Pakistan-based group claims India bombing

INDIA: A previously unknown Islamist group that said it had splintered from a larger Pakistan-based outfit has claimed responsibility for a weekend attack in India, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

The Hindu, a respected Indian newspaper, said it had been contacted by someone claiming to be a spokesman for a group called Lashkar-e-Taiba al-Almi which said it had carried out the bombing that killed 10 people.

An individual codenamed Abu Jindal rang the paper’s Islamabad correspondent and said the attack was in response to India’s “refusal” to discuss the disputed region of Kashmir, claimed by Pakistan and India, in peace talks due to resume this month. Lashkar-e-Taiba al-Almi split from the larger Lashkar-e-Taiba because the latter “took its orders from Pakistan’s intelligence agency,” the paper said. New Delhi, Wednesday, AFP