Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), meaning "Army of the Pure," is a Pakistan-based Sunni Islamist Jihadist militant organization designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations and numerous countries. It was founded in 1985–1986 by Hafiz Saeed as the military wing of the Markaz al-Dawa wal-Irshad (MDI). Initially, it was formed to wage jihad against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, but its focus shifted in the 1990s to the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir (IaK).
LeT's primary objective is to merge the whole of Kashmir with Pakistan and establish an Islamic caliphate across the Indian subcontinent, viewing India as an existential enemy. The organization operates by conducting terrorist attacks, including the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament and the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed approximately 164 people. It maintains training camps and facilities in Pakistan.
Despite being officially banned by Pakistan in 2002, LeT continues to function through its charitable front organization, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), which is used for social services, fundraising, and masking its activities. LeT has historically maintained strong ties with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which has used it as a proxy against India. In recent years, its founder, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, was arrested in 2019 and sentenced in 2020 on terrorism financing charges. The group has also been linked to the formation of the People's Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF), which emerged after the revocation of autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019.