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Stabilising Pak a key challenge for Obama: Bush aide

Washington (IANS): Stability and success in the war on terror in Pakistan will be a key challenge for the Obama administration to resolve the Afghanistan problem and keep Pakistan-India relations on a positive footing, according to a top aide of President George W. Bush.

"So there is a lot at stake in Pakistan, and they have as daunting a task as any government today," National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said in a valedictory speech at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies Wednesday.
"And it is going to be very important for the new team to support their (Islamabad's) efforts," he said, adding he was encouraged by statements from President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden.

"I think they understand the challenge that Pakistan faces, and that means the challenge we face," said Hadley suggesting the new government in Islamabad "wants to confront terror, but does not really at this point have the tools and has probably as difficult a challenge to deal with the various groups that it has of any nation."
"And that's why I think it is going to be one of the key challenges, because success in Pakistan, overcoming this challenge, is important for stability in Pakistan, which is important to us in itself," he said

"But stability in Pakistan is also going to be important and success in the war on terror in Pakistan is also going to be important if we're going to take care of the problem in Afghanistan and if we are going to get Pakistan and Indian relations to continue on a positive footing," Hadley said.

Touting the India-US civil nuclear deal as a key success of Bush's foreign policy, he said: "We have formed a new strategic partnership with the world's largest democracy - India. An historic agreement for civil nuclear cooperation has helped transform our relationship and make us global partners."

Describing Pakistan as "a victim of terror," Hadley said it was true that "activities in certain of the border regions of Pakistan make more difficult achieving democratic stability in Afghanistan."

"But I think one of the things we've also seen is that those - that terrorist presence -Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other extremist groups - also are a threat to Pakistan," he said. "And I think this democratic government in Pakistan understands that."

The democratic government in Pakistan, "is a real opportunity, because we think that democratic government has the opportunity to rally the people of Pakistan behind what is going to be a very difficult fight". Hadley said when asked why the US could not control terrorism there in the last eight years.

"This is a new government. It is getting its bearings. It faces severe terrorist threats from organizations that have deep roots into the society," he said noting, "They have a military force that was designed for conventional conflict with India, not for dealing with counter-terrorism."

Afghanistan will be another early challenge for the new administration," Hadley said noting the Taliban remain a serious threat as "its fighters have found safe haven across the border in Pakistan."

"And if the extremists succeed in destabilising Pakistan, the chaos will threaten peace and progress throughout the region. So stabilising Pakistan must be a first priority of the new administration-as it has been one of ours," he said.
Describing the Asia-Pacific as a region of increasing importance to America's security and economic well-being, Hadley said: "Bush's strategy has been to revitalise existing alliances, establish new strategic partnerships, bring China into the international system as a responsible player, confront terrorist and proliferation threats, and promote freedom and democracy."

India should cease all military ties with Israel

Kochi : The CPI(M) on Thursday said India should immediately cease all military cooperation with Israel in view of Tel Aviv's military offensive in Gaza.

Briefing reporters on the party's three-day central committee meeting which began here today, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said India cannot be a party to the "inhuman Israeli juggernaut".

"India must exercise its influence among developing countries to work for an immediate ceasefire and for eventual realisation of the Palestinian state", he said.

The central committee adopted a resolution condemning the Israeli military aggrression on Gaza, he said.

Yechury said the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre has identified itself as an 'ally' of Israel, which is 'harmful' to the country's interests and spoiled India's traditional support to the Palestinian cause.

Referring to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement on Thursday condemning the Israeli attack, he said it would remain mere rhetoric unless India, with a very large military trade with Israel, immediately suspends its military cooperation, including launching of spy satellites.

Unless this is done, India will continue to be seen as an ally of Israel, he said.

Origin of Mumbai attack was Pak: US

Washington: The US has reiterated that November 26 Mumbai terrorist attacks originated from Pakistan, but wants New Delhi and Islamabad to work together to bring those responsible to justice and prevent future attacks.
"Well, we've talked about the origins of the attack coming from Pakistani soil. Secretary (of State Condoleeza) Rice, during her visit to the region, said that herself," State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said on Tuesday.

India blames Pak, Islamabad threatens UN action

But "I would look at one part of this exchange as encouraging; that is, that there is an exchange of information here between India and Pakistan," he said when asked if the US shared India's conclusion that those responsible for the Mumbai attacks were at least supported by official agencies in Pakistan.
"Now of course, tensions need to be managed, and thus far, it would seem that the two sides have an interest in doing that," McCormack said.
The US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, "Richard Boucher, who is travelling in the region, I thought put it very well in saying that each side, in terms of putting together the full picture here, has pieces of the puzzle that the other doesn't."

Details of 26/11 not evidence: Pak
"And so it's in their interest to work together, to exchange information, to get the full picture, and to be able to act to prevent attacks as well as to bring to justice those responsible for the attacks in Mumbai," McCormack said.
"So in that sense, the common enemy here are the violent extremists. The greatest threat isn't from each other, whether that be India or Pakistan. It's from the violent extremists," he added.
Boucher held talks with the Pakistani leadership in Islamabad Monday as New Delhi handed over to Islamabad evidence linking the terrorists behind the Mumbai attacks to elements in Pakistan, which the US diplomat described as a positive step.

ISI plans 'Islamic Republic of Pakistan' by 2020 in India
Boucher told a press conference in Islamabad it was "clear that the attackers had links that lead to Pakistani soil."
He also said Pakistan's crackdown on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a charity with links to the terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), showed the country's "commitment to eliminate sources of terrorism on Pakistani soil. There is determination here to follow up and find the groups that are responsible so they never do it again," he said.

2006 Lebanon War

The 2006 Lebanon War, known in Lebanon as the July War (Arabic: حرب تموز‎, Ḥarb Tammūz) and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War (Hebrew: מלחמת לבנון השנייה‎, Milhemet Levanon HaShniya), was a 33-day military conflict in Lebanon and northern Israel. The principal parties were Hezbollah paramilitary forces and the Israeli military. The conflict started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, though it formally ended on 8 September 2006 when Israel lifted its naval blockade of Lebanon.

The conflict began when Hezbollah militants purposely fired rockets at Israeli border towns as a diversion for an anti-tank missile attack on two armored Humvees patrolling the Israeli side of the border fence. Of the seven Israeli soldiers in the two jeeps, two were wounded, three were killed, and two were kidnapped and taken to Lebanon. Five more were killed in a failed Israeli rescue attempt. Israel responded with massive airstrikes and artillery fire on targets in Lebanon that damaged Lebanese civilian infrastructure, including Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport (which Israel alleged that Hezbollah used to import weapons and supplies), an air and naval blockade, and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah then launched more rockets into northern Israel and engaged the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in guerrilla warfare from hardened positions.

The conflict killed over a thousand people, widely reported to be mostly Lebanese civilians, severely damaged Lebanese civil infrastructure, and displaced approximately one million Lebanese and 300,000–500,000 Israelis, although most were able to return to their homes. After the ceasefire, some parts of Southern Lebanon remained uninhabitable due to Israeli unexploded cluster bomblets.

On 11 August 2006, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved UN Resolution 1701 in an effort to end the hostilities. The resolution, which was approved by both Lebanese and Israeli governments the following days, called for disarmament of Hezbollah, for withdrawal of Israel from Lebanon, and for the deployment of Lebanese soldiers and an enlarged United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) force in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese army began deploying in southern Lebanon on 17 August 2006. The blockade was lifted on 8 September 2006. On 1 October, 2006, most Israeli troops withdrew from Lebanon, though the last of the troops continue to occupy the border-straddling village of Ghajar. In the time since the enactment of UNSCR 1701 both the Lebanese government and UNIFIL have stated that they will not disarm Hezbollah. The remains of the two kidnapped soldiers, whose fates were unknown, were returned to Israel on 16 July 2008 as part of a prisoner exchange.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had engaged in cross-border attacks from southern Lebanon into Israel as far back as 1968, and the area became a significant base following the arrival of the PLO leadership and its Fatah brigade after their 1971 expulsion from Jordan. Demographic tensions were running high over the Lebanese National Pact, which divided governmental powers among religious groups, leading in part to the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). Concurrently, Syria began a 29 year military occupation. Israel's 1978 invasion of Lebanon failed to stem the Palestinian attacks, but Israel invaded Lebanon again in 1982 and forcibly expelled the PLO. Israel withdrew to a borderland buffer zone in southern Lebanon, held with the aid of proxy militants in the South Lebanon Army (SLA). In 1985, a Shi'a militant group calling itself Hezbollah declared an armed struggle to end the Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory. When the Lebanese civil war ended and other warring factions agreed to disarm, Hezbollah and the SLA refused. Combat with Hezbollah led to a collapse of the SLA.

When in 2000 Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon to the UN designated border, Hezbollah immediately followed in. Citing Israeli control of the disputed Shebaa farms region and the incarceration of Lebanese prisoners in Israel, Hezbollah continued cross border attacks, and used the tactic of seizing soldiers from Israel as leverage for a prisoner exchange in 2004, though it also continues to call for Israel's destruction.
Beginning of conflict

At around 8:07 AM local time (05:07 UTC) on 12 July 2006, Hezbollah launched diversionary rocket attacks toward Israeli military positions near the coast and near the border village of Zar'it as well as on the Israeli town of Shlomi and other villages. At the same time, a Hezbollah ground contingent crossed the border into Israeli territory and attacked two Israeli armoured Humvees patrolling on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, near Zar'it, killing three, injuring two, and kidnapping two Israeli soldiers (master sergeant Ehud Goldwasser and first sergeant Eldad Regev). Five more Israeli soldiers were killed later and a tank was destroyed on the Lebanese side of the border during an unsuccessful attempt to rescue the two kidnapped soldiers.
Hezbollah named the attack "Operation Truthful Promise" after leader Hassan Nasrallah's public pledges over the prior year and a half to seize Israeli soldiers and swap them for four Lebanese held by Israel:

• Samir Kuntar (a Lebanese citizen captured during a terrorist attack in 1979, convicted of murdering civilians and a police officer);
  
• Nasim Nisr (an Israeli-Lebanese citizen tried and convicted for spying by Israel);
  
• Yahya Skaf (a Lebanese citizen whom Hezbollah claims was arrested in Israel, Israel denies);
  
• Ali Faratan (another Lebanese citizen whom Hezbollah claims to be held in Israel).
  

Nasrallah claimed that Israel had broken a previous deal to release these prisoners, and since diplomacy had failed, violence was the only remaining option. Nasrallah declared: "No military operation will return the Israeli captured soldiers…The prisoners will not be returned except through one way: indirect negotiations and a trade of prisoners."
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described the seizure of the soldiers as an "act of war" by the sovereign country of Lebanon, stating that "Lebanon will bear the consequences of its actions" and promising a "very painful and far-reaching response." Israel blamed the Lebanese government for the raid, as it was carried out from Lebanese territory and Hezbollah had two ministers serving in the Lebanese cabinet at that time. In response, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora denied any knowledge of the raid and stated that he did not condone it. An emergency meeting of the Lebanese government reaffirmed this position.

The Israel Defense Forces attacked targets within Lebanon with artillery and airstrikes hours before the Israeli Cabinet met to discuss a response. The Israeli aviation bombed several areas in Lebanon (bridges and roads, the Beirut airport), resulting in 44 civilian deaths.
Later that same day (12 July 2006), the Cabinet decided to authorize the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister and their deputies to pursue the plan which they had proposed for action within Lebanon. The decision also emphasized Prime Minister Olmert's demand that the Israeli Defense Force avoid civilian casualties whenever possible. Israel's chief of staff Dan Halutz said, "if the soldiers are not returned, we will turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years" while the head of Israel's Northern Command Udi Adam said, "this affair is between Israel and the state of Lebanon. Where to attack? Once it is inside Lebanon, everything is legitimate -- not just southern Lebanon, not just the line of Hezbollah posts." On 12 July 2006, the Israeli Cabinet promised that Israel would "respond aggressively and harshly to those who carried out, and are responsible for, today's action". The Cabinet's communiqué stated, in part, that the "Lebanese Government [was] responsible for the action that originated on its soil." A retired Israeli Army Colonel explained that the rationale behind the attack was to create a rift between the Lebanese population and Hezbollah supporters by exacting a heavy price from the elite in Beirut.

On 16 July, the Israeli Cabinet released a communiqué explaining that, although Israel had engaged in military operations within Lebanon, its war was not against the Lebanese government. The communiqué stated: "Israel is not fighting Lebanon but the terrorist element there, led by Nasrallah and his cohorts, who have made Lebanon a hostage and created Syrian- and Iranian-sponsored terrorist enclaves of murder."
When asked in August about the proportionality of the response, Prime Minister Olmert stated that the "war started not only by killing eight Israeli soldiers and abducting two but by shooting Katyusha and other rockets on the northern cities of Israel on that same morning. Indiscriminately." He added "no country in Europe would have responded in such a restrained manner as Israel did."

Palestinian Sunni Islamist paramilitary (Hamas)

Leader - Khaled Mashaal, Ismail Haniyah, Mahmoud Zahar

Founded - 1987

Headquarters - Gaza

Ideology - Palestinian nationalism, Sunni Islamism, Religious Nationalism

Hamas (حماس amās, an acronym of حركة المقاومة الاسلامية arakat al-Muqāwamat al-Islāmiyyah, meaning "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist paramilitary organization and political party which holds a majority of seats in the elected legislative council of the Palestinian National Authority.

Hamas was created in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi and Mohammad Taha of the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood at the beginning of the First Intifada. Notorious for its numerous suicide bombings and other attacks on Israeli civilians and security forces, Hamas also runs extensive social programs and has gained popularity in Palestinian society by establishing hospitals, education systems, libraries and other services throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Hamas' charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamic state in the area that is now Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Hamas describes its conflict with Israel as political and not religious or antisemitic. However, its founding charter, writings, and many of its public statements reflect the influence of antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Hamas's political wing has won many local elections in Gaza, Qalqilya, and Nablus. In January 2006, Hamas won a surprise victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, taking 76 of the 132 seats in the chamber, while the previous ruling Fatah party took 43. Many perceived the preceding Fatah government as corrupt and ineffective, and Hamas's supporters see it as an "armed resistance" movement defending Palestinians from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. However, since Hamas's election victory, particularly sharp infighting has occurred between Hamas and Fatah.

Following the Battle of Gaza in June of 2007, elected Hamas officials were ousted from their positions in the Palestinian National Authority government in the West Bank, replaced by rival Fatah members and independents in an action that many Palestinians and other experts considered illegal. On 18 June 2007, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Fatah) issued a decree outlawing the Hamas militia and executive force.
Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan, and the United States, and is banned in Jordan. Australia and the United Kingdom list only the military wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, as a terrorist organization. The United States and the European Union have both implemented restrictive measures against Hamas on an international level.

Funding
According to the U.S. State Dept, Hamas is funded by Iran (led by a Shi'i Islamic regime), Palestinian expatriates, and "private benefactors in Saudi Arabia and other Arab states." The party is known to support families of suicide bombers after their deaths, including providing a monthly allowance. Various sources, among them United Press International, Le Canard enchaîné, Gérard Chaliand and L'Humanité have highlighted that Hamas' early growth had been supported by the Mossad as a "counterbalance to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)". Furthermore, the French investigative newspaper Le Canard enchaîné stated that Shin Bet had also supported Hamas as a counterweight to the PLO and Fatah, in an attempt to give "a religious slant to the conflict, in order to make the West believe that the conflict was between Jews and Muslims", thus supporting the controversial thesis of a "clash of civilizations".
The charitable trust Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development was accused in December 2001 of funding Hamas. The case against the foundation, however, ended in a mistrial in which, of the 200 charges filed by the United States Justice Department, the jurors had acquitted on some counts and were deadlocked on charges ranging from tax violations to providing material support for terrorists. However in a retrial, on November 24, 2008 the U.S. won convictions of the five leaders of the Holy Land Foundation on all 108 counts of the original indictment.

India's Premier Suggests Pakistani Agencies Backed Mumbai Attackers

India's prime minister accused Pakistan of using terrorism as a policy tool and said the Mumbai attackers must have had the support of some official Pakistani agencies, allegations that appeared to dim any prospect of cooperation between the two countries in probing the attacks.

A statement from Pakistan's foreign ministry said the nation "emphatically rejects the unfortunate allegations." Pakistani officials warned that Mr. Singh's remarks could affect Islamabad's offer of cooperation into the attacks. "Scoring points like this will only move us further away from focusing on the very real and present danger of regional and global terrorism," said information minister Sherry Rehman.

The attacks in late November left more than 170 dead. India claims the attackers came from Pakistan and provided a dossier of evidence to substantiate its claims to Pakistan Monday. The latest verbal sparring comes amid heightened tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations, though both sides have said they want to avoid war.
The usually soft-spoken and reticent Mr. Singh made his remarks at a conference in New Delhi to review India's internal security. India has announced the overhaul of its security system since the Mumbai attacks, which culminated a year of terrorist strikes around the country including in New Delhi, Jaipur and the northeast.
Mr. Singh made a distinction, however, between threats emanating from inside the nation, such as the separatist movement in the northeastern state of Assam and a Maoist rebellion in central and southeastern states, and terrorist threats from abroad.

Even though this year internally-launched attacks have claimed in total more lives than the Mumbai strikes, Mr. Singh said the key threat was from increasingly sophisticated and frequent attacks targeting the country's economy and infrastructure by groups emanating from neighboring states, chiefly Pakistan. The distinction may have been designed to focus attention on India's neighbors, rather than the nation's own internal problems, in advance of a national election that must be held before May.

"Terrorism is largely sponsored from outside our country, mainly Pakistan, which has utilized terrorism as an instrument of state policy," Mr. Singh said. He also said given the sophistication and precision of the Mumbai attacks, the terrorists must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan.
Some analysts said Mr. Singh's remarks would complicate efforts to defuse tensions between the two countries and could further weaken the civilian government in Pakistan. "Both India and Pakistan need to be careful with their rhetoric," said John Harrison, assistant professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. It's in India's own security interests to "help stabilize the civilian government in Pakistan" not weaken it, he added.

Pakistan also poured cold water on India's claims that the dossier of evidence provided Monday contained proof that the attacks emanated from Pakistan. A senior official in the foreign ministry said the file provided no new information beyond what already had appeared in the Indian media. "We are willing to provide all cooperation provided India gives us more detail," the official said.

A major problem, according to the official, is that India wasn't willing to coordinate with the intelligence agencies involved in Islamabad's own investigation. "We have to develop a mechanism for the sharing of information and the investigation," he said.

Western diplomats, as well as Indian officials, have said Pakistan has all the information it needs to show that the attackers were Pakistani and launched their attacks from Pakistan. India and U.S. officials say the attacks were planned by Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Pakistan security officials also say that one Lashkar leader arrested in the wake of the attacks has admitted to the group's involvement.

India Starts Diplomatic Offensive Against Pakistan (Update 1)

Jan. 5 -- India opened a diplomatic offensive against Pakistan, distributing a file of what it says is evidence that Pakistani militants carried out the November terrorist attacks that killed 164 people in Mumbai.

India’s Foreign Ministry said it gave Pakistani diplomats details from the interrogation of the surviving gunman, and from “the terrorists’ communication links with elements in Pakistan during the Mumbai attack.” India also shared the evidence today with China’s visiting vice foreign minister He Yafei and with ambassadors in New Delhi to underscore the demand that Pakistan hand over suspects from the Lashkar-e-Taiba guerrilla group, which India says conducted the attack.

Pakistan, which has denied repeatedly that its nationals were involved, said in a Foreign Ministry statement that it’s examining the material. In Islamabad, visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher discussed the issue with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and was to meet with President Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s Dawn News television channel said, citing unidentified Pakistani officials. Vice President-elect Joe Biden will visit Pakistan Jan. 9 and meet with Zardari, 11 days before taking office with Barack Obama’s new administration, Pakistan’s GEO TV channel reported, citing officials it didn’t identify. A U.S. Embassy spokesman said the mission doesn’t discuss officials’ travel plans.

U.S. Role
The U.S. has “a duty to pursue all avenues to get to the bottom” of the Mumbai plot, particularly as American citizens were among those killed in the attack, U.S. Ambassador to India David Mulford told reporters in New Delhi. Mulford said the U.S. government supports India’s demand for prosecution of the plotters and “will pursue this matter to its conclusion.”
The U.S. is concerned that increased tension between India and Pakistan may divert Pakistani authorities from their fight against Taliban and allied guerrilla groups along its western border with Afghanistan.
India will urge the Bush administration to press Pakistan for action when its home minister, who is responsible for security matters, visits Washington this week. The minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, told reporters he will travel to the U.S. with the evidence as India seeks “cast iron guarantees” from Pakistan that it will stop terrorists using its soil to stage attacks.

Guarantees Sought
“Guarantees have to come from those who control the levers of power and that means the elected civilian government, plus the army,” Chidambaram told India’s NDTV news channel. “These are guarantees that have to be given to the international community.”
The material distributed today includes details about weapons and equipment recovered from the Mumbai attackers, plus data from satellite phones and geographical devices, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It includes a confession from the surviving gunman, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, and transcripts of phone conversations between the terrorists and their “handlers” in Pakistan during the attacks, the Press Trust of India news agency reported Jan. 2, citing unidentified sources.
“What happened in Mumbai was an unpardonable crime,” Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in New Delhi today. “As far as the government of Pakistan is concerned, we ask only that it implement the bilateral commitments that it has made at the highest levels to India.”
The home minister is expected to meet with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and possibly President-elect Obama’s transition team, PTI reported.

Phone Intercepts
Zarar Shah, a top Lashkar commander captured in a raid in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, admitted a role in the assault during interrogation, the unidentified Pakistani official told the Journal. The admission is backed by U.S. intercepts of a phone call between Shah and an attacker at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel, the official said.
Lashkar’s alleged role is sensitive for Pakistan because the group received weapons and logistical support from the main intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, for attacks in Indian-controlled Kashmir in the 1990s, according to Indian and U.S. officials and independent Pakistani analysts. Pakistan denied involvement in those attacks.
“Our goals are clear,” Menon said. “We want the perpetrators to be brought to Indian justice. The assistance from Pakistan extends up to and includes extradition.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at bpradhan@bloomberg.net; James Rupert in New Delhi at jrupert3@bloomberg.net

LeT role in 26/11 confirmed, India asks Pak to act

Pakistan has finally admitted the Lashkar-e-Toiba was behind the Mumbai terror attacks.

Even though there is no official confirmation but Pakistani Prime Ministers Office has told CNN-IBN that Lashkar-e-Toiba planned and executed 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

However, New Delhi is cautious about the admission with sources in the Ministry of External Affairs saying that India is looking for more tangible action.

The sources in Pakistani PMO said that two Lashkar operatives Zaik-ur Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah have confessed to planning and executing Mumbai attacks.

Lakhvi and Shah had been picked up from a Lashkar camp near Muzaffarabad early in December. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani admitted that both Lakhvi and Shah had been detained but denied it subsequently.

Now a Wall Street Journal report quotes Pakistani security officials as saying that Shah, who heads the technology wing of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, has confessed to being one of the key planners of the 26/11 attacks.

He reportedly admitted to advising and directing the terrorists in Mumbai.

The confessions were backed by US intercepts of a phone call between Shah and one of the terrorists at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai

Earlier Pakistan's National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani hinted at the possibility of a Pakistani role to the Mumbai attacks.

"Could be…could be. I am not saying more than that because we don't have... I hate to say this we don't have proof," Durrani told CNN-IBN on Tuesday.

Now the Indian Government says there is enough evidence for Pakistan to act upon.

"What more evidence does Pakistan require than the statement of the captured terrorist and his father," Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said.

Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma said, "Under the international law it is the obligation of the State of Pakistan to take action after individuals have been named. There is overwhelming evidence. We hope that the pressure of international committee will continue."

India will prefer to wait for a formal official word from Islamabad on Lakhvi and Shah. Until then it will continue to leverage diplomatic pressures on Pakistan

Lashkar has Docs, Engineers as recruits: report

The Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which is blamed for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, is now attracting "more young, educated men, some of whom even hold advanced degrees," a US daily reported on Thursday.

"The profile of those joining the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba is changing," the Washington Times said citing Brig. Gen. Mahmood Shah, who served the Pakistani Army in the largely ungoverned tribal areas along Pakistan's porous border with Afghanistan.

"The big change is that until a few years back most of the militants were hailing from the [Afghan] frontier, but now the scenario has changed and young men from all over Pakistan are joining," Shah was quoted as saying in a report from Lahore.

A ripe breeding ground for the new militants is southern Punjab, he told the Washington Times. Since the school system in Punjab is better than in the tribal areas, most of the new entrants to militant groups are better educated, Shah said.

The only Mumbai attacker captured, Muhammed Amir Ajmal alias Kasab, had completed only the fourth grade, according to Indian and Pakistani press reports. But in a recent interview, a Kashmir-based LeT commander told the Times that members of the group include young men with master's degrees in business administration and bachelor's degrees in computer science.

The militant commander, who goes by the name Abu Aqasa, spoke by cell phone from Lahore and answered other questions in writing, the Times said.

"We have doctors and engineers and computer specialists working for us," he said. "These people don't necessarily fight wars with us. They mainly help us spread our message in cities and villages and also help us in our dispensaries, hospitals and other charitable works."

Abu Aqasa was quoted as saying the organisation uses educated people and especially those with good communications skills to recruit supporters in religious congregations. Once a young man has embraced the militants' ideology, he is inducted into the organisation and sent for further training.

An organiser for a Lahore-based religious organisation told the Times dire economic conditions are the main reason young, educated people are being attracted to militancy in Pakistan.

"People can't find jobs and have nothing to eat," said the man, who asked not to be identified to avoid attracting attention from the police.

"Families find it attractive that if one person is sent for jihad, then that means one less mouth to feed in their house."

Hundreds of thousands have joined the group in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and that while they have been affected by a government crackdown following the attacks in Mumbai, they are still going strong, he was quoted as saying.

Kashif Alam, senior superintendent of police in Peshawar, told the Times the profile of the average militant in that northwest Pakistani city near the border with Afghanistan has changed but that the number of educated Pakistanis was actually decreasing.

"We're seeing an increase in the number of criminals who are working for these militant organisations," he was quoted as saying. "More and more of their operations are being carried out by criminals. Some of the people we have captured were found with thousands of rupees in their pockets."

However, profiles of two would-be suicide bombers captured in the tribal areas and shown to the press contradicted Alam's views, the Times said.

Ali Raza, who surrendered to the police in November, was in his final year studying mass communications. In Dera Ismail Khan, a young man wearing a jacket loaded with explosives was intercepted inside a mosque. He was later found to have completed his high school matriculation.