RAW's former deputy director Rana Banerjee said Saeed has been assuming a larger profile in Pakistan, preparing the ground for a political career. "The US is forcing him underground. It has silenced him for a while," he said.
Documentation on Lashkar's ties with al-Qaeda would also explain the $2-million bounty on Adbul Rahman Makki, Lashkar's financial secretary. Makki, said Banerjee, is the only person Saeed trusts with funds and was the liaison for Lashkar's global tie-ups.
Lashkar has also attracted US anger, said analyst Wilson John, author of Caliphate's Soldiers: The Lashkar-e-Tayebba's Long War, by openly helping militants fighting US troops in Afghanistan. "Members of the Haqqani network have trained at Lashkar camps," he said. And so have so-called "white jihadis" – Western-based recruits trained to carry out attacks on Western countries.
Riedel said the bounty decisions are "a recognition that Lashkar-e- Taiba and Saeed are a real threat to both the US and India." He expects Saeed to use the US announcement to increase his standing as "a symbol of his power in the global jihad". But Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence will be unhappy as Saeed "is their man".
