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Paper no. 1369
06. 05. 2005
INTERNATIONAL JIHADI TERRORISM: A US Perspective---Part IV & Last
by B.Raman
In the report of the US State Department on the state of international terrorism during 2004 submitted to the Congress and released to the media on April 27,2005, three jihadi terrorist organisations based in Pakistan and active in India figure in the list of designated Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs). These are the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). The HUM was designated by the State Department as an FTO in October,1997, following evidence of its involvement in the kidnapping of some Western tourists in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) in 1995 under the name Al Faran. The JEM and the LET were designated as FTOs following their involvement in the attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13,2001.
2. Under a 1996 US law, members and supporters of FTOs are banned from entry into the US and it is a crime for anyone in the US to contribute to their funds. In addition to these organisations, the names of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), an anti-Shia extremist organisation of Pakistan, which is not active in Indian territory, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) also figure in the list of FTOs. The LEJ was designated as an FTO in 2003 and the LTTE in October,1997. There was no fresh addition to the list of any organisation from South Asia in 2004.
3. In addition, in keeping with the past practice, the State Department's report includes a list of other selected terrorist organisations, whose activities are of concern to the US, but which have not yet been designated as FTOs. In the case of these organisations, the restrictions under the 1996 US law mentioned above would not automatically apply. The US authorities could still deny visas to the members and supporters of these organisations, if need be, by placing them in what has come to be known as the Exclusion List for the purpose of visa eligibility. Moreover, they can still move the Monitoring Committee of the UN Security Council (UNSC), which monitors the implementation of the UNSC Resolution No. 1373, for freezing bank accounts suspected to be used by them.
4. Of organisations of interest to India included in the 2004 list of other selected terrorist organisations are the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) of Pakistan, the HUJI of Bangladesh known as HUJI (B), the Al Badr, a Pakistani organisation, the Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen (JUM), a Kashmiri organisation. the Hizbul Mujahideen, an indigenous Kashmiri organisation with headquarters in Pakistan, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA). All these organisations except the ULFA had figured in this list in 2003 too. Only the ULFA has been included for the first time in 2004..
5. Under the wrong impression that its name has been included in the list for the first time, the CPI (Maoist) has strongly condemned the US and described its inclusion as a conspiracy between the Governments of India and the USA to prepare the ground for banning the organisation. This is not so. The Naxalite organisations had figured in the list even in 2003 under their then names of Maoist Communist Centre of India and People's War. After their merger of last year to form the CPI (Maoist), they have been re-included under their new name.
6. The inclusion of the ULFA for the first time is apparently a sequel to the series of explosions suspected to have been organised by it last year following which the US Ambassador in New Delhi had made his controversial offer of assistance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) in the investigation of the explosions. His offer, which was not accepted, became controversial because he wrote directly to the Government of Assam bypassing the Government of India.
7. Another likely reason for the ULFA's inclusion is the repeated complaints of the Government of India about the non-compliance of UNSC Resolution No. 1373 by the Government of Bangladesh, which has been providing sanctuaries and other assistance not only to the ULFA, but also to other terrorist and insurgent organisations of India's North-East. Without taking cognisance of the complaints of the Government of India against the Government of Bangladesh, the US State Department has indirectly sought to convey its concern to Dacca over the activities of the ULFA by having it included in the List.
8. A similar approach has always been followed by the State Department regarding jihadi terrorist organisations operating in Indian territory from sanctuaries in Pakistan. While taking note of their activities in Pakistani territory and documenting them, it at the same time plays down or even ignores the complaints of the Government of India regarding Pakistani support to these organisations. In the case of Bangladesh, the State Department has been even more cautious and ambivalent. Whereas in the case of the Pakistani jihadi organisations, the report documents their activities in Pakistani territory and records the presence of many Pakistanis in these organisations, it refrains from even mentioning Bangladesh in its section on the ULFA. While it refers to the sanctuaries enjoyed by it in Bhutan in the past, it does not refer to its sanctuaries in BD. It merely says that the ULFA receives aid from "unknown external sources."
9. A careful reading of the report would indicate that while it is fairly forthcoming in describing the activities of Islamic and Marxist terrorist organisations, it maintains an ambiguity in the case of other terrorist organisations.
10. An intriguing aspect, which continues to defy explanation, is the attitude of the State Department towards the HUJI of Pakistan and HUJI (B). The HUJI of Pakistan, like the HUM, the JEM and the LET, is a member of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front For Jihad Against the Crusaders and the Jewish People and has been a strong supporter of the Taliban. It has been involved in many terrorist incidents in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Chechnya and had in the past trained the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar. It is very active in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). HUJI (B), its Bangladesh branch, advocates the Talibanisation of the BD society. It has given shelter to many terrorists from South-east Asia and trains recruits from S.E.Asia, particularly southern Thailand, in madrasas controlled by it. The report itself admits that HUJI (B) was a signatory of bin Laden's February 1998 fatwa against the US and Israel. And yet, it has refrained from designating either HUJI or HUJI (B) as an FTO and exercising pressure on Dacca to act against HUJI (B).
11. The Annexure gives the details of the organisations mentioned above as given the State Department's report.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and , presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Distinguished Fellow and Convenor, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter. E-mail: itschen36@gmail.com)
ANNEXURE
FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANISATIONS (FTOS)
(Note: The spellings as given in the State Department's report have been retained)
Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HUM) a.k.a. Harakat ul-Ansar
Description
HUM is an Islamist militant group based in Pakistan that operates primarily in Kashmir. It is politically aligned with the radical political party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam’s Fazlur Rehman faction (JUI-F). The long-time leader of the group, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, in mid-February 2000 stepped down as HUM emir, turning the reins over to the popular Kashmiri commander and his second-in-command, Farooqi Kashmiri. Khalil, who has been linked to Usama Bin Ladin and signed his fatwa in February 1998 calling for attacks on US and Western interests, assumed the position of HUM Secretary General. HUM operated terrorist training camps in eastern Afghanistan until Coalition air strikes destroyed them during fall 2001. Khalil was detained by the Pakistanis in mid-2004 and subsequently released in late December. In 2003, HUM began using the name Jamiat ul-Ansar (JUA), and Pakistan banned JUA in November 2003.
Activities
Has conducted a number of operations against Indian troops and civilian targets in Kashmir. Linked to the Kashmiri militant group al-Faran that kidnapped five Western tourists in Kashmir in July 1995; one was killed in August 1995, and the other four reportedly were killed in December of the same year. HUM was responsible for the hijacking of an Indian airliner on December 24, 1999, which resulted in the release of Masood Azhar. Azhar, an important leader in the former Harakat ul-Ansar, was imprisoned by the Indians in 1994 and founded Jaish-e- Muhammad after his release. Also released in 1999 was Ahmed Omar Sheik, who was convicted of the abduction/ murder in January-February 2002 of US journalist Daniel Pearl.
Strength
Has several hundred armed supporters located in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, and India’s southern Kashmir and Doda regions and in the Kashmir valley. Supporters are mostly Pakistanis and Kashmiris and also include Afghans and Arab veterans of the Afghan war. Uses light and heavy machineguns, assault rifles, mortars, explosives, and rockets. HUM lost a significant share of its membership in defections to the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) in 2000.
Location/Area of Operation
Based in Muzaffarabad, Rawalpindi, and several other towns in Pakistan, but members conduct insurgent and terrorist activities primarily in Kashmir. HUM trained its militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
External Aid
Collects donations from Saudi Arabia, other Gulf and Islamic states, Pakistanis and Kashmiris. HUM’s financial collection methods also include soliciting donations in magazine ads and pamphlets. The sources and amount of HUM’s military funding are unknown. In anticipation of asset seizures in 2001 by the Pakistani Government, the HUM withdrew funds from bank accounts and invested in legal businesses, such as commodity trading, real estate, and production of consumer goods. Its fundraising in Pakistan has been constrained since the Government clampdown on extremist groups and freezing of terrorist assets.
Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) a.k.a. Army of Mohammed, Tehrik ul-Furqaan, Khuddamul-Islam
Description
The Jaish-e-Mohammed is an Islamic extremist group based in Pakistan that was formed in early 2000 by Masood Azhar upon his release from prison in India. The group’s aim is to unite Kashmir with Pakistan. It is politically aligned with the radical political party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam’s Fazlur Rehman faction (JUI-F). By 2003,JEM had splintered into Khuddam ul-Islam (KUI), headed by Azhar, and Jamaat ul-Furqan (JUF), led by Abdul Jabbar,who was released in August 2004 from Pakistani custody after being detained for suspected involvement in the December 2003 assassination attempts against President Musharraf. Pakistan banned KUI and JUF in November 2003. Elements of JEM and Lashkar e-Tayyiba combined with other groups to mount attacks as “The Save Kashmir Movement.”
Activities
The JEM’s leader, Masood Azhar, was released from Indian imprisonment in December 1999 in exchange for 155 hijacked Indian Airlines hostages. The Harakat-ul-Ansar (HUA) kidnappings in 1994 of US and British nationals by Omar Sheik in New Delhi and the HUA/al-Faran kidnappings in July 1995 of Westerners in Kashmir were two of several previous HUA efforts to free Azhar.On October 1, 2001, JEM claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly building in Srinagar that killed at least 31 persons but later denied the claim. The Indian Government has publicly implicated JEM, along with Lashkar e-Tayyiba,for the December 13, 2001, attack on the Indian Parliament that killed nine and injured 18. Pakistani authorities suspect that perpetrators of fatal anti-Christian attacks in Islamabad, Murree, and Taxila during 2002 were affiliated with JEM. The Pakistanis have implicated elements of JEM in the assassination attempts against President Musharraf in December 2003.
Strength
Has several hundred armed supporters located in Pakistan and in India’s southern Kashmir and Doda regions and in the Kashmir valley, including a large cadre of former HUM members. Supporters are mostly Pakistanis and Kashmiris and also include Afghans and Arab veterans of the Afghan war.
Location/Area of Operation
Pakistan. JEM maintained training camps in Afghanistan until the fall of 2001.
External Aid
Most of JEM’s cadre and material resources have been drawn from the militant groups Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami (HUJI) and the Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HUM). JEM had close ties to Afghan Arabs and the Taliban. Usama bin Ladin is suspected of giving funding to JEM. JEM also collects funds through donation requests in magazines and pamphlets. In anticipation of asset seizures by the Pakistani Government, JEM withdrew funds from bank accounts and invested in legal businesses, such as commodity
trading, real estate, and production of consumer goods.
Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LT) a.k.a. Army of the Righteous, Lashkar-e-Toiba, al Monsooreen, al-Mansoorian, Army of the Pure, Army of the Righteous, Army of the Pure and Righteous
Description
LT is the armed wing of the Pakistan-based religious organization, Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad (MDI), an anti-US Sunni missionary organization formed in 1989. LT is led by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and is one of the three largest and best trained groups fighting in Kashmir against India. It is not connected to any political party. The Pakistani Government banned the group and froze its assets in January 2002. Elements of LT and Jaish-e-Mohammed combined with other groups to mount attacks
as “The Save Kashmir Movement.”
Activities
LT has conducted a number of operations against Indian troops and civilian targets in Jammu and Kashmir since 1993. LT claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in 2001, including an attack in January on Srinagar airport that killed five Indians; an attack on a police station in Srinagar that killed at least eight officers and wounded several others; and an attack in April against Indian border security forces that left at least four dead. The Indian Government publicly implicated LT, along with JEM, for
the attack on December 13, 2001, on the Indian Parliament building, although concrete evidence is lacking. LT is also suspected of involvement in the attack on May 14,2002, on an Indian Army base in Kaluchak that left 36 dead. Senior al-Qa’ida lieutenant Abu Zubaydah was captured at an LT safe house in Faisalabad in March 2002, suggesting some members are facilitating the movement of al-Qa’ida members in Pakistan.
Strength
Has several thousand members in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan,in the southern Jammu and Kashmir and Doda regions, and in the Kashmir valley. Almost all LT members are Pakistanis from madrassas across Pakistan or Afghan veterans of the Afghan wars.
Location/Area of Operation
Based in Muridke (near Lahore) and Muzaffarabad.
External Aid
Collects donations from the Pakistani community in the Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic NGOs, and Pakistani and other Kashmiri business people. LT also maintains a Web site (under the name Jamaat ud-Daawa), through which it solicits funds and provides information on the group’s activities. The amount of LT funding is unknown. LT maintains ties to religious/militant groups around the world, ranging from the Philippines to the Middle East and Chechnya through the fraternal network of its parent organization Jamaat ud-Dawa (formerly Markaz Dawa ul-Irshad). In anticipation of asset seizures by the Pakistani Government, the LT withdrew funds from bank accounts and invested in legal businesses, such as commodity trading, real estate, and production of consumer goods.
OTHER SELECTED TERRORIST ORGANISATIONS NOT DESIGNATED AS FTOS
Harakat ul-Jihad-I-Islami (HUJI) (Movement of Islamic Holy War)
Description
HUJI, a Sunni extremist group that follows the Deobandi tradition of Islam, was founded in 1980 in Afghanistan to fight in the jihad against the Soviets. It also is affiliated with the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam’s Fazlur Rehman faction (JUI-F) of the extremist religious party Jamiat Ulema-I-Islam (JUI). The group, led by Qari Saifullah Akhtar and chief commander Amin Rabbani, is made up primarily of Pakistanis and foreign Islamists who are fighting for the liberation of Jammu and Kashmir and its accession to Pakistan. The group has links to al-Qa’ida. At present, Akhtar remains in detention in Pakistan after his August 2004
arrest and extradition from Dubai.
Activities
Has conducted a number of operations against Indian military targets in Jammu and Kashmir. Linked to the Kashmiri militant group al-Faran that kidnapped five Western tourists in Jammu and Kashmir in July 1995; one was killed in August 1995, and the other four reportedly were killed in December of the same year.
Strength
Exact numbers are unknown, but there may be several hundred members in Kashmir
.
Location/Area of Operation
Pakistan and Kashmir. Trained members in Afghanistan until autumn of 2001.
External Aid
Specific sources of external aid are unknown.
Harakat ul-Jihad-I-Islami/Bangladesh (HUJI-B)
Description
The mission of HUJI-B, led by Shauqat Osman, is to establish Islamic rule in Bangladesh. HUJI-B has connections to the Pakistani militant groups Harakat ul-Jihad-I-Islami (HUJI) and Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HUM),which advocate similar objectives in Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir. These groups all maintain contacts with the al-Qa’ida network in Afghanistan. The leaders of HUJIB and HUM both signed the February 1998 fatwa sponsored by Usama bin Ladin that declared American civilians to be legitimate targets for attack.
Activities
HUJI-B was accused of stabbing a senior Bangladeshi journalist in November 2000 for making a documentary on the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh. HUJI-B was suspected in the assassination attempt in July 2000 of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The group may also have been responsible for indiscriminate attacks using improvised explosive devices against cultural gatherings in Dhaka in January and April 2001.
Strength
Unknown; some estimates of HUJI-B cadre strength suggest several thousand members.
Location/Area of Operation
The group operates and trains members in Bangladesh,where it maintains at least six camps.
External Aid
Funding of the HUJI-B comes primarily from madrassas in Bangladesh. The group also has ties to militants in Pakistan that may provide another funding source.
Hizbul-Mujahedin (HM)
Description
Hizbul-Mujahedin (HM), the largest Kashmiri militant group, was founded in 1989 and officially supports the liberation of Jammu and Kashmir and its accession to Pakistan, although some cadres favor independence. The group is the militant wing of Pakistan’s largest Islamic political party, the Jamaat-i-Islami, and targets Indian security forces,politicians and civilians in Jammu and Kashmir. It reportedly operated in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s and trained with the Afghan Hizb-I Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) in Afghanistan until the Taliban takeover. The group, led by Syed Salahuddin, is comprised primarily of ethnic Kashmiris.
Activities
HM has conducted a number of operations against Indian military targets in Jammu and Kashmir. The group also occasionally strikes at civilian targets, but has not engaged in terrorist acts outside India. HM claimed responsibility for numerous attacks within Kashmir in 2004.
Strength
Exact numbers are unknown, but estimates range from several hundred to possibly as many as 1,000 members in Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan.
Location/Area of Operation
Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan.
External Aid
Specific sources of external aid are unknown.
Jamiat ul-Mujahedin (JUM)
Description
The JUM is a small, pro-Pakistan militant group formed in Jammu and Kashmir in 1990. Followers are mostly Kashmiris, but the group includes some Pakistanis.
Activities
Has conducted a number of operations against Indian military and political targets in Jammu and Kashmir, including two grenade attacks against political targets in 2004.
Strength
Unknown.
Location/Area of Operation
Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan.
External Aid
Unknown.
Al Badhr Mujahedin (al-Badr)
Description
The Al Badhr Mujahedin split from Hizbul-Mujahedin (HM) in 1998. Traces its origins to 1971, when a group named Al Badr attacked Bengalis in East Pakistan. Later operated as part of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-I Islami (HIG) in Afghanistan and, from 1990, as a unit of HM in Kashmir. The group was relatively inactive until 2000.Since then, it has increasingly claimed responsibility for attacks against Indian military targets.
Activities
Has conducted a number of operations against Indian military targets in Jammu and Kashmir.
Strength
Perhaps several hundred.
Location/Area of Operation
Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
External Aid
Unknown.
Communist Party of India (Maoist) Formerly Maoist Communist Center of India (MCCI) and People’s War (PW)
Description
The Indian groups known as the Maoist Communist Center of India and People’s War (a.k.a. People’s War Group) joined together in September 2004 to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist), or CPI (Maoist). The MCCI was originally formed in the early 1970s, while People’s War was founded in 1975. Both groups are referred to as Naxalites, after the West Bengal village where a revolutionary radical Left movement originated in 1967. The new organization continues to employ violence to achieve its goals — peasant revolution, abolition of class hierarchies,and expansion of Maoist-controlled “liberated
zones,” eventually leading to the creation of an independent “Maoist” state. The CPI (Maoist) reportedly has a significant cadre of women. Important leaders include Ganapati (the PW leader from Andhra Pradesh), Pramod Mishra, Uma Shankar, and P.N.G. (alias Nathuni Mistry, arrested by Jharkhand police in 2002).
Activities
Prior to its consolidation with the PW, the MCCI ran a virtual parallel government in remote areas, where it collected a “tax” from the villagers and, in turn, provided infrastructure improvements such as building hospitals, schools, and irrigation projects. It ran a parallel court system wherein allegedly corrupt block development officials and landlords — frequent MCCI targets — had been punished by amputation and even death. People’s War conducted a low-intensity insurgency that included attempted political assassination, theft of weapons from police stations, kidnapping police officers, assaulting civilians, extorting money from construction firms, and vandalizing the property of multinational corporations. Together the two groups were reportedly responsible for the deaths of up to 170 civilians and police a year.
Strength
Although difficult to assess with any accuracy, media reports and local authorities suggest the CPI (Maoist)’s membership may be as high as 31,000, including both hard-core militants and dedicated sympathizers.
Location/Area of Operations
The CPI (Maoist), believed to be enlarging the scope of its influence, operates in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, and parts of West Bengal. It also has a presence on the Bihar-Nepal border.
External Aid
The CPI (Maoist) has loose links to other Maoist groups in the region, including the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists). The MCCI was a founding member of the Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA).
United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA)
Description
Northeast India’s most prominent insurgent group, ULFA — an ethnic secessionist organization in the Indian state of Assam, bordering Bangladesh and Bhutan — was founded on April 7, 1979 at Rang Ghar, during agitation organized by the state’s powerful students’ union. The group’s objective is an independent Assam, reflected in its ideology of “Oikya, Biplab, Mukti” (“Unity, Revolution, Freedom”). ULFA enjoyed widespread support in upper Assam in its initial years, especially in 1985-1992. ULFA’s kidnappings, killings and extortion led New Delhi to ban the group and start a military offensive against it in 1990, which forced it to go underground. ULFA began to lose popularity in the late 1990s after it increasingly targeted civilians, including a prominent NGO activist. It lost further support for its anti-Indian stand during the 1999 Kargil War.
Activities
ULFA trains, finances and equips cadres for a “liberation struggle” while extortion helps finance military training and weapons purchases. ULFA conducts hit and run operations on security forces in Assam, selective assassinations, and explosions in public places. During the 1980s-1990s ULFA undertook a series of abductions and murders, particularly of businessmen. In 2000, ULFA assassinated an Assam state minister. In 2003, ULFA killed more than 60 “outsiders” in Assam, mainly residents of the bordering state of Bihar. Following the December 2003 Bhutanese Army’s attack on ULFA camps in Bhutan,the group is believed to have suffered a setback. Some important ULFA functionaries surrendered in Assam, but incidents of violence, though of a lesser magnitude than in the past, continue. On August 14, one civilian was killed and 18 others injured when ULFA militants triggered a grenade blast inside a cinema hall at Gauripur in Dhubri district. The next day, at an Indian Independence
Day event, a bomb blast in Dhemaji killed an estimated 13 people, including 6 children, and injured 21.
Strength
ULFA’s earlier numbers (3,000 plus) dropped following the December 2003 attack on its camps in Bhutan. Total cadre strength now is estimated at 700.
Location/Area of Operations
ULFA is active in the state of Assam, and its workers are believed to transit (and sometimes conduct operations in) parts of neighboring Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Nagaland. All ULFA camps in Bhutan are reportedly demolished. The group may have linkages with other ethnic insurgent groups active in neighboring states.
External Aid
ULFA reportedly procures and trades in arms with other Northeast Indian groups, and receives aid from unknown external sources.
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