'26/11: Dawood gave logistical, financial support'

The Karachi-based D-Company run by India's most wanted fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim possibly had an important role in the 26/11 carnage, according to a report on the Lashkar-e-Tayiba released by the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College, the Department of Defence.

The D-Company may have provided logistical support to the LeT operatives to carry out the deadly operation, adding a new dimension to the Mumbai terror attacks, it said.

According to the report, Dawood Ibrahim is believed to have resided in Pakistan since 1993 and now owns malls, luxury homes, and shipping and trucking lines that smuggle arms and heroin into India. In exchange for his refuge in Pakistan, the report said a percentage of the D-Company's profits were diverted to Islamic militant groups supported by the LeT.

"Evidence demonstrates that these links were formed in late 1993 or early 1994. Photographs of Tiger Memon posing with leaders of the Jammu and Kashmir Islamic Front at an ISI safe house in Muzaffarabad surfaced and served as the first proof of the involvement of mafia money in Kashmir," the report said.

The report authored by Ryan Clarke says the D-Company has now extended its base to Saudi Arabia too. "The LeT, which is estimated to be responsible for 60 per cent of terrorist attacks in India, has been able to establish cells in several parts of the world as a result of assistance received from elements within ISI and Dawood's network in India and in the Gulf," the report said.

"There have been arrests of LeT operatives all over the world, including seven arrests by the Federal Bureau of Investigation during then Pakistan President Musharraf's June 2003 visit to the United States. Even though the information was repressed in order to avoid embarrassing Musharraf, the operatives from Washington and Philadelphia were eventually charged with 'stockpiling weapons and conspiring to wage jihad against India in support of terrorists in Kashmir,'" it said.

Although, the LeT has a wide support base that spans several continents, underworld don Dawood Ibrahim is the most probable source of weaponry, given D-Company's geographic proximity to LeT operations and the syndicate's proven ability to clandestinely transfer enough weaponry to fight a small war on short notice, the report said.

"This is accentuated by the fact that in Pakistan there already exists a close relationship between organised criminal syndicates, narcotics, money-laundering, militant activity and small arms trafficking," it said.

The LeT now also raises funds on the internet and has become market-savvy while making legitimate investments in a range of sectors, the think-tank said in its latest report, adding that the group "is also very likely involved in trafficking Afghan heroin, an extremely high yielding venture given the low overhead costs and high domestic and overseas demand."

All of this has resulted in a diversification of LeT's financial pipeline, thus reducing the possibility of it being held hostage to a particular party, decreasing its vulnerability to a decapitating strike and ensuring its continued existence even if it is abandoned by Islamabad entirely, the report noted.

According to the think tank, LeT collects donations from the overseas Pakistani community in the Persian Gulf and the United Kingdom, Islamic non-governmental organisations, Pakistani/ Kashmiri businessmen and through its parent organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawa.

"The militant group also counts on donations from sympathetic Saudis, Kuwaitis, and Islamist-leaning ISI leaders. In addition, the LeT maintains relations with extremist and/ or terrorist groups across the globe ranging from the Philippines to the Middle East and Chechnya by means of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa network," the report said.

Although most of LeT's monetary assets were previously deposited in mainstream financial institutions, many of these deposits were withdrawn and invested in legitimate ventures such as commodity trading, real estate and manufacturing, in order to avoid seizures following former President Pervez Musharraf's crackdown on Pakistan-based militant groups, it said.

"This black money has likely been funneled through numerous intermediaries and a substantial portion may have even left Pakistan via the underground hawala system. Either resulting from a lack of political will or of enforcement capacity, Pakistan's measures to cut terrorist financing remain woefully inadequate," it said.