Pakistan charity under suspicion in India attacks

(MURIDIKE, Pakistan) Pakistan's vow to crack down on militants behind the Mumbai attacks may meet an early test with the Islamist charity accused by the U.S. of being the front group for the prime suspects.

Washington and India view Jamaat-ud-Dawa as the successor to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant organization that India says trained the 10 gunmen who killed 171 people in India's commercial capital.

But a concerted move against Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which insists it only runs schools and clinics and provides emergency relief to disaster victims, risks a backlash from conservatives in Muslim Pakistan that could destabilize the country's shaky pro-Western government.

The charity, under intense media scrutiny since India blamed the Mumbai slaughter on Lashkar-e-Taiba, invited reporters to its sprawling headquarters on the outskirts of the eastern city of Lahore on Thursday to stress it had cut its ties.

"It is true we had links with Lashkar-e-Taiba in the past, but please remember, the past is the past," said spokesman Abdullah Muntazir. "We are the victim of baseless Indian propaganda; we are not involved in attacks in India, we are just doing welfare work and nothing else."

Indian authorities have named two alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Yusuf Muzammil, as prime suspects in the Mumbai attacks.