Militancy in Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan

The state of J&K has been facing militancy and violence since 1989. The armed violence has dealt a severe blow to the human, social, economic and physical environment. Thousands of innocent lives have been lost to mindless violence. The Myopic extremist elements, in their urge to dominate the region, resorted to the most gory forms of violence and in such a blind pursuit of power have damaged the state of J&K immensely.
No region, religion, sex, creed or age was spared by the perpetrators of mindless violence, which fortunately is now waning fast. The uncertain politics coupled with massive corruption and nepotism in the state of J&K was exploited by external agents knowing fully well that the disoriented and disillusioned youth could easily be exploited on religio-political ground to take up arms and unleash violence on their own people.
Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front was one of the separatist outfits which took up arms initially. Besides, many local youth were motivated to join Pakistan based terrorist groups who had recently fought the Russians in Afghanistan. Some of such outfits were Harkat-Ul-Mujahideen, Harkat-Ul-Jehadi-Islami, Harkat-Ul-Ansar etc. Many of these terrorist outfits later broke down into splinter groups while many new were brought into being, such as Hizbul-Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Al-Baddar etc.

THE MAIN TERRORIST OUTFITS WHO HAVE REMAINED ACTIVE IN J&K ARE:-

JAMMU AND KASHMIR LIBERATION FRONT

There are two distinct outfits, each of which identifies itself by the name Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). Amanullah Khan heads the first while Yasin Malik, who parted ways with Amanullah Khan and formed another JKLF, heads the other. In May 1994, Yasin Malik who was released from jail (after his arrest in August 1990) declared that his faction would renounce violence as a tool to achieve the goal of 'independence'. In March 1996, the last surviving members of the Amanullah faction who were based in J&K under the leadership of Shabbir Siddiqui were killed in two encounters.
Both the Fronts trace their origin to the Jammu and Kashmir National Liberation Front (JKNLF). The JKNLF was an offshoot of the Plebiscite Front, a forum allegedly launched at the behest of the late Sheikh Abdullah, who was Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and President of the National Conference, at a time when he was at loggerheads with India's Union Government. After the Sheikh-Indira Accord was signed, militant, pro-independence elements within the Plebiscite Front walked out to continue with the movement to secede from India.
The JKLF was set up in the United Kingdom, in May 1977, by one of the co-founders of the JKNLF, Amanullah Khan, after most of his JKNLF colleagues were either killed or captured by Indian security forces. The outfit is reportedly supported by expatriates of the Mirpur community that belongs to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). Another JKLF, a splinter group headed by Yasin Malik, was founded in September 1995, after Malik split from Khan over differences on the strategy to be pursued to achieve perceived goals.
While both the JKLFs share a common goal, self-determination for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, the Yasin Malik faction has renounced the use of violence to attain this goal. It lays emphasis on adopting non-violent means and mobilising public opinion in India and Pakistan in favour of its objectives. It is a constituent of the All Party Huriyat Conference.
Amanullah Khan's JKLF promotes itself as an outfit conducting the struggle on three fronts –– political, which implies mobilisation of public opinion; diplomatic, which implies lobbying with third countries; and armed struggle against Indian security forces in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K).
In the Seventies and early Eighties, the JKLF operated mostly from London and PoK, with Amanullah Khan and Hashim Qureshi directing from London unit and Farooq Haider and Mohammed Muzzafar holding fort in PoK. Their activities were, in large measure, confined to propagating the cause of a plebiscite in J&K and mobilising international support for this objective.
Even before the inception of JKLF, its leaders under various other banners had indulged in terrorist activities. One such instance was the hijacking of an Indian Airlines aircraft in 1971; Altaf and Hashim Qureshi, two prominent leaders, hijacked the plane. Maqbul Butt, one of the co-founders of the outfit and who had escaped from an Indian jail in December 1968, was reportedly involved in planning the hijacking.
Later, in 1976, Butt returned to India, only to be arrested the same year. In 1980, he was sentenced to death for killing a police officer in 1968. The sentence was, however, kept in abeyance. On February 3, 1984, as the JKLF puts it, "some JKLF enthusiastic activists who without approval, and even knowledge of their leadership, kidnapped Indian Deputy High Commission in Birmingham", Ravindra Mahtre, and demanded Butt's release. The demand was turned down and Mahtre was killed on February 6. The death sentence against Butt was revived and implemented on February 11. The abductors of Mahtre, who were JKLF members, had floated the Kashmir Liberation Army to carry out the act.
A British court acquitted Amanullah Khan in the Mahtre killing case, but the government served a deportation notice on him. Khan reached Pakistan and assumed leadership of the JKLF. Reportedly, he had established contacts with Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) for building a network of training camps in Pakistan, encouraging youth from J&K to cross the Line of Control (LoC) and receive training.
After elections were held to the State Legislature in 1987, which were allegedly rigged, several youth crossed the LoC and received arms training. Simultaneously, the JKLF established its network in Srinagar and, in 1988, initiated the present phase of armed insurgency in the State with two bomb blasts in the capital city of Srinagar.
All through its history the JKLF has demanded conducting a plebiscite in J&K, but has made no effort to conceal its preference for an independent, sovereign State. This latter position is in direct conflict with Pakistan's contention, that Kashmir in its entirety belongs to it, made apparent by a consistent refusal for a third option in the plebiscite that has been demanded (the other options are: accession to either India or Pakistan). Another cause of friction between the JKLF and its mentors is the status of Gilghit-Baltistan. While JKLF maintains that this region is a part of J&K, Pakistan's hold that this region is separate from the State and its accession to Pakistan is final and irrevocable.
These differences never faded but came to the fore at various points of time. As a result, Pakistan was, on occasion, hostile towards the JKLF. For instance, when Maqbool Butt escaped from an Indian jail in 1968 and crossed over to Pakistan, he was jailed for a few months.
Analysts hold that, despite these, the ISI had to depend upon the JKLF in the initial stages of the insurgency as it lacked its own network in J&K. Once the JKLF began bringing in people for training, the ISI gradually weaned away a considerable section of them from the JKLF. Using money and weapon supplies as baits, the ISI bought the loyalty of several militants. By 1991, with ISI's help the pro-Pakistan Hizb-ul-Mujahideen gained greater terror potential as compared to the JKLF. Moreover, the formation of Harkat-ul-Ansar, Lashkar-e-Toiba and numerous other smaller outfits contributed to the marginalisation of JKLF. Besides this, JKLF has been directly targeted by the ISI and the outfits that were controlled by it with armed attacks. For instance, the ISI attempted to forcibly shut down a JKLF training camp in Kotli district, PoK, on February 11 and 12, 1998. In another incident, Hizb militants killed two JKLF cadres on July 13, 1997, in Muzaffarabad, the capital of PoK.
Internal factors, too, contributed to the decline of the JKLF as a militant outfit. As mentioned earlier, Yasin Malik, who was then heading the outfit in J&K, walked out in 1995. His successor, Shabbir Siddiqui and 37 remaining members of the Amanullah Khan faction were killed in two incidents in Hazratbal, in March 1996; 11 had been killed on March 24 and the other 26, including Shabbir Siddiqui, on March 29. After this, the JKLF failed to resurrect itself as a terrorist outfit. Its presence is restricted to the participation of Yasin Malik's faction in the Hurriyat.
The PoK unit of the JKLF under Amanullah Khan's leadership has conducted three marches with a view to crossing across the LoC into India. Fearing international repercussions, Pakistan used force to halt these marches and, in the process, killed several JKLF members and supporters. The first two attempts to cross the LoC were made in 1992, the first on February 12, and the second on October 24. Seven persons were killed in the first instance and one in the second attempt to cross the LoC, when Pakistani security forces opened fire on the marchers. The third attempt was made on October 5, 1999. This time round, there were no casualties when the group was stopped.

HIZB-UL-MUJAHIDEEN

The terrorist outfits currently operating in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) is the one of the largest, with a cadre base drawn from indigenous and foreign sources. It is one of the most important terrorist outfits in terms of its effectiveness in perpetrating violence across the State at regular intervals. The HM is one of the 32 outfits proscribed under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002.
Formation and Objectives
The HM came into being in the Kashmir Valley in September 1989 with Master Ahsan Dar as its chief. Dar was later arrested by security forces in mid-December 1993. It was reportedly formed as the militant wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), an Islamist organization. The Jamaat-e-Islami is reported to have set up the Hizb at the behest of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s external intelligence agency, to counter the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which had advocated complete independence of the State. Many of the early Hizb cadres were former JKLF members.
In June 1990, the HM ‘Constitution’ was approved and Mohammed Yusuf Shah, popularly known as Syed Salahuddin, was appointed Patron and Hilal Ahmed Mir as Amir (chief). Apparently, differences between JeI elements and the non-JeI faction started developing within the HM which led to a split with one faction being led by Salahuddin whereas the other was led by Hilal Ahmed Mir (killed in 1993).
The Hizb-ul-Mujahideen stands for the integration of J&K with Pakistan. Since its inception, the HM has also campaigned for the Islamisation of Kashmir.
Leadership, Command Structure and Areas of Operation
Headquartered at Muzaffarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen with an estimated cadre strength of at least 1500, is presently headed by Syed Salahuddin. The patron of HM in PoK is Ghulam Nabi Nausheri.
Ghazi Nasiruddin is the outfit’s ‘chief commander of operations' in the Kashmir Valley. He succeeded Saif-ul-Islam alias Ghulam Rasool Khan alias 'Engineer' Zaman, who was killed in a major counter-insurgency operation on April 2, 2003, at Nowgam Chowk, on the outskirts of capital Srinagar. Saleem Hashmi is the spokesperson of the outfit.
Currently, the HM is organised into five divisions: central division for Srinagar, northern division for Kupwara-Bandipora-Baramulla, southern division for Anantnag and Pulwama districts, Chenab division for Doda district and Gool in the Udhampur district, and Pir Panjal Division for the Rajouri and Poonch districts.
The HM has its own news agency, Kashmir Press International, and a women's wing, Banat-ul-Islam.
The Hizb reportedly has a substantial support base in the Kashmir Valley and in the Doda, Rajouri, Poonch districts and parts of Udhampur district in the Jammu region.
Internal Dynamics
The HM came into the spotlight when it’s Salar-e-Ala or ‘chief commander’, Abdul Majeed Dar, made a conditional offer of cease-fire to the Indian Government at a press conference in Srinagar on July 24, 2000. The endorsement of this offer by the group's supremo Syed Salahuddin followed in an Islamabad press conference on July 25. On August 3, 2000, a high-level official team of the Government of India visited Srinagar and conducted a meeting with Dar and his associates at the Nehru Guest House. However, on August 8, 2000, Syed Salahuddin 'withdrew' the cease-fire at a press conference in Islamabad, reportedly under pressure from the other terrorist groups and their handlers in Pakistan.
On March 23, 2003, Majeed Dar was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in the Noor Bagh area of Sopore Township in north Kashmir when two gun-wielding youth barged into his ancestral house and fired indiscriminately. Two terrorist groups claimed responsibility for Dar's killing: the hitherto little-known, 'Save Kashmir Movement', believed to be a front of the Al Umar Mujahideen, while claiming responsibility, labeled Dar as "an informant of Indian agencies" and "an enemy of the Kashmiri people." Separately, a person describing himself as the spokesperson of Al Nasireen, another obscure group, in a message to a local news agency, said that activists of his group killed Dar for his 'anti-movement activities'. Meanwhile, another person claiming to be a spokesperson for the HM called up the news agency and condemned Dar's killing. Dar had been a front ranking terrorist in the HM before his 'expulsion' in May 2002. In his capacity as 'deputy supreme commander', 'Military adviser' and 'chief commander of operations', Dar played a significant role in the indoctrination, recruitment, launching and training of Hizb cadres. Reports suggest that, while managing the Hizb training camps in Pakistan, he was the only Kashmiri terrorist who had direct access to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief as also General Pervez Musharraf.
Dar's killing is the culmination of an almost three-year old battle for supremacy being waged by his followers against the faction led by Syed Salahuddin, the HM 'supreme commander' and chief of the 14-member United Jehad Council (UJC), a conglomerate of Pakistan-based terrorist organisations. The Dar initiated 'peace talks' led to dissent within the Hizb, with the Pakistani ranks fearing that an effective process of negotiations may actually be established, to the detriment of Pakistani interests. Subsequently, a war for supremacy ensued within the HM, and a distinctive 'bimodal' operating structure emerged, with separate factions owing allegiance to Dar and Salahuddin. Since the ill-fated peace talks, followers of Salahuddin - who operates from Pakistan - and Majeed Dar, who remained 'underground' in the Kashmir Valley, had a series of internecine clashes. In November 2002, two Salahuddin loyalists were killed in factional conflict reported at the Mirpur and Tarbela camps in PoK. The Hizb leadership in Pakistan has also issued statements claiming Dar's alleged alignment with Indian intelligence agencies. Reports suggest that Dar had been disillusioned with the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and its military leadership. Dar was 'suspended' by the Salahuddin faction and replaced by Saiful Islam as the Hizb 'chief commander of operations' in Kashmir, on May 4, 2002. Two of his close associates, Assad Yazdani and Zaffar Abdul Fatah, were also 'removed' from positions of command. Again, on May 9, 2002, the Hizb leadership expelled another two 'divisional commanders' in south Kashmir. Even as Dar and his associates were accused of assisting Indian security forces, many of his loyalists were killed by cadres of the Salahuddin group. Faced with Dar's rising popularity within the HM ranks, Salahuddin and the ISI had, in the recent months before the former’s death, initiated several moves to marginalize and target Dar and his associates in the terrorist ensemble.
The Salahuddin faction is also widely believed to have carried out the January 31, 2003, killing of the editor of News and Feature Alliance (NAFA), Parvaz Mohammad Sultan, in Srinagar. NAFA had been prominently reporting on the internal feud in the HM for the preceding two weeks prior to Sultan's killing. The NAFA reports had mentioned that the Valley-based faction led by Dar had 'overthrown' the Salahuddin faction. Within hours of Majeed Dar's murder clashes broke out at HM camps in PoK between the slain leader's followers and the faction led by Salahuddin. Violent confrontations are believed to have taken place at camps in Kotli, Mirpur, Oggi, Jungal-Mangal, Haripur and Gadhi-Dupatta. Reports have indicated that Salahuddin was fidgety over the prospect of an imminent test of strength in the camps.
In a major counter-insurgency operation on April 2, 2003, HM 'chief commander of operations', Saif-ul-Islam was killed at Nowgam Chowk, on the outskirts of Srinagar. Within a span of 10 days, two front ranking cadres of the HM had been liquidated. An emergency meeting of the 'command council' of the HM in Muzaffarabad named Ghazi Nasiruddin as the new chief for Kashmir, to succeed Saif-ul-Islam, on April 3. However, sources indicate that a process of churning is underway within the HM and its guardians in Pakistan. The HM has for long been regarded as having a considerable number of Kashmiris in its ranks. However, the relative dominance of foreign cadres within the HM has, in the past, progressively impaired the operational capacity of the group. Strained relations between local and foreign cadres have, at times, culminated in violent clashes in some places. Prior to his elevation as the 'chief commander', next only to chief Syed Salahuddin, Saif-ul-Islam had functioned as a 'divisional commander' in south Kashmir for seven years. When Salahuddin removed Abdul Majeed Dar and some 'divisional commanders' loyal to him in January 2002, Saif-ul-Islam was installed as 'chief commander of operations'. Dar had fallen out of favour with Salahuddin and the ISI ever since he announced an ill-fated cease-fire in July 2000.
Media reports have indicated that, two months prior to his death, Pakistani intelligence officials had been urging Majeed Dar to return to Pakistan. Although the Salahuddin-led faction was hostile to Dar, the ISI was keen on a rapprochement. More important, Dar believed that American pressure on Pakistan to move forward with the dialogue process would ensure his safety. But, subsequent events have proved otherwise and the recent killings have led to a split in the HM, with followers of the slain Dar saying that they were parting ways with 'supreme commander' Salahuddin. "We have launched our own faction of Hizbul Mujahideen," Tufail Ahmed, a former 'operational chief' of the Hizb, and Dar supporter said in a March 27, 2003, report. Ahmed is the younger brother of Zafar Abdul Fateh, who was expelled along with Majeed Dar by Salahuddin in May 2002. He claimed that commanders of the new faction on both sides of the border had 'unanimously' appointed Ahmed Yasin as their 'chief commander'. "Around 40 per cent of the Hizb activists are with us," claimed Ahmed.
The two Hizb factions have often blamed each other for the arrest and deaths of their leaders in J&K. Seven Hizb 'chief operational commanders' have been killed in J&K since 1989, according to the Daily Times. They include Ahsan Dar, Ashraf Dar, Maqbool Allai, Commander Baangro, Naseerul Islam, Masood Nantary, and Abdul Majeed Dar. Barring Majeed Dar, all these 'commanders' were killed in encounters with the Indian security forces. Saif-ul-Islam's name now also belongs to this list. At least two of these 'commanders' were reportedly killed after they formed splinter Hizb factions.
Links
The HM is closely linked to the Jamaat-e-Islami, both in the Kashmir Valley and in Pakistan. Overseas, it is allegedly backed by Ghulam Nabi Fai's Kashmir American Council and Ayub Thakur's World Kashmir Freedom Movement in the USA. Early in its history, the Hizb had established contacts with Afghan Mujahideen groups such as Hizb-e-Islami, under which some of its cadre is alleged to have received arms training.
The HM is reported to have a close association with the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence and the United Jehad Council, and other terrorist organizations operating out of Pakistan. Hizb chief Syed Salahuddin also heads the UJC.
The proscribed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) is also believed to have links with the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.

AL-BADR

The Al Badr, currently an active terrorist outfit in Jammu and Kashmir, was proscribed by the Government of India on April 1, 2002, under the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance-2001, which became the Prevention of Terrorism Act on April 28, 2002. It is also designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in the United States.
Formation and Objectives
The Al Badr was formed in June 1998 with the professed goal of strengthening the ‘Kashmiri freedom struggle’ and to ‘liberate’ the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir and merge it with Pakistan. The outfit advocates that Kashmiris should be given the right of self-determination in accordance with the United Nations resolutions.
Al Badr reportedly traces its origins to 1971 when a group of the same name carried out attacks on Bengalis in what was then known as East Pakistan. The group also operated as part of the Hizb-e-lslami (HIG) of warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in Afghanistan during the 1980s.
While advocating the idea of a sovereign Kashmir it is also critical of the moderate Kashmiri organisations, such as the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). The current Al Badr leadership is also opposed to the United States, Israel and the regime of Saudi Arabia. The outfit has in the past indicated that it perceives Kashmir to be the ‘gateway of India’ and describes its objective as the ‘liberation’ of Muslims in the rest of India after ‘occupying’ Kashmir.
The Al Badr, according to official sources in Jammu and Kashmir, which was earlier operating under the banner of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), was encouraged by the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s external intelligence agency, to operate independently in the year 1998. Indian intelligence sources have indicated that a new version of the Al Badr was formed as part of this changed strategy, in 1998, through the induction of foreign mercenaries serving in several other terrorist outfits in Kashmir.
Leadership, Command Structure and Cadre
During the time of its formation, the Al Badr was led by Lukmaan, a resident of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Bakht Zameen, a resident of Punjab province in Pakistan, is the present ‘chief commander’ of the outfit. Arfeen Bhai alias Lukmaan alias Jannisar is reported to be the ‘chief commander’ of Al Badr in Jammu and Kashmir. Among the other leaders of Al Badr are: ‘launching commander’ Irfan; ‘deputy supreme commander’ Zahid Bhai; ‘publicity chief’ Jasm Bhat; ‘communication in-charge’ Abu Mawai.
Al Badr is reported to possess a cadre strength of approximately 200, including 120 foreign mercenaries.
Headquarters and Areas of Operation
The outfit is headquartered at Mansehra in Pakistan. It is also reported to have a camp office in Muzaffarabad, PoK.
Reportage of the past five years has indicated that the Al Badr is active in the Anantnag, Baramulla, Budgam, Srinagar and Kupwara districts of the Kashmir Valley. It also has a presence in the Poonch and Rajouri districts of Jammu region.
Operational Dynamics
The Al Badr is part of the United Jehad Council (UJC), a coalition of Pakistan-based terrorist groups active in Jammu and Kashmir.
It is reported to have training camps in the Manshera area of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in Pakistan, Kotli and Muzaffarabad in PoK.
It has launched or threatened to launch attacks targeting Indian military installations and prominent government officials in Jammu and Kashmir.
Al Badr cadres are reported to have taken an active part, under the ISI tutelage, in the Kargil intrusion of 1999. The outfit’s ‘chief commander’ Bakht Zameen was reportedly based in Skardu during the intrusion to monitor the movement of his cadres from Pakistan to Skardu and its forward areas.
The outfit, which was defunct for some time towards the end of the 1990s, had, with increasing frequency, begun to claim responsibility for several acts of terrorist violence in J&K during year 2000. Official sources indicated that several terrorists killed in the year 2000 were Al Badr cadres. In one such incident, five terrorists, allegedly part of an Al Badr suicide squad, were killed when troops raided their hideout at Theuru near Ganderbal.
The outfit has opposed the cease-fire on the Line of Control (LoC) declared by India and Pakistan in November 2003. Al Badr has consistently been opposed to any process of dialogue between India and Pakistan. For instance, the outfit’s chief Bakht Zameen said in an interview on September 5, 2001, that India was not sincere about holding a dialogue for the amicable settlement of the Kashmir issue. While urging Pakistan to concentrate upon strengthening Jehad instead of "wasting further time seeking a negotiated settlement," he also asked the military regime to refrain from initiating any steps that would undermine the ‘freedom movement’ in Jammu and Kashmir.
The outfit has also sought to enforce Islamist lifestyles in the areas in which it operates. For instance, reports of August 2003 indicated that the Al Badr ordered women in the rural areas of J&K to quit police jobs, wear veils, give up studies after the age of 14 and not to venture out without a male escort. Posters carrying these diktats were seen pasted on street walls and mosques in the Thannamandi and Darhal areas of Rajouri district. The posters, written in Urdu, warned of unspecified consequences if women failed to comply. Earlier on December 20, 2002, in a major terrorist act against women across Jammu region, terrorists killed three young girls, including two college students, at Hasiot village in Rajouri district. The separate incidents were reportedly carried out by a group of three Pakistani terrorists belonging to the Al Badr led by the outfit’s ‘area commander’ Zubair Gul.
The outfit launched a monthly Urdu magazine ‘Al Badr' from Karachi and Rawalpindi in January 1999.
Linkages
The Al Badr is reported to have close linkages with the Inter Services Intelligence and Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan. During the regime of the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, the outfit’s cadres secured weapons and ideological training in many camps across that country.
The security agencies were investigating the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and Al Badr’s links with the Al Qaeda, Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami. There were reports that the two organizations’ former Mujahideen were recruiting Jihadis for the Taliban and the Hizb-e-Islami from the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan.

LASHKER-E-TOIBA

Formation

Formed in 1990 in the Kunar province of Afghanistan, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (also known as Jama’at-ud-Da’awa) is based in Muridke near Lahore in Pakistan and is headed by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. Its first presence in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) was recorded in 1993 when 12 Pakistani and Afghan mercenaries infiltrated across the Line of Control (LoC) in tandem with the Islami Inquilabi Mahaz, a terrorist outfit then active in the Poonch district of J&K.
Proscription
The LeT is outlawed in India under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. It was included in the Terrorist Exclusion List by the US Government on December 5, 2001. The US administration designated the Lashkar-e-Toiba as a FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization) on December 26, 2001. It is also a banned organization in Britain since March 30, 2001.
The group was proscribed by the United Nations in May 2005.
The military regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf banned the Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistan on January 12, 2002.
Objectives/Ideology
The LeT’s professed ideology goes beyond merely challenging India's sovereignty over the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The Lashkar's ‘agenda’, as outlined in a pamphlet titled Why are we waging jihad includes the restoration of Islamic rule over all parts of India. Further, the outfit seeks to bring about a union of all Muslim majority regions in countries that surround Pakistan. Towards that end, it is active in J&K, Chechnya and other parts of Central Asia.
Hafiz Saeed, a scholar of Islam, has said that the purpose of Jihad is to carry out a sustained struggle for the dominance of Islam in the entire world and to eliminate the evil forces and the ignorant. He considers India, Israel and US to be his prime enemies and has threatened to launch Fidayeen (suicide squad) attacks on American interests too.
The Lashkar-e-Toiba does not believe in democracy and nationalism. According to its ideology, it is the duty of every 'Momin' to protect and defend the interests of Muslims all over the world where Muslims are under the rule of non-Muslim in the democratic system. It has, thus chosen the path of Jihad as the suited means to achieve its goal. Cadres are drawn from the Wahabi school of thought.
Jihad, Hafiz Saeed said during the All Pakistan Ulema Convention held on July 17, 2003, at Lahore, is the only way Pakistan can move towards dignity and prosperity.
The LeT has consistently advocated the use of force and vowed that it would plant the 'flag of Islam' in Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi.
Leadership and Command Structure
The outfit’s headquarters (200 acres) is located at Muridke, 30 kms from Lahore, which was built with contributions and donations from the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia being the biggest benefactor.
The headquarters houses a Madrassa (seminary), a hospital, a market, a large residential area for ‘scholars’ and faculty members, a fish farm and agricultural tracts. The LeT also reportedly operates 16 Islamic institutions, 135 secondary schools, an ambulance service, mobile clinics, blood banks and several seminaries across Pakistan.
LeT publishes its views and opinion through its Website (http://www.jamatuddawa.org/), an Urdu monthly journal, Al-Dawa, which has a circulation of 80,000, and an Urdu weekly, Gazwa. It also publishes Voice of Islam, an English monthly, and Al-Rabat - monthly in Arabic, Mujala-e-Tulba - Urdu monthly for students, Jehad Times - Urdu Weekly.
Hafiz Muhammad Saeed is the Amir (chief) of Lashkar-e-Toiba. While Yahiya Mujahid serves as the spokesman of the outfit, Maulana Abdul Wahid is one of the senior leaders. Abdullah Muntazer is the ‘Spokesman for International Media’ and editor of the outfit’s Website. Saeed’s son Talha reportedly looks after the LeT activity at its base camp in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Saeed’s son-in-law, Khalid Waleed, is reportedly part of the LeT office in Lahore.
According to a November 2005 report of Rediff, the LeT leadership consisted of: Hafiz Mohammed Saeed (Supreme Commander); Zia-Ur-Rehman Lakhvi alias Chachaji (Supreme Commander, Kashmir); A. B. Rahman-Ur-Dakhil (Deputy Supreme Commander); Abdullah Shehzad alias Abu Anas alias Shamas (Chief Operations Commander, Valley); Abdul Hassan alias MY (Central Division Commander); Kari Saif-Ul-Rahman (North Division Commander); Kari Saif-Ul-Islam (Deputy Commander); Masood alias Mahmood (Area Commander, Sopore); Hyder-e-Krar alias CI (Deputy Commander, Bandipora); Usman Bhai alias Saif-Ul-Islam (Deputy Commander, Lolab); Abdul Nawaz (Deputy Commander, Sogam); Abu Rafi (Deputy Divisional Commander, Baramulla); Abdul Nawaz (Deputy Commander, Handwara); Abu Museb alias Saifulla (Deputy Commander, Budgam);
Its cadres are organised at district levels with ‘district commanders’ in charge. Within Pakistan, the outfit has a network of training camps and branch offices, which undertake recruitment and collection of finances.
It comprises cadres mostly from Pakistan and Afghanistan and a sprinkling of militants from Sudan, Bahrain, Central Asia, Turkey and Libya. Funded, armed and trained by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISl, the external intelligence agency of Pakistan), it has presently a little over 750 cadres (this number keeps changing) in Jammu and Kashmir (a vast majority of the foreign mercenaries operating in the Valley).
The policy making apex body consists of Amir (chief), Naib Amir (deputy chief) Finance chief etc. At the field level, it has Chief Commander, Divisional Commander, District Commander, Battalion Commander and down below on army pattern.

Area of Operation

While the primary area of operations of the Lashkar-e-Toiba is Jammu and Kashmir, the outfit has carried out attacks in other parts of India, including in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Varanasi, Kolkata, Gujarat, etc. It reportedly has cells in many cities/towns outside Jammu and Kashmir.
The LeT has been able to network with several Islamist extremist organizations across India, especially in J&K, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat. LeT is actively engaged in subversive activities in the States of Maharashtra, West Bengal, Bihar, Hyderabad, Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh at the instance of ISI to expand the frontier of violence outside J&K by subverting fringe elements. Of all the Pakistan-based terrorist groups, the LeT is the only group with support bases across India.
The Lashkar-e-Toiba has training camps spread across Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). Its camps, recruitment centres/offices are spread across the length and breadth of Pakistan and PoK in Muzaffarabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Multan, Quetta, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Gilgit (in the Northern Area of PoK), etc. LeT reportedly has 2,200 offices across Pakistan.
The LeT allegedly carried out the terrorist attack at the Indian Institute of Science campus in Bangalore on December 28, 2005, in which one person was killed; Earlier, on October 29, 2005, it engineered the serial explosions in New Delhi killing at least 62 persons; It is also suspected to have carried out the Varanasi attack on March 7, 2006 in which 21 civilians died and 62 others were injured; Three suspected LeT terrorists were shot dead during an abortive attempt to storm the headquarters of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu organization, at Nagpur in Maharashtra on June 1, 2006; The LeT, according to Mumbai Police, carried out the 7/11 serial bombings in Mumbai in which at least 200 people were killed.
Arrests made during March-April 2004 near Baghdad brought to light links between the LeT and Islamist groups fighting the United States military in Iraq. In March - and possibly even earlier - United States forces detained Pakistani national Dilshad Ahmad and four others in Baghdad. Ahmad, a long-time Lashkar operative from the Bahawalpur area of the province of Punjab in Pakistan, had played a key role in the Lashkar's trans-Line of Control (LoC) operations, serving between 1997 and 2001 as the organisation's commander for the forward camps from where infiltrating groups of terrorists are launched into Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistani military support. Ahmad is believed to have made at least six secret visits to Lashkar groups operating in J&K during this period.

Training and Operational Strategies

The outfit provides training to both militant cadres and the Ulema (religious scholars). Its militant cadres are given two months training in the handling of AK series rifles, LMGs, pistols, rocket launchers and hand grenades. It also provides a 21-day training programme called Daura-e-Aam and a three months specialized training programme called Daura-e-Khas.
The Ulema are provided with a 42-days course. At the time of induction, the young recruits are made to go through a fresher course called Bait-ur-Rizwan.
Lashkar-e-Toiba is credited for having initiated the strategy of Fidayeen (suicide squad) attacks in J&K. It has formed two sub-groups called 'Jaan-e-Fidai' and 'Ibn-e-Tayamiah'. While the first group consists of highly motivated terrorists, the second comprises terrorists suffering from incurable diseases.
Compared to other terrorist outfits in J&K, the LeT has commanded significant attention primarily due to two reasons. First, for its well planned and executed attacks on security force (SF) targets and secondly, for the massacres of non-Muslim civilians. After the Kargil war of May-July 1999, (when Pakistani troops and mercenaries, including those of the Lashkar, were forced to withdraw from peaks on the Indian side of the Line of Control - LoC), the outfit launched its Fidayeen strategy whereby small groups (2-5 members) of Lashkar cadres would storm a security force camp or base. In another frequently used strategy, groups of Lashkar cadres, dressed in SF fatigues, would arrive at remote hill villages, round up Hindu or Sikh civilians, and massacre them. These two strategies have been designed to achieve maximum publicity and extract public allegiance, mainly out of fear. On December 8, 2001, two LeT suicide squad cadres managed to penetrate inside a SF convoy and opened fire killing one soldier. They were able to generate adequate confusion to escape from the convoy after the attack but were later killed in an encounter with another SF unit.

Links

It is closely linked to the Inter-Services Intelligence, the Taliban and al Qaida.
India’s National Security Adviser M. K. Narayanan said on August 11, 2006, that the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba is part of the "al Qaida compact" and is "as big as and omnipotent" as the international terror network. "The Lashkar today has emerged as a very major force. It has connectivity with west Asia, Europe....Actually there was a LeT module broken in Virginia and some people were picked up. It is as big as and omnipotent as al Qaida in every sense of the term," he told a private news channel. Asked how significant the al Qaida connection was in India, Narayanan said LeT was the "most visible manifestation" of the al Qaida in India.
LeT has an extensive network that run across Pakistan and India with branches in Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Bangladesh and South East Asia.
The outfit collects donations from the Pakistani community in the Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic Non-Governmental Organisations, and Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen. It receives considerable financial, material and other forms of assistance from the Pakistan government, routed primarily through the ISI. The ISI is the main source of LeT's funding. Saudi Arabia also provides funds.
The LeT maintains ties to various religious/military groups around the world, ranging from the Philippines to the Middle East and Chechnya primarily through the al Qaida fraternal network.
The LeT has also been part of the Bosnian campaign against the Serbs.
It has allegedly set up sleeper cells in the U.S. and Australia, trained terrorists from other countries and has entered new theatres of Jihad like Iraq.
The group has links with many international Islamist terrorist groups like the Ikhwan-ul-Musalmeen of Egypt and other Arab groups.
LeT has a unit in Germany and also receives help from the Al Muhajiraun, supporter of Sharia Group, (Abu Hamza Masari- of Mosque Finsbury Park, North London) and its annual convention is regularly attended by fraternal bodies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Bahrain, Oman, Kosovo, Bangladesh, Myanmar, USA, Palestine, Bosnia, Philippines, Jordan, Chechnya, etc.
It also has links with the International Sikh Youth Federation (Lakhbir Singh Rode).
The outfit collects donations from the Pakistani community in the Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic Non-Governmental Organisations, and Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen. It receives considerable financial, material and other forms of assistance from the Pakistan government, routed primarily through the ISI. The ISI is the main source of LeT's funding. Funds also come from some sources in Saudi Arabia.
Finances are also generated through Hawala transaction and through infiltrating groups and other conduits.
According to Mohammad Omar Rana, the expenditure on its militia alone is around 35 crores of rupees per annum.

Weaponry

AK series rifles, LMG/HMG's, Hand Grenades, Rockets, Pistols, Mortars, Anti-tank mines, Anti personnel mines, Anti Aircraft Gun, Remote Control Device, explosive devices and sophisticated communication system.
Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM)
The Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) has been held responsible for the December 13, 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi. The outfit has been banned by the Indian government under provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) on October 25, 2001. The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in a notification on December 26, 2001, designated the outfit as a foreign terrorist organization.
Evolution of group

Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM)

1. Formation

The Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) is a relatively new terrorist outfit, compared to other major outfits active in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Like the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), the JeM too is an outfit formed, controlled and manned by Pakistan. The outfit was launched on January 31, 2000, by Maulana Masood Azhar in Karachi after he was released from an Indian jail during the terrorists for hostage swap of December 31, 1999, following the hijacking of the Indian Airlines Flight IC 814.
The formation of the outfit was endorsed by three religious school chiefs, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai of the Majlis-e-Tawan-e-Islami (MT), Maulana Mufti Rashid Ahmed of the Dar-ul Ifta-e-wal-Irshad and Maulana Sher Ali of the Sheikh-ul-Hadith Dar-ul Haqqania.
The outfit’s creation can be linked to the popularity surrounding Masood Azhar after his release from India. Maulana Masood Azhar was the general secretary of the newly established Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA) in 1994 and was on a 'mission' in J&K when he was arrested on February 11. When he was released, the HuA had been included in the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations which had compelled the outfit to rename itself as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM). However, Masood Azhar decided to float the new outfit JeM rather than rejoin his old outfit. He was also reported to have received assistance in setting up the JeM from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the then Taliban regime in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden and several Sunni sectarian outfits of Pakistan.

2. Objectives

The Jaish-e-Mohammed is part of the Islamist terror network with its base in Pakistan and active in the terrorist violence in J&K. The outfit, like other terrorist outfits in J&K, claims to using violence to force a withdrawal of Indian security forces from J&K. The outfit claims that each of its offices in Pakistan would serve as schools of jihad. Delivering speeches at various cities and towns in Pakistan after his release, Masood Azhar threatened that the outfit would eliminate Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee who he termed as 'Abu Jahl’ (Father of Ignorance). In its fight against India, he added that the outfit would not only "liberate" Kashmir, but also would take control of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, Amritsar and Delhi.

3. Leadership and Command Structure

Masood Azhar, the Amir (chief) of the outfit was arrested by Pakistani security forces on December 29, 2001, after pressure from India and other foreign countries following the December 13, 2001 attack on India’s parliament. However, a three-member Review Board of Lahore High Court ordered on December 14, 2002, that Azhar be released.
There are no reports of any formal governing bodies or councils within the outfit. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the prominent office bearers of the organisation include
a. Maulana Masood Azhar – Amir
b. Maulana Qari Mansoor Ahmed – Nazim Propaganda Wing (he is a resident of Bhurewala, Punjab)
c. Maulana Abdul Jabbar – Nazim, Military Affairs (Former Nazim military affairs, (HuM)
d. Maulana Sajjad Usman – incharge, Finance (Former HuM Nazim Finance)
e. Shah Nawaz Khan alias Sajjid Jehadi & Gazi Baba – Chief Commander J&K (Former Supreme Commander HuM, J&K)
f. Maulana Mufti Mohd. Asghar – Launching Commander (Former Launching Commander of HuM)

4. Operational Strategies

Most Jaish-e-Mohammed attacks have been described as fidayeen (suicide terrorist) attacks. In this mode, terrorists of the outfit storm a high security target, including security forces' bases, camps and convoys. After storming, they either fortify themselves within the target, killing as many security force personnel and civilians as possible before they are killed by retaliatory action. In other cases, they kill and injure as many as possible before attempting to escape.

5. Area of Operation

The Jaish-e-Mohammed has largely confined its operations within J&K. The only recorded instance of its operations outside J&K has been the December 13, 2001, Parliament attack in New Delhi. However, several of its cadre have, on occasions been arrested or killed by security forces in states other than J&K.

6. External Linkages

The outfit is closely linked, through the Binoria Madrassah in Karachi, with the former Taliban regime of Afghanistan and its protégé, Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda. JeM chief, Masood Azhar was released by Indian authorities in Kandahar and has reportedly met Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan on various occasions.
The JeM is also reported to have links with Sunni terrorist outfits operating in Pakistan such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP)and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).

7. Major Incidents

2001
• December 14 – India’s External Affairs Minister holds JeM along with LeT responsible for attack on Parliament.
• October 1 – Four terrorists, later identified as Pakistani JeM mercenaries, attack the J&K Legislature Complex in Srinagar. 10 SF personneand the four mercenaries among 32 killed in the attack. While the JeM claimed responsibility for the attack on the same day, it withdrew the claim two days later.

Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami

Formation

The Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) is a Pakistan-based terrorist group with an affiliate in Bangladesh. While the exact formation date of the group is not known, its origin is traced to the Soviet-Afghan war. Qari Saifullah Akhtar along with two of his associates, Maulana Irshad Ahmed and Maulana Abdus Samad Sial, all seminary students from Karachi in Pakistan, were instrumental in laying the foundation of a group, Jamiat Ansarul Afghaneen (JAA, the Party of the Friends of the Afghan People), sometime in 1980. Towards the end of its Afghanistan engagement, the JAA rechristened itself as HuJI and reoriented its strategy to fight for the cause of fellow Muslims in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).
The HuJI continued to exist after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 by merging with another Pakistani militant group known as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, to form the Harkat-ul-Ansar which subsequently began terrorist operations in J&K. In order to avoid the ramifications of the U.S designation of Harkat-ul-Ansar as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997, it renamed itself as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen in certain areas while its Bangladesh-based unit (formed in 1992) is known as the HuJI Bangladesh (HuJI-B). The HuJI-B functioned, in the initial years, under the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh led by Fazlur Rahman, one of the signatories of the February 23, 1998 declaration of ‘holy war’ under the banner of Osama bin Laden’s World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders.

Objectives and Ideology

The HuJI belongs to the Deobandi school of thought and its recruits are indoctrinated in the mould of radical Islam. By describing itself as the "second line of defence for every Muslim", it aims to establish Islamic rule by waging war. The group operating in Bangladesh, HuJI-B, aims to establish Islamic rule in the country by waging war and killing progressive intellectuals. It draws inspiration from Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. At one point of time, it had issued a slogan, Amra Sobai Hobo Taliban, Bangla Hobe Afghanistan (We will all become Taliban and we will turn Bangladesh into Afghanistan).
The HuJI supports, like the other Pakistan-based terrorist groups, the secession of J&K from India and its eventual accession to Pakistan, essentially through violence. It also propagates the idea of Islamic rule over all parts of India.
Among the other objectives of the HuJI is the Islamisation of Pakistani society.

Leadership

Bashir Ahmed Mir, the HuJI ‘commander-in-chief’ for operations across India, was shot dead by police in the Doda district in J&K on January 25, 2008. Operating under the code-name "Hijazi," "Pakistan-trained Mir is believed to have ordered a string of strikes across north and south-east India last year [2007], including the court complex bombings in Uttar Pradesh, the bombing of the Ajmer Sharif shrine in Rajasthan, and the multiple bombings which took place in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, in May and August [2007]." A resident of Chatroo village in J&K, Mir joined the "Harkat-ul-Ansar, which later transformed itself into the Jaish-e-Mohammad, in 1992. He trained in Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir from 1994 to 1995, and was then assigned the charge of instructing new recruits at a HuJI-run camp near Mansehra [Pakistan]. He is believed to have returned to Jammu and Kashmir in 1999, and served with a HuJI unit operating out of the Pir Panjal mountains in the Doda-Anantnag mountain belt." He was appointed commander-in-chief of the HuJI in India in 2004.
After the HuJI lost its base in Afghanistan following the US military operations in 2001, most of its leaders, including Qari Saifullah Akhtar, took shelter in South Waziristan in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). While an unspecified number of its cadres also made their way into Central Asia and Chechnya to escape capture at the hands of the Americans, many went into Pakistan to establish themselves in the FATA and Buner in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
The Pakistan-based Shahid Bilal, who is alleged to have masterminded several bomb blasts across the Indian hinterland, is believed to be the operations chief of the HuJI. However, there are conflicting reports on his existence. While some reports have indicated that he was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Karachi on August 30, 2007, some others have reported that Bilal is alive and shuttling from Bangladesh to Karachi. Bilal, a resident of Hyderabad had fled from India to Bangladesh sometime in 2002 and subsequently joined the HuJI. He recruited several persons from Hyderabad to carry out attacks on India and Hyderabad in particular.
According to an August 27, 2007 report in Indian Express, "Shahid Bilal, who is also named in the Mecca Masjid blasts, went to Saudi Arabia for training in 2002-2003 and was an understudy of his maternal uncle Farhatullah Ghori, a Jaish-e-Mohammed operative. A resident of Misram Bagh in Hyderabad, Bilal returned to the city in 2005 before the attack on the STF headquarters. Currently based in Karachi, Bilal has operated with Abdul Kalim Pasha in Bidar in the past and has links with fellow-Hyderabadi Rasool Party who used local youths in the assassination of Gujarat Home Minister Haren Pandya. Rasool is also in Karachi."
There have been reports that the HuJI operations are now being handled by Mohammed Amjad after the death of Shahid Bilal.
In August 2004, Qari Saifullah Akhtar was arrested by Dubai authorities and deported to Pakistan. He was in Dubai after he moved out of Saudi Arabia where he was in hiding earlier. Qari fled Afghanistan after the "American invasion in late 2001, taking shelter in South Waziristan before he was spirited out of Pakistan." After deportation, he was detained on the charge of anti-state activities. But he was released by the security agencies on May 21, 2007. An editorial in Daily Times on August 9, 2004 stated: "Like Maulana Masood Azhar of Jaish-e-Muhammad, Qari Saifullah Akhtar — born in 1958 in South Waziristan — was a graduate of the Banuri Masjid in Karachi. He was a crucial figure in Mufti Shamzai’s efforts to get Osama bin Laden and Mullah Umar together as partners-in-jihad. Qari Saifullah Akhtar first came to public view when he was caught as one of the would-be army coup-makers of 1995 led by Major-General Zaheerul Islam Abbasi, but saved his skin by turning ‘state witness’. (Some say he was defiant but was still let off.) After that, he surfaced in Kandahar and from 1996 was an adviser to Mullah Umar in the Taliban government. His fighters were called ‘Punjabi’ Taliban and were offered employment, something that other outfits could not get out of Mullah Umar. His outfit had membership among the Taliban too. Three Taliban ministers and 22 judges belonged to his Harkat."
Qari Saifullah Akhtar was also arrested along with his three sons on February 25, 2008 for his alleged links with the October 18, 2007-suicide bombing in Karachi that narrowly missed former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto but killed about 150 others. However, Akhtar was freed from custody on March 26, 2008 due to lack of evidence.
The HuJI-B's ‘operations commander’, Mufti Abdul Hannan, who was trained in Peshawar, capital of NWFP, and fought in the jihad in Afghanistan, was arrested in Dhaka on October 1, 2005. The HuJI-B is led by Shawkat Osman alias Sheikh Farid and Imtiaz Quddus is the general secretary of the outfit.
Cadre
Although there is no authoritative information on the actual cadre strength, some reports mention it to be around 500-750.

Area of Activity and Influence

While the present global influence of the HuJI is not known, its presence has been reported from more than 20 countries in the past. The HuJI, according to one report, had spread its wings by 2005 to 24 countries, including India, Chechnya, Uzbekistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Iran, Malaysia, Fiji, UK, US, Ireland, the Philippines, and parts of Africa and the West Asia. The outfit, according to a report in The Friday Times, maintained branches in 40 districts and tehsils (revenue divisions) in Pakistan, including Sargodha, Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan, Khanpur, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Mianwali, Bannu, Kohat, Waziristan, Dera Ismail Khan, Swabi and Peshawar. It also had an office in Islamabad.
Daily Times reported on August 9, 2004 that "In difficult times, the Harkat fighters stood together with Mullah Umar. Approximately 300 of them were killed fighting the Northern Alliance, after which Mullah Umar was pleased to give Harkat the permission to build six more ‘maskars’ (training camps) in Kandahar, Kabul and Khost, where the Taliban army and police also received military training. From its base in Afghanistan, the Harkat launched its campaigns inside Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Chechnya. It finally became the biggest jihadi militia based in Kandahar located in the middle of the Taliban-Al Qaeda strategic merger."
The HuJI’s operations in J&K began in 1991 and it was reportedly managed by a semi-autonomous unit led by ‘chief commander’ Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri. According to an estimate in 2002, 650 HuJI cadres were killed in its battle against the Indian army: 190 belonging to both sides of Kashmir, nearly 200 belonging to Punjab, 49 to Sindh, 29 to Balochistan, 70 to Afghanistan, 5 to Turkey, and 49 collectively to Uzbekistan, Bangladesh and the Arab world. However, the HuJI activities in Jammu and Kashmir have progressively declined since 9/11.
The post 9/11 decline in HuJI operations in J&K, however, coincided with the increasing involvement of its Bangladesh based affiliate in several terrorist attacks in the Indian hinterland. The outfit was involved in the attack on American Center in Kolkata on January 22, 2002. The Asif Reza Commando Force (ARCF), which claimed responsibility for the attack, was affiliated to the HuJI, formed and manned largely by Bangladeshi migrants in India and some HuJI militants in India who were trained at ISI-backed training camps in Pakistan. Further, the October 12, 2005 suicide attack on the Special Task Force (STF) office of the Hyderabad Police brought it under the scanner of intelligence agencies. Since that attack in Hyderabad, footprints of the HuJI have been witnessed in most of the terrorist attacks that have taken place in India’s urban centres, either directly or indirectly.
The HuJI is believed to have played an important role in the February 2007 bomb blasts in the Samjhauta Express that left 68 persons dead. The May 25, 2007 twin blasts at the Lumbini open air auditorium and a popular restaurant Gokul Chat Bhandar in Hyderabad is also suspected to be the handiwork of HuJI and sleeper cells of the JeM and LeT.
The HuJI has also been linked to the serial bomb blasts in Jaipur on May 13, 2008. "While the SIMI [Students Islamic Movement of India] module might have comprised locals, HuJI could have sent some of its men from outside the state, even from Bangladesh," said Additional Director General of Police (Crime) A. K. Jain, who is supervising the probe.
Available evidence indicates that the HuJI has a strong network in western Uttar Pradesh. The HuJI modules active in Uttar Pradesh are reportedly being monitored from Bangladesh and coordination among the units is allegedly being done by Bilal, the suspected mastermind behind the May 18, 2007 blast at the Mecca mosque in Hyderabad, capital of Andhra Pradesh in southern India, in which 11 persons died. The serial bomb blasts of November 23, 2007 in court premises at Varanasi, Faizabad and Lucknow in which 15 persons died were orchestrated by the HuJI. One of the militants arrested in that case, Sajjad (a resident of Kishtwar in Jammu and Kashmir), is a relative of Mohammed Amin Wani, a HuJI militant arrested in January 2007 by the Delhi Police. According to police, Wani was trained in a camp at Muzaffarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir and subsequently in a HuJI camp at Reeshkhore in Afghanistan. He had disclosed to the police about Sajjad who was then HuJI in-charge in Uttar Pradesh. Wani was also instrumental in initiating several young men from western Uttar Pradesh into terrorism, the police said.
The December 22, 2007 arrest of Mohammad Tariq Qasmi and Khalid Mujahid, two HuJI militants involved in the November 23 serial bomb blasts, and the May 22 Gorakhpur blasts, brought to light the deep tentacles of the group in Uttar Pradesh. Qasmi, a qualified Unani doctor, is the area commander of HuJI in Uttar Pradesh and was the intizamiya (arrangement) in charge of the group. Khalid Mujahid was the head of the action group of the HuJI. Qasmi was reportedly in regular contact with the Pakistan-based HuJI leader, Tauqeer. Brij Lal, the Additional Director-General of Police, stated that money was delivered to Qasmi through local contacts and the bombs were made and supplied by Mukhtar alias Raju, who has made several trips to Bangladesh through the Malda district in West Bengal.
Since 2005, militant groups like the HuJI, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed have, with considerable assistance from local groups like the SIMI, established an extensive network in Uttar Pradesh. While the HuJI has a strong network in western Uttar Pradesh, its cadre have reportedly infiltrated into all regions of the State. Recent trends have demonstrated the involvement of technically qualified youth within the HuJI fold and the ability of its cadre "to operate autonomously in small cells, deadly use of explosive devices, careful selection of soft and hard targets and willingness to inflict mass casualties."
The HuJI is reported to have also established several sleeper cells across Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Links

The HuJI is closely linked to the Inter-Services Intelligence, the Taliban and al Qaeda.
The group receives patronage and support from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and is also linked with several Islamist groups operating in India, including the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). According to intelligence sources, the group’s anti-India operations are planned by the ISI, mostly from the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. The HUJI-B has coordinated its attacks along with the SIMI, the LeT and JeM. SIMI cadres have provided to the HUJI-B cadres shelter and logistical help prior to the attack. A number of SIMI cadres have also joined the HUJI-B. For example, On April 5, 2006, the Uttar Pradesh STF arrested six persons, including Waliullah, the 32-year old Pesh Imam of a mosque in Phulpur near Allahabad. Waliullah, a former SIMI cadre, was HuJI-B's area commander for eastern UP. On the other hand, the LeT and JeM cadres have taken part in the actual orchestration of the attack. For example, HuJI-B had executed the March 7, 2006 attack in collaboration with the JeM and SIMI at the Sankatmochan Temple and the Railway Station at Varanasi. The December 28, 2005 attack at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, in which a Delhi University mathematics professor was killed, was attributed to the HuJI-JeM combine.
Within Uttar Pradesh, the SIMI have provided the HuJI militants shelter and logistical assistance. A number of SIMI cadres have also reportedly joined the HuJI. For instance, On April 5, 2006, the Uttar Pradesh Police arrested six persons, including Waliullah, the 32-year old prayer leader of a mosque in Phulpur near Allahabad. Waliullah, a former SIMI cadre, was the HuJI ‘area commander’ for eastern Uttar Pradesh. SIMI, with a strong base in some universities of Uttar Pradesh, reportedly enjoys the support of a segment of the Muslim populace in cities such as Kanpur, Rampur, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Lucknow and Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh.
Further, the HuJI maintains links with militant groups operating in India's northeast, including the Assam-based United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and the Manipur-based People’s United Liberation Front (PULF). The HuJI is reportedly running some of ULFA's camps situated in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh along the border of Tripura.
Proscription
The HuJI is a banned terrorist organisation in India under The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 2004.
The US State Department designated the HuJI as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in March 2008 and accordingly all the US financial institutions were required to freeze assets held by the militant group. Earlier, the US administration had classified the HuJI in the 'Other Terrorist Organisations' list in 2003.
Terrorist Outfits’ operating in J&K : links to the Pakistani State
India has long accused Pakistan's premier intelligence service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), of arming, training, and providing logistical support to militants in Jammu & Kashmir. Pakistan denies any ongoing collaboration between the ISI and militants, stressing a change of course after September 11, 2001. After the December 2001 attack on India's parliament, former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf promised to crack down on terrorist groups active in Jammu & Kashmir and purge ISI officials with ties to these groups. However, the Indian government implied the ISI's involvement in a July 2008 attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, and again in the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai. The Indian embassy in Kabul was again attacked in October 2008.
Some experts believe the relationship between the Pakistani military and some Kashmiri groups has turned with the rise of militancy within Pakistan. Shuja Nawaz, author of Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars Within, says the ISI "has certainly lost control" of Kashmiri militant groups. According to Nawaz, some of the groups trained by the ISI to fuel insurgency in Jammu & Kashmir have been implicated in bombings and attacks within Pakistan, therefore making them army targets.

The Al-Qaeda Connection

Many terrorists active in Jammu & Kashmir received training in the same madrasas, or Muslim seminaries, where Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters studied, and some received military training at camps in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Leaders of some of these terror groups also have al-Qaeda connections. The long-time leader of the Harakat ul-Mujahideen group, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, signed al-Qaeda's 1998 declaration of holy war, which called on Muslims to attack all Americans and their allies. Maulana Masood Azhar, who founded the Jaish-e-Mohammed organization, traveled to Afghanistan several times to meet Osama bin Laden. Azhar's group is suspected of receiving funding from al-Qaeda, U.S. and Indian officials say. In 2006, al-Qaeda claimed to have established a wing in Kashmir.

Obstacle to Peace

Despite a resumption of formal peace talks between India and Pakistan in 2004, militant attacks continue to hinder progress towards a sustainable deal on Kashmir. After New Delhi and Islamabad agreed to launch a landmark bus service in February 2005 across the cease-fire line, militants vowed to target the service. In April of the same year, one bus survived a grenade attack.Both India and Pakistan have been accused of committing human rights violations in Kashmir, exacerbating the antagonism and mutual distrust both states have for one another. Talks were effectively put on hold in 2008 after India accused the ISI and Pakistani authorities of being complicit in the Mumbai attacks.

Pakistan’s new generation of terrorists
Introduction

Pakistani authorities have long had ties to militant groups based on their soil. They have supported some organizations fighting Indian forces in Jammu & Kashmir and played a pivotal role in supporting the Afghan resistance against the Soviets throughout the 1980s. In the 1990s, Pakistan’s government supported the Taliban’s rise in Afghanistan in the hope of having a friendly government in Kabul. But with Pakistan joining the United States as an ally in its war against Islamic extremists since 9/11, experts say Islamabad has seen harsh blowback on its policy of backing militants operating abroad. Leadership elements of al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, along with other terrorist groups, have made Pakistan’s tribal areas (the semi-autonomous region along the Afghan border) their home. Pakistan’s deployment of troops in the tribal areas has generated resentment among tribal leaders and others who sympathized with the Taliban. In recent years, many new terrorist groups have emerged in Pakistan, several existing groups have reconstituted themselves, and a new crop of militants have taken control, more violent and less conducive to political solutions than their predecessors.

Terrorist Groups

Many experts say it is difficult to determine how many terrorist groups are operating out of Pakistan. Most of these groups tend to fall into one of the five distinct categories laid out by Ashley J. Tellis, a senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in January 16, 2008, testimony (PDF) before a U.S. House Foreign Affairs subcommittee:
Sectarian: Groups such as the Sunni Sipah-e-Sahaba and the Shia Tehrik-e-Jafria, which are engaged in violence within Pakistan;

Anti-Indian: Terrorist groups that operate with the alleged support of the Pakistani military and the intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), and the Harakat ul-Mujahadeen (HuM).

Afghan Taliban: The original Taliban movement and especially its Kandahari leadership centered around Mullah Mohammad Omar, believed to be now living in Quetta;

Al-Qaeda and its affiliates: The organization led by Osama bin Laden and other non-South Asian terrorists believed to be ensconced in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Rohan Gunaratna of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore says other foreign militant groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Islamic Jihad group, the Libyan Islamic Fighters Group and the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement are also located in FATA;

The Pakistani “Taliban”: Groups consisting of extremist outfits in the FATA, led by individuals such as late Baitullah Mehsud, now Hakimullah Mehsud, the chieftain of the Mehsud tribe in South Waziristan, Maulana Faqir Muhammad and Maulana Qazi Fazlullah of the Tehrik-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TSNM), and Mangal Bagh Afridi of the Lashkar-e-Islami in the Khyber Agency.

The Pakistani Taliban

Supporters of the Afghan Taliban in the tribal areas transitioned into a mainstream Taliban force of their own as a reaction to the Pakistani army’s incursion into the tribal areas, which began in 2002, to hunt down the militants. This Pakistani Taliban is organizationally distinct from the Afghan Taliban. Gunaratna says it is clear that Afghan Taliban only fights in Afghanistan, emphasizing it is the Pakistani Taliban that is operating in Pakistan against the state. Analysts say it is this arrangement with the Pakistani authorities that keeps members of the Afghan Taliban safe from arrest or transfer to U.S. or NATO forces based in Afghanistan. But Pakistani authorities have repeatedly denied any involvement with the Taliban and have often said the problem lies within Afghanistan, saying Taliban sympathizers from Afghanistan slip across the border to recruit in refugee camps in Pakistan.
Experts say most adult men in Pakistan’s tribal areas grew up carrying arms but it is only in the last few years that they have begun to organize themselves around a Taliban-style Islamic ideology pursuing an agenda much similar to that of the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan. The people of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and FATA, as well as the adjacent eastern regions of Afghanistan, are overwhelmingly Pashtun and share ethnic and linguistic links. Hassan Abbas, a research fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, writes (PDF) in a January 2008 paper that the Pakistani Taliban have effectively established themselves as an alternative to the traditional tribal elders. Abbas adds that the Taliban killed approximately 200 of the tribal leaders and these indigenous Taliban groups coalesced in December 2007 under the umbrella of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). He writes that a shura (consultative council) of more than 40 senior Taliban leaders established the TTP under the militant commander Baitullah Mehsud from South Waziristan.
TTP not only has representation from all of FATA’s seven agencies (please refer to this interactive map of the area) but also from several settled districts of the NWFP. According to some estimates, the Pakistani Taliban collectively have around 30,000 to 35,000 members. Among their other objectives, the TTP has announced a defensive jihad against the Pakistani army, enforcement of sharia, and a plan to unite against NATO forces in Afghanistan. Pakistani authorities accused the group’s leader, Mehsud, of assassinating former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.
Analysts say it may be too early to say how successful the TTP will be in unifying the disparate militant groups across diverse tribal regions, or how loyal the tribes will be to Mehsud’s leadership.

Changing Face of Terrorism

The new Taliban are fiercer, younger and impatient for results, say experts. Steve Coll, president of the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, tells CFR.org the Afghan-oriented Taliban of the 1990s had a sort of a political cover in Pakistan. But what’s happening now, he says, is that those traditional intermediaries between the Taliban and the establishment are being displaced by “a younger generation of more violent radical leaders who are in a hurry and have no patience with compromise with the state.” Coll adds: “These are like hard-core breakaway children militias of the sort you encounter in failed states in Africa and elsewhere,” running roadblocks, moving around in bands on highways in the tribal areas, and operating under some notion of political control under this Tehrik-i-Taliban set-up. “But they are the law and that is real change.”
This new generation of terrorists is also more willing to engage in suicide attacks; there were more than fifty in 2007, compared to no more than twenty between 2001 and 2007. Gunaratna attributes this to the influence of al-Qaeda. He says bin Laden’s group is training most of the terrorist groups in FATA. “Al-Qaeda considers itself as the vanguard of the Islamic movement,” Gunaratna says, and has introduced its practice of suicide bombings to both the Afghan and the Pakistani Taliban.
“Pakistani Taliban are a younger generation of more violent radical leaders who are in a hurry and have no patience with compromise with the state.”- Steve Coll
Pakistan’s tribal areas are also experiencing growing extremism. Like their Taliban predecessors in Afghanistan, the younger militants consider music, TV, and luxuries like massage parlors un-Islamic and wage war against them. Local Taliban leaders in the tribal agencies tell men to keep beards and women to wear the veil. In a January 2008 article in the New York Times magazine, writer Nicholas Schmidle quotes Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F), a pro-Taliban religious party: “When the jihad in Afghanistan started, the maliks [tribal leaders] and the old tribal system in Afghanistan ended; a new leadership arose, based on jihad. Similar is the case here in the tribal areas.”

Terrorist Breeding Ground

Pakistan’s tribal region is governed under the colonial-era Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) Act by a political agent in each of the seven tribal agencies. Experts say the tribes have long struggled with each other over economic or territorial issues. Coll says what has happened in FATA during the last twenty years is “almost like painting a coat of Islamist radicalization over this complicated structure of smuggling and competition” among the tribes. He says “by painting this coat of Islamist ideology over certain areas of FATA, it’s changed the dynamic of competition in ways that are really complicated and very hard for us to understand on the outside.”
Counterterrorism Challenges
Pakistani authorities are struggling to confront the changing dynamics in the region. There is growing criticism both within and outside Pakistan that the army does not have the capacity to fight insurgency within its borders. Militants increasingly target the army with suicide attacks and in August 2007, the kidnapping of around 250 soldiers by Baitullah Mehsud in FATA’s South Waziristan posed a huge embarrassment for Pakistan. These soldiers were only released when the government released twenty-five militants associated with Mehsud. The army faces a tough fight not only in the tribal areas but increasingly the settled areas of NWFP, which are being targeted by militants. In 2007, the militant group TSNM led by Maulana Fazlullah took control of large areas in the Swat valley, previously a tourist destination. The army, after a long fight, reclaimed it but experts say hundreds of militants continue to operate there.
Coll questions the will of the Pakistani military to confront the new Taliban groups. He writes in the New Yorker that there was evidence to suggest that “some current and former Pakistani military and intelligence officers sympathize with the Islamist insurgents with whom they are notionally at war.” U.S.officials have made similar allegations but Pakistani officials have pointed to the death of about a thousand Pakistani soldiers fighting the war on terror and several attempts made by the militants on President Musharraf’s life as proof that such allegations are not true.
“[A] strategy to manage the threat of terrorism is to co-opt the groups that are in the margins and draw them to mainstream politics to create opportunities for them.”- Rohan Gunaratna
One approach taken by Islamabad is to deploy the Frontier Corps, Pakistan ’s paramilitary organization that operates in the FATA and has played an important part because of their local language skills and familiarity with the local terrain. But numerous defections and refusals to fight and follow orders have taken place within the Frontier Corps. Rand Corporation expert Christine C. Fair, in January 2008 testimony to a U.S. House Foreign Affairs subcommittee, says while its officers are seconded from the Pakistan army, its cadres are drawn from the local Pashtun population. According to Fair, the Corps is “inadequately trained and equipped and has been ill-prepared for counter-insurgency operations in FATA.” Fair also says the Corps “was used to train the Taliban in the 1990s and many are suspected of having ties to that organization.” Yet many experts believe that Frontier Corps has a much better chance than the Pakistani army in securing the tribal areas. Washington plans a significant increase in current military assistance to the Frontier Corps. Its effort to secure the tribal belt includes a proposal by U.S. Special Operations Command to train and arm tribal leaders to fight Al-Qaeda and Taliban and a $750 million aid package for the border area over the next five years.
Another approach taken by the Pakistani government in the tribal areas was to sign some peace agreements with the tribal leaders but most of them have failed so far and critics, including many in Washington, said they only ended up strengthening the militants. In January 2008, news reports saying the United States was considering sending U.S. troops to Pakistan’s tribal areas drew angry reactions from Pakistani authorities and analysts said it would further destabilize the country. Imran Khan, chairman of the opposition party Tehreek-e-Insaf in Pakistan, says political negotiations are the only way to deal with terrorism. Gunaratna, too, says a military solution is not the answer. A “strategy to manage the threat of terrorism is to co-opt the groups that are in the margins, in the periphery,” he says, “and draw them to mainstream politics to create opportunities for them.”peacekashmir.com