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According to a new investigative report, the
US request was made during a meeting overseas
last summer between a senior US official and Gen
Kayani to discuss the threat posed by Pakistan-based
Lashkar-i-Taiba (LeT) terror group since the 2008
Mumbai attack, investigative media group ProPublica
said in a story co-published with PBS Frontline.
The US official expressed concern that Lakhvi,
arrested for the brutal Mumbai attack, was still
directing Lashkar operations while in custody,
it said citing a US government memo viewed by
it.
Kayani responded that Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), had told prison authorities
to better control Lakhvi's access to the outside
world, the memo says.
But Kayani rejected a US request that authorities
take away the cell phone Lakhvi was using in jail,
according to the memo to Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and the National Security Council.
The failure to crack down on the jailed Lakhvi,
whose trial has stalled, raises fears of new attacks
on India and the West, ProPublica said, citing
counter-terror officials.
"Lakhvi is still the military chief of Lashkar,"
one official said. "He is in custody but
has not been replaced. And he still has access
and ability to be the military chief. Don't assume
a Western view of what custody is."
Confessed Pakistani American Lashkar operative
and ISI spy David Coleman Headley aka Daood Gilani's
testimony at a trial in Chicago this year revealed
the ISI's role in the Mumbai attack, ProPublica
said, describing it as "the strongest public
evidence to date of ISI complicity in terrorism".
(IANS)
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