LeT plans terror strikes across the world

The terror attacks on Mumbai were merely a dress rehearsal for the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, which is planning to unleash a global wave of terror.

Investigations into the November attack, conducted by he  Mumbai police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Intelligence Bureau, have revealed the LeT's global plans.

Sabahuddin, chief of the LeT's Nepal unit and a co-accused in the 26/11 attack, has told interrogators that the Lashkar cadres were instructed to be prepared for terror strikes across the world.

Sabahuddin's statements are backed by the e-mails of LeT leaders Zarar Shah and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, say IB sources.

The Inter Services Intelligence had given the LeT the go-ahead to spread its terror tentacles beyond South Asia, as the Al Qaeda has restricted its operations to fighting the United States-led forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to Intelligence Bureau sources. The ties between the ISI and Osama bin Laden's terror outfit have also weakened after the build-up of American forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Zarar Shah's e-mails, accessed by the FBI, prove that the LeT had zeroed in on 300 tragets across the world. Twenty of these targets are located in India.

Sabahuddin added that the LeT has already sent its cadres to conduct reconnaissance of these places and would strike when the time is right.

But IB officials have warned that in spite of the LeT's global plans, India will continue to be the terror outfit's prime target.