Haze Shrouds the Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin
Praveen Swami
"DON'T SHOOT," Ghulam Rasool Dar had
shouted out to photographers on August 3, 2000, "my life is in danger."
Its 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 HM's 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. Majid Dar
himself was told not to meet India's then-Home Secretary, Kamal Pande,
and to send his deputy, Farooq Sheikh Mirchal, instead. Rasool Dar
represented the hardliners. Soon after the talks, Shah shut down the
dialogue process.
Majid Dar held his ground, only to be expelled from the Hizb. In August
2001, the HM organised Mirchal's assassination, who had emerged as the
key organiser among the pro-dialogue HM faction. Not so long afterwards,
in March 2003, Majid Dar himself 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. Fayyaz Ahmad, a HM deputy
divisional commander in charge of southern Kashmir, was shot dead along
with him. A resident of Tral, Ahmad also handled finance and publicity
work for the Hizb.
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.
While RAW's technical intelligence helped security personnel gain a
general idea of where Dar was operating, not a little work remained
before the jaws of the trap finally closed. At 5:30 PM on Thursday,
January 15, Border Security Force (BSF) personnel succeeded in
eliminating the Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin deputy commander, Mohammad Abbas
Malik, at a safe house in Srinagar. Malik, a resident of Gund in Doda
had earlier served as a divisional commander in the mountain district.
A series of raids began after Malik's elimination, targeting the
locations of all local telephone numbers dialled from his satellite
phone. Correctly believing that Indian security forces would soon locate
him, and knowing his safe houses had been identified, Dar fled Srinagar
to a suburban safe-house used by Ahmad. Soon after they arrived there, a
source working for the 2 Rashtriya Rifles informed the battalion that
two unidentified terrorists were hiding out in the area.
Dar's elimination will have considerable consequences for the HM's
military operations. The organisation has lost a string of top-level
commander 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, who operated
under the code-names Saif-ul-Islam and Engineer Zamaan. Dar's deputy,
Pakistani national Saif-ul-Rahman Bajwa, was subsequently killed by the
BSF in November. Khan's killing would have given considerable
satisfaction to the HM dissidents, since he had ordered Mirchal's
execution, hoping to remove pro-dialogue elements from the key border
district of Kupwara.
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. He had narrowly escaped
several security force operations while serving in J&K, and his family
had left for Pakistan on the New Delhi-Lahore bus service inaugurated by
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
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 himself also opposed the
ongoing détente process between India and Pakistan.
Shortly before his death, Dar is also believed to have personally met
the JeI chief Syed Nazir Ahmad Kashani, to demand that the organisation
throw its weight behind the Islamist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
Geelani has opposed the talks soon scheduled to take place between the
APHC and New Delhi, although, unlike the Hizb itself, he has backed the
parallel India-Pakistan détente. Dar's efforts to swing support for
Geelani had, however, met with little success. Notably, Kashani did not
attend Dar's burial ceremony.
If the failure to coral the JeI is indicative of a larger split within
the constituency from which the HM draws its ranks, the consequences for
the terrorist organisation could be calamitous. Majid Dar's initiative
did not quite pose as much of a challenge to the Hizb as do the
moderates within the JeI. Both Majid Dar and Qureshi had their political
roots in the People's League, not the JeI, and served in the
Tehreek-i-Jihad before joining the HM.
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.
What could the HM's options now be? Both Dar and the Hizb's central
division commander, Abdul Rashid Pir, had in recent weeks met senior
political leaders from the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), as
well as the opposition National Conference. One meeting, with a top PDP
leader, is believed to have taken place only four days before Dar was
eliminated. Dar is also believed to have met a senior National
Conference leader from central Kashmir with substantial support among
the Gujjar community.
Little is known about the possible content of this dialogue track. While
the PDP has enthusiastically backed the New Delhi-APHC dialogue, it has
also been calling for the Hizb to be invited for negotiations. Some
analysts believe the PDP has a long-term interest in actually seeing the
APHC dialogue fail, since the moderates and the party compete for
essentially the same mass constituency. If this is, indeed, the PDP's
objective, its covert negotiations with the HM have obvious
significance.
Courtesy:
South Asia Terrorism Portal |
