US and British officials and Indian investigators have said for weeks that their intelligence clearly points to the involvement of Lashkar. That evidence

has been deeply uncomfortable for Pakistan, whose

ISI helped create, finance and train Lashkar in the 1980s to fight a proxy war in Kashmir.

The most talkative of the senior Lashkar leaders being interrogated is said to be Zaraar Shah, the Pak official said. US intelligence officials say they believe that Shah, the group’s communications chief, served as a conduit between Lashkar and the ISI. His close ties to the agency and his admission of involvement in the attacks are sure to be unsettling for the government and its spy agency. An operational leader of Lashkar, Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi, is also said to be cooperating with investigators. News of Shah’s confession was reported by The Wall Street Journal.

“These guys showed no remorse,” said the Pak official. “They were bragging. They didn’t need to be pushed, tortured or waterboarded,” into making their statements. The confessions made no mention of any involvement by the Pakistani government, said the official, who added, “They talk about people acting on their own.”

Though Pak authorities announced that the men had been detained in the first week of December, the official declined to say how long it took for them to confess their role in the Mumbai siege. The official also declined to specify how many confessions had been obtained, and said, “It’s not just one confession.”

But Indian officials and other skeptics are sure to question how seriously interrogations by Pakistani security officials could be expected to examine any possible role by the ISI in the attacks.

US intelligence officials say they believe that links remain between Lashkar and the ISI, and that the spy agency has helped support the militant group for the past several years by sharing intelligence and providing protection.

But American officials say they also believe that the spy agency has become more careful to mask its ties with militants since this summer, when American officials accused the spy agency of involvement in the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan.

PTI adds: An FBI team visited the village of Ajmal Ameer Kasab, the lone terrorist captured during the Mumbai attacks, in Faridkot yesterday to probe his links. Diplomatic and other sources said the team conducted inquiries in the village. Sources rubbished reports in the media, particularly in some Pakistani TV channels, that the FBI team had found nothing that proved Kasab was a Pak national.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko, asked by Dawn to comment on reports of the team’s visit to Faridkot, said: “The FBI continues to assist Indian authorities with their investigation. We will work with the Indian authorities and our partners to follow leads wherever they may take us.”