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Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT or LeT; Army of the Righteous)
LT is one of the largest and most proficient of the Kashmiri-focused militant groups. LT formed in the early 1990s as the military wing of Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad, a Pakistan-based Islamic fundamentalist missionary organization founded in the 1980s to oppose the Soviets in Afghanistan. Since 1993, LT has conducted numerous attacks against Indian troops and civilian targets in the disputed Jammu and Kashmir province, as well as several high-profile attacks inside India itself. The United States and United Nations have designated LT an international terrorist organization. The Pakistani Government banned LT and froze its assets in 2002.
The Indian Government has implicated the group in the 11 July 2006 attack on multiple Mumbai commuter trains and the December 2001 armed assault on the Indian Parliament building. In March 2002, senior al-Qa‘ida lieutenant Abu Zubaydah was captured at an LT safehouse in Faisalabad, suggesting that some LT members may assist al-Qa‘ida. LT members have been arrested in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The actual size of the LT is unknown, but the group has several thousand members, predominantly Pakistani nationals seeking a united Kashmir under Pakistani rule. The group maintains a number of facilities in Pakistan, including training camps, schools, and medical clinics. The group also recruits internationally, as evidenced by the indictment of eleven LT terrorists in Virginia in 2003.
LT coordinates its charitable activities through its front organization, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which spearheaded humanitarian relief to the victims of the October 2005 earthquake in Kashmir. LT and its leader Hafiz Saeed continue to spread ideology advocating armed jihad, as well as virulent rhetoric condemning the United States, India, Israel, and other perceived enemies. However, LT has yet to conduct an international terrorist attack outside India or Kashmir.
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