Harakat ul-Mujahidin

A large militant Sunni Muslim group that throughout the 1990s operated largely in the disputed states of Jammu and Kashmir on the India-Pakistan border, Harakat ul-Mujahidin once reportedly had troops in such far-flung locales as Bosnia, Tajikistan, Algeria, the Middle East, Chechnya, and the Philippines. The group, headquartered in Pakistan, has recently seen its operations curtailed because of a crackdown on militant groups by Pakistan's government following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. It has been speculated that Harakat ul-Mujahidin may alter the focus of its attacks to the now-hostile Pakistani regime. Before September 11, Harakat ul-Mujahidin had several training camps in Afghanistan, as well as close ties to the Taliban government of that country and the Saudi radical Osama bin Laden. Indeed, links among the three were so well established that the “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh, a U.S. citizen captured by U.S.-backed forces during the overthrow of the Taliban government in 2001, was briefly a member of Harakat ul-Mujahidin before moving to bin Laden's Al Qaeda. Like Al Qaeda, Harakat ul-Mujahidin is strongly anti-Western and has targeted U.S. and Western European tourists for kidnap and murder.

Harakat ul-Mujahidin was founded as Harakat ul-Ansar in 1993 by Pakistani activist Fazlur Rheman Khalil and four veterans of the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The organization, created through the merger of two militias initially established to fight the Soviets, essentially inherited the training camps of a Sunni Muslim faction of the anti-Soviet mujahideen.

[Page 163]Harakat ul-Ansar, which had a mostly Pakistani membership, was established to support Pakistani governance in the states of Jammu and Kashmir. The largely Muslim country of Pakistan and the largely Hindu country of India have long quarreled over which should have sovereignty in Jammu and Kashmir; armed groups within the two states also support independence. Once established, Harakat ul-Ansar quickly received backing from the Pakistani government; in 1994 the group was granted membership in a Pakistani-based umbrella association of Muslim, pro-Pakistani militant groups that operate in Jammu and Kashmir.

In September of that year, Harakat ul-Ansar kidnapped two British citizens on vacation in Kashmir; the two were eventually released. The same month, group members participated in the kidnapping of four Westerners in New Delhi, India. In that case, Indian police arrested the kidnappers and freed the captives. The New Delhi kidnappings were apparently undertaken to secure hostages to trade for the release of Maulana Masood Azhar, also known as Wali Azam, a Harakat ul-Ansar leader arrested in Jammu and Kashmir by India in early 1994.

In July 1995, a Harakat ul-Ansar faction called Al Faran kidnapped six Westerners who were hiking through Kashmir. The kidnappers demanded the release of several jailed militants, including Azhar. One of the captives escaped, but the headless and mutilated body of a second was found a month after the kidnapping. The remaining four were never found and are believed to have been killed by their captors in the winter of 1995. Harakat ul-Ansar initially denied responsibility for the kidnappings, but evidence strongly pointed to the group.

In response to the kidnappings, the United States designated Harakat ul-Ansar as a terrorist organization in 1997, leading Pakistan to reduce its support of the group. Following the U.S. designation, the group changed its name from Harakat ul-Ansar (“Movement of Helpers”) to Harakat ul-Mujahidin (“Movement of Holy Warriors”). During 1998 Harakat ul-Mujahidin was active in the fighting between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in the Punjab province of Pakistan.

Several members of Harakat ul-Mujahidin died in August 1998 when the United States launched a cruise missile attack on a bin Laden training camp in Afghanistan. The following year, in a press conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, Khalil announced that his group would kill 100 Americans for every Muslim killed by the United States.

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