Pakistan fast-tracks Lashkar terror hub near Afghan border

Exclusive photographs, videos and satellite imagery accessed by The Sunday Guardian reveal that Pakistan’s largest state-sponsored terrorist organisation, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), is constructing a new training and residential hub just 47 kilometres from the Afghan border in Lower Dir, Khyber Palchtunkhwa.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

The under-construction facility, Markaz Jihad-e-Aqsa, spans 4,643 square feet in the Kumban Maidan area and stands adjacent to LeT’s newly built Jamia AhleSunnah mosque.

Satellite imagery dated 22 September shows the first floor already in place with reinforced concrete roofing underway. Construction began in July, only weeks after India’s Operation Sindoor destroyed Lashkar’s Bhimber-Barnala fidayeen camp.

The hub is commanded by veteran LeT operative Nasr Javed, co-mastermind of the 2006 Hyderabad blasts and former head of the Dulai camp in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Javed now operates through Khidmat-e-Khalq (earlier Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, banned by the UN). He is joined by Muhammad Yasin alias Bilal Bhai, responsible for doctrinal indoctrination, and Anas Ullah Khan, a Garhi Habibullah-trained fighter overseeing weapons instruction.