Intel czar implicates Lashkar
Posted: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 11:39 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
State Dept.
From NBC's Libby Leist
Speaking at Harvard University last night, Director of National Intelligence
Mike McConnell implicated the group Lashkar-e-Taiba for carrying out the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last week which killed at least 172 people, including six Americans.
McConnell did not name Lashkar-e-Taiba specifically, but he said that the U.S. believes the terrorists responsible for Mumbai were also responsible for the attack on a train in India in 2006 that killed nearly 200 people and an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.
Indian intelligence has blamed Lashkar for both attacks.
McConnell also drew links between Lashkar and Al Qaeda.
"If you examine the groups that we think are responsible,” he said, “the philosophical underpinnings are very similar to what al Qaeda currently puts about as their view of how the world should be.”
After meeting with Indian officials in New Delhi today, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed McConnell's remarks saying "Whether there is a direct al Qaeda hand or not, this is clearly the kind of terror in which al Qaeda participates."