological. Ghulam Qadir, 44, has two children there, even though he follows...
...accompanying rise in extremist activity. He estimates that 60% of all terrorist attacks in Pakistan since 2002 have originated in the Punjab. "What the militant groups are doing now," says political analyst and academic Ayesha Siddiqa, "is recruiting people and sending them to fight elsewhere." Some are going to Kashmir, she says, but many more are fighting in Bajaur and Swat, in the North-West Frontier Province, where government forces are waging a losing war to contain militancy. Groups like LeT have always been open about their goals for an Islamic state, and few doubt that they would resort...
Killing for Paradise The organizers at Muridke, however, had different plans for Qasab. After his initial training in the philosophy of jihad, he was sent to Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, where he finally got the opportunity to handle a gun. "We were taken in a vehicle to a place called Mansera, [where] we were given training of all weapons for 21 days," Qasab says in his confession. In the subsequent four months of training, Qasab learned to fire AK-47s, studied the Indian security agencies and was trained in the "handling of hand grenade, rocket launchers and mortars, Uzi gun, pistol...
Usman, now 36, was one of the founding militants in LeT - and his tale, too, sheds light on the growth of jihadi militancy. As a boy in the Punjabi city of Faisalabad, he often heard accounts of Indian atrocities against Muslims in Kashmir. In the early '90s, Kashmiris toured Pakistan, telling their stories and seeking donations for their cause. Usman was moved by the story of a man whose brother had been killed by Indian soldiers and whose sister had been sexually assaulted. "Then he asked, 'If this was your sister, what would you do?' That's when I decided...
While Qasab never mentions that he was part of such a unit, his preparation suggests that he had been chosen to learn fedayeen tactics, which are increasingly common outside Kashmir. For his final round of advanced training, Qasab moved to another camp near Muzaffarabad, also in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, where he says he met a man named Zaki-ur-Rehman "Chacha" (Uncle), who selected him as one of a team of 16 destined for a confidential operation. Qasab may have been referring to Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a top LeT commander who was arrested by Pakistani security forces...