Narayanan admits al-Qaeda network in India

New Delhi, Aug 11 (UNI) Admitting not preventing the Mumbai serial blasts last month was a ''major failure'' of India's security and intelligence agencies, National Security Advisor M K Narayanan today said terror group al-Qaeda was present in India through its affiliate -- the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).

''I am sorry to say that Mumbai train blast was one of the major failures of our security agencies, there was some amount of information but not enough to prevent that,'' he said, in an interview to NDTV.

Responding to a question whether India was able to deal with terror activities against it, he said they were ''closely tracking most of the movements, we do alert people to possible threats... its because we do it on the basis of credible evidence.'' ''We are not always able to beat the terrorist at their game in some cases,'' he added.

Pointing out that ''most of us in the game know that al-Qaeda is not necessarily only a single organisation but is an interlocking web of organisations,'' he said the Lashkar -- the main terrorist outfit operating in India -- is part of the al-Qaeda ''in the sense that they are not merged with the al-Qaeda, but they are a firm part of the integral group which was set up by Osama bin Laden way back in 1998.'' '' I would presume that when the Americans said al-Qaeda, they were talking of Lashkar-e-Toiba. Lashkar is a very important part of the al-Qaeda network, but otherwise we are aware of the al Qaeda, they have always used a sort of smokescreen to keep out some country A or country B,'' Mr Narayanan added.

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