LAHORE: The November 21 death of the British terror plot suspect Rashid Rauf in the North Waziristan area in a US missile strike along with four other al-Qaeda comrades has confirmed a dangerous development — the trouble-stricken Waziristan region has become the new battlefield for the Kashmiri militants who are increasingly joining forces with the anti-US and pro-Taliban elements there.
Rashid Rauf, a close relative of Maulana Masood Azhar, the chief of the Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), was killed along with al-Qaeda leaders Abu Nasr Al-Misri and Abu Zubair Al-Masri after their rented hideout was spotted due to their frequent use of a mobile phone. The Pakistani government sources claim the missile attack was lined up by their intelligence services which tipped off their American counterparts about Rauf’s whereabouts, who was the main target of the attack. However, media reports emanating from the US claim that the actual targets of the missile strike were some Most Wanted al-Qaeda leaders, two of whom died on the spot.
Much before the death of the Most Wanted al-Qaeda-linked fugitive Kashmiri militant in North Waziristan where Commander Baitullah Mehsud literally rules the roost, the Pakistani authorities had informed those at the helm of the affairs in Islamabad that the changing government policy on Kashmir has forced many of the Kashmiri militant groups to gradually migrate their fighters to tribal areas of North and South Waziristan on the restive Pak-Afghan border. Information collected by the Pakistani authorities indicates the presence of fighters belonging to at least four Kashmiri militant groups – the Harkatul Jehadul Islami (HUJI) led by Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri, the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) led by Maulana Masood Azhar, the Harkatul Mujahideen (HuM) led by Pir Syed Salahuddin and the Jamaatul Furqaan (JuF) led by Maulana Abdul Jabbar.
The presence of the Jaish-e-Mohammad militants in the Waziristan region, which has often been described as a haven for al-Qaeda-linked terrorists, has already been confirmed with the death of Rashid Rauf in North Waziristan. The Jaish or the Army of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), one of the deadliest Kashmiri militant groups operating from Pakistan and waging ’jehad’ against the Indian security forces in Jammu, was launched by Maulana Masood Azhar at the behest of the Pakistani intelligence establishment in February 2000, shortly after he was released from an Indian jail, in exchange for hostages on board an Indian Airlines plane which was hijacked by armed Kashmiri militants and taken to Kandahar in December 1999. Along with Masood, India had to release two more militants – Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Sheikh Ahmed Omar Saeed, who has already been convicted in American journalist Daniel Pearl’s murder.
The second Kashmiri militant group having presence in Waziristan is the HUJI, led by Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri, the ameer of the Azad Kashmir chapter of the Harkat. He happens to be a veteran of the Kashmir jehad and had spent several years in an Indian jail. Maulana Kashmiri was arrested by Pakistani authorities after the December 2003 twin suicide attacks on General Musharraf’s cavalcade in the garrison town of Rawalpindi. However, he was released a few weeks later, prompting him to shift his base to North Waziristan region with his family and join hands with the Most Wanted Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Commander Baitullah Mehsud. Having switched from the freedom struggle in Jammu and Kashmir to the Taliban-led resistance against the NATO forces in Afghanistan, Kashmiri also established a training camp in the Razmak area of Waziristan and shifted most of his warriors from his Kotli training camp which is 20 km from Kotli in Azad Kashmir.
The third Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant group having presence in Waziristan the Hizbul Mujahideen (HuM) or the Party of Freedom Fighters, is considered to be the mother of ongoing militancy in Jammu and Kashmir. Led by a militant Sunni Yusuf Shah alias Pir Syed Salahuddin, the Hizb is politically mentored by Jamaat-e-Islami which describes Jammu Kashmir as an integral part of Pakistan. Of the jehadi groups currently operating in Jammu, the Hizbul Mujahideen is the brand name of the Kashmir militancy because of being the largest and the most important in terms of its effectiveness in perpetrating struggle across Kashmir. The Hizb leadership had established contacts with many Afghan Mujahideen groups such as the Hizb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, under which some of its cadre received arms training at camps in Afghanistan.
On September 11, 2008, the Afghanistan-based American forces targeted with a missile an alleged training camp of Al-Badar, a Kashmiri militant group which was being aided by the Hizb-e-Islami. Unmanned Predator aircraft reportedly launched several missiles at a target in the village of Tol Khel on the outskirts of Miramshah, the administrative seat of North Waziristan. Twelve members of Al-Badar were reported killed in the attack. Much before that, international media had reported the arrest of three Hizbul Mujahideen cadres at Tank near South Waziristan on March 28, 2006 while carrying explosives and ammunition. Senior Superintendent of Police Dar Ali Khattak told media people that the three were on their way from South Waziristan in a vehicle when they were apprehended at a checkpoint in Tank. However, the then Hizb spokesperson Saleem Hashmi had maintained that the ’allegation’ that the group’s cadres were roaming around the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan was an attempt to blacken the name of the Kashmiri fighters.
The fourth Kashmiri militant group having presence in the Waziristan region is Jamaatul Furqan, the splinter group of the Jaish-e-Mohammad, led by Maulana Abdul Jabbar. He had been involved in the Kashmir jehad as a Jaish commander who was arrested repeatedly after 9/11 by the Pakistani authorities on terrorism charges but set free each time after brief detention. He too has reportedly shifted to Waziristan, becoming part of a militant training camp to fight in Afghanistan. With more and more Kashmiri militants shifting their base to the already trouble-ridden Waziristan to join hands with the Taliban fighters, the anti-US resistance movement has been gradually strengthened.
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