Impact on India continues....

Harkat-ul Ansar (HuA) was one such group. It was carved out of an Afghan mujahideen group called Harkat-ul Mujahideen

(HuM) led by Fazlur Rahman Khalil, a protégé of ISI. Khalil later joined hands with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda and was signatory to the fatwa issued against the US by al Qaeda. Khalil today lives and operates a madrasa in Chakwal near Rawalpindi.

HuA, with active ISI support, not only subsumed indigenous

Kashmiri militant groups but also expanded terrorist activities

beyond Kashmir. HuA first targeted the Indian security forces and then shifted its attention to western tourists in Kashmir as it began networking with global jihadist groups like al Qaeda and the

Taliban.

HuA moved quickly from Kashmir to plan terrorist attacks in other parts of India. For instance, HuA was involved in the Lajpat Nagar market bombing of May 1996 in which 16 persons were killed. There were also credible intelligence reports of

HuA planning attacks against VIPs and civilian aircrafts in India.

These warnings became prophetic when HuA and ISI engineered the IC-814 hijack in December 1999 to free one of HuA’s key leaders, Maulana Masood Azhar.

A closer scrutiny of HuA’s involvement in Kashmir and attempts by ISI to revive terrorist activities in India over the past three decades would underline the nature of threats that might emerge in the course of events unfolding in Afghanistan today.

To be continued..