Country Report on Terrorism 2021 - Chapter 5 - Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT)

Aka al Mansooreen; Al Mansoorian; Army of the Pure; Army of the Pure and Righteous; Army of the Righteous; Lashkar e-Toiba; Lashkar-i-Taiba; Paasban-e-Ahle-Hadis; Paasban-e-Kashmir; Paasban-i-Ahle-Hadith; Pasban-e-Ahle-Hadith; Pasban-e-Kashmir; Jamaat-ud-Dawa; JUD; Jama’at al-Dawa; Jamaat ud-Daawa; Jamaat ul-Dawah; Jamaat-ul-Dawa; Jama’at-i-Dawat; Jamaiat-ud-Dawa; Jama’at-ud-Da’awah; Jama’at-ud-Da’awa; Jamaati-ud-Dawa; Idara Khidmate-Khalq; Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation; FiF; Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation; FalaheInsaniyat; Falah-i-Insaniyat; Falah Insania; Welfare of Humanity; Humanitarian Welfare Foundation; Human Welfare Foundation; Al-Anfal Trust; Tehrik-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool; TehrikeTahafuz Qibla Awwal; Al-Muhammadia Students; Al-Muhammadia Students Pakistan; AMS; Tehreek-e-Azadi-e-Kashmir; Kashmir Freedom Movement; Tehreek Azadi Jammu and Kashmir; Tehreek-e-Azadi Jammu and Kashmir; TAJK; Movement for Freedom of Kashmir; Tehrik-i-Azadi-i Kashmir; Tehreek-e-Azadi-e-Jammu and Kashmir; Milli Muslim League; Milli Muslim League Pakistan; MML

Description:  Designated as an FTO on December 26, 2001, Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT) is an anti-India-focused terrorist group.  LeT was formed in the late 1980s as the terrorist wing of Markaz ud Dawa ul-Irshad, a Pakistan-based extremist organization and charity originally formed to oppose the Soviet presence in Afghanistan.  The organization is led by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed.  Shortly after LeT’s FTO designation, Saeed changed the group’s name to Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) and launched humanitarian projects to circumvent sanctions.  LeT disseminates its message through JUD’s media outlets.

Elements of LeT and Jaish-e-Muhammed (JeM) have combined with other groups such as Hizbul Mujahideen to mount anti-India attacks.  The Pakistani government banned LeT in 2002 and arrested Hafiz Saeed temporarily, following the 2008 Mumbai attack.  In 2017, Pakistan placed Saeed under house arrest; however, he was released 10 months later after a Lahore High Court judicial body rejected a government request to renew his detention.  In 2019, Pakistani police again arrested Saeed and charged him with financing terrorism.  In 2020, Saeed was found guilty on charges of terrorism financing and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Activities:  LeT has conducted operations, including several high-profile attacks, against Indian troops and civilian targets since 1993.  The group also has attacked Defeat-ISIS Coalition forces in Afghanistan.  LeT uses assault rifles, machine guns, mortars, explosives, and rocket-propelled grenades.

LeT was responsible for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai against luxury hotels, a Jewish center, a train station, and a popular café that killed 166 people — including 6 U.S. citizens — and injured more than 300.  India has charged 38 people in the case; most are at large, however, and thought to be in Pakistan.

In 2010, Pakistani-American businessman David Headley pled guilty in a U.S. court to charges related to his role in the 2008 LeT attacks in Mumbai and to charges related to a separate plot to bomb the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.  Headley testified in the trials of other LeT supporters in 2011 and 2015.

During a three-month period in 2016, LeT was suspected of engaging in at least three firefights with Indian security forces in Kupwara district, in the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, injuring two Indian personnel.  Also in 2016, LeT was suspected of conducting an ambush on an Indian security force convoy in Pulwama district, in Jammu and Kashmir, killing 8 persons and injuring 20.  Some media reports alleged the group’s involvement in an attack that year on an Indian Army camp in Uri, in Jammu and Kashmir, which killed 20 soldiers.

In 2017, LeT conducted an attack in Jammu and Kashmir that left six police officers dead.  The following month, LeT militants attacked a bus of pilgrims returning from the Amarnath Yatra shrine, killing seven persons.  In 2018, LeT claimed responsibility for a suicide attack against an Indian Army camp in Jammu and Kashmir’s Bandipora district that killed three soldiers.

In January, Pakistani authorities convicted LeT commander Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi on terrorism financing charges and sentenced him to 15 years in prison.  Lakhvi is alleged to have orchestrated the 2008 Mumbai attacks.  LeT did not claim responsibility for any attacks in 2021.

Strength:  Precise numbers are unknown.

Location/Area of Operation:  Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan

Funding and External Aid:  LeT collects donations in Pakistan and the Persian Gulf states as well as from other donors in the Middle East and Europe — particularly the United Kingdom, where it is a designated terrorist organization as Lashkar e Tayyaba.  In 2019, LeT and its front organizations continued to operate and fundraise in Pakistan.

Associated documents