New Delhi:
Months after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, the US seems to have had information that terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was plotting more attacks in India. A worried US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had issued a warning for Pakistan in a cable sent to the US Embassy in Islamabad.
NDTV has exclusive access, through Wikileaks, to the cable sent in June 2009. It reads, "Embassy is instructed to underscore to senior Pakistani government officials the critical importance of Pakistani cooperation in preventing Lashkar e-Taiba (LeT) attacks on India. There are credible reports of advanced LeT planning for attacks against India. An attack at this time - especially from Pakistani territory - would undermine progress for regional cooperation, divert resources from the military campaign in the West, and could hinder the USG's ability to provide Pakistan with military and economic assistance without restrictive conditions."
The cable then lists points that must be underscored while impressing upon Pakistan how important it was to "eliminate LeT permanently." Pakistani officials must be told, the missive noted, that the LeT had killed six Americans in the Mumbai Attacks, directly harming US interests and had the potential to "undermine US-Pakistani relations."
It noted that inability to curb the Lashkar would also undermine progress in Pakistan being able to rebuild relations with India post 26/11 and also that, "Another Mumbai-style or major LeT attack on India, especially if launched from Pakistani soil, could close this historic opportunity and could risk a stronger Indian response than that which occurred after Mumbai.
The US's fear that an Indian response would be stronger a second time around was not baseless. Only 12 days before Clinton's note, a cable sent by Charles Burleigh, Charge D' Affaires, New Delhi, summarised a meeting between US Under Secretary Nick Burn and India's Home Minister P Chidambaram. The cable to Washington read, "It was unfortunate, P. Chidambaram said to Under Secretary Burns that the United States was unable to stop Pakistan from allowing terrorist groups to form and launch against India....Returning to the prospect of another attack on Indian territory, Chidambaram noted that the "people of India will expect us to respond. We don't have any other choice." Under secretary Burns stressed that the US is pressing Pakistan to take action against all terrorist groups but ...we were likewise frustrated by the lack of demonstrable action against some groups."
Several cables sent during that period from the US Embassy in Pakistan to Washington, bring to the fore the US' focus on terror groups like Lashkar operating from Pakistan and on progress in the 26/11 case. In a cable dated May 12, 2009, the then US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson wrote to Washington saying, "Repeated high-level intervention with the Govt of India has not yielded the passage of certified evidence to the Govt of Pakistan... connecting the LeT (Lashkar -e-Taiba) conspiracy in Pakistan to the attacks in Mumbai depends heavily on evidence that can only come from India. As the trial time nears, without new evidence, the court will be forced to acquit and release (Zarar) Shah, (Zakiur Rehaman) Lakhvi and Al Qama."
Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Patterson noted, had been seeking extension after extension from the Rawalpindi Anti-Terrorism Court to gather more evidence against the three Lashkar leaders and some others but "time is running out." The judge, she wrote, had granted the FIA time to file a formal chargesheet against these top Lashkar men, which she feared it would be unable to do.
She also wrote that, "Repeated USG (United States Government) interventions at several levels with the GOI (Government of India) have not yielded any certified evidence being passed to the GOP (Government of Pakistan). If the top LeT terrorists are released, India will certainly accuse Pakistan of a lack of good faith in prosecuting and of directly sponsoring terrorism against India."
In July the same year, Patterson wrote to the US government about the Punjab government's move to withdraw its appeal challenging the release of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) leader and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed, who she called "the poster child for India's complaints against Pakistan." On the face of it the Punjab government had pleaded that a lack of evidence furnished by and a lack of cooperation from the Pakistan government had forced it to withdraw its appeal.
Patterson saw political overtones for the surprise move of the Punjab government, ruled by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). "The Punjab govt's surprise move is viewed by Federal officials as a means to embarrass the PPP-led Govt before upcoming talks with India at Sharm-al-shiekh... Punjab's surprise withdrawal could not have come at a worse time for the PPP-led Federal Govt as it tries to normalise relations with India during scheduled talks on the margins of the NAM summit. Hafiz Saeed is the poster child for India's complaints against Pakistan and even if Saeed is technically not roaming the streets, Govt of Pakistan's inability to win the legal case against him is embarrassing."
The Ambassador quoted a senior Punjab official as saying about Saeed, "We don't have anything against him and our intelligence has nothing to detain him." The official, she said, added that the FIA had provided no evidence connecting Saeed with "the five alleged Mumbai attackers currently in jail." The Punjab official had noted that Saeed had moved little from his home in Johar Town, Lahore and had for some time then not visited the JuD facility in Muridke.
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As part of a special arrangement that NDTV has come to with WikiLeaks, we will be reporting on cables dispatched by American diplomats who were posted in Pakistan. We shall do this along with the DAWN of Pakistan and the Indian daily The Hindu. All the cables will be posted on NDTV.com as we report on them and can be read here at 6:30 am IST/1:00 UTC.)