Author: Myra MacDonald
Publication: Reuters.com
Date: November 13, 2009
URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLC383495
Pakistan's army once ran training camps for
the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group with the apparent knowledge of the CIA,
an example of complicity that raises questions about the current state of
the nuclear-armed nation.
So says former French investigating magistrate
Jean-Louis Bruguiere, author of a new book that provides rare insight both
into alleged past army support for the Lashkar-e-Taiba and to the group's
connections to a global network linked to al Qaeda.
The question of Pakistani military support
for Islamist militants is crucial for the United States as it tries to work
out how to stabilise the country and neighbouring Afghanistan.
Bruguiere bases the information in his book
on international terrorism, "Ce que je n'ai pas pu dire" ("What
I could not say") on testimony given by jailed Frenchman Willy Brigitte,
who spent 2-1/2 months in a Lashkar-e-Taiba training camp in 2001/2002.
In an interview, Bruguiere said he was convinced
Lashkar-e-Taiba, first set up to fight India in its part of the divided Himalayan
region of Kashmir, had become part of an international network tied to al
Qaeda.
"Lashkar-e-Taiba is no longer a Pakistani
movement with only a Kashmir political or military agenda. Lashkar-e-Taiba
is a member of al Qaeda. Lashkar-e-Taiba has decided to expand violence worldwide,"
he told Reuters.
He was "very, very anxious about the
situation" in Pakistan, where militants are staging a series of bloody
urban attacks to avenge a government offensive against their strongholds.
"The problem right now is to know if
the Pakistanis have sufficient power to control the situation," he said.
The problem was also "to know if all
the members of the military forces and the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence
agency) are playing the same game. I am not sure," he added.
Pakistan has long been accused of giving covert
support to Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was blamed for last year's attack on Mumbai
in which 166 people were killed. It denies the allegation and has banned the
organisation.
NEW FORM OF TERRORISM
Bruguiere said he became aware of the changing
nature of international terrorism while investigating attacks in Paris in
the mid-1990s by the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA).
These included an attempt to hijack a plane
from Algiers to Paris in 1994 and crash it into the Eiffel Tower -- a forerunner
of the Sept. 11 2001 attacks. The plane was diverted to Marseilles and stormed
by French security forces.
This new style of international terrorism
was quite unlike militant groups he had investigated in the past, with their
pyramidal structures and political objectives.
"After 1994/1995, like viruses, all the
groups have been spreading on a very large scale all over the world, in a
horizontal way and even a random way," he said.
An early encounter with Lashkar-e-Taiba came
while he was investigating shoe-bomber Richard Reid, who tried to set off
explosives on a transatlantic flight from Paris in 2001.
This investigation led to a man, who Bruguiere
said was the Lashkar-e-Taiba's representative in Paris, and who was suspected
of helping Reid -- an accusation he denied. Bruguiere said the link to Reid
was not proved in court.
Brigitte, a Frenchman originally from France's
Caribbean department of Guadeloupe, had gone to Pakistan shortly after Sept.
11 to try to reach Afghanistan. Unable to make it, he had been sent to a Lashkar
centre outside Lahore. A man named Sajid Mir became his handler.
"He quickly understood that Sajid belonged
to the regular Pakistan army," wrote Bruguiere.
After 1-1/2 months, he was taken with four
other trainees, two British and two Americans, to a Lashkar camp in the hills
in Punjab province. The Toyota pick-up which took them there passed through
four army check-points without being stopped.
During his 2-1/2 month stay at the camp, Bruguiere
says, Brigitte realised the instructors were soldiers on detachment. Military
supplies were dropped by army helicopters.
Brigitte said he and other foreigners were
forced four times to leave the camp and move further up into the hills to
avoid being caught by CIA officers.
They were believed to be checking if Pakistan
had kept to a deal under which the Americans turned a blind eye to Lashkar
camps in Punjab provided no foreigners were trained there.
In return, Bruguiere said, Pakistan under
then president Pervez Musharraf helped track down leaders of al Qaeda.
"DOUBLE STANDARDS"
Western countries were at the time accused
by India of double standards in tolerating Pakistani support for Kashmir-focused
organisations while pushing it to crack down on militant groups which threatened
Western interests.
Diplomats say that attitude has since changed,
particularly after bombings in London in 2005 highlighted the risks of "home-grown
terrorism" in Britain linked to militant groups based in Pakistan's Punjab
province.
After leaving the camp accompanied by Sajid,
Brigitte was sent back to France.
Sajid then ordered him to fly to Australia
where he joined a cell later accused of plotting attacks there. Tipped off
by French police, Brigitte was deported from Australia in 2003 and convicted
by a French court of links to terrorism.
Bruguiere said he had personally questioned
Brigitte in the presence of his lawyer to check his testimony. Information
provided by Brigitte was also cross-checked by French police based on mobile
phone and e-mail traffic.
Bruguiere went to Pakistan himself in 2006
as part of his investigations into the deaths of 11 Frenchmen in a bombing
outside a hotel in Karachi in 2002.
He stepped down as France's best-known counter-terrorism
expert in 2007 and now represents the EU on the Terrorist Finance Tracking
Program in Washington. (Editing by Bill Maclean and David Stamp)
