The United States is finding it 'increasingly difficult' to reconcile with Pakistan's support to terrorism due to the latter's cooperation in US-led war in Afghanistan, The Washington Post said on Saturday.
This is despite the US agreeing with India that cross-border infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir has increased once again after a temporary drop in June 2002.
The Post said 'Indian officials regularly argue to their US counterparts that Pakistan is on the wrong side of that war'.
The report said that a year after President Pervez Musharraf announced a ban on Muslim extremist groups, several organisations have been reconstituted under different names and are raising funds and proselytizing for 'jihad' against India and the West.
Over the past few months, leaders of four groups banned by Musharraf have been released from house arrest or jail, the paper said.
One of them, Hafiz Sayeed of Lashker-e-Tayiba, has been travelling around the country to whip up enthusiasm for renewed attacks on Indian forces in Kashmir. He has addressed nearly 100 gatherings in the last two months to 'educate people about the virtues of jihad' an aide told the paper.
Pakistani authorities have also released almost all of the hundreds of militants detained after Musharraf pledged on January 12, 2002 to dismantle extremist groups, the daily said quoting Pakistani officials.
The officials acknowledge that jihadi groups are reorganising and donation boxes for the 'supposedly outlawed organisations' have reappeared in mosques and public places.
The resurgence of jihadi groups, several of which have been tied to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, has caused deep concern among Western diplomats, who say it holds the potential of renewed confrontation between India and Pakistan, and calls into question the depth of Musharraf's commitment to the US-led war on terrorism.
"At one point, I think, the government was seriously committed to reining in [the hard-line religious parties opposed to Pakistan's cooperation with the US]," said a Western diplomat on condition of anonymity. "Now I think the commitment has probably flagged."
The Post said Pakistan maintains a lenient attitude towards groups such as LeT and the Jaish-e-Mohammed.
"Trained and supplied by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, these organisations have long been regarded as an instrument of state policy. The government has used them to 'bleed' India, with its vastly larger military, as a means of applying pressure for a negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue," it said.
The Musharraf government, the Post said, has allowed considerable latitude for militant leaders who were supposed to have been reined in. Even during their detention, Sayeed and two other leaders --- Masood Azhar of JeM and Fazlul Rahman Khalil of the Harkat-ul-Mujahiddeen - stayed in ISI safehouses, where they were permitted visitors and the use of cellphones, according to statements filed by their relatives in court proceedings related to their cases.
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