Hizb-ul-Mujahideen: Reaching Beyond Kashmir

By Frank Hyland & Animesh Roul

This column is another in the ongoing series on the terrorist threat to India and the surrounding region.

Hizb-ul -Mujahideen (HM or the party of freedom fighters), considered to be the “mother” of Kashmir militancy, is spreading its tentacles beyond the troubled Northern Indian State. Its supreme leader, Syed Salahuddin, once said that HM is only operating in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and fights for the liberation of Kashmir. But the recent arrest of a suspected HM cadre from Kumali (Idukki district) in the Southern Indian State of Kerala indicates the extent of HM’s reach beyond J&K and its larger terrorist aims. Investigation by Kerala police suggests that the arrested cadre had been staying in the area and traveling to J&K periodically in the last five years. Following the arrest, HM’s Kerala Unit issued a letter threatening to blow up the Kerala Assembly House ‘to avenge the arrest’ of the cadre identified as Altaf Ahmad Khan. This incident very well proves that HM and other terrorist groups have been using Kerala and other tourist spots as a safe hiding place. These hiding or hibernating terrorists always look for opportunities for setting up a base or cell and using these places as recruitment hubs. They can also attack foreign tourists frequenting these spots.

As far HM’s eastward reach is concerned, in early 2002, approximately three HM militants were arrested in West Bengal, eastern India. Police had recovered a huge amount of plastic explosives from them. They were identified as Riyazul Mushaeed, Sayeed Shah Hasseb Raza and Amil Parvez, who had links with the Students for Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and Tableegh Jamaat. Investigations by the Criminal Investigation Department of Kolkata revealed that the three had planned to carry out subversive activities in the city and recruit youths for their jihadi agendas elsewhere. There is also information about possible linkages between HM and HAMAS. In 2006, the Italian news paper Corriere della Sera reported that a visiting Palestinian minister to Pakistan had two separate meetings with HM chief Salahuddin and Lashkar e Toiba chief Hafez Sayeed , and reportedly transferred a sum of money.

Interestingly enough Hizb-ul-Mujahideen has never identified itself with Al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden’s Islamic jihadist agenda. HM is not part of Laden’s International Islamic Front. HM’s Syed Salahuddin has denied any sort of link between the two, stating that HM is fighting for ‘all Kashmiris’ not for Muslim Kashmiris alone’.

HM emerged as terror organization in 1989 in Pakistan, primarily to perpetrate jihad against Indian establishments in Kashmir and the so-called liberation of Kashmir state, of course with active support from Pakistan’s ISI. HM as a group was backed by Jamat-e-Islami (JEI) of Pakistan and its Kashmir wing. HM became the virtual military wing of JEI and the main war-horse of Pakistan’s ‘proxy war’ strategy against India. In the early 1990s other militant outfits such as Tehrik-e-Jihad Islami, Al Jihad Commandos and Ala tigers merged with HM to further the liberation cause.

Syed Salahuddin along with Pakistan’s ISI established the terror conglomerate United Jihad Council (UJC) in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan. UJC (also known as Muttahida Jihad Council) is an umbrella organization of some 14 outfits operating in the Kashmir region, including Lashkar-e Toiba, Jaish-e-Muhammed and Al Badr.

HM suffered several setbacks in 2007 with the killing of 34 senior commanders (including the chief operations commander Iajaz Ahmed Chopan) and over 300 cadres in encounters with J&K security forces. Also large-scale surrenders in recent years weakened the largest Islamic terrorist group, and even its supreme leader Salahuddin repeatedly calls for the continuation of armed struggle against India and rules out any ceasefire deal on Jammu and Kashmir with Indian security forces. On December 23 last year at least 12 top-rung Hizbul-Mujahideen militants surrendered before the J&K Chief Minister in Ramban. According to Police sources, these militants were the longest surviving and most dreaded militants in the area. A large amount of arms and ammunition and communications devices were also laid down by these militants, including AK-56 rifles, grenades and IEDs.

Even though the HM has large numbers of cadres and some high profile Kashmiri militant leaders in its fold, HM’s firepower and strength have gone down substantially, especially with the emergence of Terror Tanzeems (Organizations) like Lashkar-e Toiba and Jaish- e- Muhammed.

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