ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 8 -- In a move aimed at diffusing tensions with India, Pakistani authorities arrested a suspected ringleader of last month's deadly attacks in Mumbai, along with rounding up several others in a massive raid on an alleged Pakistani terrorist group in the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, according to Pakistani officials, witnesses and members of the group said on Monday.
Residents in the small Kashmiri town of Shawai Nala said dozens of Pakistani soldiers descended on a camp run by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a Muslim aid organization suspected of funding the militant Pakistani group Lashkar-i-Taiba, at about 3p.m. on Sunday. Mehboob Ahmed, a resident of the nearby city of Muzzaffarabad, the area's capital, said a Pakistani army helicopter gunship swept over the camp several times justbefore the ground was rocked by rocket fire and a fusillade of bullets fired by Pakistani forces.
According to local residents and a Jamaat-ud-Dawa member, Pakistani security forces arrested 22 people, including Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakwhi, one of at least five Lashkar-i-Taiba members named by Indian authorities as the masterminds behind the brutal Mumbai assault. The attack on India's financial capital killed more than 170 people and wounded at least 230.
Police in Mumbai said last week that Lakwhi organized and directed the attacks from the camp near Muzzaffarabad. They said Lakwhi worked in coordination with Lashkar-i-Taiba commander Yousuf Muzammil, who directed part of the operation from a safe house in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi. At least 10 gunmen commandeered a fishing boat to ferry them from Karachi to Mumbai, where they launched a raid on two luxury hotels, a train station, and a Jewish cultural center. Lt. Col. Baseer Haider, a spokesman for the Pakistani army, said he was aware of the raid on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa camp, but that the operation was being handled by Pakistan's Interior Ministry, the country's lead domestic security agency. An aide to Rehman Malik, Pakistan's top Interior Ministry adviser, said Malik was unavailable for comment early Monday.
Indian officials have said that the 10 gunmen who attacked Mumbai were trained at a Lashkar-i-Taiba camp in Pakistan with the aid of officers from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI. Indian and U.S. officials maintain that Jamaat-ud-Dawa operates as a front organization and financier of Lashkar-i-Taiba, which was banned by the Pakistani government after several of its members were charged with mounting a deadly attack on India's parliament in 2001. The Indian accusations have provoked sharp skepticism and outright denials by Pakistani leaders, and recently prompted a flurry of diplomatic visits by top U.S. officials to the region aimed at tamping down tensions between the two nuclear armed rivals.
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It is believed that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) subsequently changed its name to Jama'at-ud-Da'wah (JUD) in response to Pakistan and the US banning the LET. JUD is headed by Prof. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who is also the amir of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Jama'at-ud-Da'wah is suspected of financing the LET.
Amir Hamza, a central leader of Jama'at-ud-Da'wah (JUD), denies that JUD maintains ties to LET.
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