Business Standard ·
Architects of 9/11 weren't hiding in caves: India flags Pak's terror haven
Speaking at the UN Security Council, envoy Harish Parvathaneni cited Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to argue that terror groups continue to operate from a permissive environment
In a scathing attack on Pakistan, India has said the "architects" of the 9/11 attacks were not hiding in "caves or badlands," but had long evaded detection, asserting that the same "permissive environment" continues to support terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.
Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting, India's Permanent Representative Harish Parvathaneni invoked the history of the September 11, 2001 attacks. He said al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were eventually found in settled communities rather than remote hideouts.
"The international community supported the global campaign to counter terrorism in the wake of 9/11. Let us not forget, however, that al-Qaeda's terror ecosystem established its strategic depth beyond Afghanistan through its affiliates," Parvathaneni said on Wednesday.
Addressing the UNSC meeting on the situation in Afghanistan, Parvathaneni listed the names of al-Qaeda leaders who had planned and perpetrated the September 11, 2001 attacks and who were captured in Pakistani cities.
"The leaders of al-Qaeda who conceived and directed these 9/11 attacks did not escape justice in the wilderness of some ungoverned frontier," Parvathaneni said.
