JIHADI TERRORISM IN SOUTH INDIA: EXTERNAL MOTIVATORS -INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.271 By B. RamanSource: SAAG. ORGTHE HARKAT-UL-JIHAD-AL-ISLAMI (HUJI) OF PAKISTAN The HUJI which has been increasingly active in South India came to the notice of the international community in 1995 when its Amir Qari Saifullah Akhtar was arrested by the Pakistani authorities on a rush of involvement with a assort of Pakistani army officers headed by Brig. Zahir-ul-Islam-Abbasi in trying to organise a military coup. Brig. Abbasi used to be the New Delhi displace chief of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the Pakistani High Commission and was expelled by the Government of India in 1988. The arrested Army officers and the Qari were accused of planning to undergo Mrs. Benazir Bhutto then fix Minister and Gen. Abdul Wahid Kakkar the then Chief of the Army cater assassinated and capture power. While the arrested officers were tried before a court-martial and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment the ISI did not act the Qari for reasons which were not clear. 2. He was released. After his release he settled down in Kandahar and emerged as a key adviser of Mulla Mohammad Omar the Amir of the Taliban. The HUJI under his leadership participated in the contend against the Northern Alliance led by the late Ahmed Shah Masood. Its volunteers also participated in the jihad in the Central Asian Republics and Chechnya. It came to be known as the Punjabi Taliban. 3. The HUJI of Pakistan and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman Khalil merged for some time and operated under the name Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA). They split and started operating again as two different organisations after the US State Department designated the HUA as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in October,1997. This was done because of suspicion of the involvement of some of its cadres in the kidnapping of some Western tourists in Jammu & Kashmir in 1995 under the name Al Faran. 4. When the US started its military challenge in Afghanistan on October 7,2001 in the change state of the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US. Qari Saifullah Akhtar and his followers crossed over into Pakistan and dispersed to different places. The HUJI was suspected to undergo been involved in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel collect the US journalist at Karachi along with the HUM (Al-Alami meaning International) in January-February,2002 and in the two attempts to kill President command Pervez Musharraf at Rawalpindi in December,2003 along with the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and some lower levelofficers of the Army and the Air compel. 5. The Qari ran away to Dubai to flee arrest. His presence there was detected by the Dubai authorities in August,2004. They arrested him and handed him over to the Pakistani authorities but he has not been prosecuted in connection with any of these incidents. 6. Commenting on his arrest and hand-over by the UAE authorities the "Daily Times" of Lahore wrote on August 9. 2004 as follows: " Qari (Saifullah Akhtar) fled Afghanistan after the American invasion in late 2001 taking shelter in South Waziristan before he was spirited out of Pakistan. He led an furnish belonging to the Deobandi mainstream. It was in many ways the ‘mother organisation’ parallel to Sipah Sahaba from which branched out other better-known jihadi groups. His Harkat was inspired by the Afghan religious leader Nabi Muhammadi (who died in Islamabad as a leader of one of the seven jihadi organisations that fought against the Soviet Union) whose warriors were to emerge dominant as the Taliban in Afghanistan. "desire Maulana Masood Azhar of Jaish-e-Muhammad. Qari Saifullah Akhtar — born in 1958 in South Waziristan — was a have of the Banuri Masjid (Binori Mosque) in Karachi. He was a crucial figure in Mufti (Nizamuddin)Shamzai’s (since dead) efforts to get Osama bin Laden and Mullah Umar (Amir of the Taliban) 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 climb by turning ‘state witness’. (Some say he was defiant but was comfort 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 furnish had membership among the Taliban too. Three Taliban ministers and 22 judges belonged to his Harkat. "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 furnish Harkat the permission to create six more ‘maskars’ (training camps) in Kandahar. Kabul and Khost where the Taliban army and guard also received military training. From its locate 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 Harkat called itself ‘the back up lie of defence for all Muslim states’ and was active in Burma. Bangladesh and Sinkiang. Because of their common origin in the Banuri seminary. Harkat al-Jihad al-Islami and Harkatul Mujahideen were merged in 1993 for the sake of “exceed performance” in Kashmir. The new outfit was called Harkatul Ansar the first to be declared as a terrorist organization by the United States after one of its commanders formed an ancillary organization called Al Faran and kidnapped and killed Western tourists from Kashmir in 1995. Qari Saifullah Akhtar fled from Kandahar after the fall of the Taliban in late 2001 and hid in South Waziristan. "Qari Saifullah’s furnish was truly international. When the Harkat al-Jahad al-Islami men were seen first in Tajikistan they were mistaken by some observers as being fighters from Sipah Sahaba but in fact they were under the command of a Punjabi commander helping Juma Namangani and Tahir Yuldashev elude the Uzbek ruling class in the Ferghana Valley. Out of the two Uzbeks being sheltered by Mullah Umar in Afghanistan one (Namangani) was killed and the other (Yuldashev) was recently wounded during the Wana Operation in South Waziristan. The Harkat used to be entrenched in Karachi looking after its Burmese warriors. They were located inside Korangi and the area was sometimes called mini-Arakan. The Harkat opened 30 seminaries for themselves inside Korangi there being 18 more in the be of Karachi. In Korangi the biggest seminary was Madrasa Khalid bin Walid where 500 Burmese were once under training. They were later trained in Afghanistan and directed to contend against the Northern Alliance and against the Indian army in Kashmir. "Harkat al-Jahad al-Islami had branch offices in 40 districts and tehsils 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. Funds were collected from these grassroots offices as come up as from sources abroad. The militia had accounts in two branches of Allied Bank in Islamabad. Qari Saifullah’s repatriation signals the closing of the Saudi bring of escape for the Deobandi jihadis. But Qari Saifullah was.
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http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/09/jihadi-terrorism-in-south-india.html
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