Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami
Encyclopedia
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami is an Islamic fundamentalist
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism is a term used to describe religious ideologies seen as advocating a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam: the Quran and the Sunnah. Definitions of the term vary. According to Christine L...

 organization most active in South Asian countries of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

 and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 since the early 1990s. It was banned in Bangladesh in 2005. The operational commander of HuJI, Ilyas Kashmiri
Ilyas Kashmiri (militant)
Ilyas Kashmiri, also referred to as Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri and Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri , was a senior al-Qaeda member and leader of the Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami He was also connected with the Soviet-Afghan war, the Kashmir conflict and attacks against India, Pakistan and the United States...

, was reportedly killed in a U.S. Predator drone strike in South Waziristan on June 4, 2011. He was linked to the February 13, 2010 bombing of a German bakery in the Indian city of Pune. A statement was released soon after the attack which claimed to be from Kashmiri; it threatened other cities and major sporting events in India.

History

HuJI or HJI was formed in 1984 by Fazalur Rehman Khalil and Qari Saifullah Akhtar
Qari Saifullah Akhtar
Qari Saifullah Akhtar is an alleged member of Al-Qaeda currently in Pakistani custody. Akhtar, who is listed as a graduate of the Banuri mosque in Karachi, previously was the leader of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami , a jihadi organization...

, as the first Pakistan-based jihadist, during the Soviet-Afghan War. Khalil later broke away to form his own group Harkat-ul-Ansar
Harkat-ul-Ansar
Harkat ul-Ansar was an Islamic militant organization founded by Abdelkader Mokhtari in 1993. It was the result of a merger between the groups Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami . Many of its operations were conducted in Jammu and Kashmir.Soon after its founding, several members of...

 (HuA), which later emerged as the most feared militant organization in Kashmir. This group would later re-form as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen- al-Islami is a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group operating primarily in Kashmir. In 1997, the United States designated Harakat al-Ansar a foreign terrorist organization for links to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, and in response the organization changed its name to...

 (HuM), when HuA was banned by the United States in 1997.

HuJI first limited its operations in Afghanistan to defeating the Communists, but after the Soviets retreated, the organization exported jihad to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir
Jammu and Kashmir
Jammu and Kashmir is the northernmost state of India. It is situated mostly in the Himalayan mountains. Jammu and Kashmir shares a border with the states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south and internationally with the People's Republic of China to the north and east and the...

. HuJI's footprint was extended to Bangladesh when the Bangladesh unit was established in 1992, with direct assistance from Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...

.

Ideology

HuJI, along with other jehadi groups such as Lashkar-e-Toiba
Lashkar-e-Toiba
Lashkar-e-Taiba – also transliterated as Lashkar-i-Tayyaba, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Lashkar-i-Taiba, Lashkar Taiba or LeT – is one of the largest and most active militant Islamist terrorist organizations in South Asia, operating mainly from Pakistan.It was founded by Hafiz Muhammad...

 (LeT), HuM, and Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Mohammed is a Pakistani-based, militant Islamic group established by Maulana Masood Azhar in March 2000...

 (JeM) emerged from the same source, and therefore had similar motivations and goals. However, HuJI and HuM were both strongly backed by the Taliban, and therefore the group professed Taliban-style fundamentalist Islam. HuJI espoused a Pan-Islamic ideology, but it believed in violent means to liberate Kashmir and make it a part of Pakistan.

Composition

The group recruited some of its cadres from the Deobandi
Deobandi
Deobandi is a movement of Sunni Islam. The movement began at Darul Uloom Deoband in Deoband, India, where its foundation was laid on 30 May 1866.-History:...

 madrassas of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, however the ethnic composition changed when the recruitment also began from Azad Kashmir
Azad Kashmir
Azad Jammu and Kashmir or Azad Kashmir for short, is the southernmost political entity within the Pakistani-administered part of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir...

, Punjab
Punjab (Pakistan)
Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan, with approximately 45% of the country's total population. Forming most of the Punjab region, the province is bordered by Kashmir to the north-east, the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan to the east, the Pakistani province of Sindh to the...

 and Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...

. Most of the inductions were done by the roaming jihadist cells, who lured the teenagers religious sermons imbued with the spirit of jihad, from where the process of induction began. Unlike LeT, HuJI did not require its cadres to go through religious education, rather the recruits proceeded to military training in the camps located in Afghanistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Plot to overthrow Benazir government

In September 1995, the group was connected with Islamist elements in the Pakistan Army
Pakistan Army
The Pakistan Army is the branch of the Pakistani Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. The Pakistan Army came into existence after the Partition of India and the resulting independence of Pakistan in 1947. It is currently headed by General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. The Pakistan...

 when the group's leader Saifullah Akhtar was implicated in the right-wing coup plot. A customs guard inspection of a car outside Kohat
Kohat
Kohat is a medium sized town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It is located at 33°35'13N 71°26'29E with an altitude of 489 metres and is the capital of Kohat District. The town centres around a British-era fort, various bazaars, and a military cantonment. A British-built narrow gauge...

 revealed a huge arms cache hidden in the back. Subsequent investigations unearthed a conspiracy. Those weapons were directed to Islamist Army officers, Major General Zahirul Islam Abbasi
Zahirul Islam Abbasi
Major General Zahirul Islam Abbasi , was a former commander and officer of the Pakistani Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency of the Pakistani Armed Forces. Serving in the Siachen region of the disputed territory of Kashmir, Abbasi planned and executed assaults on posts occupied by the...

, and Brigadier Mustansar Billah, who had plans to first overthrow the-then Army leadership at the next corps commander meeting and then bring Islamic revolution in the country by taking down the Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto was a democratic socialist who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996....

 government. Both generals conspired to eliminate the top military and civilian leadership and establish an 'Islamic dictatorship' in the country.

Activities in Bangladesh

After the group established its Bangladesh wing, the operations in Bangladesh increased, with the major source of recruitment coming from the Islamic madrassas. The training for these recruits was given in the hilly areas of Chittagong
Chittagong
Chittagong ) is a city in southeastern Bangladesh and the capital of an eponymous district and division. Built on the banks of the Karnaphuli River, the city is home to Bangladesh's busiest seaport and has a population of over 4.5 million, making it the second largest city in the country.A trading...

 and Cox's Bazaar.

Later on, members of the group made an attempt on the life of Shamsur Rahman
Shamsur Rahman
Shamsur Rahman was a Bangladeshi poet, columnist and journalist. Rahman, who emerged in the latter half of the 20th century, wrote more than sixty books of poetry and is considered a key figure in Bengali literature. He was regarded the unofficial poet laureate of Bangladesh...

, the liberal poet in January 1999. Committed to establishing an Islamic rule, HuJI was the prime suspect in a scheme to assassinate the Prime Minister of Bangladesh
Prime Minister of Bangladesh
The Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Bangladesh is the Head of the Government of Bangladesh. The Prime Minister and the Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Jatiya Sangsad Parliament, to their political party and ultimately to the electorate...

 Sheikh Hasina
Sheikh Hasina
Sheikh Hasina is a Bangladeshi politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Awami League, a major political party, since 1981. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh and widow of a reputed nuclear...

 in the year 2000, and has been blamed for a number of bombings in 2005. In October 2005, it was officially banned by the government of Bangladesh.

Activities in India

In April 2006, the state police Special Task Force
Special Task Force
The Special Task Force is an elite special forces unit of the Sri Lanka Police Service specializing in Counter-Terrorist and Counter-Insurgency operations. It was formed in 1983 not as a military force but rather as a highly specialised police unit...

 in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 uncovered a plot hatched by
six HuJI terrorists, including the mastermind behind the 2006 Varanasi bombings
2006 Varanasi bombings
The 2006 Varanasi bombings were a series of bombings that occurred across the Hindu holy city of Varanasi in India on Tuesday, 7 March 2006. At least 28 people are reported to have been killed and as many as 101 others were injured.-Blast at the Temple:...

, involving the destruction of two Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

 temples in the Indian city of Varanasi
Varanasi
-Etymology:The name Varanasi has its origin possibly from the names of the two rivers Varuna and Assi, for the old city lies in the north shores of the Ganga bounded by its two tributaries, the Varuna and the Asi, with the Ganges being to its south...

. Maps of their plans were recovered during their arrest. Pakistani passports had been in the possession of the arrested. Apparently Huji has claimed the responsibility for the blasts in New Delhi high court which has claimed lifes of 10 and has injured around 60.

2011 Delhi bombing

Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami has claimed responsibility for the 2011 Delhi bombing
2011 Delhi bombing
The 2011 Delhi bombing took place in the Indian capital Delhi on Wednesday, 7 September 2011 at 10:14 local time outside Gate No. 5 of the Delhi High Court, where a suspected briefcase bomb was planted. The blast killed 12 people and injured 76.-Background:...

. However, this has not been confirmed by the National Investigation Agency
National Investigation Agency (India)
National Investigation Agency is a federal agency approved by the Indian Government to combat terror in India. The agency is empowered to deal with terror related crimes across states without special permission from the states. The National Investigation Agency Bill 2008 to create the agency was...

.

14 people were killed and 94 people were injured in the bomb blast. Police have released two sketches of the suspects. Here is the Embedded video link for this latest attack. This link has English news video clip. This is in Hindi Language. Also as clear in the video links, they have also made threats to target other Indian cities.

Designation as a terrorist organization

Several governments have proscribed HuJI as a terrorist organization.

In October 2005, Bangladesh banned the militant group.

On August 6, 2010 the United States and the United Nations designated Harakat-ul Jihad al-Islami as a foreign terror group and blacklisted its commander Ilyas Kashmiri
Ilyas Kashmiri (militant)
Ilyas Kashmiri, also referred to as Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri and Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri , was a senior al-Qaeda member and leader of the Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami He was also connected with the Soviet-Afghan war, the Kashmir conflict and attacks against India, Pakistan and the United States...

. State Department counterterrorism coordinator Daniel Benjamin
Daniel Benjamin
Ambassador-at-large Daniel Benjamin is the coordinator for counterterrorism at the United States Department of State appointed by Secretary Clinton.-Life:He was a 1983 Marshall Scholar at New College, Oxford where he studied for BA in PPE....

 asserted that the actions taken demonstrated the global community's resolve to counter the group's threat. "The linkages between HUJI and Al-Qaeda are clear, and today's designations convey the operational relationship between these organizations," Benjamin said.

Militant attacks claimed by or attributed to HuJI

DateCountryDescription
1999 Bangladesh Failed attempt to assassinate the humanist poet Shamsur Rahman
Shamsur Rahman
Shamsur Rahman was a Bangladeshi poet, columnist and journalist. Rahman, who emerged in the latter half of the 20th century, wrote more than sixty books of poetry and is considered a key figure in Bengali literature. He was regarded the unofficial poet laureate of Bangladesh...

2000 Bangladesh Alleged failed scheme to assassinate the Prime Minister of Bangladesh
Prime Minister of Bangladesh
The Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Bangladesh is the Head of the Government of Bangladesh. The Prime Minister and the Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Jatiya Sangsad Parliament, to their political party and ultimately to the electorate...

 Sheikh Hasina
Sheikh Hasina
Sheikh Hasina is a Bangladeshi politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Awami League, a major political party, since 1981. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh and widow of a reputed nuclear...

2001 April 14 Bangladesh Pahela Baishakh attack on Ramna Batamul
2003 India Role in Assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...

 of the former Gujarat Home Minister Haren Pandya
Haren Pandya
Haren Pandya was the Home Minister of the Gujarat State in India. He was murdered in 2003 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, when he was sitting in his car after a morning walk in the Law Garden area in ahmedabad.-Political career:...

.
2002 January India Terror attack near the American Centre in Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

, executed in collaboration with the Dawood-linked mafioso Aftab Ansari
2005 June India Bombing of the Delhi-Patna Shramjeevi Express at Jaunpur
2005 India Suicide bombing of the headquarters of the Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...

 Police's counter-terrorism Special Task Force. A Bangladeshi national, Mohatasin Bilal, had carried out the bombing
March 2006 Varanasi
Varanasi
-Etymology:The name Varanasi has its origin possibly from the names of the two rivers Varuna and Assi, for the old city lies in the north shores of the Ganga bounded by its two tributaries, the Varuna and the Asi, with the Ganges being to its south...

, Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...

, India
Bombing of the Sankat Mochan temple, which was traced to HuJI's Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

-based cells
August 25, 2007 Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...

, India
25 August 2007 Hyderabad bombings
25 August 2007 Hyderabad bombings
The Hyderabad bombings refers to the incident in which two bombs exploded almost simultaneously on 25 August 2007 in Hyderabad, capital of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The first bomb exploded in Lumbini Amusement Park at 19:45 hrs IST. The second bomb exploded five minutes later at 19:50 in...

 (suspected, but no evidence revealed as of early September)
May 13, 2008 Jaipur
Jaipur
Jaipur , also popularly known as the Pink City, is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Rajasthan. Founded on 18 November 1727 by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, the ruler of Amber, the city today has a population of more than 3.1 million....

, Rajasthan
Rajasthan
Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...

, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

13 May 2008 Jaipur bombings
13 May 2008 Jaipur bombings
The 13 May 2008 Jaipur bombings were a series of nine synchronized bomb blasts that took place within a span of fifteen minutes at locations in Jaipur, the capital city of the Indian state of Rajasthan, and a tourist destination. A tenth bomb was found and defused. Official reports confirm 63 dead...

 (suspected; evidence pending.)
July 25, 2008 Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...

, India
2008 Bengaluru serial blasts (suspected; evidence pending.)
July 26, 2008 Ahmadabad
Ahmadabad
Ahmadabad may refer to:Afghanistan* Ahmad Abad, Afghanistan, a place in AfghanistanAzerbaijan*Əhmədabad, Goranboy, Azerbaijan*Əhmədabad, Sabirabad, Azerbaijan*Əhmədabad, Tovuz, AzerbaijanIndia* Ahmedabad , a major city in India...

, India
2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts
2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts
The 2008 Ahmedabad bombings were a series of 21 bomb blasts that hit Ahmedabad, India, on 26 July 2008, within a span of 70 minutes. 56 people were killed and over 200 people were injured. Ahmedabad is the cultural and commercial heart of Gujarat state, and a large part of...

 (suspected; evidence pending.)
September 13, 2008 Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

, India
2008 Delhi serial blasts (suspected; evidence pending.)
September 20, 2008 Islamabad
Islamabad
Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and the tenth largest city in the country. Located within the Islamabad Capital Territory , the population of the city has grown from 100,000 in 1951 to 1.7 million in 2011...

, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

2008 Marriott Hotel bombing (claimed by HuJI; evidence pending.)
October 1, 2008 Agartala, Tripura
Tripura
Tripura is a state in North-East India, with an area of . It is the third smallest state of India, according to area. Tripura is surrounded by Bangladesh on the north, south, and west. The Indian states of Assam and Mizoram lie to the east. The capital is Agartala and the main languages spoken are...

, India
2008 Agartala bombings
2008 Agartala bombings
In the 2008 Agartala bombings at least 4 people were killed and a 100 injured on 1 October 2008 in a series of 5 blasts set off in Agartala, capital of the Indian state of Tripura, within 45 minutes, while two unexploded bombs were defused....

 (HuJI suspected; evidence pending.)
October 30, 2008 Guwahati
Guwahati
Guwahati, Pragjyotishpura in ancient Assam formerly known as Gauhati is a metropolis,the largest city of Assam in India and ancient urban area in North East India, with a population of 963,429. It is also the largest metropolitan area in north-eastern India...

, Barpeta
Barpeta
Barpeta is the headquarters of Barpeta district, Assam, India. The city is located about north west of Guwahati.Barpeta is renowned in the Historical map of Assam as the "Land of the Satras"...

, Kokrajhar
Kokrajhar
Kokrajhar is a city in Bodoland Territorial Council, Assam, one of the North East States and territories of India.Kokrajhar city is located along the bank of Gourang River. The North East Indian Railways divides the city into two sides, north and the south...

, Bongaigaon
Bongaigaon
Bongaigaon is the district headquarters of Bongaigaon District, Assam, India. The city is situated north west of Guwahati.It is a very developing City in Lower Assam. It has two parts - Old Bongaigaon and New Bongaigaon. Bongaigaon is predominantly inhabited by the Koch Rajbongshi Community which...

, India
2008 Assam bombings
2008 Assam bombings
The 2008 Assam bombings occurred on 30 October 2008, before noon in markets in Guwahati city and the surrounding area of western Assam. Reports indicated as many as eighteen bombs went off, causing at least 77 deaths and 470 injuries.-Bomb attacks:...

 (HuJI suspected; evidence pending.)
September 7, 2011 New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...

, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

2011 Delhi bombing
2011 Delhi bombing
The 2011 Delhi bombing took place in the Indian capital Delhi on Wednesday, 7 September 2011 at 10:14 local time outside Gate No. 5 of the Delhi High Court, where a suspected briefcase bomb was planted. The blast killed 12 people and injured 76.-Background:...

(claimed by HuJI; evidence pending.)

External links

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