Wobbly on facts, Bush tries to please India anyway

new delhi: india may have welcomed the us decision to freeze the assets of the lashkar-e-taiba (let), but president bush's ill-informed and even gratuitous remarks about the let show the distance new delhi has to cover before getting any succour from the scourge of terrorism from the international community. the first point to note is that the us has banned the let and not its parent organisation, the markaz-dawa-ul-irshad.whatever funding that the let gets comes through the markaz rather than the other way round, say indian intelligence officials. bush has termed the lashkar "an extremist group based in kashmir". a white house fact-sheet accompanying the president's remarks notes that the "let is based in muridke (near lahore) and muzaffarabad. let trains its militants in mobile training camps across pakistan-administered kashmir and afghanistan." a lot of this can be confirmed by a visit to the markaz website, . the ultimate mendacity of us officials is the claim made by bush that the let has committed acts of terrorism inside both india and pakistan and that the us will work with india and pakistan to "shut it (the let) down and bring the killers to justice". the white house fact sheet gives a lie to this pointing out that the let conducts operations "against indian troops and civilian targets in kashmir." there is no mention of pakistani targets. bush has gone on to add that the lashkar "is a stateless sponsor of terrorism, and it hopes to destroy relations between pakistan and india and to undermine pakistani president musharraf". lashkar's links with pakistan's military-political complex have been no secret and senior pakistani government officials have been regular visitors to the markaz's annual meeting whose principal theme is vicious india-baiting. in 1999, the chief guest at the function was mushahid hussain, then minister of information in the nawaz sharif government. as for the threat of the lashkar to musharraf, bush is clearly overstating the case. musharraf has in the past two months acted against a number of jihadi outfits, including the jaish-e-mohammed, and jailed their leaders. but he has not seen it fit to outlaw the lashkar and its leader hafiz mohammed sayeed has taken care not to criticise the pakistan army or its leaders too harshly.