Washington:
Pakistan-based LeT is acting in a more Al-Qaida-like manner after being "infected" by ideas of Osama bin Laden's terror network and poses the highest risk to the US, according to a top American counter-terrorism expert.
"Al Qaida has infected other groups in South Asia with its ideas. Pakistani Taliban sent, as you know, a bomber to Times Square (in New York). Lashkar-e-Taiba is acting in a more Al-Qaida-like manner," Peter Bergen, the Counter-terrorism Strategy Initiative Co-Director at New America Foundation, said.
He stated this during his testimony before the House Homeland and Security Committee, which organized a hearing on the evolving nature of terrorism, nine years after 9/11.
Of all the major terrorists groups in the region, Bergen said, LeT poses the highest threat to the US.
"Lashkar-e-Taiba, I think, is really probably the more important of all of these because it's the largest group. It attracts educated people," he said in response to a question. "You know, the attack in Mumbai demonstrated that they were willing to hunt down Americans and Jews in the Nariman House and that they've adopted Al-Qaida's ideology. And so I think that is quite worrisome," he said.
"The Pakistani Taliban, a real canary in the mine, which people didn't look at, was the fact that the Pakistani Taliban sent suicide bombers to Barcelona in January of '08, which should have demonstrated that these guys were willing to do attacks on the West. And Spanish prosecutors say the Pakistani Taliban were behind it," he said.
The Pakistani Taliban had admitted their role, he said, adding that luckily, the attack did not succeed.
"So Times Square was not an aberration. It was part of a pattern. So, you know, I think the Times Square incident speaks for itself," he said.