"Sympathies for Lashkar-e-Taiba and its jehadist and anti-Indian culture run deep in this country, raising a serious challenge to any long-lasting moves to dismantle the network," the Times said.
It quoted an unnamed officer of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) as saying that the Lashkar commanded 150,000 members and together with the Jaish-e-Mohammad, the jehadis could put Pakistan "up in flames".
However, the jehadis "were good people", the paper quoted the officer as saying.
The primary goal of Lashkar, which operates under the front of a charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, is the defeat of India. The group embraces a strong anti-Israeli platform and adheres to Ahl-i-Hadith, a strain of the Wahabi sect of Islam, the Times said.
Lashkar has the capacity to quickly and inexpensively train young men from villages into intensely driven, proficient killers, warned a US official.
US officials say they continue to press Pakistan to prevent any further terror attacks and were still trying to understand the state of relations between Islamabad and the Lashkar, which has been linked to the November 2008 Mumbai attack that killed some 160 people, the report said.
Pakistani Army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, has said that he was trying to control the group.
Pakistani officials say that though they were being more vigilant, they want India "to stop messing around in Baluchistan".
The paper said that the evidence of Lashkar's sophistication in the Mumbai attack is the voice of one of the attackers' handlers, speaking fluently in English, on what seem to be tapes of telephone intercepts provided to Channel 4 in Britain for a documentary.
"The tape suggests that the handler had military training which went beyond basic terrorist preparation," the report said quoting Sajjan Gohal, a terrorism expert in Britain.
