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MAY 2010 . VOL 3 . ISSUE 5 COMBATING TERRORISM CENTER AT WEST POINT CTC SENTINel OBJECTIVE . RELEVANT . RIGOROUS Contents Riyaz Bhatkal and the Origins FEATURE ARTICLE 1 Riyaz Bhatkal and the Origins of the of the Indian Mujahidin Indian Mujahidin By Praveen Swami By Praveen Swami REPORTS 5 Salafi-Jihadi Activism in Gaza: Mapping the Threat By Benedetta Berti 10 The Virtual Jihad: An Increasingly Legitimate Form of Warfare By Akil N. Awan 13 Internet Jihadists React to the Deaths of Al-Qa`ida’s Leaders in Iraq By Abdul Hameed Bakier 15 The Kidnapping and Execution of Khalid Khwaja in Pakistan By Rahimullah Yusufzai 17 The Sources of the Abu Sayyaf’s Resilience in the Southern Philippines By Rommel C. Banlaoi 20 Recent Highlights in Terrorist Activity 24 CTC Sentinel Staff & Contacts The aftermath of the German Bakery bombing in the Indian city of Pune in February 2010. - Photo by Barcroft Media via Getty Images n the summer of 2004, a group Today, the Indian Mujahidin has been of young Indian Muslim men implicated in a number of attacks in India, gathered for a retreat at one of and there are signs that the group could the sprawling villas that line the become increasingly dangerous due to Icheerfully-named Jolly Beach, the pride its growing collaboration with Lashkar- of the small, south Indian fishing town i-Tayyiba (LT, or LeT) in Pakistan. The of Bhatkal. They swam, went for hikes in expansion of this network could pose a the woods, honed their archery skills, and serious challenge to regional stability in occasionally engaged in target practice South Asia. About the CTC Sentinel with an airgun. Local residents recall The Combating Terrorism Center is an occasionally hearing small explosions, independent educational and research but presumed the men were setting off institution based in the Department of Social fireworks. Nothing the men did gave Sciences at the United States Military Academy, Bhatkal’s police cause for concern. The November 23, 2007, the group e-mailed a manifesto to the West Point. The CTC Sentinel harnesses police, however, were unaware that the media that for the first time identified itself as the Indian the Center’s global network of scholars and men on Jolly Beach composed the core Mujahidin. The letter, reprinted in its exact form below, practitioners to understand and confront team of the jihadist network that would stated that the attacks were carried out to protest “the pa- contemporary threats posed by terrorism and soon be known as the Indian Mujahidin. thetic condition of muslims in India that idol worshipers other forms of political violence. Long before the network adopted that can kill our brothers,sisters,children and outrage dignity name, the men from Jolly Beach executed of our sisters at any place and at any time and we can’t re- a succession of bomb attacks beginning sist them. AL-HUM-DU-LILLAH now we are prepared 1 The views expressed in this report are those of in 2005, killing hundreds across India. enough to retaliates...Only Islam has the power to establish the authors and not of the U.S. Military Academy, a civilized society and this could be only possible in Islamic the Department of the Army, or any other agency of the U.S. Government. 1 Minutes before bombs exploded outside court buildings rule,which could be achieved by only one path JIHAD- in the Indian cities of Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad on FEE-SABILILLAH.” 1 MAY 2010 . VOL 3 . ISSUE 5 Prosecutors in New Delhi charge that Riyaz Shahbandri’s Early Life i-Islami Hind into confrontation with the principal organizers of the Jolly Riyaz Shahbandri’s father, Ismail the Indian government.7 SIMI sought Beach gathering were Riyaz Ismail Shahbandri, left Bhatkal approximately to re-establish the caliphate, without Shahbandri (also known as Riyaz three decades ago, hoping to make his which it felt the practice of Islam Bhatkal) and his brother Iqbal. Most of fortune in Mumbai. He established a would remain incomplete. Muslims the men at Jolly Beach knew each other successful leather-tanning business in comfortable living in secular societies, only by aliases, but Indian intelligence Mumbai’s Kurla area, and eventually its pamphlets warned, were destined for officials believe that the gathering purchased an apartment in Kardar hell. Ideologies other than Islam were included the Bhatkal brothers, Abdul Building off the busy Pipe Road— condemned as false and sinful.8 After Subhan Qureshi, and the key figures an impossible dream for most city Hindu fundamentalists demolished a responsible for the physical execution migrants.6 Ismail Shahbandri’s mosque in the north Indian town of of bombings in northern India, prosperity ensured that his son, Riyaz, Ayodhya in 1992, SIMI began to call for Mohammad Sadiq Israr Sheikh and Atif who was born in 1976, was able to study direct action. SIMI President Shahid Amin. Documents filed in Indian courts at local English-medium schools, and Badr Falahi demanded that “Muslims allege that the men played a key role in later civil engineering at Mumbai’s organize themselves and stand up to recruiting operatives, sourcing bomb defend the community.”9 components and organizing attacks. Furthermore, according to recent “The Jolly Beach meeting Later in the decade, SIMI’s polemic statements attributed to Pakistani- would serve as a key became increasing venomous. In a 1996 American jihadist David Coleman statement, SIMI declared that since Headley (also known as Daood Gilani),2 planning gathering before democracy and secularism had failed to the Shahbandri brothers now lead the group executed a series protect Muslims, the sole option was to the “Karachi Project,”3 an alleged LT struggle for the caliphate.10 Soon after, operation to train and equip Indian of increasingly lethal it put up posters calling on Muslims jihadists for attacks in India.4 The bombings.” to follow the path of the 11th century bombing of the German Bakery in Pune conqueror Mahmood Ghaznavi, and on February 13, 2010, for example, appealed to God to send down a latter- may have been part of this project; one day avatar to avenge the destruction of of the suspected bombers was Riyaz Saboo Siddiqui Engineering College. mosques in India.11 The organization was Shahbandri’s lieutenant, Mohammad In 2002, Riyaz married a Bhatkal-area finally proscribed after the 9/11 attacks Zarar Siddi Bawa, known as Yasin woman, Nashua Ismail, the daughter of in the United States when SIMI activists Bhatkal, who was also present at Jolly an electronics store owner. By this time, organized demonstrations in support Beach.5 however, Riyaz’s story had begun to of al-Qa`ida chief Usama bin Ladin, diverge significantly from the trajectory hailing him as a “true mujahid.”12 This article provides an overview of his businessman father had likely Riyaz Shahbandri’s journey into India’s mapped for him. Due to Shafiq’s SIMI activism, Riyaz nascent jihadist movement, while began to spend time at SIMI’s offices also providing insight into the origins Shafiq Ahmad, Riyaz’s brother-in-law in Mumbai around 2001 at the peak of the Indian Mujahidin and how its to be, lived in the family’s apartment of the organization’s radical phase, collaboration with the LT is a growing as he pursued his studies in Mumbai. associating with men who would play threat to the region. Shafiq, however, was also an activist in key roles in the development of the the Students Islamic Movement of India jihadist movement in India. Among 2 David Coleman Headley was arrested in October 2009 (SIMI), an Islamic youth organization, them were: Abdul Subhan Qureshi and in the United States. He faced a number of charges in and eventually rose to become the head Mohammad Sadiq Israr Sheikh, who the United States, from involvement in the November of the group’s Mumbai chapter. Set up 2008 Mumbai attacks to plotting against employees at in 1977 by the Jamaat-i-Islami Hind 7 For a superb account of SIMI’s history, see Yoginder a newspaper in Denmark that published caricatures of organization, the Indian branch of the Sikand, “Islamist Assertion in Contemporary India: The the Prophet Muhammad. He pleaded guilty to multiple largest Islamist grouping in South Case of the Students Islamic Movement of India,” Jour- charges in March 2010 and is reportedly cooperating Asia, SIMI was the group’s student nal of Muslim Minority Affairs 23:2 (2003). Also see Irfan with U.S. authorities on providing intelligence informa- wing. SIMI, however, was disowned Ahmad, Islamism and Democracy in India (New Delhi: tion. by its founders five years later due to Permanent Black, 2010). 3 For more specific details on the Karachi Project, see its increasingly inflammatory rhetoric, 8 “Interview with [SIMI President] Shahid Badr Falahi,” Animesh Roul, “After Pune, Details Emerge on the Ka- which was viewed as pushing Jamaat- Afkar-i Milli [New Delhi], November 2000. rachi Project and its Threat to India,” CTC Sentinel 3:4 9 Sikand, “Islamist Assertion in Contemporary India: (2010). 6 Biographical details on the Shahbandri family derive The Case of the Students Islamic Movement of India.” 4 Shishir Gupta, “ISI, LeT Getting Indian Jihadis To- in part from Riyaz Shahbandri’s police dossier: “Riyaz 10 Sayyed Abdul Bari, Azad Hindustan Main Muslim Tan- gether in Karachi for Attack,” Indian Express, February Ismail Shahbandri @ Riyaz Bhatkal,” Maharashtra Po- zimein (New Delhi: Institute of Objective Studies, 2001), 1, 2010. lice Anti-Terrorism Squad, September 30, 2008. Mate- p. 305. 5 This information is based on police review of closed- rial was also gathered by the author during interviews 11 Anita Verma, “India Urgently Needs a Ghaznavi: SIMI circuit surveillance footage.