You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Afghanistan/South Asia
Al Aalmi: a mysterious group
2004-04-16
Requires registration
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen Al Aalmi, a splinter group of the outlawed Harkat-ul-Mujahideen of Fazlur Rehman Khalili, has been accused since 2002 of mounting various terrorist attacks. Its activists have been arrested in connection with two abortive attempts on General Pervez Musharraf’s life as well as the attack on the US consulate. It has also been accused of last week’s car bomb blast ostensibly to disrupt the concert of Indian singer Sonu Nigam. In the last week police have arrested nine members of the alleged Al Aalmi group, including one of its most wanted militants Suhail Akhtar alias Mustafa. Officials say Mustafa was the contact who contracted and provided suicide bombers to different organisations. A few days before the recent arrest of Al Aalmi activists, some unknown militants attacked a makeshift police station in Gulistan-e-Jauhar and shot dead five policemen at point blank range. One of the cops was a Christian. Police officials suspect Al Aalmi’s hand in the attack. Similarly, Rangers’ officials believe the attack on one of their vehicles which killed a Rangers’ jawan and a passerby besides inuring three other Rangers’ personnel was also mounted by Al Aalmi members. The group is also being suspected in the major weapon catch in the outskirts of Karachi. The weapons included an 82 mm mortar which has a range of up to five kilometer. The same night the weapons cache was recovered, a car bomb near the DHA Golf Club killed one person and injured 11 others. Just two kms from the site of the blast, an Indian singer was performing for the Karachi audience.

So what is Al Aalmi? Funnily, law enforcement agencies have nothing on the organisation in terms of literature or any other propaganda material, normally a staple of such groups. Is it a real group or is it a cover name for some other group? Al Aalmi’s name appeared about two years ago when Rangers arrested five religious extremists in connection with the suicide bomb blast outside the US Consulate on June 14, 2002. One of them was a bearded man Mohammad Imran Bhai. Rangers’ officials claimed Bhai was the amir of the group. Officials also said Al Aalmi was an offshoot of Khalili’s HM after some HM cadres developed differences with Khalili and formed their own group. A few days later when TFT met with Imran Bhai in a courtroom and asked him about Al Aalmi, he said: “ I am a member of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. Al Aalmi is the product of Rangers and security agencies. There is no division in HM.”
I've been thinking of it as the hit squad for another group, perhaps HM but more likely Jaish e-Mohammad...
So far, police and security agencies have not found any literature on Al Aalmi. The group also has no offices. Similarly, there is no evidence of Al Aalmi’s presence in any other part of the country. Security agencies believe Al Aalmi is an underground organisation of highly trained militants, which have targeted police and other law enforcement agencies. Interestingly, officials deny any involvement of Khalili’s HM in the terrorist attacks in Pakistan. Three groups have been flagged by security agencies for mounting attacks inside Pakistan: Jaish-e Mohammad, Lashkar-e Jhangvi and Al Aalmi. But while there is much literature on Jaish and Lashkar, there is absolutely nothing on Al Aalmi. The group remains a mystery even as intelligence agencies continue to implicate it in various attacks in Karachi.
Posted by:Paul Moloney

00:00