Outside the Indian subcontinent not much was known about the most prolific militant commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Zaki-ur Rahman Lakhvi, until the United States Treasury announced on May 27, 2008 that they had froze the assets of four of the top LeT leaders including Lakhvi. [1] Exactly six months later, Lakhvi’s name entered into terror infamy. With his jihadi network, he had masterminded the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, which sent ripples across the world.
Executive Summary: In the weeks following the July 13 bomb explosions in Mumbai, responsibility for the attacks has yet to be determined. Investigative agencies have not yet pinpointed a suspect nor has any terrorist group claimed the blasts as its own doing, perhaps in order to complicate the investigation or delay the process. The triple blasts, which killed 24 people and injured over one hundred, mark the first major terrorist attack in Mumbai since the November 2008 attacks orchestrated by Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
Thadiyantavide Nazeer is a key Islamic extremist associated with the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Pakistan and India’s homegrown jihadist group, Indian Mujahedeen (IM), and has been under arrest since 2013. Nazeer has managed to use his time in prison to radicalize others and was at the center of a cell of radicalized individuals who served time at Bengaluru’s Central Prison.•Nazeer gained notoriety for his involvement with a series of bombings in the mid-2000s. He was an adept recruiter at this time.
Executive Summary: On March 7, India’s Ministry of Home Affairs designated 41-year-old Kashmiri militant Mohammad Qasim Gujjar as a terrorist. Gujjar has been involved in multiple high-profile attacks, financed and supplied arms to terrorists, and is a major recruiter for the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba. Gujjar has been especially effective at radicalizing relatives of deceased militants.
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian businessman originally from Pakistan, was convicted in a US court in 2011. Rana was charged with providing material support to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Pakistan and for conspiring to attack the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s offices in Copenhagen and Aarhus. This followed their publishing of controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammed in 2005.