NEW DELHI, Dec 3, (Agencies): India on Wednesday warned that all options were open in dealing with Pakistan after last week’s attacks on Mumbai, as the United States pressured Islamabad to show urgent cooperation with the probe.

Speaking at a joint news conference with visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said there was “no doubt” that the militants had come from and were coordinated from Pakistan.

“What action will be taken by the government will depend on the response we have from the Pakistan authorities,” he said, referring to India’s demand that Pakistan hand over 20 terrorist suspects.

“I am expecting the response, (and) after obtaining the response, whatever the government considers necessary to protect its territorial integrity, safety and security of its citizens, the government will do that,” he warned.

He said he had told Rice “that there is no doubt the terrorists were individuals who came from Pakistan and whose controllers are in Pakistan.”

The attacks against India’s economic capital — which began a week ago and lasted 60 hours — were carried out by 10 gunmen, some of whom arrived by boat.

Indian security forces detained one of the militants alive, and officials say he has admitted to being a Pakistani from Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Islamist group based across the border and long seen as a creation of Pakistan’s shadowy spy service.

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Washington, Dec 4 (IANS) American intelligence agencies have determined that former officers from Pakistan's Army and its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency helped train the Mumbai attackers, the New York Times has reported citing a former Defence Department official.

But the unnamed official said that no specific links had been uncovered yet between the terrorists and the Pakistani government, the influential US daily said in a report from Washington published Thursday. His disclosure came as Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with his Pakistani counterpart in Islamabad to pressure Pakistan to cooperate fully in the effort to track down those responsible for last week's terror attacks in Mumbai.

Admiral Mullen pressed the Pakistani leaders to crack down on Lashkar-e-Taiba's (LeT) network of training camps, including those in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, and the organization's guerrilla recruiting efforts, the Times said citing an American military official. He also called on them to "investigate aggressively" any Pakistani links to the attacks.

more with other articles here

04 Dec 2008 23:59:22 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Several attackers may have survived the three-day siege of Mumbai that killed 171 people last week, analysts said on Thursday.

"I think there are more. My sources say (there were) at least 23 of the gunmen," said Farhana Ali, a former CIA and Rand Corp counterterrorism analyst and expert on militant networks. Ali, who most recently visited India and Pakistan last month before the attacks, said her information came from Pakistan, but declined to further identify the source.

"If that's true, that makes one wonder why we haven't seen more attacks. Are they lying low?" she said "I think they (Indian authorities) are bracing themselves for more," she said.

Ali spoke at a briefing for U.S. government counterterrorism and military officials, and others. It was sponsored by the Counterterrorism Foundation, which supports research and publication on terrorism issues.

A security scare at the New Delhi airport early on Friday New Delhi time, in which media reported a shootout after what India's NDTV described as two sharp sounds, underscored the country's raw nerves. NDTV said a police sweep turned up nothing unusual and a Reuters witness said operations appeared normal.

Indian authorities have said 10 gunmen took part in the Mumbai attacks last week. But reports early in the attacks cited police as estimating there were 25 gunmen.

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December 04, 2008 18:02 IST

Last Updated: December 04, 2008 19:07 IST

India has proof that the Inter Services Intelligence was involved in planning the Mumbai terror attacks [Images] and training the terrorists who killed 183 people during a 60-hour siege of the country's financial capital, sources said in New Delhi on Thursday.

The names of trainers and the places where meticulous training took place are also known to the government, the sources said.

The United States is believed to have even more evidence, some of which it has shared with India, they said.

Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, who was in Pakistan on Wednesday, is believed to have told his Pakistani interlocutors that Washington had enough evidence to show a Pakistani hand in the attack, the sources said.

Sources in New Delhi also refuse to believe that the Pakistani army did not have knowledge of the Mumbai operation given that the ISI is controlled by it.

At the same time, sources do not believe that the civilian government in Pakistan is involved in the attack. In fact, one view is that the civilian government itself may be a target of the strike which may be used by the army to heighten tensions with India to return to power.

Washington has asked Pakistan to crackdown on Lashkar e Tayiba, which now goes under the name of Jamaat ud Dawa, and to arrest its chief Hafeez Mohammed Saeed because it has evidence of their involvement in the attack, the sources said.

The attack was planned, equipped and organised in Pakistan where the terrorists were trained and provided logistical support.

Contrary to the version that the terrorists used a hijacked Indian fishing boat to reach Mumbai after sailing from Karachi, the view in the capital is that much more sophisticated means were used.

The sources spoke of a clear disconnect between the Pakistani civilian government and the all-powerful military establishment, which is causing difficulties for India in dealing with the situation.

Islamabad's about-turn on sending the director general of ISI to India is cited as an instance of this disconnect.

During a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the Mumbai attack, President Asif Zardari had referred to an earlier Pakistani proposal for a meeting between the ISI chief and the head of India's external intelligence agency, RAW.

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The military command in Pakistan has made it clear that it is not prepared to take the "direct" action against militants that the United States is demanding in the wake of the attacks on Mumbai last week. The military says it will do things its own way, including putting pressure on former officials of the Inter-Services Intelligence, a half-hearted move that could backfire spectacularly.

Dec 6, 2008

Pakistan follows its own path
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Visiting United States officials Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week presented Pakistan with "difficult to deny" proof of the involvement of officials of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Pakistani militant groups in last week's Mumbai attack.

They have demanded direct action, such as the arrest of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the chief of the Jamaatut Dawa, formerly the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), the group with which the 10 attackers of Mumbai were connected. They also want the LET's Zakiur

Rahman apprehended, as well as the ISI officers involved in plotting the Mumbai attack.

But the Pakistani military command, the Corps Commanders Conference, agreed on a principled stand on Thursday that Pakistan will confront the threat of militancy through its own course of action, not at the dictates of anybody else. This position has been relayed to Washington, Asia Times Online contacts familiar with the security apparatus say.

The danger is that the US will see the Pakistani stance as a stalling move and take matters into its own hands. Already over the past few months, the US has stepped up unmanned Predator drone attacks on militant targets inside Pakistan in its frustration with Islamabad for not doing enough in clamping down on militancy.

There is no immediate indication of how Pakistan will react, although it clearly has to do something, given the evidence of communication intercepted between Rahman and the Mumbai militants and the confessions of the only militant to have survived - Ajmal Amir Kesab. He is reportedly said to have detailed how the militants were trained in Pakistan.

In an excerpt from his interrogation handed to Pakistan by Indian authorities, Kesab is reported to have said, "I thought, why should I die when I have a chance to kill more people. Then I was surrounded and captured, but no problem. I will spend some time in prison and then some of my comrades will hijack an [Indian] plane and get me released."

Despite this, there is skepticism among the general masses, the military cadre and Pakistani media over the authenticity of anything coming from Delhi. This is a major hurdle preventing Islamabad from taking "direct" action.

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Asia Times

The deadly attacks in Mumbai may have provided enough impetus for India to attack militant camps inside Pakistan-administered Kashmir, according to a senior Indian official. New Delhi has already set up a federal anti-terror agency and has sought out Israel for assistance. It's all fine by Washington, as long as it doesn't lead to all-out war with Pakistan. - Siddharth Srivastava (Dec 5,'08)

05 Dec 2008 13:56:52 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Rina Chandran

MUMBAI, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Round-the-clock news coverage of the Mumbai attacks has made Indians nervous but analysts said on Friday it was also stoking anti-Pakistan public opinion and risks shaping policy before elections due by May.

Psychiatrists in India's financial hub are reporting increased cases of panic attacks and insomnia after last week's attacks, telecast live into millions of homes, by Islamist militants who killed 171 people.

"There was no sense of balance or reasoning. The coverage was so jingoistic and nationalistic, they've pushed public opinion on Pakistan to a point of no return," said Atul Phadnis, chief executive of consultancy Media e2e.

In the days since the attacks, the Indian flag is often used by broadcasters as a visual backdrop, with viewers' text messages expressing anger at politicians or Pakistan ticking across the bottom of screens.

Pakistan has condemned the attacks and denied any state involvement, as well as vowing to help the Indian probe.

A big protest in Mumbai on Wednesday, organised by text messages and on Internet social network Facebook and radio, was proof of growing media influence on opinion, said B. Manjula, chair of the Centre for Media and Cultural Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

"Everyone is being led to believe that by lighting a candle or carrying a poster they've done their part as a dutiful citizen without questioning whose opinion they are pandering to ... their actions only make for great visuals for TV," she said.

There are more than 60 English and regional-language news channels fighting for the attention of 80 million Indian homes.

Most were launched in the last three years when a booming economy helped drive advertising revenues. But the fierce competition has also meant that less experienced journalists have been thrust into the field, Manjula said.

"This is a complex issue with various dimensions to it. Simply reducing it to 'politicians are villains' and 'Pakistan is the enemy' without discourse or debate is a deep failing of the media, but it does influence public opinion," said Manjula.

Across the border, the Pakistani media decried what it saw as the undue haste with which India blamed Pakistan for the assault, but is not urging the government to take a particular line.

The liberal Daily Times newspaper said in an editorial on Friday the distrust and hostility engendered by "black-and-white" media opinion on both sides would block proper communication.

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Hoax call pushed Pakistan to brink of war with India (Roundup)
South Asia News
DPA
By Nadeem Sarwar Dec 6, 2008, 12:40 GMT

Islamabad - Nuclear-armed Pakistan edged to the brink of war with India when its president received a threatening call from someone posing as Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee during last week's Mumbai attacks, a media report said Saturday.

The incident has raised questions in Pakistan of how the head of a nuclear state could be fooled by an ill-wisher.

The caller, who was put through to President Asif Ali Zardari late in the day on November 28 without verification of his claimed identity, warned that India would take 'military action if Islamabad failed to immediately act against the supposed perpetrators of the Mumbai killings.'

According to The Dawn newspaper, as the phone call ended many in the president's office were convinced that the 'Indians had started beating the war drums.'

Panicked authorities put Pakistan Air Force on 'highest alert' and jet fighters patrolled over and around the federal capital with live ammunition for the next 24 hours, the newspaper reported, citing several unnamed Pakistani political, diplomatic and security sources.

Alarming messages were sent to top officials in Washington, including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as the country was eyeing India for possible signs of military aggression.

'War may not have been imminent, but it was not possible to take any chances,' one senior official told the newspaper.

But Mukherjee denied that he had made any phone call to Zardari as Rice contacted him in the middle of the night on Friday, when the Indian security forces were still battling the terrorists in Mumbai.

The situation was defused on the following day with hectic international efforts.

An official in Pakistan's foreign ministry confirmed the report to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa but declined to give his name saying only the president's office is authorized to speak on the issue.

Zardari's spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, said he was checking the veracity of the news report.

The Mumbai slaughter that left more than 170 people dead and over 300 injured have raised tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad as the Indian police claim the 10 attackers were linked with Pakistan- based Islamic militant outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The same group which was also suspected to be involved in 2001 attack on the Indian parliament brought the two nuclear-armed South Asian nations on the verge of a war.

A source in Indian High Commission in Islamabad told Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency that a clear message was sent out to Pakistani authorities that the call was fake and 'it should not exacerbate tensions at a crucial time.'

With the situation still murky, Pakistan on November 29 threatened to withdraw more than 100,000 troops fighting al-Qaeda and Taliban along its western border if India started a military build-up on eastern border, raising even further concerns in Washington.

Investigations are underway to establish the identity of the caller. Pakistani authorities suspect the phone call came from a number in New Delhi and might have been someone in India's foreign ministry, a claim New Delhi rejected outright.

The Indian government did not have many details about the call till Zardari himself mentioned the matter to a colleague in India, PTI report said. This led to widespread cross-checking by India's External Affairs Ministry and it was clearly established that no such call had been made.

According to Dawn, the same mysterious caller also tried to speak to Rice pretending to be the Indian external affairs minister, but due to the specific checks laid down by the Americans, the call could not get through.

Criticism has mounted on Zardar's offices of why the standard procedures, including the verification of the caller and engagement of the diplomatic missions, were by-passed when the fake caller was connected to the president.

'That is an absolutely irresponsible attitude that could be very dangerous when you are heading a nuclear state,' said Ahmed Raza Kasuri, an ex-Pakistani minister and a close aide to former president Pervez Musharraf.

'Someone has to be severely punished for the security laps even if it is the president himself.'

Tim Weiner | December 6

NYT - All of the nightmares of the 21st century come together in Pakistan,” in the words of the former C.I.A. officer Bruce Riedel. Among them is Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Army of the Pure, the group being blamed for the deadly attacks in Mumbai.

American intelligence on Lashkar falls into three categories. The biggest is the unknown. What little is known is bad enough. The what-ifs are worse: in particular, a possible strategic partnership between Lashkar and Al Qaeda’s forces in Pakistan. Then there is the unknown.

If there were operational links between Lashkar and Al Qaeda in the multiple attacks that terrorized Mumbai for three days last week, American counterterrorism officials are still looking for the evidence. Beyond informed speculation, no proof in the public domain shows those two groups have a working alliance. But they have had some common goals and common ground.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, visiting India, said she would not “jump to any conclusions,” given the absence of proof. But she also said: “Whether there is a direct Al Qaeda hand or not, this is clearly the kind of terrorism in which Al Qaeda participates.”

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[Comment: If I was a betting man, I'd bet that they lost control of an asset. Unilateral ops, but without a valid go order from higher. To be sure, probably some factions of higher that think its a spiffy idea, but not something that got put in action what one would think of as the "normal" way. Lots of organizational sympathies and cross-ties developed over the past number of years - could well see this one coming off as a generalized gambit to surf off chaos or a better formed indirect one to, within Pakistan, pull pressure off FATA, increase difficulty in receiving the type of foreign military aid they need, spark increased popular discontent, etc.~ JPD]

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

December 7, 2008
Rhys Blakely, Mumbai

India was today grappling with the possibility that one of its own undercover operatives helped equip the Islamist extremists who attacked Mumbai, killing more than 170 people.

Police in Indian-controlled Kashmir today demanded the release of one of their undercover agents after he was arrested by police in Delhi for allegedly supplying a mobile SIM card used by the Mumbai gunmen.

Mukhtar Ahmed, 35, originally from Indian-controlled Kashmir, was detained on Friday in Delhi. He is being held with another man, Tauseef Rehman, 26, who was arrested in his home city of Calcutta on the same day.

The detention of the two men, both now being held in Calcutta, had been hailed as a potentially key breakthrough in the Mumbai investigation.

The operation turned sour, however, after police in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir's summer capital, said that Ahmed worked for them, raising the possibility that an Indian agent aided the militants that committed India's work terror attack in 15 years.

A senior officer in Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, said Calcutta police were told that Ahmed is "our man and it's now up to them how to facilitate his release".

He said that Ahmed was a Special Police Officer, part of a semi-official counterinsurgency network whose members are usually drawn from former militants.

"Sometimes we use our men engaged in counterinsurgency ops to provide SIM cards to the (militant) outfits so that we track their plans down," he said.

A police spokesman in Calcutta told The Times that his force was investigating the claims. He said the arrests of the two men were the result of the "very neat" cooperation of India's intelligence agencies.

At stake now, however, is the perceived integrity of the Indian police: Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based terrorist faction that Indian officials believe is behind the Mumbai attacks, for was formed to free Kashmir from Indian rule and has long infiltrated militants into the state.

The arrests of the two men also provided the first indication that the Indian authorities, who have so far insisted that the Mumbai attacks were planned in and launched from Pakistan, believe the gunmen may have received help from inside India.

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It's unclear whether Pakistani officials took the alleged mastermind of the attacks, Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, into custody during a raid Sunday.

By Laura King, LA Times
11:51 AM PST, December 8, 2008

Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan -- Pakistani officials offered contradictory statements today as to whether an accused mastermind of the Mumbai attacks was among those arrested when Pakistani troops swooped down a day earlier on an alleged militant camp.

The confusion that persisted 24 hours after the raid took place underscored the extreme sensitivity of any Pakistani government action against militant groups and individuals implicated by Indian investigators in last month's shooting rampage in India's commercial and entertainment hub.

Part of that is due to enmity with India; part is due to the widespread sense in Pakistan that moving aggressively against Islamic insurgents has galvanized them to carry out suicide attacks at home, including the September truck bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad that killed more than 50 people.

Nearly two weeks after militants attacked the Indian city of Mumbai, killing more than 170 people, Pakistan's civilian government is under intense pressure from Washington officials and others to go after the suspected perpetrators. But Pakistani leaders fear a domestic backlash if the government moves forcefully against militant groups.

India and Western intelligence officials have cast strong suspicion on Lashkar-e-Taiba, or "Army of the Pure," and an affiliated group called Jamaat ud-Dawa, a self-described charitable and educational organization.

Sunday's army operation in the Pakistani-controlled slice of Kashmir, the Himalayan territory over which Pakistan and India have fought two wars, was not formally acknowledged by the Pakistani military until late today.

The terse statement did not address whether Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, a senior figure in Lashkar was in government custody, though it acknowledged an unspecified number of arrests. Local witnesses said troops sealed off the camp, which lies outside Pakistani Kashmir's capital, Muzaffarabad, and briefly battled those holed up inside.

Two senior Pakistani officials said early today they believed Lakhvi was arrested, but two others said later in the day that to their knowledge, Lakhvi was not one of more than a dozen militant suspects netted in the raid. All four officials spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the inflammatory nature of the issue.

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(Roundup)
South Asia News

Dec 9, 2008, 13:41 GMT

Islamabad - Pakistan confirmed Tuesday that the alleged planner of the November 26 Mumbai terrorist attacks, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, and chief of a militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad, Maulana Masood Azhar, have been arrested.

'Lakhvi was picked up yesterday. Azhar has also been picked up,' Defence Minister Chaudhry Mukhar Ahmed said told CNN-IBN in a telephone interview.

According to Indian officials, Ajmal Amir Kasav, the lone surviving Mumbai attacker, told investigators that Lakhwi was the alleged mastermind of the siege.

Lakhwi, who heads the banned Islamic militant organization Lashkar-e-Taiba, was apprehended at a suspected terrorist-training camp just outside Muzaffarabad city, the capital of Pakistan- administered Kashmir.

Some media reports said over a dozen more people were arrested in the pre-dawn raid. Azhar has not so far been directly linked with the Mumbai attacks that left 172 people killed and more than 300 injured. But he is wanted by India for some other previous terrorist strikes.

The crackdown come as tensions between India and Pakistan wererunning dangerously high. New Delhi has demanded Pakistan hand over the suspects.

Ahmed said Pakistan might allow Indian officials to question Lakhvi and Azhar.

'We will help India in joint investigations,' he said. 'India may be allowed to interrogate these people also.'

However, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi ruled out extradition of any of the 16 arrested terror suspects to India.

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I'm a little uneasy on how they are targeting LeT and of the US deep involvement in the investigation, is there really an investigation or just a need to look like they know what is going on?

By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — A United Nations Security Council committee put three Pakistani leaders of the group Lashkar-e-Taiba and a Saudi operative on a terrorist watch list Wednesday as new evidence surfaced that the group blamed for the Mumbai attacks has expanded its activities and its fundraising well beyond South Asia.

A U.N. document obtained by McClatchy said that LeT has sent operatives to attack U.S. troops in Iraq, established a branch in Saudi Arabia and been raising funds in Europe. The group may also have received money from al Qaida, suggesting that it has close ties with Osama bin Laden's terrorist network based along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, the document said.

Although Pakistan's government outlawed LeT in May 2002, it "continues to operate and engage in or support terrorist activities abroad," the document said.

"Is there real concern about Lashkar trying to expand its footprint? The answer is yes," said a U.S. counterterrorism official in response to questions about the document, which the U.N. committee reviewed before voting to add the four to the watch list. He requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.

U.S. intelligence officials worry that as the U.S.-led campaign against al Qaida has taken a toll on its leaders, restricted the movement of its members and curbed its financial support, bin Laden and his second-in-command, Ayman al Zawahiri, have cultivated ties with other militant Islamist groups, especially non-Arab ones such as LeT.

The U.N. document, which describes some of LeT's activities and fundraising, names LeT founder Muhammad Saeed as the group's "overall leader and chief," and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged military coordinator who was arrested by security forces on Sunday on the Pakistan-held side of the divided Kashmir region.

The U.N. Security Council al Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee also added Haji Muhammad Ashraf, whom the U.N. document calls Lashkar's finance chief, and Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahariq, whom it describes as a key propagandist who once coordinated fund-raising activities in Saudi Arabia, to the watch list.

The committee said in a statement that three of the four reside in Pakistan: Saeed, who insists that he left LeT to run a charity that the U.S. considers a LeT front organization, Lakhvi and Ashraf. It said that Bahariq is from Saudi Arabia.

Individuals and groups placed on the U.N. list are subject to international sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans. LeT was included on the list in May 2005.

The U.S. and India sought to have the U.N. designate the four as part of an crackdown on LeT, which is accused of training and sending the 10 gunmen who attacked two luxury hotels, a Jewish center, a train station and other targets during a three-day rampage earlier this month in Mumbai. More than 170 people died, including six Americans.

India also sought to have the U.N. committee include on the list Hamid Gul, a retired Pakistani Army general who headed the country's main intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, in the late 1980s. However, China, a close ally of Pakistan that has veto power on the Security Council, apparently blocked Gul's inclusion.

Gul, a harsh critic of the U.S., insists that he has no connections to any extremist groups.

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Pakistan questions terror suspects, air forces on alert (Roundup)
South Asia News

Dec 10, 2008, 13:38 GMT

Islamabad - Pakistan's prime minister Wednesday said the two top leaders of an Islamic militant group that India believes was behind the November 26 terrorist attacks in Mumbai were being questioned by police.

Meanwhile, Pakistani jet fighters, including F-16s, on Wednesday were flying over Islamabad with live ammunition as a media report said India's air defences had been put on 'highest alert.'

Premier Yousaf Raza Gilani said Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah were detained in a raid this week at the offices of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

According to Indian officials, the lone surviving attacker in the Mumbai siege, which left 172 people dead and more than 300 injured, had identified LeT chief Lakhvi as the mastermind.

Zarar Shah is suspected by investigators to be responsible for arranging telephone cards, internet connections and satellite phones used by the terrorists, India's The Hindu newspaper reported Wednesday.

But there has been confusion over how many leaders from outlawed militant organizations have been arrested.

Pakistan's Defence Minister Ahmad told CNN-IBN on Tuesday that the chief of another terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) had also been apprehended by Pakistani security forces, but Gilani could not confirm that.

'We have yet to receive latest report on Mr Masood Azhar,' he said. 'As far as the other two people are concerned (Lakhvi and Shah), they are being investigated.'

An unnamed JeM source said police were deployed outside Azhar's family residence in Bahawalpur, a city in eastern Punjab province. 'But Maulana (Azhar) is not there, he has already left the place,' he added.

Azhar is on a list of 20 fugitives India is demanding Pakistan to extradite. He was arrested by Indian authorities for alleged connection with al-Qaeda in 1994.

He was freed five years later in exchange for the release of passengers on a hijacked Indian Airlines flight. The hijackers were led by Azhar's brother, Ibrahim Athar.

After his return to Pakistan, Azhar was given a hero's welcome by Islamists, which encouraged him to set up his own group, JeM.

The recent arrests were announced by Pakistani authorities as the tensions between the two South Asian nuclear-armed countries have risen dangerously.

A report from CNN-IBN said the Indian Air Force raised its level of readiness to 'Passive Air Defence.' The high alert is in response to heightened perceptions of air attacks on Indian positions.

All Indian military aircraft have been armed with bombs and missiles and are ready to take off within minutes. Even the warships of the Western Naval Fleet were aggressively patrolling the Arabian Sea, the report said.

Pakistani fighter planes circled over the capital Islamabad on Wednesday morning.

'We see and hear combat aircraft flying over Islamabad but once a while. So many flights in so short time as it happened this morning is something unusual,' said local resident Muhammad Iqbal.

A spokesman for Pakistan Air Force (PAF) told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa they had no means to confirm the reports about alert status of the Indian Air Force, but said: 'PAF is ready to defend the country.'

He confirmed that the planes were making 'armed sorties' over Islamabad, but he insisted it was a regular exercise. Asked if in every regular exercise, the jet fighters carry live ammunition, he declined to reply.

According to the DawnNews channel, Pakistan Navy also said it was alert to the movements of Indian vessels.

'Pakistani armed forces are highly professional and among the best militaries in the world. Therefore, we need not to have any kind of worries,' Gilani told reporters in Multan when asked to comment on the reports about air force alerts in India.

The report on CNN-IBN said the Indian alert was still defensive, and had been sounded in view of intelligence reports of possible air strikes at Indian installations from across the border or an aerial attack by terrorist groups based in Pakistan.

Under the alert, leaves of all key personnel in the Western and South-Western Air Commands, which face Pakistan, have been cancelled. But there was still no mobilization of troops on the border and the Indian Army is not on the highest alert level, the report said.