US intelligence focuses on Pakistani militants

WASHINGTON - US intelligence and counterterrorism officials said yesterday that there is mounting evidence that a Pakistani militant group based in Kashmir, most likely Lashkar-e-Taiba, is responsible for this week's deadly attacks in Mumbai.

The officials cautioned that they have reached no firm conclusions about who was responsible for the attack, or how it was planned and carried out.

Nevertheless, they said that evidence gathered during the past two days has pointed to a role for Lashkar-e-Taiba or possibly another group based in Kashmir, Jaish-e-Muhammad, which also has a track record of attacks against India.

The officials insisted on anonymity in describing their thinking and declined to discuss specifics of the intelligence that they said pointed to Kashmiri militants.

In the past, US intelligence services have used communications intercepts to tie Kashmiri militants to terrorist strikes.

Indian officials may also be gleaning information from some of the captured militants who participated in the Mumbai attacks.

According to one Indian intelligence official, the militants have been using non-Indian cellphones and receiving calls from outside the country during the siege, evidence that in part led Indian officials to speak publicly about the militants' external ties.

Lashkar-e-Taiba denied any responsibility for the terrorist strikes on Thursday.

US intelligence agencies have said the group received some training and logistical support in the past from Pakistan's powerful spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, and that Pakistan's government has long turned a blind eye to Lashkar-e-Taiba camps in the Kashmir region.

Officials in Washington said yesterday that there was no evidence that the Pakistani government had any role in the attacks.

But if evidence were to emerge that the operation had been planned and directed from within Pakistan, that would certainly escalate tensions between the bitter nuclear-armed rivals, and could provoke an Indian military response, possibly including strikes against militants' training camps.

US and Indian officials were pursuing the possibility that the attackers arrived off the coast of Mumbai in a merchant ship, and then boarded smaller boats before launching the attack.

An American counterterrorism official said that there was strong evidence that Lashkar-e-Taiba has a "maritime capability" and would have been capable of mounting the sophisticated operation in Mumbai, which intelligence officials believe began when the attackers arrived at the city in the small boats.

Senior Bush administration officials sought to keep the tensions from boiling over yesterday by maintaining steady contact with Indian officials.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke by phone with Pranab Mukherjee, India's foreign minister, and one of Rice's deputies spoke with the Indian foreign secretary.