Ideology of hate: Lashkar-e-Toiba's goals and crimes

A court on Thursday sentenced to death three persons convicted of conspiring with the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militant group to carry out serial blasts in Mumbai in 2003 that killed at least 54 people, officials said.

India also blames the Pakistan-based (LeT) for last November's attacks in Mumbai that killed over 150 people. Here are some details about the group:

WHO ARE THE LASHKAR-E-TOIBA?

• Lashkar-e-Toiba means "the army of Taiba". Taiba is the old name of the Muslim holy city of Medina in Saudi Arabia. The group's name has also been translated as "the army of the pure". It was a militant offshoot of Markaz Dawatul Irshad, an Islamic charity and educational organisation.
• Markaz Dawatul Irshad has since been renamed Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which was at the forefront of relief work after a 2005 earthquake killed 73,000 people in northern Pakistan.
• Lashkar-e-Toiba was founded in 1990 by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and Zafar Iqbal to fight Indian rule in Kashmir. Saeed was a former teacher of Islamic studies at Lahore's University of Engineering and Technology.
• Lashkar based its philosophy on Wahabism, the austere brand of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia, and has relied on donations from overseas.
• The group's broader objective is to Islamicise South Asia.

WHAT HAVE THEY DONE?

• India blames the LeT for the assault on Mumbai, when 10 gunmen attacked several city landmarks, including a crowded railway station and two luxury hotels, during a 60-hour siege. Lashkar denied involvement and condemned the attacks. But India says it has given enough proof to Pakistan of the group's complicity, including taped telephonic conversations between the militants and handlers in Pakistan in course of the attacks as well as a confession by the lone surviving gunman linking the raids to LeT leaders.
• The militant group claimed responsibility for a 2000 attack on an army base in New Delhi's historic Red Fort which killed three people. It also claimed responsibility for an attack on Srinagar airport in January 2001 that led to the deaths of five Indians and six militants.
• In December 2001, gunmen raided Parliament in New Delhi, killing 14 people. India said the LeT and the Jaish-e-Mohammad, another Pakistan-based group, were responsible. Lashkar denied it was involved.
• The group was blamed for bomb attacks on crowded markets in New Delhi that killed about 66 people in Oct 2005. Lashkar again denied involvement.

COUNTER-MEASURES

• Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf banned the two groups accused of the attack on India's parliament in Jan. 2002. The United States designated Lashkar a "foreign terrorist organisation" in 2001.
• The United States froze the assets of four prominent members of Lashkar in May 2008 including Saeed, who the United States said was Lashkar's chief who played a major role in operational and fund-raising activities.
• It named the others as Pakistan-born Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, chief of operations, Haji Muhammad Ashraf, chief of finance and India-born Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq, described as the main Lashkar financier in the 1980s and 1990s.
• A UN Security Council committee added Saeed and his charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa to a list of people and organisations linked to al Qaeda or the Taliban in December.

(Sources: Reuters/Janes World Insurgency & Terrorism/FAS)