Anti-India militants get maximum Pak support: US report

Congressional Research Service says five militant groups in Pak.

A US Congressional report has said that Pakistan is home to a large number of militant outfits,which can be broadly divided into five groups,one of which is specifically targeted against India and Kashmir that gets the maximum support from the establishment.

Militant groups operating in Pakistani are of five broad types Globally oriented militants,Afghanistan-oriented militants,India- and Kashmir-oriented militants,sectarian militants,and domestically oriented,the independent Congressional Research Service said in its report to US lawmakers.

CRS said India- and Kashmir-oriented militants,especially Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT),Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM),and Harakat ul-Mujahadeen (HuM),are based in both Punjab and in Pakistan-held Kashmir.

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There appear to be growing differences over the threat posed by LeT,with the US increasingly viewing the group as a serious threat to its own security. The (Raymond) Davis affair may have exposed newly independent US intelligence operations against the LeT in Pakistan, it said. According to CRS,the disparate militant groups operating in Pakistan,many of which have displayed mutual animosity in the past,appear to have become more intermingled and supportive since 2009.

Meanwhile,on Tuesday,Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani formed a commission to investigate the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a US raid in the Pakistani garrison city of Abbottabad. The five-member commission constituted to investigate the Abbottabad incident will be headed by Justice Javed Iqbal of the apex court,said a brief statement from Gilanis office.