LeT’s objectives from the beginning have had less to do with Kashmir and more to do with India and beyond. To begin with, India’s achievement in becoming a peaceful, prosperous, multi-ethnic and secular democracy remains an affront to LeT’s vision of a universal Islamist Caliphate begotten through tableegh, or preaching, and jihad. Further, India’s collaboration with the United States and the West in general against terrorism has marked it as a part of what LeT calls the detestable “American-Zionist-Hindu” axis that must be confronted by force. Finally, New Delhi’s emergence as a rising global power represents an impediment to LeT’s objective of, in the words of its leader, Hafiz Saeed, recovering “lost Muslim lands” that once spanned much of Asia and Europe.

Given this ideology, the LeT attack is an attempt to cripple India’s economic growth, destroy national confidence in its political system, attack its open society and provoke destabilising communal rivalries, all while sending a message that India will remain an adversary because its successes make it a hindrance to LeT’s larger cause. In this context, the struggle over Kashmir is merely instrumental. To quote Saeed, Kashmir is merely a “gateway to capture India” en route to LeT’s other targets.

Such statements are not simply grandstanding. Outside of Al Qaeda, LeT today represents the most important South Asian terrorist group of “global reach.” Washington’s concern with Al Qaeda, however justified, should not obscure the reality of other terrorist groups in South Asia.

The barbarity in Bombay thus represents the ugly face of Islamist terrorism that threatens India, the US, and the larger international system, but fundamentally also Pakistan. Saeed has unequivocally declared that the Lashkar intends to “plant the flag of Islam in Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi.” However absurd it might sound, his words could launch thousands of zealots to commit horrible crimes worldwide. Consequently, the US cannot avoid the burden of confronting Islamabad to rid itself of this group and other menacing outfits that utilise its territory. Arresting one or two of the alleged “masterminds,” as Pakistan has now done in the face of US pressure, simply will not do: rather, the entire organisation must be targeted and put out of business permanently.

... contd.