The United States is offering a $10 million bounty for the arrest of of Hafiz Sayeed, founder of the group blamed for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. The reward is intended to increase the pressure on Pakistan to crack down on militant groups.
Sayeed, founder of the outlawed Lashkar-i-Taiba(Army of the Pious) and its successor group, has long been designated an international terrorist. Yet he continues to preach jihad with impunity and operates a large campus for religious training in the eastern city of Lahore.
U.S. and Indian officials allege that Sayeed and other militant leaders operate with the tacit permission of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, the army’s chief spy agency, but Pakistan denies it.
On Monday, the U.S. Rewards for Justice Web site announced it was offering a $10 million for Sayeed’s arrest — as much at it is offering for fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
Washington is also offering $2 million for the arrest of Sayeed’s deputy, Hafiz Abdul Rahman Makki. Both men are wanted for planning the gun-and-bomb attacks in Mumbai, in which six Americans were killed.
Sayeed, a virulently anti-India and anti-U.S. cleric, now heads Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which he calls a charitable organization but is also designated as a terrorist group by the United States and the United Nations.
Many analysts see Jamaat-ud-Dawa — also technically banned here — as a reconstituted cover for the Lashkar-i-Taiba militia. Sayeed is periodically placed under house arrest, then freed. He asserts that Jamaat-ud-Dawa has no connection to Lashkar-i-Taiba, and often denies association with either one.
In a statement Tuesday, Jamaat-ud-Dawa spokesman Yahya Mujahid characterized the bounties as “an attack on Islam and Muslims,” saying that U.S. authorities “turned against” Jamaat-ud-Dawa “after getting impressed by Indian propaganda against us.”
“The whole world knows that Hafiz Sayeed and Abdur Rehman Maki are not hiding in any caves, and they are rather popular leaders of this great country Pakistan and busy in welfare activities for the people of this country,” Mujahid’s statement said.
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