Author: K.P.S. Gill
Publication: The Week
Date: June 8, 2003
URL: http://www.the-week.com/23jun08/lucky.d.htm
Al Qaeda is not a monolithic, hierarchical
organisation; it operates through like-minded subsidiaries. The support
structures of its affiliated organisations in India have been constructed
by the al Qaeda-Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) combine, with financial
support from west Asia and from expatriate Muslim communities in the west.
Over 200 Islamist extremist cells have been dismantled and neutralised
in India outside Jammu and Kashmir since mid- 1998.
Many of the older operatives of
major terrorist groups active in J&K participated in the anti-Soviet
Afghan campaigns. (Many al Qaeda members drawn from diverse nationalities
were later "blooded" in J&K.) Many more were trained in camps maintained
by al Qaeda-Taliban-ISI in Afghanistan and Pakistan after the Taliban came
to power, as confessions of arrested terrorists indicate. Some camps were
established in J&K, with Afghan mujahideen training local recruits.
One such camp dismantled in 1993 was at Kapran in Anantnag. Tariq Mehmood
Zargar (arrested in June 1999), Mohammed Akbar Bhat (in August 1999) and
Javed Akhtar Abbasi (in May 2000) disclosed that Osama bin Laden had addressed
them at training camps in Afghanistan and told them to remain prepared
for a protracted war against "the infidels" in Kashmir and other parts
of the world.
The strongest, direct and most ideologically
consistent linkages between al Qaeda and any terrorist groups active in
India are those that exist with the 'Harkat Triad'-Harkat-ul-Jihad-Islami
(HuJI),
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), and
Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). HuJI was a child of the anti- Soviet Afghan campaign
and, besides in Afghanistan and Kashmir, its cadres have fought in Islamist
campaigns in Bosnia, Myanmar and Tajikistan. HuJI's greatest surviving
strength is in Bangladesh. HuJI Bangladesh (BD) was established with direct
aid from bin Laden in 1992. Harkat activists cross over into India and
maintain links with terrorist groups such as the United Liberation Front
of Asom (ULFA) and a number of Islamist groups that have mushroomed along
the Bangladesh border.
The HuM was set up in 1985 at Raiwind
in Pakistani Punjab, by Maulana Samiul Haq and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, to
participate in the jihad in Afghanistan. Samiul Haq's madrasa, at Akora
Khattak near Peshawar, later emerged as a training ground for the Taliban.
The JeM was set up in early 2000
after Azhar Masood's return to Pakistan following his release in the hostage
exchange following the IC 814 hijack. Azhar travelled to Afghanistan and
met bin Laden, who is believed to have extended funding to the JeM. As
a result, three quarters of the Harkat's cadre defected to the new organisation.
Arrests of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)
cadres have also led to disclosures of linkages with al Qaeda. Other groups
operating in India that have collaborated with each other and al Qaeda
or could be inclined in future include Students Islamic Movement of India,
Jamait-ul-Mujahideen, Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam, Muslim
United Liberation Front of Assam, Muslim Security Council of Assam, Muslim
Volunteer Force, Muslim Liberation Army; Muslim Security Force, Islamic
Sevak Sangh and United Muslim Liberation Front of Assam.
(The writer is a former director-general
of police in Punjab.)
