Source. Daily News via Wasim Srroya:

Washington, April 6 — Raising the spectre of a renewed conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, a US study has warned that Islamabad may well turn to trusted Pakistani militant groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), to do its bidding.

For the past two decades LeT, the group behind the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed 166 people, has steadily emerged as one of Pakistan’s most lethal and capable militant proxy groups, according to the study.

Titled “The Fighters of Lashkar-e-Taiba: Recruitment, Training, Deployment and Death,” the 61-page report by the Combating Terrorism Centre at the US Military Academy in West Point, New York is primarily focused on LeT and its integration into Pakistani society.

Once the primary battleground for jihad in South Asia, “over the last decade the fight in Kashmir just hasn’t been as relevant for jihadist actors” with US and international troops in Afghanistan providing “a visible and seductive target” for militant groups, it said.

It was difficult to predict the directional priorities of Pakistan-based militant groups after the US reduces its role in Afghanistan, especially in light of the internal security challenges faced by Pakistan and the state’s own shifting threat priorities, the report said.

But “historical precedent suggests that some of these militant groups will reorient to and invest more broadly in the conflict in Kashmir,” said the study.