Unreported World is granted rare access to the Pakistan headquarters of what the US and UN say is a front organisation for one of the world's biggest terrorist networks, and the organisation behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
While the group says it's a charity set up to help the poor, reporter Evan Williams talks to insiders, government ministers and terrorism experts to investigate the truth about an organisation that has expanded its activities from Kashmir to attacking western targets outside Pakistan.
Williams and director Will West begin their journey in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's Punjab province. They have a meeting with Asadullah, a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba - 'The Army of the Righteous'. The terrorist organisation has been directly blamed for the Mumbai attacks that killed 173 people, and a string of other deadly attacks in India. Asadullah tells Williams he and 26 friends fought in Kashmir, but he was the only one who survived.
Lashkar's terrorist activities led to it being banned in Pakistan. But the United Nations says it is now operating in the country under a new name - Jamaat-ud-Dawa - and the UN continues to view it as a terrorist front organisation. JuD claims it is no more than an Islamic charity, and denies it is a front for Lashkar and its terrorism.
Williams and West travel to a village on the outskirts of Lahore. It was once a Lashkar military training camp, but now it is the JuD headquarters. They've been granted very rare access to the organisation's facilities.
Opponents claim that this centre is used to raise funds that are then channelled into terrorism - a claim denied by JuD. Senior members of the organisation, together with a government official, show the team around, stressing the charitable work they say they carry out, including providing medical care and education for thousands of nearby villagers.
Their spokesperson says that supplies are donated by supportive businesses across Pakistan. He also says that India was behind the decision to label the group a terrorist organisation, and that it is completely separate to Lashkar. However, the group's leaders get jumpy at growing disquiet with the team's presence, telling Williams and West that they can no longer guarantee their safety. The team is then escorted out of the compound.
Back in Lahore, Williams talks to one of the country's most authoritative writers, Ahmed Rashid. He says that every time Lashkar has come under pressure, it changes its name and closes its bank accounts, before opening up a new office and new account and reappearing in a new light. He claims everyone still calls Jamaat-ud-Dawa Lashkar-e-Taiba because that's what they are.
The team follows up this claim in a meeting with Rana Sanaullah Khan, Punjab's Law Minister, and asks him why, when the rest of the world says Jamaat-ud-Dawa is a front for terrorism, the Pakistani government tolerates them. Khan says that, although many people in JuD do good work, it's not just a charity. He claims that some JuD people are carrying out terrorist activities in Kashmir, but that he fears that if the organisation was banned, it would respond with a wave of suicide attacks.
The strength of the organisation is clear when the team visits the group's main mosque, which, a spokesman says, on a good day has up to 10,000 people.
To hear another view on why JuD is allowed to continue in Pakistan, Unreported World meets the former intelligence chief who was responsible for setting up many of Pakistan's militant groups. Hamid Gul is now retired but remains politically involved in the struggle for Kashmir.
He tells Williams that if Islamist militants triumph in neighbouring Afghanistan, a new wave of radicalised fighters will turn their attention to Kashmir. 'There will be uprising in Kashmir, massive uprising,' he says. 'Maybe it will lead to an armed conflict between the two countries - and then the Jihadis will be the right arm of the Pakistan army.'
Unreported World - Series 2010 - Episode 3 - Pakistan's Terror Central - Channel 4
