'9/11 architects were not hiding in caves': India hits out at Pakistan at UN over terror safe havens

NEW DELHI: India on Wednesday hit out at Pakistan at the UN Security Council, saying Islamabad had provided a "permissive environment" to the "architects" of the 9/11 attacks and continues to provide space and support to terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting, India's Permanent Representative P Harish recalled the 9/11 terror attacks in United States and said al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were eventually found in settled communities in Pakistan rather than "caves or badlands".“The international community supported the global campaign to counter terrorism in the wake of 9/11. Let us not forget, however, that al-Qaida's terror ecosystem established its strategic depth beyond Afghanistan through its affiliates,” Harish said.“The leaders of al-Qaida who conceived and directed these 9/11 attacks did not escape justice in the wilderness of some ungoverned frontier.”The Indian envoy also listed out the names of terrorists found in Pakistan.Bin Laden, who ordered and financed the 9/11 plot, was “tracked down and killed in a fortified compound within a settled, guarded community under Operation Neptune Spear”, he said.Mohammed, “the principal architect of the operation, was found sheltering in an ordinary residential house.

Ramzi Binalshibh, who coordinated the hijacker cell after being denied a visa to join them, was sheltering in an urban centre,” Harish said.Senior al-Qaida operative Walid bin Attash, who helped select and prepare several hijackers, was captured separately, while Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a key financial and logistical facilitator of the 9/11 operation, was also captured in Pakistan, he said."In each case, these were not fugitives hiding in caves or badlands, they were men who had long evaded detection.

Draining this swamp that provided an enabling environment for such monsters of humankind to prosper is important," Harish said, in a thinly veiled reference to Pakistan.Harish also drew attention to what he described as an axis involving Pakistan, al-Qaida and terrorists targeting India.

"The same permissive environment that sheltered the architects of 9/11 has, in the years since, continued to provide space, support, and impunity to affiliates of al Qaida such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed and their like," he said.He said these groups continue to operate under different identities to evade the Council's sanctions, while their terror-training infrastructure continues to operate with impunity.The international community must act against the continued existence of such sanctuaries, he said, "to ensure that more such individuals are not thrust upon any country or its citizens and no one loses family and loved ones".Last week, as the world marked 25 years of the September 11 terror attacks perpetrated by al-Qaida, UN Security Council members, including Pakistan, visited the 9/11 memorial in Lower Manhattan.