Pakistan’s former military dictator Pervez Musharraf, who was the brain behind the 1999 Kargil conflict, has called himself the “biggest supporter” of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and its founder Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind behind the 26/11 attack on Mumbai nine years ago. Asked if he too liked LeT and JuD chief Hafiz Saeed, Mr Musharraf said: “Yes! and I have met him. I have always been in favour of action in Kashmir and I have always been favouring pressuring the Indian Army in Kashmir. This is the biggest force and they have been declared terrorists by India along with the US.”
Mr Musharraf said he had banned LeT in 2002, just after 9/11 and after considerable American pressure on Pakistan, because the “situation was different then”. On Washington’s official statement on Hafiz Saeed, he said it was written in “highly offensive language”, and said it was an “insult to Pakistan’s sovereignty”.
The White House said there would be repercussions for US-Pakistan relations unless Islamabad took action to detain and charge the LeT chief for allegedly masterminding the Mumbai attacks. The US had asked Pakistan to re-arrest Saeed, who has been designated a terrorist by the US justice department. Mr Musharraf’s comments came days after Saeed walked free after the Pakistan government decided not to detain him further. He was under house arrest since January, 2017.
