UK's Brown blames Pakistani militants for Mumbai

New Delhi - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown blamed the banned Pakistan-based militant outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba for the Mumbai attacks and said on Sunday he would convey India's concerns to the Pakistani president.

Brown met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a flying visit to New Delhi, amid heightened tensions between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan after gunmen killed 179 people in India's financial hub in November.

The two leaders breakfasted at Singh's home on Sunday as India comes under pressure to share intelligence information with neighbour Pakistan, where the Mumbai
attackers were thought to have been based. Brown arrived in India following a surprise visit to Afghanistan where he met British soldiers and hinted Britain would provide more troops.

India has accused Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a militant group it says was set up by Pakistan to fight Indian rule in Kashmir, of involvement in the Mumbai attacks.
Pakistan has rounded up some of the 40 people India has demanded should be extradited for the Mumbai killings, but says that India has not provided any evidence of links to the attacks.

"The group responsible for the attacks is LeT and they have a great deal to answer for, and I hope to convey some of the views of the Indian prime minister to the president of Pakistan when I meet him," Brown told reporters in India's capital. Britain is expected to send investigators to India to interview the sole gunman captured following the attacks, said a British government official who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject. Victims of the assault included a British citizen and two other people with dual Indian-British nationality. Brown said earlier in the day that he had visited India to give his condolences to "the prime minister and the whole of the Indian people at the terrible terrorist outrage in Mumbai that has stunned the whole world."

Brown criticised the "perverse and unacceptable messages sent out by extreme terrorist groups that are perversions of very good religions and faiths," adding Britain will give "every help" to India to tackle militancy.
Following the Mumbai attacks, India, backed by the United States, has called on Pakistan to crack down on Pakistan-based militant groups.

"It's important to recognise that wherever there is terrorism it has to be fought, and where there is terrorism it affects the stability and cohesion of countries," Brown said.

Pakistan said on Saturday that Indian warplanes had violated its airspace but said this was "inadvertent" and there was no cause for alarm about an escalation of tension. Meanwhile, India denied on Sunday its warplanes had violated Pakistani airspace.