Washington:
The US has rubbished Hafiz Saeed's claims that the $10 million bounty announced on him is a result of Washington's "frustration" with him for his protests against the resumption of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) supplies and drone strikes. The bounty "has everything to do with 26/11 Mumbai attacks and his brazen flouting of the justice system," US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland clarified.
In an interview to Al-Jazeera news channel yesterday, Saeed, who is the founder of terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba and the alleged mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, had lashed out at the US for announcing a reward on his head.
"We are not hiding in caves for bounties to be set on finding us. I think the US is frustrated because we are taking out countrywide protests against the resumption of NATO supplies and drone strikes," he was quoted as saying.
He added, "I believe either the US has very little knowledge and is basing its decisions on wrong information being provided by India or they are just frustrated".
The big US bounty on Hafiz Saeed brings him at par with Taliban founder Mullah Omar, whom America holds responsible for the 9/11 attacks of 2001.
The US' move to put Hafiz Saeed on its list of most-wanted terrorists has been welcomed by India, which said it sends a strong signal to Lashkar-e-Taiba and its "patrons" that the international community remains united in combating terrorism. It also hopes that the US bounty will put pressure on Pakistan to take action against Saeed. "The most important thing in the announcement is that this will put pressure on Pakistan, which cannot keep continuing this farce of a trial," Home Minister P Chidambaram said.
In the 2008 Mumbai attacks, 166 people were killed, six of them Americans. India accuses Saeed of masterminding these attacks has repeatedly asked Pakistan to detain him. But he continues to roam freely in the country and even holds anti-India rallies. Each time India has sought Saeed's arrest, Pakistan has sought "actionable" and "substantive" evidence against him before it can act.
Hafiz Saeed is believed to be a powerful figure in Pakistan. He heads the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa, ostensibly a charitable organization, but one that even the United Nations has said fronts the deadly Lashkar. Both the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the terror outfit Lashkar are blacklisted by the US. He allegedly has close links with the army and the ISI. Ministers have been seen at public rallies that he has held in the Pakistan capital of Islamabad.
On its Rewards for Justice website, America describes Saeed as a red-haired Pakistani citizen with brown eyes, born on May 6, 1950 in Sargodha in the Punjab province of Pakistan.
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, it says, "is a former professor of Arabic and Engineering, as well as the founding member of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a radical Deobandi Islamist organization dedicated to installing Islamist rule over parts of India and Pakistan, and its military branch, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba. Saeed is suspected of masterminding numerous terrorist attacks, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which resulted in the deaths of 166 people, including six American citizens."