Washington: There is credible evidence that Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was responsible for the terror attack on the Indian consulate in Afghanistan’s Herat province, the US has said.

“Based on credible information... the US government has assessed that LeT was responsible for the attack in Herat on 23 May 2014. This is the attack on the Indian consulate (in Herat)", state department spokesperson Marie Harf said on Wednesday while announcing additional sanctions against LeT affiliates and leaders. However, given the sensitive nature of the information, she refused to divulge details about the credible information, based on which LeT was held responsible for the attack on Indian Consulate in Herat.

Coming three days before the swearing-in ceremony of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister of India, it was apparently part LeT’s effort to derail his Saarc (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) initiative. Modi had invited the heads of the states of the Saarc nations including Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for his swearing-in ceremony in New Delhi on 26 May.

“We make our assessments based on a wide range of all-source information. In this case we believe, based on this information, it’s credible. We look at number of different sources that we gather on our own. We have assessed that LeT did perpetrate this attack," Harf said.

On the eve of the swearing-in ceremony, Afghan President Hamid Karzai had told an Indian news channel that LeT was responsible for the terrorist attack and so did Indian security agencies.

The Indian consulate in Herat was attacked on 23 May by four heavily-armed gunmen, who were subsequently killed in an encounter as India attributed the pre-dawn strike to terror elements “beyond the borders" of the war-torn country. The US on Wednesday re-designated LeT as a terrorist organisation and added several of its frontal organizations to the list, including Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Al-Anfal Trust, Tehrik-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool, and Tehrik-e-Tahafuz Qibla Awwal.

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