Intelligence and Terrorism 21.6.06 Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S)

The and its Global Reach1

Bluma Zuckerbrot-Finkelstein

There are currently numerous Islamic extremist organizations employing terror and violence to force the secession of Indian-held Kashmir from India. Some of these groups are Pakistani-based and some are Kashmiri. Some advocate the political independence of Kashmir, while others seek to unite Indian-held Kashmir with Pakistani-held Kashmir. Some are composed of Kashmiris, some of , and some have recruited Arabs, Afghans, and other foreigners into their ranks.

The decades-long conflict over Kashmir has critical regional and international implications for the and the international community. First, escalation of the conflict between India and could trigger the destabilization of India and/or Pakistan and launch a domino effect on regional and international security. Secondly, escalation could lead to a nuclear confrontation between the two powers. Finally, the conflict has already spilled over into the realm of international terrorism, and its escalation could further endanger Westerners and Western interests.

1 http://www.ajc.org/counterterrorismwatch

2

This analysis will focus on several of the Pakistani-based groups whose goals extend beyond Kashmir. These groups are embedded in the South Asian and global jihad movements and pose serious threats to American and Western interests around the world.

Background to the Conflict

After the creation of the independent states of India and Pakistan in 1947, war broke out over territorial claims to the Muslim-dominated but then Hindu-ruled Kashmir region. India and Pakistan fought two wars over Kashmir, in 1947 and 1965. In 1972, the two nations signed an accord agreeing to respect the ceasefire line known as the Line of Control (LoC), a 750-km. border that divides villages and separates families.

Indian Kashmir, which includes the Kashmir Valley, Jammu, and Ladakh, comprises about ten million people and is generally referred to as Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). The Kashmir Valley is 80 percent Muslim while Jammu is 66 percent Hindu. Ladakh is almost evenly divided among Muslims and Buddhists. Pakistani Kashmir comprises about three million people and is 99 percent Muslim. A small portion of the Kashmir region is under Chinese sovereignty.

New Delhi claims J&K as an integral part of India. Islamabad maintains India has no legal right to the territory and demands that Kashmiris be allowed to vote in a referendum on their future.

Since 1989, Islamic militants allegedly supported by Pakistan have been waging a violent separatist rebellion against Indian rule in

3

Kashmir. These militants are based in Pakistan, Pakistani-held Kashmir, and Indian Kashmir. Their targets include the Indian government, Indian troops and civilians in Indian Kashmir, and military and civilian targets in other parts of India.

Some separatist groups, like the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), are fighting for Kashmir to become an independent state. Both India and Pakistan reject this option. An estimated 90,000 people have been killed as a result of the separatist violence.

In 1999, Pakistani soldiers crossed the Line of Control (LoC) into Indian-held Kashmir and heavy fighting ensued for six weeks. Throughout 2000 and 2001, cross-border firing and shelling led to many civilian and military deaths. Pakistan-based terrorist groups are believed responsible for the October 2001 bombing at the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly building that killed thirty-eight people and the December 2001 assault on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi that killed fourteen people. India and Pakistan were on the verge of another full-scale war following the May 2002 Pakistani attack on the residential quarters of an Indian army base at Kaluchak, in J&K, that killed thirty-four people, mostly women and children. The U.S. played a key role in diffusing those tensions.

A November 2003 cease-fire reduced, but did not eliminate, cross- border infiltrations. In January 2004, India and Pakistan issued a joint "Islamabad Declaration" calling for renewed dialogue to bring about a "peaceful settlement of all bilateral issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both sides." Bus service between

4

Muzaffarabad in Pakistani Kashmir and Srinagar in Indian Kashmir was inaugurated in April 2005, and in the wake of the devastating October 2005 South Asian earthquake, five border crossings along the Line of Control were opened to help facilitate aid efforts.

Nevertheless, despite ongoing Pakistani-Indian dialogue and on the ground confidence-building developments, Pakistan and Kashmir- based terrorist groups continue to wage their campaign of separatist violence. Due to the deteriorating security situation in Kashmir following the earthquake, Islamic militant activity has reportedly increased in the region.

India charges the Pakistani government with actively assisting the violent Muslim separatists by providing them with training bases, materiel, funds, safe passage, and ideological support. According to the Rand Corporation, at least ninety-one insurgent training camps exist in Pakistani-held Kashmir. It is widely believed that the violent insurgency is directly controlled and managed by Pakistani intelligence?the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI). Islamabad responds that it provides only moral and diplomatic support to what it calls Kashmiri "freedom fighters."

Leading Islamic Militant Groups with Links to Global Terrorism

Several of the groups waging the Kashmiri separatist war aim for pan-Islamic rule in Central Asia and worldwide jihad. Some are

5 linked to Al-Qa`ida and have been involved in terrorist attacks against Americans and other Western targets.

Three of the major Islamic extremist groups currently operating in Kashmir are: Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), Harkat ul- (HUM), and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM). All three are listed by the U.S. State Department as designated foreign terrorist organizations. LET and HUM are members of Osama bin Ladin's International Islamic Front For Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders and signed the organization's February 1998 fatwa urging attacks on Americans and Western interests. HUM and JEM have both been implicated in the 2002 kidnapping and of American journalist Daniel Pearl.

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET)

LET, a.k.a. Army of the Righteous, Al-Mansoorian, was founded in 1990 as the military wing of the Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad (MDI), Center for Religious Learning and Social Welfare, a Pakistani Wahhabi religious organization based in Muridke, near Lahore. MDI runs a vast network of Islamic schools, and healthcare services. Founded by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who remains its spiritual mentor, LET was initially created to participate in the Jihad. The group is currently led by Maulana Abdul Wahid Kashmiri and is one of the largest, best-trained, and most active groups fighting in Kashmir. Saeed now heads Jamaat ud- Dawa, Party for Preaching, a recasting of MDI.

6

Beyond challenging India's sovereignty over J&K, MDI/LET seeks the restoration of Islamic rule over all of India and the union of all Muslim majority regions in countries that surround Pakistan. In a 1997 interview Saeed said: "We feel that Kashmir should be liberated at the earliest. Thereafter, Indian Muslims should be aroused to rise in revolt against the Indian Union so that India gets disintegrated."

LET maintains terror training camps along the LoC and in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-held Kashmir. It is believed to have offices and supporters throughout Pakistan. Hafiz Mohammad Saeed is on India's list of most-wanted terrorists.

LET began attacks against Indian troops and civilians in J&K in 1993. It is infamous for suicide attacks and cold-blooded massacres of non-Muslim civilians, including women and children. Two notorious massacres were the June 1998 murder of twenty-five Hindu villagers in Doda as they were returning from a wedding and the July 2002 massacre of twenty-seven Hindus in a slum area of Jammu. LET claimed responsibility for several attacks in 2001, including the January attack on the Srinagar airport that killed five Indians and the February attack on a Srinagar police station that killed eight police officers. LET is suspected of involvement in the December 2001 Indian Parliament attack and the May 2002 Kaluchak army base attack.

7

Three days before the Hindu festival of Dilawi, in October 2005, terrorists bombed two crowded marketplaces and a bus in New Delhi, killing fifty-nine people and wounding over 200 others. It is suspected that the little-known group Islamic Inqilabi Mahaz (IIM), Islamic Revolutionary Movement, which claimed responsibility for the bombings, is a front group for LET. In a telephone call to a media outlet, an IIM spokesman said, attacks will continue "until India pulls out all its troops from the state of Kashmir." IIM was one of two groups that claimed responsibility for the November 1997 killing of four American employees of Union Texas Petroleum in .

The Delhi bombings had followed the conviction of LET militant Mohammad Arif, a.k.a. Ashfaq, and six others for the December 2000 attack on the historic Red Fort monument in Delhi, which killed two guards and a civilian. LET had claimed responsibility for that attack.

In early November 2005, LET spokesman Abu Huzaifa denied LET involvement in the attacks claiming, "Lashkar does not believe in carrying out attacks against civilians, especially women and children. We reiterate that Lashkar had no hand in the Delhi attacks."

Also in October 2005, Islamic militants shot to death Ghulam Nabi Lone, 62, the J&K state education minister, at his home in Srinagar. Al-Mansoorian, another alleged front for LET, claimed

8 responsibility.

LET's tentacles reach worldwide. LET members have reportedly participated in Islamic militant activities in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, the Philippines, and Iraq. In July 2003, Saeed made clear his intentions toward the U.S.: "We do not fear America. We can defeat it through jihad very easily, but General Musharraf is holding us up. He has become the biggest enemy of jihad, and if we can get him out of the picture, we can take care of the infidels."

A 2004 editorial in the LET publication Ghazwa called for LET mujahideen (holy warriors) to fight in Iraq: "The Americans are dishonoring our mothers and sisters. Therefore, jihad against America has now become mandatory. We [LET] should send our mujahideen to Iraq to fight with the Iraqi mujahideen. Remember that the mujahideen are the last hope for Islam. If the mujahideen are not supported today, Islam will be erased from the map tomorrow."

Osama bin Ladin reportedly financed LET's parent organization and political wing, MDI, and is said to have paid for the construction of a guesthouse on MDI's huge campus headquarters near Lahore. This house was reportedly used as a hideout for 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Ramzi Ahmed Yusef and Mir Aimal Kansi, convicted of killing two Central Intelligence Agency officers outside CIA headquarters in Virginia in January 1993. In March 2002, senior Al-Qa`ida lieutenant Abu Zubaydah was captured at a LET safe house in Faisalabad.

9

In September 2003, Pakistani authorities arrested fifteen Malaysian and Indonesian students studying in LET-run Islamic schools in Karachi, including Gun Gun Rusman Gunawan, convicted in Indonesia in October 2004 for facilitating and/or aiding terrorism in connection with the August 2003 bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta. The bombing was carried out by Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an Al-Qa`ida affiliate. Gunawan is the brother of JI and Al-Qa'ida leader Hambali.

In what has become known as the "Virginia jihad" case, American authorities broke up a terrorist cell in Virginia in 2003 with links to LET. Several of the ten men convicted for various terrorism-related offenses admitted to training at an LET camp in Pakistan and were convicted of providing material support to the foreign terrorist organization. In April 2005, cleric Ali al-Timimi, was convicted of being the cell's mastermind and of inciting his followers to attend LET training camps in Pakistan.

In June 2005, a Paris court found a Pakistani man, Ghulam Rama, 67, and two French men of Pakistani origin, Hassan el-Cheguer, 31 and Hakim Mokhfi, 31, guilty of having links to LET. Rama, sentenced to five years in prison, served as a link in France to LET, helping the other two defendants attend LET terror training camps in Jammu and Kashmir.

10

In Australia, the trial of Pakistani-born Sydney architect Faheem Khalid Lodhi, 35, opened in February 2006. Accused of planning terrorist attacks against key infrastructure and defense targets in Sydney, Lodhi also stands accused of receiving terror training at a LET camp in Pakistan. Some of the bombing suspects linked to the July 7 train and bus bombings in London and the failed bombing attempt two weeks later are also alleged to have trained at an LET camp.

Harkat ul-Mujahideen (HUM)/Jamiat ul-Ansar (JUA)

Like LET, Harkat ul-Mujahideen (HUM), Movement of Holy Warriors, is a Sunni Pakistani-based Islamic extremist group originally created to participate in the Afghanistan jihad. Founded in 1985 as a splinter faction of the Harkat ul-Jihad-i-Islami, it merged with its parent organization in 1993 to become Harkat ul-Ansar (HUA). Following HUA's 1997 designation as a U.S. foreign terrorist organization, the group reorganized as HUM. In 2000, HUM leader Fazlur Rehman Khalil stepped down as HUM emir and became secretary-general. Replacing Khalil as emir was Farooqi Kashmiri. In 2003, HUM began using the name Jamiat ul-Ansar (JUA), "Group of Helpers."

HUM/JUA operates primarily in Kashmir against Indian troops and civilian targets. It operates terrorist training camps in Pakistan and

11 maintained terror camps in eastern Afghanistan until they were destroyed by Coalition airstrikes following September 11, 2001.

HUM is believed to be linked to the Kashmiri militant group Al- Faran that kidnapped and later killed five Western tourists, including one American, in Kashmir in 1995.

In December 1999 HUM militants hijacked an Indian airliner en route from Nepal to India, stabbed one passenger to death, and demanded the release of several Islamic militants in Indian jails as a condition of releasing its Indian hostages. The Indian government subsequently released HUM militants Masood Azhar, who went on to found the Islamic extremist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Ahmed Omar Sheikh, who was later convicted of the 2002 abduction and murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl. HUM has also been linked to a planned attack on foreign diplomats and Pakistani government officials in September 2002 and foiled attacks against McDonald's and KFC restaurants in Karachi the same month.

HUM/JUA sees itself as engaged in a battle against America. The group's monthly magazine Al Hilal reportedly issues regular calls for volunteers to fight U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The November 2003 issue of the magazine said:

[M]ujahideen attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan have bankrupted America politically, economically.… Due to the blessings of jihad, America's countdown has begun. It will declare defeat soon….

12

Eagles of Jamiat ul Ansar: Our motto is to impose Khilafat-I- Rashida [the righteous Caliphate] on the whole world to get rid of the cruel and powerful. We have to retire the debt of our martyrs. We should promise to sacrifice our life, property and heart for the mission of the people who have sacrificed their lives. This is your moral and religious obligation-to help financially those few people who are sacrificing their lives so that they can concentrate on their battlefront and ultimately defeat non-Muslims.

American John Walker Lindh, currently serving a twenty-year prison sentence for aiding the in Afghanistan, allegedly trained at a HUM terror camp in the summer of 2001 before linking up with the Taliban.

A HUM offshoot, Harkat ul-Mujahideen Al-Alami, is believed responsible for the May 2002 suicide bombing outside Karachi's Sheraton Hotel that killed eleven French engineers and three Pakistanis and the June 2002 suicide bombing at the U.S. consulate in Karachi that killed twelve people. In August 2004, nine members of the offshoot group were convicted of the December 2002 attack on the Macedonian consulate in Karachi that killed three people. Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM)

Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM), Army of Mohammed, a.k.a. Tehrik ul- Furqaan, Khuddam-ul-Islam, is a Pakistani-based Islamic extremist group formed in 2000 by Maulana Masood Azhar, after his 1999 release from prison in India in the wake of the Indian Airlines

13 hijacking. With armed supporters in Pakistan and in Indian Kashmir, the group aims to unite Kashmir with Pakistan.

Most JEM attacks have been suicide attacks against Indian targets in Kashmir. JEM claimed responsibility for the October 2001 suicide attack on the J&K legislative building in Srinagar that killed thirty- eight people but later denied the claim. The Indian government implicated JEM, along with LET, in the December 2001 Indian Parliament attack and in December 2002, a Delhi court convicted JEM militants Mohammad Afzal and Shaukat Hussain Guru for their roles in the Parliament attack. Afzal's death sentence was upheld by the Indian Supreme Court in August 2005.

Pakistani authorities suspect JEM militants of anti-Christian attacks in several Pakistani cities in 2002 and of assassination attempts against President in December 2003. JEM militant Amjad Hussain Farooqui, implicated in the Musharraf assassination plots and of having sheltered Al-Qa`ida leader Khalid Sheikh Muhammad before his capture in March 2003, was reportedly killed by Pakistani forces in October 2004.

JEM maintains a women's wing, Banati Ayesha (Daughter of Ayesha) and in October 2005, a JEM woman blew herself up on a key highway in Indian Kashmir. She is believed to be the first female suicide bomber in the Kashmir conflict. Most recently, JEM claimed responsibility for the November 2, 2005, suicide car bombing in Srinagar at the site of the swearing in ceremony of the Chief Minister of J&K. Ten people were killed in the attack,

14 including a woman and a child, which took place several hours before the ceremony.

It is believed that JEM leader Azhar has a longstanding alliance with Osama bin Ladin that dates back to 1993 when they allegedly cooperated in organizing attacks against U.S.-led forces in Somalia.

Pakistan and Counterterrorism

After the September 11 attacks, Pakistani President Musharraf increased his country's anti-terrorist activities. In a major speech in January 2002, the Pakistani leader vowed to end Pakistan's use as a base for terrorism and banned numerous terrorist groups, including LET and JEM. Pakistan has also lent the U.S. invaluable assistance in tracking and apprehending leading Al-Qa'ida and Taliban figures.

Nevertheless, while Islamabad has contributed greatly to combating Al-Qa`ida and Taliban activities on its soil, it has been slower to uproot its domestic and Kashmiri-based terrorist infrastructure. Pakistan pledges to crack down on Kashmiri terrorist infiltration across the Pakistani-Indian border and to shut down terrorist training camps in Pakistan-controlled territory have yielded little concrete actions and have been deemed cosmetic at best. Leaders and members of various Islamic extremist groups remain free to preach, raise funds, and engage in violent activities, including representatives of banned groups. Khalil of HUM/JUA and Azhar of JEM, for example, were both detained by Pakistani authorities and then released shortly thereafter.