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Recent Appearances... Rantburg

Africa Horn
US places $10 million bounty on Al-Shabaab fighter linked to Manda Bay raid
2025-05-11
[Garowe] In what could significantly impact the fight against al-Shabaab
... the personification of Somali state failure...
snuffies in East Africa, the US government has placed a $10 million bounty on Abdullahi Banati, a suspected al-Shabaab murderous Moslem allegedly behind the Manda Bay terror attack.

The 2020 terror attack, which took the lives of three US citizens, including a serviceman, was the first major attack by the snuffies on a US base within East Africa, leading to an endless search for attackers.

The Department of State Rewards for Justice (RFJ), which was established in 1984 to combat international terrorism, has asked anyone with information that can lead to the arrest of Abdullahi to come forward with the information for quick action.

"Two DoD contractor pilots, both US citizens, were killed when their military aircraft was hit by RPGs on the tarmac of the airfield. A third DoD contractor, also a US citizen, survived the earth-shattering kaboom with serious injuries," reads the RFJ's U.S. Army specialist.

A Kenyan soldier was also maimed during the attack. Abdullahi is said to be a member of the Jaish al-Ayman, an elite group entrusted to carry out attacks on Kenyan soil. It is named after one of its notorious leaders, Maalim Ayman, also known as Dobow Abdiaziz Ali, an ethnic Somali from Mandera County.

Abdullahi Banati was one of the individuals involved in the operational planning of the January 5, 2020, attack on Manda Bay Airfield. al-Shabaab — al-Qa'ida's principal affiliate in East Africa — is responsible for numerous terrorist attacks in Kenya, Somalia, and neighbouring countries that have killed thousands of people, including US citizens," the RFJ website reads.

Two years ago, Maskim Ayman was also placed on the list of most desperados over the links to the Manda Naval Base attack, which caught the US army unprepared. Senior US Africa Command commanders had also condemned the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) for failing to act swiftly.

The January 5 attack, which saw approximately 30 to 40 snuffies launch mortar rounds and fire rocket-propelled grenades and small arms at the base, led to the deaths of four American soldiers. al-Shabaab later grabbed credit for the attack.

The Manda Bay Airfield, which is heavily fortified and with support from a US base in Djibouti, trains the East Africa Quick Reaction Force, which enhances security within the region and safeguards America's interests.

The US Department of State designated al-Shabaab as both a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) in March 2008. The group is under severe attack both in Kenya and Somalia following coordinated operations by the two countries.
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
IRGC opens new airbase in southeast Iran
2023-05-12
[Rudaw] Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Wednesday opened a new airbase for the force’s drone and helicopter fleet in the country’s southeast Sistan and Baluchestan province, state media reported.

The base is located in Zahedan, the lovely provincial capital of Sistan and Baluchestan, and "is fit to accommodate various types of combat, support, and rescue helicopters, as well as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)," IRNA said.

During the inaugural ceremony, attended by both IRGC chief Hossein Salami and commander of the Guards’ ground forces Mohammed Pakpour, the latter said that the base will support the IRGC’s "various defense, rescue, logistics, and relief missions" in southeast Iran.

A number of Balochi jihadist groups in southeast Iran, primarily the Jaish al-Adl (Justice Army), have waged an insurgency against the Islamic republic and carry out attacks against the IRGC.

In 2021, an attack by the group in the city of Saravan killed at least five guards of the IRGC and three others were taken prisoner.

Jaish al-Adl has carried out a number of suicide kabooms on Iranian security forces, killing dozens in the border area. The administration of former US president Donald Trump
...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party...
added the group to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations in July 2019, five months after the group carried out a deadly suicide attack on the IRGC.

The attack killed 27 guards near the Sistan and Baluchestan’s lovely provincial capital of Zahedan.

Amid massive countrywide protests over the death of Kurdish woman Zhina (Mahsa) Amini in morality police custody, the IRGC on September 30 fired at protestors in Zahedan, killing at least 100 and wounding many more.
Related:
Zahedan: 2023-04-27 Senior member of Iran's Assembly of Experts assassinated
Zahedan: 2023-04-22 Daily Evacuation Brief April 22, 2023
Zahedan: 2023-03-08 Iran makes first arrests in school poisonings that have affected 5,000 students
Link


Africa Subsaharan
US Sanctions Six Nigerians Convicted For Sponsoring Boko Haram Terrorism
2022-03-26
[SAHARAREPORTERS] The United States has sanctioned six Nigerians convicted by an Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over alleged funding of Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
terrorism.

The convicts were tried and convicted in 2019 after being found guilty of funding the deadly sect.

Two of the convicts, Surajo Abubakar Muhammad and Saleh Yusuf Adamu were sentenced to life imprisonment while the remaining four, Ibrahim Ali Alhassan, AbdurRahman Ado Musa, Bashir Ali Yusuf and Muhammad Ibrahim Isa were handed ten-year imprisonment respectively.

Court documents also showed that between 2015 and 2016, the convicts were involved in different cash transfers allegedly in favour of Boko Haram to the tune of USD782,000

However,
some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them...
the U.S, in a statement by Department of States spokesperson, Ned Price said Musa, Adamu, Yusuf, Isa, Alhassan and Muhammad had been added to the List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons, pursuant to Executive Order 13224, as amended, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Boko Haram.

The statement reads, "Today’s action follows the United Arab Emirates’ prosecutions, convictions, and designations of these individuals for supporting terrorism. The Department of State designated Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation and Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization on November 14, 2013.

Link


Home Front: WoT
NYC convert to Islam, a wannabe LeT executioner, sentenced to 15 years in prison
2020-08-20
From August 11th. Another idiot who planned it all with his BFF, the FBI informant.
[Yahoo] A New York man, who had planned to join Pakistain-based terrorist organization 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) and carry out acts of terrorism, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison and a lifetime term of supervised release for attempting to provide material support to the terror outfit.

Jesus Wilfredo Encarnacion, 30, who also went by the alias ’Jihadistsoldgier', ’Jihadinhear’, ’Jihadinheart’, ’Lionofthegood’, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for attempting to provide material support to LeT, which is responsible for multiple high-profile attacks, including the Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008, the Department of Justice said.

In addition, Encarnacion was sentenced to a lifetime term of supervised release. Encarnacion had pleaded guilty in January this year before United States District Judge Ronnie Abrams, who also imposed the sentence.

"Unfortunately, individuals continue to attempt to travel to foreign countries to support terrorist organizations. Encarnacion’s sentence reflects the seriousness with which the justice system takes these efforts," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C Demers said.

Acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss for the Southern District of New York said Encarnacion plotted to travel abroad, to join and train with LeT and to carry out shootings, bombings, and beheadings on behalf of that terrorist organization." According to the criminal complaint and indictment, Encarnacion expressed his desire to join a terrorist group in an online group chat in November 2018.

At the chat, he met another individual, who introduced Encarnacion to a person who was an undercover FBI employee. Encarnacion repeatedly expressed, in the course of recorded communications through a social media service with the individual and through an encrypted messaging service with the undercover agent, his allegiance to and support for LeT.

The Pakistain-based terror organization LeT has been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation by both the United States Secretary of State and the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Over several months, Encarnacion discussed his desire and plans to join LeT overseas so that he could receive training and participate in violent mostly peaceful acts of terrorism.

The Justice Department said Encarnacion told the undercover agent that he was "ready to kill and die in the name of Allah" and sought the agent’s assistance to help Encarnacion travel abroad to serve as an "executioner" for LeT, stating, "I want to execute. I want to behead. Shoot."
Arlo Guthrie’s ”Alice’s Restaurant” was clearly one of his favourite songs when he was young, though he doesn’t mention time spent on the FBI’s Group W bench...
Encarnacion further stated that he aspired to commit terrorist attacks - "a bombing and shooting" - in the United States, but lacked "guidance" and "guns" to do so.

By early 2019, Encarnacion and the undercover agent agreed on a plan that Encarnacion believed would allow him to join LeT in Pakistain.

Encarnacion told the agent that he had made arrangements to travel to a particular city in Europe, as the first step in traveling to Pakistain to join LeT.

Encarnacion purchased an airline ticket for a flight scheduled to depart in February last year from John F Kennedy International Airport to a European City. Encarnacion was arrested by the FBI after he attempted to board the flight from JFK Airport.
Related:
Lashkar-e-Taiba: 2020-08-16 Two cops killed in J&K terrorist attack
Lashkar-e-Taiba: 2020-08-04 Deadly Attacks Spark Fear of Daesh Resurgence
Lashkar-e-Taiba: 2020-07-31 Al Qaeda Training Taliban in Helmand: Local Officials
Related:
JFK Airport: 2020-06-29 Virginia couple charged in $1.5M coronavirus fraud scheme
JFK Airport: 2019-05-21 Hizballah operative convicted of terror charges after surveilling targets in New York City
JFK Airport: 2018-07-13 Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine aka Daniel Hernandez arrested in NYC on outstanding warrant denied bail
Link


India-Pakistan
Pakistan bars Hafiz Saeed group from forming political party
2018-06-14
[PRESSTV] A Pak group linked to the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks has been denied permission to register as a political party ahead of general elections scheduled to be held on July 25.

"The Election Commission of Pakistain today rejected the registration request by the Milli Moslem League as a political party," Altaf Ahmad, front man for the Election Commission of Pakistain (ECP), said on Wednesday.

Ahmad said a detailed order would be issued later stating the reasons for the commission's decision.

The MML was launched last August to contest the July elections. It was founded by Jamaat-ud-Dawa
...the front organization of Lashkar-e-Taiba...
(JuD) charity, a wing of the hard boy group 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).

The LeT is believed to have orchestrated the attacks in the Indian city in 2008, where over 160 people were killed.

Earlier this year, the United States added the MML along with Tehrik-e-Azadi-e-Kashmire (TAJK) to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTO), reasoning that both were fronts for the banned outfit.

The United States offers the huge bounty in return for information that could lead to the conviction of Hafiz Saeed
...founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and its false-mustache offshoot Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The United Nations declared the JuD a terrorist organization in 2008 and Hafiz Saeed a terrorist as its leader. Hafiz, JuD and LeT are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Pak intel apparatus, so that amounted to squat...
, who heads the JuD. Washington says the JuD is a front for the LeT.

Much to the dismay of the United States and India, Pak officials have rejected calls for leveling charges against Saeed over the past years.

Consumed by years of unsuccessful anti-militant drive, Pakistain, sources say, has a general plan to de-radicalize hard boy-linked organizations and integrate them by bringing them into politics.

The ECP announcement on the MML would be a serious blow to such efforts that are believed to be led by the Pak military’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency.

Saeed was sent to his room in January 2017 after years of living freely in Pakistain, but a court ordered his release in November 2017.

Link


India-Pakistan
US undermines MML effort to register as political party
2018-04-04
[DAWN] The US Department of State amended its designation of 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) on Monday, identifying Milli Moslem League (MML) and Tehrik-e-Azadi-e-Kashmire (TAK) as LeT affiliates, which makes it impossible for them to register as political parties.

The US Treasury Department also updated its list of individual terrorists, naming seven members of the MML leadership as LeT activists who were acting in MML on behalf of LeT.

The State Department described the MML and the TAK as LeT ’aliases’ and added their names to its lists of Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT).

"In August 2017, LeT chief Hafiz Saeed
...founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and its false-mustache offshoot Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The United Nations declared the JuD a terrorist organization in 2008 and Hafiz Saeed a terrorist as its leader. Hafiz, JuD and LeT are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Pak intel apparatus, so that amounted to squat...
created the MML to serve as a political front for the group. LeT members make up MML’s leadership and the so-called party openly displays Saeed’s likeness in its election banners and literature," the State Department pointed out.

Monday’s amendments "take aim at Lashkar-e-Taiba’s efforts to circumvent sanctions and deceive the public about its true character," said Ambassador Nathan A. Sales, the coordinator for counterterrorism at the Department of State.

"Make no mistake: whatever LeT chooses to call itself, it remains a violent terrorist group. The United States supports all efforts to ensure that LeT does not have a political voice until it gives up violence as a tool of influence," he added.

The designations clearly undermine MML’s effort to get itself registered with the Election Commission of Pakistain as a political party and contest the 2018 general elections. It will be difficult for the Pak government to ignore the designations and register MML as a political party, as it would be seen as an act of direct confrontation with the United States.

Link


India-Pakistan
US designates Mullah Fazlullah as a 'global terrorist'
2015-01-14
[DAWN] The US State Department on Tuesday designated Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) chief Mullah Fazlullah
...son-in-law of holy man Sufi Mohammad. Known as Mullah FM, Fazlullah had the habit of grabbing his FM mike when the mood struck him and bellowing forth sermons. Sufi suckered the Pak govt into imposing Shariah on the Swat Valley and then stepped aside whilst Fazlullah and his Talibs imposed a reign of terror on the populace like they hadn't seen before, at least not for a thousand years or so. For some reason the Pak intel services were never able to locate his transmitter, much less bomb it. After ruling the place like a conquered province for a year or so, Fazlullah's Talibs began gobbling up more territory as they pushed toward Islamabad, at which point as a matter of self-preservation the Mighty Pak Army threw them out and chased them into Afghanistan...
as a global terrorist.

According to a State Department blurb, Fazlullah has been labeled a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, which targets faceless myrmidons and those providing support to faceless myrmidons or acts of terrorism.

The consequences of these designations include a prohibition against American citizens engaging in transactions with Fazlullah, and the freezing of all property and interests of Fazlullah that are in the United States, or come within the United States or the possession or control of US persons, the statement said.

Fazlullah was elected TTP commander in November 2013, following the death of former leader Hakimullah Mehsud.

Under the leadership of Fazlullah, TTP grabbed credit for the December 16, 2014 attack on a school in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
that resulted in the deaths of at least 148 people, mostly students.

Prior to becoming TTP leader, Fazlullah claimed he was behind the killing of Pak Army Major General Sanaullah Niazi in September 2013, as well as ordering the shooting of schoolgirl and activist Malala Yousafzai
...a Pashtun blogger and advocate for girls' education from Mingora, in Swat. She started blogging at age 11-12. She was 15 when a Talib boarded her school bus and shot her in the head in 2012. She was evacuated to a hospital in Britain and the Pak Taliban vowed to kill her and her father. Among other awards, she received the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, which she deserved more than Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Yasser Arafat, or Rigoberta Menchu...
in 2012.

The State Department designated TTP as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist on September 1, 2010.
Link


Africa Subsaharan
Boko Haram: Nigerians In US, France Charge Obama On FTO Designation
2012-07-10
[Leadership.ng] Reacting collectively for the first time since the United State government named three leaders of Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
as foreign terrorists, the Nigerians living in the United States and La Belle France are calling on President Barrack Obama and the international community to list the terrorist group as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) based on their activity and International linkages.

Reacting in a statement which followed meetings recently held in Baltimore of the State of Maryland, the Nigerian Coalition Against Terrorism (NCAT) denounced Northern Nigerian politicians for provocative comments presaging Boko Haram violence, calling on the Moslem and politicianship of Northern Nigeria, especially the Northern Political Leadership Forum (NPLF), to bring it to an immediate and unconditional halt.

NCAT noted that as a group, NPLF has never uttered a syllable of condemnation for the Boko Haram blood-shed. "Rather, the statements attributed to their membership indicate tacit support for continued Boko Haram violence as a surrogate for Islamic, Hausa-Fulani, continued political dominance of Nigeria," it said.

The Nigerian group also asked the Goodluck Jonathan
... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau...
-led Administration to note that the rationale for the endless cycle of ethnic and religious killings in Northern Nigeria, especially of Igbos and other indigenes of Nigeria as in the Jos crisis is primarily because no Nigerian government, state or Federal, has ever prosecuted anyone for these crimes.

Also reacting from Rouen, La Belle France, the Association of Nigerians in La Belle France, said that the international community should ensure that Boko Haram is listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation, stressing that such step will help to curb the activities of the terrorist group.

In a joint communique signed by the President of the association, Comrade Kayode Odeyemi Williams and Mr. Adeniyi Master Waliyi, the Nigerian Association in Rouen, La Belle France, said that the international community should do everything to help the government of Nigeria get out of its insecurity state.

The group also asked the federal government not to only deploy its security personnels to defend the innocent people but to also ensure that all the people found in connection with these acts of inhumanity are sincerely brought out for prosecution.
Link


Bangladesh
US brands HUJI 'terrorist'
2008-03-08
The United States said it had designated a Bangladeshi group, Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami, as a “terrorist” organisation, subjecting it to US financial sanctions. Bangladesh accuses the group of involvement in a grenade attack on a political rally in 2004 in which 23 people were killed. A statement posted on the US State Department website said the group’s leader had signed a 1998 fatwa sponsored by Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that “declared American civilians to be legitimate targets for attack”.

“Since then, HUJI-B has been implicated in a number of terrorist attacks in Bangladesh and abroad,” it said. The statement said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday named Harkat as a “Foreign Terrorist Organisation and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist”.

Link


Home Front: WoT
US seeking to designate Taliban as FTO
2007-02-18
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday that Washington was working towards having the Taliban designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO).
As an FTO, any person found to be transferring funds to the Taliban would be subject to indictment. Under current US law, only known Qaeda agents can be indicted for having obtained funding for terrorist purposes.
Delivering her testimony to a House Appropriations Sub Committee, Rice noted that the group had already been designated as a terrorist organisation under an earlier executive order.

Replying to a query from Republican Congressman Mark Steven Kirk, she said: “As I understand it, it (Taliban) is designated as a global terrorist organisation under an executive order and the work is being done to designate it as a FTO. And so I think, in due course, as they go through that procedure, it will be brought for designation.” As an FTO, any person found to be transferring funds to the Taliban would be subject to indictment. Under current US law, only known Qaeda agents can be indicted for having obtained funding for terrorist purposes, following the group’s designation by Washington as an FTO on Oct 5, 2001.
Link


Home Front
Soddy indicted for terrorism
2004-01-10
A Saudi national was indicted for allegedly distributing funds to terrorist groups and for seeking to recruit potential terror operatives. Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, 34, was arrested in the north-western state of Idaho on February 26, 2003 for visa violations and has been in US custody since. An Idaho grand jury charged him "with providing material support to terrorism," US Attorney Tom Moss said in a statement. The indictment claims, among other charges, that Al-Hussayen helped support terrorist networks through his involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA) in Detroit, Michigan. IANA is being investigated by federal authorities.

Internet postings by Al-Hussayen included instructions on how to train at a "terrorist camp," and he appealed to Muslims in the US military to identify potential American targets in the Middle East, according to the indictment. The charges will be filed against Al-Hussayen in federal court in Boise, Idaho, on Monday morning. Al-Hussayen is charged with supporting terrorism through the operation and control of several internet websites, and through his work for the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a Saudi-based technology company called Dar Al-Asr, and two radical Saudi sheikhs.

The indictment says Al-Hussayen knew his services were being rendered to raise money to finance terrorist acts in Israel, Chechnya and "elsewhere." One count says he helped moderate an e-mail group of some 2,400 people to whom he appealed to "fight the idolator with your money, yourselves, your tongues and your prayers." In his alleged appeal to Muslim members of the US military deployed in the Middle East, Al-Hussayen sought potential terrorist targets that included military installations, ammunition dumps, and the facilities of American oil groups. "The posting also urged an attack on a particular high-ranking American military officer," according to the indictment.

Al-Hussayen is alleged to have received and disbursed out of his bank accounts more than $US300,000 ($A387,797) in excess of the study-related funds he received from the Saudi government, much of which was paid to IANA for salaries, travel and other operational expenses, the indictment said. The charge added that one website he ran also carried solicitations for the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which is designated a "Foreign Terrorist Organisation" by the US State Department. The government said Al-Hussayen could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
Link


India-Pakistan
Ban on Hizbul Tahrir nips future defiance in the bud?
2003-11-27
The government’s recent ban on three more Islamist outfits, including Hizb ut-Tahrir, seems to have vindicated analysts who were warning against their approach for sometime now, the most interesting case being that of HuT which advocates khilafa (Caliphate) as the only acceptable system for the Muslim states. Sources say Islamabad was receiving multiple reports from intelligence agencies on the activities of HuT. Although officials concede the group remained non-violent, most estimates declared it dangerous for being aggressive and for creating an atmosphere in which other extremist groups could operate with impunity. The reports mentioned the HuT with particular reference because of the vocal statements issued by its otherwise non-violent leadership.
The leadership remains "non-violent," but members are funnelled into jihadi organizations. See Hafiz Saeed's comments on the desirability of khilafah, below...
The other two outfits, Jamiat-ul-Ansar and Jamaat-ul-Furqan, were reincarnated versions of the already banned outfits. Furqan had been formed by the breakaway group of Jaish-e-Mohammad spearheaded by 12 of its commanders. Jaish leader Masood Azhar had expelled 12 commanders, prominent among them Abdullah Shah Mazhar and Abdul Jabbar. The second banned group is Jamiat-ul-Ansar. The JuA was the reincarnated version of the biggest Deobandi militant group, Harkat-ul Mujahideen (HM). The HM had been declared a Foreign Terrorist Organisation by the US State Department in 1998 and was subsequently banned by Pakistan in November 2001. The JuA also comprised a breakaway faction of another jihadi group Harkat-ul Jihad-e-Islami (HJI). Earlier reports suggested that there was some pressure initially on HM to merge with Jamiat-ul Mujahideen, yet another jihadi group.
Split, merge, split, merge
The plan could not be succeed because of resistance within HM. The dissent led to a group breaking away from HM and calling itself Harkat-ul Mujahideen Al Aalmi (HMA). HMA is the group responsible for the suicide bombings in Karachi and also two abortive attempts on the life of General Pervez Musharraf. Almost half of its activists and its top leader are presently under arrest. It also has “some hidden working relationship” with the banned Deobandi-sectarian terrorist organisation, Lashkar-e Jhangvi. The HM, instead of merging with JM, decided to reincarnate itself as JuA. It suffered shocks when it was banned in November 2001 and then some of its activists and leaders broke away to form the HMA. Later, it reorganised itself under a new name. The organisation had links, like other groups, with Taliban remnants and Al Qaeda activists. The new organisation came into existence after six-month long negotiations between HM and the breakaway faction of HJI. The leaders of HJI who joined the JuA were Maulana Abdul Samad Sial (patron), Commander Ilyas Kashmiri (commander-in-chief), Doctor Badar Niazi and others. The HM had also approached the Jaish leadership for forming a common group but Masood Azhar shot down the proposal.
I believe there might be an ethnic component here, with Masood Azhar and his followers being mostly Punjabis, while the Harkat being mostly Pashtuns.
The Hizbul Tahrir cannot strictly be bracketed with these militant groups. It has been working in Pakistan for years but has remained low key unlike its counterparts in Central Asia and Russia where the party has been portrayed as a deadly terrorist organisation. However, its activists have shown a tendency to be aggressive in presenting their viewpoint. Hizbul Tahrir – or “Freedom Party” – has its roots in the Middle East of the 1950s. Its original members were mainly Palestinians from Jordan and Syria, the movement quickly found followers in Egypt and North Africa as well. It first appeared in Central Asia in the early 1990s. Experts say its penetration of the region is unclear, and its organisation – based on networks comprising three-person “cells” with only limited contact among one other – make it difficult to estimate its size.
Secret societies aren't comfortable things to have around, even in democratic states. In dictatorships and oligarchies they're anathema...
HuT claims to have upwards of 100,000 members in the area. In Pakistan, HuT appeared on first Ramazan three years ago. Its leadership blasted the government during the US campaign in Afghanistan when on September 24 Naveed Butt issued a statement expressing fear that by allowing the US to use Pakistani bases against Afghanistan, the Pakistan army would be divided. In October, HuT became more open and staged demonstrations in Punjab to protest against the US bombing of Afghanistan. Before that they criticised General Pervez Musharraf for his India visit and rejected any solution of Kashmir by negotiating with the Indians.
That's 'cuz the Indians are ucky infidels. They'll be banned under the caliphate, of course...
The HuT leadership continued to hold press conferences at various cities in which they criticised Pakistan’s decision to join the international coalition against terrorism before they adopted for an intriguing silence till July this year when three of its office-bearers, Naveed Butt, Taimur Khalid and Mohammad Saleem were arrested in Lahore outside a hotel where they had gone to address a press conference. The three men were distributing pamphlets before speaking at the press conference when they were approached by six plainclothesmen who arrested them. These leaders were released in early November when Butt reached Karachi to announce the struggle towards the Khilafat movement in Pakistan. After the latest ban, the HuT leadership, like those of the reincarnated groups, has gone into hiding.
Most of the Pakistani Hezb members are actually British Muslims who have gone back to their parent’s homeland.
Link



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