LeT, Hamas leaders’ meeting in Doha raises eyebrows in New Delhi

A meeting between LeT leader Saifullah Khalid and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in the Qatar capital of Doha has raised eyebrows in New Delhi.

A meeting between Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) leader Saifullah Khalid, designated a global terrorist by the US, and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in the Qatar capital of Doha has raised eyebrows in New Delhi.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Doha on August 2.(Reuters)

Khalid, designated a terrorist by the US Treasury department in 2018 and currently a leader of the Pakistan Markazi Muslim League (PMML), which is a political front organisation of the LeT, was seen with Meshaal in a video shared on social media on Tuesday by PMML’s media arm.

The video also featured PMML vice-president Faisal Nadeem, -- designated by the US for his role as head of the LeT in Pakistan’s Sindh province -- and Naji Zaheer as-Sarmi, Meshaal’s representative to Pakistan. The LeT leaders met Meshaal to convey their condolences over the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a suspected Israeli attack in Tehran, according to the video.

Khalid is known to be a close aide of LeT founder Hafiz Saeed, who was the mastermind behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks. He was included in the list of specially designated global terrorists (SDGTs) along with PMML’s previous incarnation – Milli Muslim League – by the US Treasury department in 2018 for “acting on behalf of LeT”.

He was also the head of LeT’s Peshawar headquarters and served on Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD)’s coordination committee for Pakistan’s Punjab province, according to the US.

A senior official in one of India’s central intelligence agencies described Pakistan’s decision to allow a US-designated terrorist to travel to Doha to meet a Hamas leader as “interesting”. The official, who asked not to be identified, said that “such acts automatically expose the double standards of Islamabad”.

“This establishes that LeT, despite being banned on paper, conducts its activities freely in Pakistan in the garb of a political party and is supported by the government there,” this official added.

This is, however, not the first time that LeT functionaries have come out in support of Hamas. A representative of Hamas leader Meshaal shared the stage with Khalid, Nadeem and other PMML leaders in Karachi last year while calling for anti-Israel protests.

PMML contested the February 2024 general elections in Pakistan. Hafiz Saeed’s son Hafiz Talha contested from a constituency in Lahore on the party ticket but lost to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-backed Latif Khosa.

Hafiz Saeed is said to be lodged in a jail in Lahore after he was sentenced to a total of 31 years by Pakistan’s anti-terrorism courts in several cases of financing terrorism.

LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Hizbul Mujahideen, all backed by Pakistan’s security establishment, have lately accelerated their activities in Jammu & Kashmir by infiltrating foreign fighters to target the security forces and civilians, particularly as the Union territory is gearing up for elections.

In November last year, Israel listed LeT as a terror organisation to mark the 15th anniversary of the Mumbai attacks, in which 166 people were killed and another 238 injured.

Dr Sameer Patil, director, Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), said: “Saifullah Khalid’s international travel shows that despite Pakistan’s proclamation about cracking down on terrorist groups and associated terrorists, it is just a cosmetic action. In reality, it has not dented the ability of terror masterminds to operate freely not just within Pakistan, but also continuous activities abroad.”