Proxy war: LeT Pak's big weapon, says US expert

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) may officially be a banned outfit in Pakistan, but the terrorist organisation remains an integral weapon in the arsenal of the Pakistani state, said an American researcher with expertise in the field.

Speaking in the city on Sunday, Christine Fair, who is an associate professor of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and who has studied LeT since 2004, said that Lashkar-e-Taiba remains important from the Pakistani state's point of view.

"Not only are they a reliable proxy, but they also spread a clear message of non-violence within Pakistan," Fair said, explaining that the group's value to Islamabad is heightened by the fact that it is the only terrorist organisation within Pakistan that has never attacked Pakistan.

"Instead they have this huge outreach programme, and because the state does not provide services to Hindus in the Sindh, they will go dig wells, provide medical aid and other social services," she added.

Much of these social ventures are intended to convert Hindus to Islam, but what is telling is that the group is also militantly opposed to other terror organisations such as the Islamic State (IS), because they do not accept a doctrine of creating fear or declaring somebody a kaffir.

These assertions, among others, form the basis of a new book by Fair, titled 'In Their Own Words: Understanding the Lashkar-e-Taiba Way', which comes on the heels of an earlier book on the Pakistani military which saw Fair deported and barred from Pakistan in 2013.

"I was PNGd out of the country," she joked, as a means to explain that she was made persona non grata for her book 'Fighting to the End: Pakistan’s Army Way of War', which she said had thoroughly offended the Pakistani top brass.

Fair said that she was struck by how similar LeT's recruitment tactics are when compared to the US Army. "They spend a lot of effort persuading families. Some will say they won’t allow jihadists to go on a mission without their mothers' blessings," she said, adding that those women who encourage their sons to join the jihad are accorded high status.