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Recent Appearances...

India-Pakistan

NIA attaches 3 properties in Srinagar belonging to 2 Hurriyat leaders in terror funding case

2023-06-14

NIA attaches property of incarcerated Hurriyat (G) leader Ayaz Akbar in Srinagar

[GreaterKashmir] National Investigation Agency (NIA) Tuesday attached the property of incarcerated Hurriyat (G) leader Ayaz Akbar in Shalteng area of Srinagar.

Quoting officials, news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) reported that NIA pasted the notice of attachment on the immovable property that read “this is to inform all members of the public that the immovable property ie. land measuring 1 Kanal and 10 Marias under Survey No, 31 at mauza Shalteng Tehsil Srinagar (J8K), in the name of Muhammad Akbar Khanday So Ab. Rehman Khanday, R/o Malora near Imam-ul-Bana Masjid, P.S Parimpora, Srinagar, J&K, as Abadi Deh, has been attached under the Court Orders dated May 31, 2023 in RC-101 20177 NIA/ DLI, by the Special NIA Court, Patiala House Courts, New Dehli.” Muhammad Akbar Khanday is the father of Ayaz Akbar, who is presently serving detention in New Delh’s Tihar Jail since past six years. Ayaz Akbar’s wife passed away in April this year after losing battle to cancer.

NIA attaches two more properties in terror funding case in Kashmir

[GreaterKashmir] A day after attaching 17 properties of Zahoor Ahmed Shah Watali, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday attached two more properties, belonging to another accused, in the Hurriyat terror funding case in Kashmir
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there....
, the agency said in a statement.

The properties of All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC)

...an alliance of 26 political, social and religious Moslem organizations formed in 1993 as a united political front to raise the cause of Kashmiri separatism. In other words, a willing tool of Pakistan...

separatist leader Mohammad Akbar Khanday include nine kanal land and a 2-storeyed house in Srinagar. These have been attached on the orders of Special NIA Court, New Delhi, under section 33(1) of UAPA.

"Khanday, currently in Tihar Jail facing trial in the terror funding case, was the Spokesperson/ Media advisor of Hurriyat Conference (G). He was raising and collecting funds from within India and abroad through various illegal channels and was using the same to sponsor and promote separatist and terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir," the NIA said.

The statement said that Khanday, who was closely connected with other separatist leaders of the APHC, was operating in close association with Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) and he used to collect funds for unlawful and ~~violent~~ mostly peaceful activities. He was also actively involved in activities aimed at secession of Jammu and Kashmir from the Union of India, NIA investigations have revealed, it said.

The case, filed suo moto by NIA in May 2017, relates to terrorist and secessionist activities being carried out by ISI-backed proscribed terrorist organizations in Jammu and Kashmir. These banned outfits, including Lashkar-e-Taiba
...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
(LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad
...literally Army of Mohammad, a Pak-based Deobandi terror group founded by Maulana Masood Azhar in 2000, after he split with the Harkat-ul-Mujaheddin. In 2002 the government of Pervez Musharraf banned the group, which changed its name to Khaddam ul-Islam and continued doing what it had been doing before without missing a beat...
(JeM), Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) etc, were using the APHC as a front for their activities, NIA investigations stated. They were spreading terror and perpetrating violence in the Kashmir valley by promoting and conducting attacks on civilians and security forces, it said.

The agency has so far filed chargehsheets against 17 persons, including Hafeez Saeed, the Amir of Jamaat-ud-Dawa
...the front organization of Lashkar-e-Taiba...
h and LeT and a UN listed terrorist, as well as Mohd. Yusuf Shah@ Syed Salahuddin

...the aging, morbidly obese chief of Hizbul Mujaheddin and the titular head of the United Jihad Council in idyllic Kashmire. Originally owned body and theoretical soul by Jamaat-e-Islami he and his organization are currently controlled by Pakistain's ISI. Salahuddin's hobbies include crocheting doilies shaped like the Taj Mahal, combing his enormous beard, and eating....
, the Chief of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM).

Link

India-Pakistan

Hurriyat for resolution of Kashmir dispute to ensure peace in region

2020-11-16

[DAILYTIMES.PK] In Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir
Kashmir

...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there....
, Hurriyat leaders and organizations expressing serious concern over the escalating tension between Pakistain and India on the Line of Control have called for peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute for ensuring durable peace in South Asia.The Hurriyat forum led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in a statement in Srinagar expressed deep grief over the repeated escalation on the LoC that has resulted in the loss of human lives and property. It reiterated its appeal to both India and Pakistain to resolve the Kashmir dispute through peaceful means for the sake of humanity and millions of humans living in the region.

Hurriyat leaders and organizations including Zamruda Habib, Abdul Samad Inqilabi, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Tehrik-e-Wahdat-e-Islami in their statements issued in Srinagar strongly condemned the unprovoked shelling by Indian Army along the LoC. They appealed to the UN to take practical measures for settling the Kashmir dispute to prevent further bloodshed.

Meanwhile,
...back at the desert island, Bert climbed the cocoanut tree, looking for ships. He saw none. He looked in the other direction and saw Irene, vigorously scrubbing her backside...
the All Parties Hurriyat Conference General Secretary, Molvi Bashir Ahmed, in a statement issued in Srinagar said that Indian Army in gross violation of the international laws was refusing to hand over dead bodies of the Kashmiri martyred youth to their families and secretly burying them in unmarked graves at far-off places in IIOJK. He said India is afraid of massive participation of people in deaders’ funerals as it fears that the funerals of martyred youth further incite anti-India sentiments in the occupied territory.

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India-Pakistan

22 arrested as pro-independence sit-in continues in Azad Kashmir

2019-09-10

[DAWN] At least 22 pro-independence activists were taken into custody by the Azad Jammu and Kashmir
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there....
(AJK) police in Hajira subdivision of Poonch district overnight for alleged rioting while a sit-in continued in Tetrinote village on the second consecutive day on Sunday.

On Saturday, police had stopped thousands of participants of a "Freedom Long March" called by Sardar Mohammad Saghir-led faction of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) in Dawarandi village of the Hajira area, when they were insisting to move ahead towards Tetrinote that lies in the closest proximity of the restive Line of Control (LoC).

DIG of Poonch Tahir Mehmood Wormtongue Qureshi
Mehmood <q>Wormtongue</q> Qureshi

...a Pak political shape-changer. He is undistinguished except for his habit of periodically needing to have his lips reattached...
told Dawn that the decision to stop the marchers was taken in the interest of their safety and that "their leaders had given an undertaking to the administration that they would not go beyond a designated spot to avoid the risk of Indian shelling".

Link

India-Pakistan

Mushaal seeks release of Yasin Malik

2019-08-05

[DAWN] Mushaal Hussein Malik, wife of the detained Kashmiri leader Mohammad Yasin Malik

...chairman of one of the two factions of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front. JKLF is a Kashmiri nationalist organization founded in Birmingham, UK in 1977. Branches weren't actually established in Kashmir for another ten years. It has the usual demands for separation of J&K from secular India so it can become an independent Islamic rathole. It seems to have no interest in Pak Kashmir breaking away to join it. In 1994 Malik renounced violence after he was released from jail and from that point he and his organization pursued peaceful means to impose their will on the region...
, on Saturday urged the international community and human right organizations to take notice of the fast deteriorating health of her husband who was in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail for raising his voice against unabated atrocities being carried out by Indian occupation forces in held Kashmire, she claimed.

She said Mr Malik had been kept in solitary confinement for the last four months, which had strengthened the perception that some hidden or unspoken orders by rulers and their agencies had been given to Tihar jail authorities to inflict more miseries on him to kill him slowly.

Yasin Malik 2019-03-25 Shutdown in occupied Kashmir against India's ban on Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front
Yasin Malik 2019-03-12 3 JeM militants killed in Tral
Yasin Malik 2019-02-28 NIA raids at JeM militants, OGWs, separatists

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India-Pakistan

Kashmir's ex-jihadists face frosty homecoming

2012-06-13

Late one evening 25 years ago, when the rickety minibus he worked on pulled into Kupwara at the end of a bone-rattling ride from the market town of Sopore, Syed Bashir Ahmad decided he was done selling tickets. From the bus station, he began walking up over the Dudhniyal forests, across the Line of Control (LoC). His passengers, that day, had included a group of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) cadre, headed for training at Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)-run camps in Pakistan. Mr. Ahmad decided to go along, he says, more or less on a whim.

Frostbitten and exhausted, his journey ended in a hospital. Three months later, Mr. Ahmad moved in with relatives in Muzaffarabad, married a cousin, and eventually began working as a taxi driver.

Last week, he returned home with his wife, Safina Ahmad, and their seven children, hoping to rebuild his life. Later this summer, their oldest daughter, Bushra, will marry a relative's son. Sabah Ahmad, just 12, likes the homeland she has known for eight days: "in Muzaffarabad," she says, "we couldn't sleep without a fan, and the power kept going all the time. Here, it's cool."

Perhaps too cool. Until the Indian government stitches together a legal framework for the hundreds of families who have returned to Jammu and Kashmir since 2005,

What happened in 2005 that changed things?

Ms Ahmad can be prosecuted as an illegal immigrant. Though the children can lay claim to Indian citizenship, the government has yet to waive regulations mandating that their birth be registered at a mission overseas. Finding jobs and setting up businesses is tough; social acceptance is, at best, grudging.

Back in the summer of 2005, troops at the Indian Army's Nanak Post, near Uri, watched as four small brightly-coloured specks clawed their way up the mountainside. Through their binoculars, the troops could see the group was not terrorists, but a woman with two crying infants in her arms; the man next to her, luggage tied around his back, was urging two older children up the climb. Finally, as the family reached the barbed wire that divides Kashmir, he shouted out: "my name is Nasir Ahmad Pathan, and I want to come home."

Ever since 2007, when The Hindu's sister publication, Frontline, interviewed the Pathan family for a report on Kashmir's returning ex-jihadists, many more have made the crossing. This year, almost a hundred have returned, joining the 140-odd last year; the total exceeds 500.

For most, the decision to come home seems pragmatic. "Sugar sells at Rs.85 a kilo in Muzaffarabad," says Mr. Ahmad's wife, Safina, "and a gas cylinder costs Rs.1,600. We had a son to put through college, and daughters to be married. So I asked my husband, when your family has land and a home, why should we keep living like this?"

In most cases, the journey home involves a substantial investment. The Ahmad family paid Rs.70,000 each to an agent in Rawalpindi for Pakistani passports and airfares from Karachi to Kathmandu. From Kathmandu, the family crossed the open India-Nepal border into Uttar Pradesh, and caught a train from Lucknow. In recent years, most families that have returned have done the same.

Expensive, but easy-peasy -- what mental lack causes the jihadis to try crossing where the Indian Army stands guard instead?

Life, though, remains profoundly uncertain for those who have returned. Five years after they came to India, the Pathan family are yet to receive citizenship papers, or any other form of documentation. Neither has Abdul Rasheed, who returned with his Pakistani wife, Nyla Abbasi and two children to Srinagar in 2009. Others have had more serious problems. Kulgam resident Mohammad Jalil Amin, for example, served 10 months in jail when he was arrested on returning home, though in June 2006.

Zonia Dar, whose father Shabbir Ahmad Dar returned to India earlier this summer, has spent five months trying to restart her education as a doctor. Her qualification from a Karachi medical college, though, is worth nothing in India.

To be fair, Indian medical schools teach nothing of djinns or the efficacy of Mohammed's urine, so there's a lot of studying wasted right there.

In 2010, the government of India announced a rehabilitation policy -- but Pakistan hasn't responded. Indian diplomats, sources said, have informally discussed the issue with the United Nations and international humanitarian organisations, but to little effect. "In the long term," says a senior police officer, "this is going to be real problem. There has to be some framework."

Without support, those who have returned are finding things to be difficult. In 2001, Kreeri resident Sharif Din, then a 17-year-old high school student, joined a group of young people recruited by local Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander Mushtaq Butt. Even while he trained for two months at a Hizb-ul-Mujahideen camp near Muzaffarabad, Mr. Din's family raised the money needed to buy him out of a tour of duty with the jihadist group. "I won't lie," he says, "I was terrified about coming back to fight. I was almost killed by the Army twice on the way into Pakistan, and the boys who were with me at the camp are either still there, or dead. I begged my family to save me."

Back home, though, Mr. Din isn't able to use the pharmacological qualification he acquired in Pakistan. Even though he briefly found a job at the Florence Hospital in Srinagar, he says, the Army insisted he live in Kreeri so he could be under surveillance.

He is now contemplating setting up a pharmacy, but hasn't yet managed to raise the capital. He hopes to marry, but no one is willing to give a daughter to a man without a job, and who faces possible trouble with the police.

Like Mr. Din, former Muslim Janbaaz Force jihadist Manzoor Ahmad, a one-time embroidery-artisan from Khadniyar near Baramulla, has faced difficulties rebuilding his life in the year since he came home. Having dropped out of school in 1991, he finds no market for his rusty talents. In Pakistan, he earned Rs.6,000 a month working in a mobile accessories store; in Khadniyar, he spends his days helping his brother write villagers' petitions to government offices. He hopes to start his own mobile-phone business eventually.

Manzoor Ahmad's business idea has had a mixed welcome from his family. A relative recalls his brother telling him, "for all these years while you were wasting your time in Pakistan, we tended the lands, we looked after the home, we even put up with beatings from Army men because we were your relatives. Now, you come back here and ask for a share in the property to start a shop?"

In Muzaffarabad, jihad commanders have been blaming Pakistan's diminished support for the death of their war. "We are fighting Pakistan's war in Kashmir," Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Muhammad Yusuf Shah said earlier this month "and if it withdraws its support, the war would be fought inside Pakistan." Mr. Shah has held out threats like these before. In February 2009, he warned that if "there is a setback to the war due to the cowardice of the [Pakistan] government, then this war will need to be fought in Islamabad and Lahore."

The reality, though, is that the jihad is dead in Kashmir itself -- not because of Pakistan's declining support, but because of the choices the men who fought it, and the society around them, have made. Even the Jamaat-e-Islami, the political mill in which the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen was manufactured, is now in the hands of politicians, firmly committed to politics. Dozens of the organisation's local cadre have fought panchayat elections; its amir, Sheikh Ghulam Muhammad, allowed units to ally with the People's Democratic Party in the 2008 Assembly elections.

In its own interest, India must work harder to enable the thousands who crossed the LoC to come home -- and to give those who have made the journey back a second shot at life.

Link

Bangladesh

15 militant outfits active

2010-03-30

[Bangla Daily Star] At least 15 foreign militant organisations were active or are still operating in Bangladesh since 1991 using the country as a safe shelter or transit to infiltrate neighbouring countries.

The organisations are Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Tehrik-e-Jehad-e-Islami-Kashmiri (TJI), Harkat-ul Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Jehadul Islami, Hizb-ul Mujahideen (HuM), Hezbe Islami, Jamiatul Mujahideen, Harkatul Ansar, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), India-based Asif Reza Commando Force (ARCF), Myanmar-based militant groups Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), Arakan Rohingya National Organization (ARNO) and National United Party of Arakan (NUPA).

This was revealed from the statements of several detained foreign and local militants and insiders of different intelligence and law-enforcement agencies dealing with militancy.

Operatives of different foreign militant groups started visiting Bangladesh and spreading their tentacles with the help of banned local militant group Huji after the end of the Afghan war against Russian forces.

The militant organisations operated almost undisturbed from 1991 to 1998 and then between 2001 and 2005 under the nose of the local administration. "During the BNP-Jamaat rule activities of the foreign militants marked a serious rise under the nose of the administration. Some of them were held and later given a safe passage," says a law enforcer requesting anonymity.

Operatives of several groups used to visit Bangladesh from Pakistan and then India to commit their activities, while many from India also sneaked into Bangladesh and then visited Pakistan with fake Bangladeshi passports to

The statements of detained militants also reveal agents of a Pakistani intelligence agency not only coordinated the militants' activities in Bangladesh but also provided them with necessary funds and training, sources say.

have training on arms and explosives. Director General of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) Hassan Mahmood Khandkar said, "Now Bangladesh is no more a comfortable place for local or foreign militants as we constantly remain vigilant and go after militants upon instructions of the government."

The statements of detained militants also reveal agents of a Pakistani intelligence agency not only coordinated the militants' activities in Bangladesh but also provided them with necessary funds and training, sources say.

Now some militant groups are generating funds for them by selling counterfeit Indian currencies in India. The counterfeit currencies, especially Indian rupees and US dollars, are mainly forged in Pakistan and carried to Bangladesh via Dubai.

Then a strong syndicate of militants and criminals supply the fake currencies to India. "We've detected at least three such gangs having around 50 members. One of the gangs is led by Bangladeshi citizen Majumder, one by Pakistani citizen Sarfaraz and the other by another Pakistani named Mohammad Danish," says a top police official asking not to be identified. Recently, an international money transfer has been detected through which some fund came from Pakistan to detained Pakistani national Rezwan.

Law enforcers could not give a clear idea about how many foreign militant groups are active in Bangladesh. But recent arrests of over a dozen foreign militants belonging to LeT, JeM, HuM and ARCF suggest they are still active here, they say.

One of the Huji founders, Moulana Sheikh Abdus Salam, who is behind bars in connection with the August 21 carnage case, named during interrogation nine Pakistan-based militant organisations which mainly work in Kashmir but also had operated in Bangladesh.

The names of ARCF and LeT surfaced after the arrest of its leaders Indian citizens Mufti Obaidullah and Moulana Monsur Ali in May last year. The ARCF used to work for LeT.

The recent arrest of Pakistani national Rezwan Ahmed who admitted at a press briefing of coordinating JeM activities in Bangladesh suggests the outfit is still active here.

The name of another Pakistan-based militant outfit Tehrik-ul Mujahideen came to notice from the confessional statement of executed Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) chief Abdur Rahman. Rahman had visited Pakistan more than once and met Tehrik-ul Mujahideen leader Jamilur Rahman, who gave JMB 60,000 rupees and another Rs 1 lakh to Tahrikul-ul-Mujahideen's Bangladesh chapter leader Abdur Razzak of Natore.

Salam also said Harkatul Mujahideen top leader and Pakistani nation Moulana Fazlur Rahman Khalil had also visited Bangladesh. Sources say Khalil made the visit in 1997 and met local militants at an NGO office in Mohammadpur in the capital.

Sources in the law-enforcement and intelligence agencies say they have information about activities of RSO, ARNO and NUPA in the hill areas of Bandarban and Cox's Bazar.

Moulana Salam also substantiated the claim as he in his statement said those groups still have some training camps in Naikhangchhari in Bandarban.

Activities of HuM were detected a few months ago when the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) learned one year after the arrest of Abdul Majid alias Abu Yusuf Butt that he is from India-administered Kashmir. Moulana Salam said Moulana Tajuddin told him that Majid brought a consignment of grenades used in the August 21, 2004 attack from Chittagong.

Analyses of interrogation statements of Mufti Obaidullah, Moulana Monsur Ali, Shaikh Abdur Rahman, Moulana Abdus Salam and Anisul Mursalin, now detained in India, Indian militants Faisal Nayeem alias Khurram alias Abdullah, Amir Raza, Mufti Obaidullah, Monsur Ali, Golam Yazdani alias Yahia, Mozammel and several others suggest that they had close relation with detained Huji linchpins Mufti Abdul Hannan, Abu Sayeed alias Dr Zafar and Moulana Abdur Rouf. Rouf, who was initially involved with Huji but later formed another militant group Tanjim-e Tamiruddin, visited an LeT safe shelter cum training camp in Habiganj in 2002. Khurram and Amir Raza had often visited Bangladesh but left the country in 2006.

Link

India-Pakistan

Pakistan simply sees no reason to stop supporting terrorists

2010-03-22

By Ashley J. Tellis
As the search for stability in Afghanistan intensifies, the threat of violence and a wider conflagration in the region is growing. In an effort to secure a dominant position in Afghanistan and to blunt India's rise, Pakistan has mobilized militants and terrorists on both sides of its borders.

While the Afghan Taliban fighting the military forces of the United States and, more generally, those of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization continue to enjoy Pakistani support, Islamabad has exchanged its previous policy of supporting anti-Indian insurgencies with that of supporting terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, the organization that mounted the deadly assault against the Indian city of Mumbai in November 2008. With tension persisting between the two South Asian rivals, such a tactic not only increases the prospect of major war between New Delhi and Islamabad, but, given Lashkar-e-Taiba's growing reach, it could well have global consequences.

The disruption of the India-Pakistan peace process, which has remained frozen since the time of the Mumbai attack, is due principally to Pakistan's unwillingness to bring to justice the Lashkar-e-Taiba leadership, which has enjoyed the support of the country's powerful intelligence organization, Inter-Services Intelligence. After almost two decades of punting, many Pakistanis today academics, policy analysts, and even government officials concede that the fomenting of insurgencies inside Indian territory has been a main component of Pakistan's national strategy. However, this late admission only comes long after Pakistan's military establishment has moved to replace its failed strategy of encouraging anti-Indian insurgencies with the more lethal approach of unleashing terrorist groups against its neighbor.

Since its formation in 1947, Pakistan has sought to stir up insurgencies inside India. The earliest efforts in 1947 and 1948 centered on provoking insurrections in Jammu and Kashmir in the hope that an internal rebellion would permit Pakistan's seizure of this disputed state.

These efforts failed miserably. Through three major conflicts between Pakistan and India, the people of Kashmir remained loyal to New Delhi. After Pakistan's defeat in the war of 1971, Islamabad attempted to stoke other secessionist movements, this time not to make any territorial gains but merely to avenge its military humiliation. But this effort, too, was beaten back by the Indian state. Finally, in 1989, when the first genuinely Kashmiri uprising against New Delhi broke out, Islamabad quickly threw its support behind the insurgents who were led by the secular Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. The revolt, however, was overpowered by the Indian Army by 1993 and this defeat brought about the momentous change in Islamabad's strategy against India.

Flushed with confidence flowing from the success of the jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union during the 1980s, Pakistan sought to replicate in the east what it had managed to do in the west, namely bring about the defeat of a great power larger than itself.

Using the same instruments as before radical Islamist groups that had sprung up throughout Pakistan Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence pushed into Jammu and Kashmir for the first time in 1993 by backing combat-hardened individuals alien to the area who were tasked with inflicting large-scale murder and mayhem.

Throughout this period, Pakistan's traditional strategy of fomenting insurgencies against India gave way to a new approach, namely, fomenting terrorism (an instrument that most Pakistanis still refuse to acknowledge). No longer would Pakistan rely on dissatisfied indigenous populations to advance Islamabad's interests; instead, vicious bands of Islamic terrorists, most of whom had little or no connection to any existing grievances with India, would be unleashed indiscriminately to kill large numbers of civilians.

From 1996 on, these attacks were deliberately extended at the behest of Inter-Services Intelligence throughout India. Of all the myriad terrorist organizations involved, none enjoyed greater state support than Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has since then sprung to international attention because of the bloodbath in Mumbai. However, the group had been active in South Asia since 1987, first in Afghanistan and thereafter in India.

Of all the terrorist groups that Inter-Services Intelligence has sponsored over the years, Lashkar-e-Taiba has been especially favored because its dominant Punjabi composition matches the predominant ethnicity that is found in the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani intelligence services. At the same time, the group's puritanical form of Salafism has undergirded its willingness to engage in risky military operations throughout India. Many of those inside Inter-Services Intelligence are deeply sympathetic to Lashkar-e-Taiba's vision of recovering lost Muslim lands' in Asia and Europe, as well as of resurrecting a universal Islamic Caliphate by using the instrument of jihad.

Although Pakistan's propaganda machine often asserts that Lashkar-e-Taiba is a Kashmiri organization that is moved by the Kashmiri cause, it is in fact nothing of the sort. The 3,000-odd foot soldiers who make up its fighting cadre are drawn primarily from the Pakistani Punjab. India's intelligence services today estimate that Lashkar-e-Taiba maintains some kind of presence in 21 countries worldwide with the intention of supporting or participating in what its leader, Hafeez Saeed, has called the perpetual jihad against the infidels.' Consequently, Lashkar-e-Taiba's operations in and around India, which often receive the most attention, are only part of a larger campaign that has taken Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives and soldiers as far afield as Australia, Canada, Chechnya, China, Eritrea, Kosovo, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Spain, the UK, and even the US.

Given the organization's vast presence, its prolific capacity to raise funds worldwide, and its ability to conduct militant activities at great distances from its home base, Lashkar-e-Taiba has become the preferred instrument of Inter-Services Intelligence in Pakistan's ongoing covert war against India. This includes the campaign that Pakistan is currently waging against the Indian presence in Afghanistan, as well as against the counterinsurgency efforts of the United States in the country. Active Lashkar-e-Taiba operations in Pakistan's northwestern border areas also involve close collaboration with Al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, the so-called Haqqani network, and a group called Jamiat al-Dawa al-Quran wal-Sunna.

Thanks to these activities and others worldwide, Washington has now reached the conclusion that Lashkar-e-Taiba represents a threat to the national interests of the United States. This threat the Americans regard as second only to the one posed by Al-Qaeda. In fact, however, the Lashkar-e-Taiba threat probably exceeds the latter by many measures.

Based on this judgment, US President Barack Obama has told the Pakistani president, Asif Zardari, that targeting Lashkar-e-Taiba would be one of his key conditions for a renewed strategic partnership between the United States and Pakistan. Thus far, however, the Pakistani military, which still effectively rules Pakistan even though it does not formally govern the country, has been unresponsive. The military prefers, instead, to emphasize the threat that India supposedly continues to represent for Pakistan thereby implicitly justifying the continued reliance of Inter-Services Intelligence on terrorism, even as it has demanded further assistance from the United States.

Such a demand is intended to inveigle the US into Pakistan's relentless competition with India. The Pakistani military's dismissal of Obama's injunctions regarding Lashkar-e-Taiba has been driven at least partly by its belief that all warnings coming from the United States are little more than examples of special pleading on behalf of India.

Since assaulting India has become quite a satisfying end in itself for Pakistan, the Pakistani establishment has shown no incentive whatsoever to interdict Lashkar-e-Taiba. To the degree that Inter-Services Intelligence has attempted to control the terrorist group, it has mainly done so to prevent excessive embarrassment to the group's sponsors in Pakistan, or to avert serious crises that might lead to a war between Pakistan and India. However, when one moves beyond these aims, the Pakistani military has no interest in dismantling any terrorist assets that it believes can serve it well.

Military leaders in Rawalpindi, where the Pakistani military is headquartered, have not only failed to understand that the concerns of the United States about Lashkar-e-Taiba derive fundamentally from Washington's growing conviction that the group's activities worldwide make it a direct threat to the United States; they also continue to harbor the illusion that Pakistan's current strategy of unleashing terrorism will enervate India, will push it to disengage from Afghanistan, and that it will weaken stabilization efforts by the United States in the country. Such a strategy is designed to make Islamabad the kingmaker in Kabul, and in this way determine the future of Afghanistan.

This ambition promises to become just one more in the long line of cruel illusions that has gripped Pakistan since the country's founding.

Ashley J. Tellis is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of Reconciling with the Taliban? Toward an Alternative Grand Strategy in Afghanistan.'

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India-Pakistan

Govt decision of autonomy for Gilgit-Baltistan regrettable: Yasin

2009-08-31

[Geo News] Chairman, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Yasin Malik Sunday called upon the international community to fulfill its promises regarding Kashmir dispute for the peaceful resolution of the dispute and prosperity of the region.

Malik said this while addressing an Iftar dinner here this evening hosted in his honour by the Prime Minister Azad Jammu and Kashmir Sardar Muhammad Yaqub Khan.

He declared quite regrettable the decision of giving autonomy to Baltistan without having any consultations with the Kashmiri leadership.

He also feared the same set up could be applied to Azad Kashmir in future.
The new set up of Gilgit-Baltistan is temporary; however, Gilgit-Baltistan should remain in the federation of Azad Kashmir, for which the system of local governments system could be constituted.

Malik said India could stress on adopting the same model in Kashmir as well; if it happens so, then the sacrifices of the Kashmiris would go in vein.

The dinner was also attended by former President AJK Gen. (R) Sardar Muhammad Anwar Khan, Deputy Opposition leader in AJK Assembly Malik Zaman, members of the AJK Legislative Assembly and leaders of the political parties outside the Kashmiri parliament.

He said the world community, after 9/11, promised movements for the right of self-determination the world over to adopt peaceful and non violent means for realization of their right to self-determination.

He urged the world community to positively come forward and help resolve Kashmir dispute in a just way and according to the aspiration of Kashmiri people.

He said the 62 years long struggle of Kashmiris deserves an active and meaningful role of India, Pakistan and the world community to resolve the issue that has taken lives and properties of hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris in Indian occupied Kashmir.

He recalled that since the Kashmir struggle for freedom from Indian subjugation there wasn't even a single Kashmiri who had not suffered and experienced jail in Indian held Kashmir.

"Millions have passed through insults, torture and humiliation in Indian occupied Kashmir. But still we did not respond violently to the decades' long violence of Indian forces," he added.

Prime Minister AJK Sardar Muhammad Yaqub Khan on this occasion thanked Yasin Malik and assured the people of occupied Kashmir that Kashmiris on both the sides of the Line of Control support each other, adding "together we will reach the target of freedom of Kashmir from Indian subjugation one day."

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India-Pakistan

Non-bailable arrest warrants against Yasin Malik

2009-04-25

JAMMU, Apr 25: Presiding Officer TADA Court issued non-bailable warrants against accused allegedly involved in kidnapping of Dr Rubiya Sayeed, daughter of then Union Home Minister and former Chief Minister of the State and killing of five Air Force personnel.

The non-bailable warrants have been issued to secure their presence in the court on next date of hearing. Besides Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) supremo Yaseen Malik, the other accused in the case are Javid Mir, Showkat Bakshi, Ali Mohd Mir, Manzoor Ahmed Sofi, Mehraj-ud-Din, Wajahat Bashir, Zaman Mir, Iqbal Gandroo and Yaqoob Pandit.

The accused in killing of five Air-Force personnel against whom TADA Court also issued non-bailable warrants are Mohd Yaseen Malik, Javid Mir alias Nalka, Showkat Bakshi, Javid Zargar and Manzoor Sofi. In both the cases, Rafiq alias Nanaji was presented in custody from Udhampur jail.

In the meanwhile, Advocate Yogesh Bakshi appearing for the accused persons has filed an application before the Court for recalling the warrants which were issued by the court against his clients. However, TADA Court issued notice to SSP CBI to file objections in this regard.

Dr Rubiya Sayeed was kidnapped for the release of five hardcore militants of JKLF. Then Central Government with the consent of J&K Government released five hardcore militants and thereafter kidnappers released the daughter of Mufti Mohd Sayeed.

The Air-Force personnel were killed in January 1990 when they were waiting for their Air-Force bus at Batmaloo, Srinagar. Both the cases were transferred to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which after completion of investigations presented challan in the court of law.

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India-Pakistan

Nudes, by Yasin Malik's fiancee

2009-02-18

Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik's Pakistani fiance Mushaal Mullick, an artist based in London, loves painting nudes. The money from the art sales goes to social groups in Pakistan working for women and gender issues, say sources.

pictures at link

Her inspiration stems from the "raw beauty of the feminine mystique" and the "horrors of abject poverty", according to her web postings.

Malik, 39, who will get married to the London School of Economics (LSE) student early next year, is in custody at Sumbal, north Kashmir. He got engaged to Mushaal last week in absentia.

Mushaal has done her post-graduation in political economy from the LSE and is the daughter of Hussain Mullick, former chairman of the economics department at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University.

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India-Pakistan

Islamists plan pro-Pakistan protest

2008-08-18

SRINAGAR: In an unprecedented development, the Jammu and Kashmir government has allowed Islamists to stage a massive pro-Pakistan protest in the heart of Srinagar ignoring warnings from Indias intelligence services that the decision could lead to a meltdown of state authority.

Tehreek-i-Hurriyat chief Syed Ali Shah Geelani and All Parties Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq are expected to address over 100,000 protesters at the Tourist Reception Centre on Monday morning, in the first major Islamist gathering in central Srinagar.

Later, both leaders are scheduled to march to the offices of the United Nations Military Observer Group for India and Pakistan to present a petition demanding an end to what secessionists describe as the military occupation of Jammu and Kashmir.

Srinagar District Commissioner K. Afsandyar Khan and Senior Superintendent of Police S.A. Mujitaba were despatched to stage negotiations on the management on the scheduled protests with Mr. Geelani on Sunday afternoon. Police sources said their request for the protest to be scaled down was rejected by the Islamist leader.

Governor N.N. Vohra and his advisors then ordered Director-General of Police Kuldeep Khoda to move his forces out of central Srinagar, to avoid clashes with protestors

Mr. Vohra has adopted a controversial policy of avoiding confrontation with protesters, amidst signs that a month of communally-charged protests have led to a collapse of police authority.

Last week, Kulgam Senior Superintendent of Police Imtiaz Mir was reported to have been surrounded by a mob and compelled to raise pro-Pakistan slogans.

On August 15, CRPF personnel were even forced to remove Indias national flag from the historic Lal Chowk in Srinagar, after a pro-Pakistan mob marched on the building.

State government sources said secessionist leaders had promised to ensure that Mondays protests were peaceful, and noted that similar assurances delivered before a massive rally in Pampore on Saturday had been met.

However, police sources said, no plans were in place to protect important institutions and offices which could become targets of the crowds, including the residence of the Chief Justice of Jammu and Kashmir, the homes of the former Chief Minister, Farooq Abdullah, and the former Union Minister of State for External Affairs, Omar Abdullah, and several important government offices.

Sources in the APHC said strains among the secessionist conglomerate were making it difficult to control elements in the mobs. At an APHC meeting held late on Sunday, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front leader Yasin Malik accused Mr. Geelani and Mr. Farooq of having deviated from their agreed common minimum programme. He said both Islamist leaders had used protests organised against the alleged economic blockade of the Kashmir Valley by Hindu fundamentalists to push their pro-Pakistan Islamist agenda.

Maulvi Shaukat Shah of the right-wing Jamaat Ahl-e-Hadith warned that the protests were spiralling out of the control of the secessionist leadership, and were paving the way for a bloody showdown with the armed forces.

However, these moderates came in for criticism from leaders like Asiya Andrabi, who claimed they were taking an excessively conciliatory position.

Protestors from various political groups have infiltrated crowds celebrating Shab-e-Baraat a night of fasting and penance when, in popular Islamic tradition, Allah prepares the destiny of mortals for the coming year.

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India-Pakistan

Yasin Malik asks world community to save Kashmiris

2008-08-16

(PPI)-- Describing the ongoing uprising against the economic blockade of the Kashmir valley as peoples' revolution, the Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Mohammad Yasin Malik has sought international community's intervention to rescue Kashmiris. Addressing a protest demonstration at Lal Chowk in Srinagar, the JKLF Chairman said: "Indian troops have unleashed a reign of terror and killing. They are firing on unarmed Kashmiris, killing and injuring them." He appealed to the people to continue their protest peacefully and urged the international community to intervene and "ensure safety and security of people of Kashmir, who are facing bullets for staging peaceful protests." Earlier, the demonstrators led by Yasin Malik staged a sit-in at Lal Chowk. They offered funeral prayers for those killed in police and troops firing in Kashmir during the recent Anti-India protest demonstrations.

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