Word: lashkar
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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After years of relative invisibility, the dispute has returned to the world's agenda. U.S. and Indian officials believe that Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group formed in Muzaffarabad, planned the Nov. 26 terrorist strike on Mumbai. The attack left 171 people dead and many Indians baying for revenge against the terrorists and their patrons; New Delhi says Pakistan actively supports and encourages groups like Lashkar. Although technically banned in Pakistan, Lashkar is thought to be working under the aegis of its charitable wing and is at least tolerated by Islamabad...
...terrorism in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, the Bush Administration is pressuring Islamabad to crack down on homegrown militants. In response, Pakistani authorities have launched nighttime raids on several camps in and around Muzaffarabad, arresting at least 12 people. Among them: Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a top Lashkar commander named by Indian police as the mastermind of Mumbai. (A spokesman has denied that the group had any role in the Mumbai attacks...
...Analysis Wing, India's equivalent of the CIA. "They should either deport those accused of the Mumbai attacks or allow an Indian police team to visit Pakistan and interrogate them." But the Pakistani military and intelligence services are reluctant to comply. In the past, they have used groups like Lashkar to fight a proxy war against India, and the militants keep the cause of Kashmir--a popular one throughout Pakistan--alive. Islamabad has traditionally argued that the best way to stop the militants is to resolve the long-standing dispute. But after the terrorism of Mumbai, the Indian government...
When militants attacked the Indian Parliament in late 2001--an assault blamed partly on Lashkar--the two countries came to the brink of another war. The U.S., then mopping up after defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan, helped keep them apart. The subsequent cease-fire has ushered in a few years of peace, one now endangered by the Mumbai attacks...
...drawdown is unlikely as long as India believes that Pakistan-based militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba remain a security threat--and the Mumbai attacks serve as proof that they are. "It's like a disease in the body," says Sudhir Bloeria, a senior adviser to the governor of the Indian portion of Kashmir. "You have to be vigilant even after the symptoms have disappeared...