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| India-Pakistan |
| Haze Shrouds the Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin |
| 2004-01-22 |
| "DON’T SHOOT," Ghulam Rasool Dar had shouted out to photographers on August 3, 2000, "my life is in danger." It’s unlikely the Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin’s (HM) overall commander of operations in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) had time to make the same plea to the Indian troops who surrounded his hideout on January 16, 2004 - but his prediction turned out to be prophetic. Dar had made his way across the Line of Control in 2000 to participate in the Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin’s (HM) first - and so far, last - official contact with the Government of India. His task was to represent his Amir, or supreme commander, Mohammad Yusuf Shah, who is widely known by his nom de guerre, Syed Salahuddin. Shah had become increasingly suspicious of the pro-negotiations HM commander who spearheaded the dialogue, Abdul Majid Dar. Soon after the talks, Shah shut down the dialogue process. Majid Dar held his ground, only to be expelled from the Hizb. In March 2003, Majid Dar was executed by a HM hit squad near his home in Sopore. The assassination provoked a split within the HM’s cadre in Pakistan, but with the help of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence, Shah remained firmly in control of the organisation. Now, it appears, the HM doves have had their vengeance. Operating under the aliases Ghazi Nasiruddin, Riyaz Rasool and Zubair, Rasool Dar was second in seniority in the Hizb command, reporting only to its Amir, Mohammad Yusuf Shah. Dar’s elimination is a significant blow to the HM command structure, and could have consequences for the imminent dialogue between the Union Government and secessionist politicians in J&K. Dar was killed in a brief encounter with the 2 Rashtriya Rifles battalion at Zainakot, near Srinagar. The elimination of the HM commander marked the climax of a long-running hunt, which began soon after Dar took charge of the operational command in November 2003. The key breakthrough came when Indian intelligence began intercepting calls made by Dar on his Thuraya hand-held satellite phone. India is among the few countries in Asia with a significant satellite signal interception capability, which is enabled by a string of listening stations run by the Research and Analysis Wing’s National Technical Intelligence Communications Centre. Dar’s elimination will have considerable consequences for the HM’s military operations. The organisation has lost a string of top-level commanders over the last year - a sign, some believe, of a blood-feud within the organisation sparked off by the 2002 assassination of the pro-dialogue commander Abdul Majid Dar. In April, Indian security forces succeeded in eliminating Rasool Dar’s predecessor as military commander, Ghulam Rasool Khan. As things stand, the Hizb will be hard-pressed to find a credible successor for Dar, a Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) veteran who enjoyed the personal confidence of the organisation’s Amir. Dar himself had been reluctant to serve in the Kashmir valley, and delayed filling the post for several months after Khan was killed. Now, Shah needs to nominate someone from among his diminishing circle of confidantes on the HM’s central command council, since the organisation is fighting against time to stall the imminent dialogue between All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) moderates and New Delhi. In recent days, the HM, as well as sister jihadi organisations like the Jamait-ul-Mujaheddin (JuM), have held out threats to the life of APHC moderates. Shah is also confronted with discipline issues within the organisation. Local HM units in some areas, notably Budgam and Anantnag, are believed to have entered into profitable protection-rackets involving contractors working on the Qazigund-Baramulla railroad. Such activity, obviously, does little for organisational discipline. Although disaggregated data for Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin activities is not available, 97 terrorists were killed against just 19 Indian security personnel in December 2003, an unusually adverse ratio, indicating rising pressure on and disarray within terrorist ranks. Unfortunately for the Hizb Amir, he is open to criticism for having made deals of his own with the Indian state. Shah has five sons, not one of who has joined the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir. One, Wahid Yusuf Shah, studies at the Government Medical College in Srinagar, to which he was controversially granted an almost-unprecedented transfer from a privately run institution in Jammu. The other brothers are either students, or work in government and private sector jobs. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |