The United Nations Security Council has stepped up to the plate and declared the Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa a front group for the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group. The UNSC has placed Hafiz Saeed and three other senior leaders of Lashkar-e-Taiba / Jamaat-ud-Dawa on the list of terrorists associated with the Taliban and al Qaeda. The Pakistani government has said it would act if the UNSC placed the group on its list of terrorists. Today, Saeed has been placed under “house arrest” for three months and offices of the terror group have been shut down in Karachi, Hyderabad, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Azad Kashmir. Prior to the designation, two senior Lashkar operatives thought to be behind the Mumbai attacks have been detained. The big questions are: is the Pakistani government serious about taking on the host of terror groups openly operating in Pakistan and will the military and intelligence establishment accept this? Saeed has been detained in the past, only to be released, and when Lashkar-e-Taiba was banned in the past, it merely renamed itself the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and continued operations. The intelligence and military establishment have used Lashkar-e-Taiba / Jamaat-ud-Dawa and other jihadi groups as part of Pakistan’s policy to oppose India and liberate Kashmir decades ago. The Pakistani institutions have invested plenty into these terror groups, and significant elements are sympathetic or openly support their activities. What happens if the government goes to far?
