The case of Al-Qaeda in Kashmir
The Case of Al-Qaeda in Kashmir
WRITTEN BY SAURAV SARKAR
19 June 2020
Ever since the formation of Ansar Ghazwatul Hind (AGH) in 2017 as an Al-Qaeda-inspired group in Kashmir, Al-Qaeda has renewed its efforts to make inroads into the Kashmiri jihadist landscape. While Al-Qaeda is no stranger to Kashmir it has thus far been unable to make it a priority region. Osama bin Laden mentioned and tracked developments in Kashmir at least as early as 1996 and quite frequently till his death in 2011. AGH’s pan-Islamist message has had relatively little resonance in Kashmir as the militancy has been dominated by Pakistan-backed groups with political goals. Although AGH activities in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) have not been as high profile as those of other cross-border terrorist groups it has still managed to attract members from groups such as Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the Islamic State (IS).
From Hizbul to Ansar
AGH was formed after Zakir Musa, former commander of the HM in Kashmir, supposedly became disillusioned with the Kashmiri jihad which he felt had been hijacked by nationalist and political interests and not Islam. Musa broke away from HM and called for a sharia-ruled Islamic state in Kashmir. In July 2017 Al-Qaeda announced the formation of AGH under Musa’s leadership. However, there is no public record of Musa nor his successors pledging allegiance to Al-Qaeda or its leader Ayman al-Zawahiri; Al-Qaeda only announced that AGH was a new jihadist movement to “liberate” Kashmir. The death of Burhan Wani in 2016, Musa’s predecessor in HM, was labelled as the catalyst in the formation of AGH and for the Kashmiri jihad entering a new phase as per Al-Qaeda’s announcement. Wani had also promoted the idea of an Islamic state in Kashmir before his death.
AGH activities are mostly independent of any oversight by Al-Qaeda. However, AGH comes under Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) formed in 2014 and is centred in Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s tribal areas, allied primarily with the Taliban. During AGH’s early days Musa utilized his connections to HM to recruit militants for his outfit and is also believed to have worked closely with JeM and LeT. J&K Police officials believe links still exist between AGH and JeM/LeT/HM. Al-Qaeda’s influence over terror groups which have historically operated in J&K is profound.
Leaders and founders of these groups have had close ties to Bin Laden and/or Al-Qaeda at some point and some still continue to co-operate with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan alongside the Taliban. In May 2019 Indian security forces killed Musa in a counter-terrorism (CT) operation following which his death was highlighted as a martyrdom by jihadists and his name continues to inspire Kashmiri jihadists from other groups.
Recent activities related to Al-Qaeda in Kashmir
In July 2019 Al-Qaeda released a video message by al-Zawahiri wherein he mentioned mobilizing jihadist sentiment in J&K and attracting recruits to Al-Qaeda, especially at a time when its rival IS had declared India and Pakistan its wilayats (provinces). Curiously, he did not once mention AGH or Musa (nor his successor) in his address.
However, almost simultaneously a video by Musa’s successor Haroon Abbas surfaced where he ambitiously called for all jihadist groups in J&K to be overseen by a single jihadist council in Indian Kashmir (similar to the Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir-based United Jihad Council led by HM leader Syed Salahuddin). He further stated that after Musa’s death an “agency from Pakistan” reached out to AGH offering weapons (which he claims to have rejected) under the “conditions” that AGH would not act “without permission from the agency” and “no action would be big and impactful.” Given Pakistan’s history of supporting terror groups in J&K it is possible that its Inter-Services Intelligence agency has sought a compromise with AGH.
In March this year AQIS changed the name of its Urdu language magazine Nawa-e-Afghan Jihad to Nawa-e-Ghazwa-e-Hind (NGH). This change may have been required in order to give the impression that India would be the priority theatre for AQIS after its apparently successful jihad against U.S. forces in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban. An alternate explanation would be the attempt to create artificial distance between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in light of the recent U.S.-Taliban agreement. A featured article, written by an apparent Kashmiri, detailed Al-Qaeda’s intent and attempts to increase its footprint in Kashmir. It also claims that AGH does not feel hostility towards other mujahideen groups in J&K and credits them for inspiring AGH’s jihad.
A total of 43 AGH terrorists have been killed in J&K since its formation in mid-2017 with the number of its members killed every year increasing steadily. In 2017 when it first arrived on the scene eight of its militants were killed and now in the first five months of 2020 that number stands at fourteen, the most so far in a year. This may suggest there is an increase in CT operations by Indian security forces and/or AGH membership has grown. Of the AGH militants killed so far all were Kashmiri except for two who were from Pakistan.
Conclusion
AGH continues to suffer from a lack of weapons and resources and its membership has dwindled. Two AGH militants killed recently on 25 May in Kulgam were armed only with pistols and a grenade. One of the militants killed was formerly associated with Tehrik-ul-Mujahideēn, who then shifted to IS and then again to AGH and yet did not own a proper weapon. A newly formed militant group The Resistance Front has also given a tribute to their deaths. The severe scarcity of weapons affecting recruitment was also mentioned in the first issue of NGH where one AGH member is noted as saying that for every jihadist with an assault rifle there are three jihadists armed only with pistols. An AGH deputy chief killed on April 28 had joined the militancy after snatching a rifle from an Indian soldier, another was armed only with a pistol (also snatched) during the encounter.
Often affiliations of jhadists in Kashmir do not matter much to those sympathetic to their cause as long as they are fighting Indian forces. It is not uncommon to see AQIS/AGH, IS, HM/TRF, Taliban graffiti and symbols side by side during protests and on buildings. While groups like Al-Qaeda and IS are the exception and not the norm in J&K some of their tactics such as suicide bombings and improvised explosive device (IED) attacks have inspired the existing terror groups in J&K as seen in the February 2019 Pulwama suicide vehicle-borne IED (SVBIED) attack by JeM. At least twelve suicide bombing attacks have occurred in J&K since 2000. AGH is probably playing the long game by building its strength and cooperating with other groups in Kashmir.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Saurav Sarkar is a Research Associate at the Center for Air Power Studies, Western Air Command, New Delhi, India. Previously, he was a Research Assistant at the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS), New Delhi. Image credit: Wikipedia Commons.