Pak-backed 'intact and 'determined' LeT ready to attack India again: NYT India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The banned terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the outfit which planned and carried out the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, is once again on the look-out for carrying out similar attacks in India, warned top US counter terrorism and intelligence officials. While Pakistan claims that it has taken concrete steps to prevent terror groups operating on its soil from planning attacks on other countries, senior American military, intelligence and counter terrorism officials have said that the LeT is largely 'intact' and 'determined' to plot new attacks, The New York Times reports. Pakistani officials, however, are crying foul that they have not being informed regarding any such impending threat. "We heard that the Americans have warned the Indians that something in Mumbai might happen, but no one informed us," a senior Pakistani intelligence official said. The official said any further terror attack on Indian soil by the LeT could trigger war between both the countries. They also admitted that Islamabad has no control over the terrorist group and that it cannot curb the LeT's nefarious activities. "Right now we cannot guarantee that it will not happen again, because we do not have any control over it," the official added. Pakistan has been denying the role of the country's premier spy agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) in the Mumbai attacks and has also refused to take action against the LeT's founder leader and the alleged 26/11 mastermind Hafeez Mohammad Saeed despite India providing half a dozen dossiers against him. However, US officials believe that the ISI has close links with the LeT. One highly placed Lashkar militant said the Mumbai attackers were part of groups trained by former Pakistani military and intelligence officials at Lashkar camps, the newspaper further reported. "Some people of the ISI knew about the plan and closed their eyes," said one senior Lashkar operative based Karachi on condition of anonymity. He said he had personally met some of the Mumbai attackers before they took the sea route to India's financial capital.