Focus: Is Hizbul Attack In Srinagar A New Dawn For Jihad?

By M H Ahssan / Srinagar

Even as the army absorbs the lessons of its worst loss of life in Kashmir for five years—and the worst attack its ever suffered in Srinagar—there’s one stark fact which stands out: for the first time since the near-war of 2001-2002, Indian security force fatalities have increased. In the first six months of 2013, India has already lost more police and military personnel than it did in all of 2012, and more than it did in 2011. This is, moreover, the first time that any index of violence has shown an uptick since 2002, when a dramatic year-on-year choking of the Kashmir jihad began.

What's India Role For 'Baloch Children' Of 'Hinglaj Mata'?

Pakistan continues to back Kashmiri jihadists but pacifist policies in New Delhi thwart help.

Should India act like Arjuna, the reluctant warrior, with regard to France-size territory of immense strategic interest Balochistan, where unlike West Punjab - bastion of Pakistan Army - Baloch people highly revere India? Or should it live upto the expectations of the children of Hinglaj Mata - Baloch people of Balochistan, who call the ancient Hindu deity on their homeland Nani Mandir - and openly support their liberation struggle?

EXCLUSIVE: Al-Qaeda 'hijack' led to Mumbai attack

By Syed Saleem Shezad & M H Ahssan

A plan by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) that had been in the pipelines for several months - even though official policy was to ditch it - saw what was to be a low-profile attack in Kashmir turn into the massive attacks on Mumbai last week.

The original plan was highjacked by the Laskar-e-Taiba (LET), a Pakistani militant group that generally focussed on the Kashmir struggle, and al-Qaeda, resulting in the deaths of nearly 200 people in Mumbai as groups of militants sprayed bullets and hand grenades at hotels, restaurants and train stations, as well as a Jewish community center.

The attack has sent shock waves across India and threatens to revive the intense periods of hostility the two countries have endured since their independence from British India in 1947.

There is now the possibility that Pakistan will undergo another about-turn and rethink its support of the "war in terror"; until the end of 2001, it supported the Taliban administration in Afghanistan. It could now back off from its restive tribal areas, leaving the Taliban a free hand to consolidate their Afghan insurgency.

A US State Department official categorically mentioned that Pakistan's "smoking gun" could turn the US's relations with Pakistan sour. The one militant captured - several were killed - is reported to have been a Pakistani trained by the LET.

HNN investigations reveal that several things went wrong within the ISI, which resulted in the Mumbai attacks.

Before the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, the ISI had several operations areas as far as India was concerned. The major forward sections were in Muzzafarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which were used to launch proxy operations through Kashmir separatist groups in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The next major areas were Nepal and Bangladesh, where both countries were used for smuggling arms and ammunition into India and for launching militants to carry out high-level guerrilla operations in Indian territory other than Kashmir.

After 9/11, when Islamabad sided with the United States in the "war on terror" and the invasion of Afghanistan was launched to catch al-Qaeda members and militants, Pakistan was forced to abandon its Muzzafarabad operations under American pressure. The major recent turn in the political situation in Nepal with the victory of Maoists and the abolishment of the monarchy has reduced the ISI's operations. An identical situation has happened in Bangladesh, where governments have changed.

The only active forward sections were left in the southern port city of Karachi, and the former Muzzafarabad sections were sent there. The PNS Iqbal (a naval commando unit) was the main outlet for militants to be given training and through deserted points they were launched into the Arabian sea and on into the Indian region of Gujarat.

At the same time, Washington mediated a dialogue process between India and Pakistan, which resulted in some calm. Militants were advised by the ISI to sit tight at their homes to await orders.

However, that never happened. The most important asset of the ISI, the Laskhar-e-Taiba (LET), was split after 9/11. Several of its top-ranking commanders and office bearers joined hands with al-Qaeda militants. A millionaire Karachi-based businessman, Arif Qasmani, who was a major donor for ISI-sponsored LET operations in India, was arrested for playing a double game - he was accused of working with the ISI while also sending money to Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal area for the purchase of arms and ammunition for al-Qaeda militants.

The network of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, which was a major supporter of the ISI in the whole region, especially in Bangladesh, was shattered and fell into the hands of al-Qaeda when Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri, chief of Harkat, a hero of the armed struggle in Kashmir who had spent two years in an Indian jail, was arrested by Pakistani security forces in January 2004. He was suspected of having links to suicide bombers who rammed their vehicles into then-president General Pervez Musharraf's convoy on December 25, 2003.

He was released after 30 days and cleared of all suspicion, but he was profoundly affected by the experience and abandoned his struggle for Kashmir's independence and moved to the North Waziristan tribal area with his family. His switch from the Kashmiri struggle to the Afghan resistance was an authentic religious instruction to those in the camps in Kashmir to move to support Afghanistan's armed struggle against foreign forces. Hundreds of Pakistani jihadis established a small training camp in the area.

Almost simultaneously, Harkat's Bangladesh network disconnected itself from the ISI and moved closer to al-Qaeda. That was the beginning of the problem which makes the Mumbai attack a very complex story.

India has never been a direct al-Qaeda target. This has been due in part to Delhi's traditionally impartial policy of strategic non-alignment and in part to al-Qaeda using India as a safe route from the Arabian Sea into Gujrat and then on to Mumbai and then either by air or overland to the United Arab Emirates. Al-Qaeda did not want to disrupt this arrangement by stirring up attacks in India.

Nevertheless, growing voices from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and from within India for the country to be a strategic partner of NATO and the US in Afghanistan compelled al-Qaeda, a year ago, to consider a plan to utilize Islamic militancy structures should this occur.

Several low-profile attacks were carried out in various parts of India as a rehearsal and Indian security agencies still have no idea who was behind them. Nevertheless, al-Qaeda was not yet prepared for any bigger moves, like the Mumbai attacks.

Under directives from Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kiani, who was then director general (DG) of the ISI, a low-profile plan was prepared to support Kashmiri militancy. That was normal, even in light of the peace process with India. Although Pakistan had closed down its major operations, it still provided some support to the militants so that the Kashmiri movement would not die down completely.

After Kiani was promoted to chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj was placed as DG of the ISI. The external section under him routinely executed the plan of Kiani and trained a few dozen LET militants near Mangla Dam (near the capital Islamabad). They were sent by sea to Gujrat, from where they had to travel to Kashmir to carry out operations.

Meanwhile, a major reshuffle in the ISI two months ago officially shelved this low-key plan as the country's whole focus had shifted towards Pakistan's tribal areas. The director of the external wing was also changed, placing the "game" in the hands of a low-level ISI forward section head (a major) and the LET's commander-in-chief, Zakiur Rahman.

Zakiur was in Karachi for two months to personally oversee the plan. However, the militant networks in India and Bangladesh comprising the Harkat, which were now in al-Qaeda's hands, tailored some changes. Instead of Kashmir, they planned to attack Mumbai, using their existent local networks, with Westerners and the Jewish community center as targets.

Zakiur and the ISI's forward section in Karachi, completely disconnected from the top brass, approved the plan under which more than 10 men took Mumbai hostage for nearly three days and successfully established a reign of terror.

The attack, started from ISI headquarters and fined-tuned by al-Qaeda, has obviously caused outrage across India. The next issue is whether it has the potential to change the course of India's regional strategy and deter it from participating in NATO plans in Afghanistan.

Daniel Pipes, considered a leading member of Washington's neo-conservatives, told HNN, "It could be the other way around, like always happens with al-Qaeda. Nine-eleven was aimed to create a reign of terror in Washington, but only caused a very furious reaction from the United States of America. The 07/07 bombing [in London] was another move to force the UK to pull out of Iraq, but it further reinforced the UK's policies in the 'war on terror'. The Madrid bombing was just an isolated incident which caused Spain's pullout from Iraq."

Pipes continued, "They [militants] are the believers of conspiracy theories and therefore they would have seen the Jewish center [attacked in Mumbai] as some sort of influence in the region and that's why they chose to target it, but on the other hand they got immense international attention which they could not have acquired if they would have just attacked local targets."

Israeli politician and a former interim president, Abraham Burg, told HNN, "It was not only Jewish but American and other foreigners [who were targeted]. The main purpose may have been to keep foreigners away from India. Nevertheless, there is something deeper. This attack on a Jewish target becomes symbolic.

"I remember when al-Qaeda carried out the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen [in 2000] and then they carried out attacks on American embassies in Africa, they mentioned several reasons. The Palestinian issue was number four or five, but later when they found that it had become the most popular one, it suddenly climbed up to number one position on their priority list. Since the attack on the Jewish institution drew so much attention, God forbid, it could be their strategy all over the world," Burg said.

Al-Qaeda stoked this particular fire that could spark new hostilities in South Asia. What steps India takes on the military front against Pakistan will become clearer in the coming days, but already in Karachi there has been trouble.

Two well-known Indophile political parties, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, a coalition partner in the government comprising people who migrated to Pakistan after the partition of British India in 1947, and the Awami National Party, another coalition partner in the government and a Pashtun sub-nationalist political party, clashed within 24 hours of the Mumbai attacks. Fifteen people have been killed to date and the city is closed, like Mumbai was after the November 26 attacks.

EXCLUSIVE: Al-Qaeda 'hijack' led to Mumbai attack

By Syed Saleem Shezad & M H Ahssan

A plan by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) that had been in the pipelines for several months - even though official policy was to ditch it - saw what was to be a low-profile attack in Kashmir turn into the massive attacks on Mumbai last week.

The original plan was highjacked by the Laskar-e-Taiba (LET), a Pakistani militant group that generally focussed on the Kashmir struggle, and al-Qaeda, resulting in the deaths of nearly 200 people in Mumbai as groups of militants sprayed bullets and hand grenades at hotels, restaurants and train stations, as well as a Jewish community center.

The attack has sent shock waves across India and threatens to revive the intense periods of hostility the two countries have endured since their independence from British India in 1947.

There is now the possibility that Pakistan will undergo another about-turn and rethink its support of the "war in terror"; until the end of 2001, it supported the Taliban administration in Afghanistan. It could now back off from its restive tribal areas, leaving the Taliban a free hand to consolidate their Afghan insurgency.

A US State Department official categorically mentioned that Pakistan's "smoking gun" could turn the US's relations with Pakistan sour. The one militant captured - several were killed - is reported to have been a Pakistani trained by the LET.

HNN investigations reveal that several things went wrong within the ISI, which resulted in the Mumbai attacks.

Before the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, the ISI had several operations areas as far as India was concerned. The major forward sections were in Muzzafarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which were used to launch proxy operations through Kashmir separatist groups in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The next major areas were Nepal and Bangladesh, where both countries were used for smuggling arms and ammunition into India and for launching militants to carry out high-level guerrilla operations in Indian territory other than Kashmir.

After 9/11, when Islamabad sided with the United States in the "war on terror" and the invasion of Afghanistan was launched to catch al-Qaeda members and militants, Pakistan was forced to abandon its Muzzafarabad operations under American pressure. The major recent turn in the political situation in Nepal with the victory of Maoists and the abolishment of the monarchy has reduced the ISI's operations. An identical situation has happened in Bangladesh, where governments have changed.

The only active forward sections were left in the southern port city of Karachi, and the former Muzzafarabad sections were sent there. The PNS Iqbal (a naval commando unit) was the main outlet for militants to be given training and through deserted points they were launched into the Arabian sea and on into the Indian region of Gujarat.

At the same time, Washington mediated a dialogue process between India and Pakistan, which resulted in some calm. Militants were advised by the ISI to sit tight at their homes to await orders.

However, that never happened. The most important asset of the ISI, the Laskhar-e-Taiba (LET), was split after 9/11. Several of its top-ranking commanders and office bearers joined hands with al-Qaeda militants. A millionaire Karachi-based businessman, Arif Qasmani, who was a major donor for ISI-sponsored LET operations in India, was arrested for playing a double game - he was accused of working with the ISI while also sending money to Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal area for the purchase of arms and ammunition for al-Qaeda militants.

The network of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, which was a major supporter of the ISI in the whole region, especially in Bangladesh, was shattered and fell into the hands of al-Qaeda when Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri, chief of Harkat, a hero of the armed struggle in Kashmir who had spent two years in an Indian jail, was arrested by Pakistani security forces in January 2004. He was suspected of having links to suicide bombers who rammed their vehicles into then-president General Pervez Musharraf's convoy on December 25, 2003.

He was released after 30 days and cleared of all suspicion, but he was profoundly affected by the experience and abandoned his struggle for Kashmir's independence and moved to the North Waziristan tribal area with his family. His switch from the Kashmiri struggle to the Afghan resistance was an authentic religious instruction to those in the camps in Kashmir to move to support Afghanistan's armed struggle against foreign forces. Hundreds of Pakistani jihadis established a small training camp in the area.

Almost simultaneously, Harkat's Bangladesh network disconnected itself from the ISI and moved closer to al-Qaeda. That was the beginning of the problem which makes the Mumbai attack a very complex story.

India has never been a direct al-Qaeda target. This has been due in part to Delhi's traditionally impartial policy of strategic non-alignment and in part to al-Qaeda using India as a safe route from the Arabian Sea into Gujrat and then on to Mumbai and then either by air or overland to the United Arab Emirates. Al-Qaeda did not want to disrupt this arrangement by stirring up attacks in India.

Nevertheless, growing voices from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and from within India for the country to be a strategic partner of NATO and the US in Afghanistan compelled al-Qaeda, a year ago, to consider a plan to utilize Islamic militancy structures should this occur.

Several low-profile attacks were carried out in various parts of India as a rehearsal and Indian security agencies still have no idea who was behind them. Nevertheless, al-Qaeda was not yet prepared for any bigger moves, like the Mumbai attacks.

Under directives from Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kiani, who was then director general (DG) of the ISI, a low-profile plan was prepared to support Kashmiri militancy. That was normal, even in light of the peace process with India. Although Pakistan had closed down its major operations, it still provided some support to the militants so that the Kashmiri movement would not die down completely.

After Kiani was promoted to chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj was placed as DG of the ISI. The external section under him routinely executed the plan of Kiani and trained a few dozen LET militants near Mangla Dam (near the capital Islamabad). They were sent by sea to Gujrat, from where they had to travel to Kashmir to carry out operations.

Meanwhile, a major reshuffle in the ISI two months ago officially shelved this low-key plan as the country's whole focus had shifted towards Pakistan's tribal areas. The director of the external wing was also changed, placing the "game" in the hands of a low-level ISI forward section head (a major) and the LET's commander-in-chief, Zakiur Rahman.

Zakiur was in Karachi for two months to personally oversee the plan. However, the militant networks in India and Bangladesh comprising the Harkat, which were now in al-Qaeda's hands, tailored some changes. Instead of Kashmir, they planned to attack Mumbai, using their existent local networks, with Westerners and the Jewish community center as targets.

Zakiur and the ISI's forward section in Karachi, completely disconnected from the top brass, approved the plan under which more than 10 men took Mumbai hostage for nearly three days and successfully established a reign of terror.

The attack, started from ISI headquarters and fined-tuned by al-Qaeda, has obviously caused outrage across India. The next issue is whether it has the potential to change the course of India's regional strategy and deter it from participating in NATO plans in Afghanistan.

Daniel Pipes, considered a leading member of Washington's neo-conservatives, told HNN, "It could be the other way around, like always happens with al-Qaeda. Nine-eleven was aimed to create a reign of terror in Washington, but only caused a very furious reaction from the United States of America. The 07/07 bombing [in London] was another move to force the UK to pull out of Iraq, but it further reinforced the UK's policies in the 'war on terror'. The Madrid bombing was just an isolated incident which caused Spain's pullout from Iraq."

Pipes continued, "They [militants] are the believers of conspiracy theories and therefore they would have seen the Jewish center [attacked in Mumbai] as some sort of influence in the region and that's why they chose to target it, but on the other hand they got immense international attention which they could not have acquired if they would have just attacked local targets."

Israeli politician and a former interim president, Abraham Burg, told HNN, "It was not only Jewish but American and other foreigners [who were targeted]. The main purpose may have been to keep foreigners away from India. Nevertheless, there is something deeper. This attack on a Jewish target becomes symbolic.

"I remember when al-Qaeda carried out the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen [in 2000] and then they carried out attacks on American embassies in Africa, they mentioned several reasons. The Palestinian issue was number four or five, but later when they found that it had become the most popular one, it suddenly climbed up to number one position on their priority list. Since the attack on the Jewish institution drew so much attention, God forbid, it could be their strategy all over the world," Burg said.

Al-Qaeda stoked this particular fire that could spark new hostilities in South Asia. What steps India takes on the military front against Pakistan will become clearer in the coming days, but already in Karachi there has been trouble.

Two well-known Indophile political parties, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, a coalition partner in the government comprising people who migrated to Pakistan after the partition of British India in 1947, and the Awami National Party, another coalition partner in the government and a Pashtun sub-nationalist political party, clashed within 24 hours of the Mumbai attacks. Fifteen people have been killed to date and the city is closed, like Mumbai was after the November 26 attacks.

EXCLUSIVE: Al-Qaeda 'hijack' led to Mumbai attack

By Syed Saleem Shezad & M H Ahssan

A plan by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) that had been in the pipelines for several months - even though official policy was to ditch it - saw what was to be a low-profile attack in Kashmir turn into the massive attacks on Mumbai last week.

The original plan was highjacked by the Laskar-e-Taiba (LET), a Pakistani militant group that generally focussed on the Kashmir struggle, and al-Qaeda, resulting in the deaths of nearly 200 people in Mumbai as groups of militants sprayed bullets and hand grenades at hotels, restaurants and train stations, as well as a Jewish community center.

The attack has sent shock waves across India and threatens to revive the intense periods of hostility the two countries have endured since their independence from British India in 1947.

There is now the possibility that Pakistan will undergo another about-turn and rethink its support of the "war in terror"; until the end of 2001, it supported the Taliban administration in Afghanistan. It could now back off from its restive tribal areas, leaving the Taliban a free hand to consolidate their Afghan insurgency.

A US State Department official categorically mentioned that Pakistan's "smoking gun" could turn the US's relations with Pakistan sour. The one militant captured - several were killed - is reported to have been a Pakistani trained by the LET.

HNN investigations reveal that several things went wrong within the ISI, which resulted in the Mumbai attacks.

Before the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, the ISI had several operations areas as far as India was concerned. The major forward sections were in Muzzafarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which were used to launch proxy operations through Kashmir separatist groups in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The next major areas were Nepal and Bangladesh, where both countries were used for smuggling arms and ammunition into India and for launching militants to carry out high-level guerrilla operations in Indian territory other than Kashmir.

After 9/11, when Islamabad sided with the United States in the "war on terror" and the invasion of Afghanistan was launched to catch al-Qaeda members and militants, Pakistan was forced to abandon its Muzzafarabad operations under American pressure. The major recent turn in the political situation in Nepal with the victory of Maoists and the abolishment of the monarchy has reduced the ISI's operations. An identical situation has happened in Bangladesh, where governments have changed.

The only active forward sections were left in the southern port city of Karachi, and the former Muzzafarabad sections were sent there. The PNS Iqbal (a naval commando unit) was the main outlet for militants to be given training and through deserted points they were launched into the Arabian sea and on into the Indian region of Gujarat.

At the same time, Washington mediated a dialogue process between India and Pakistan, which resulted in some calm. Militants were advised by the ISI to sit tight at their homes to await orders.

However, that never happened. The most important asset of the ISI, the Laskhar-e-Taiba (LET), was split after 9/11. Several of its top-ranking commanders and office bearers joined hands with al-Qaeda militants. A millionaire Karachi-based businessman, Arif Qasmani, who was a major donor for ISI-sponsored LET operations in India, was arrested for playing a double game - he was accused of working with the ISI while also sending money to Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal area for the purchase of arms and ammunition for al-Qaeda militants.

The network of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, which was a major supporter of the ISI in the whole region, especially in Bangladesh, was shattered and fell into the hands of al-Qaeda when Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri, chief of Harkat, a hero of the armed struggle in Kashmir who had spent two years in an Indian jail, was arrested by Pakistani security forces in January 2004. He was suspected of having links to suicide bombers who rammed their vehicles into then-president General Pervez Musharraf's convoy on December 25, 2003.

He was released after 30 days and cleared of all suspicion, but he was profoundly affected by the experience and abandoned his struggle for Kashmir's independence and moved to the North Waziristan tribal area with his family. His switch from the Kashmiri struggle to the Afghan resistance was an authentic religious instruction to those in the camps in Kashmir to move to support Afghanistan's armed struggle against foreign forces. Hundreds of Pakistani jihadis established a small training camp in the area.

Almost simultaneously, Harkat's Bangladesh network disconnected itself from the ISI and moved closer to al-Qaeda. That was the beginning of the problem which makes the Mumbai attack a very complex story.

India has never been a direct al-Qaeda target. This has been due in part to Delhi's traditionally impartial policy of strategic non-alignment and in part to al-Qaeda using India as a safe route from the Arabian Sea into Gujrat and then on to Mumbai and then either by air or overland to the United Arab Emirates. Al-Qaeda did not want to disrupt this arrangement by stirring up attacks in India.

Nevertheless, growing voices from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and from within India for the country to be a strategic partner of NATO and the US in Afghanistan compelled al-Qaeda, a year ago, to consider a plan to utilize Islamic militancy structures should this occur.

Several low-profile attacks were carried out in various parts of India as a rehearsal and Indian security agencies still have no idea who was behind them. Nevertheless, al-Qaeda was not yet prepared for any bigger moves, like the Mumbai attacks.

Under directives from Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kiani, who was then director general (DG) of the ISI, a low-profile plan was prepared to support Kashmiri militancy. That was normal, even in light of the peace process with India. Although Pakistan had closed down its major operations, it still provided some support to the militants so that the Kashmiri movement would not die down completely.

After Kiani was promoted to chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj was placed as DG of the ISI. The external section under him routinely executed the plan of Kiani and trained a few dozen LET militants near Mangla Dam (near the capital Islamabad). They were sent by sea to Gujrat, from where they had to travel to Kashmir to carry out operations.

Meanwhile, a major reshuffle in the ISI two months ago officially shelved this low-key plan as the country's whole focus had shifted towards Pakistan's tribal areas. The director of the external wing was also changed, placing the "game" in the hands of a low-level ISI forward section head (a major) and the LET's commander-in-chief, Zakiur Rahman.

Zakiur was in Karachi for two months to personally oversee the plan. However, the militant networks in India and Bangladesh comprising the Harkat, which were now in al-Qaeda's hands, tailored some changes. Instead of Kashmir, they planned to attack Mumbai, using their existent local networks, with Westerners and the Jewish community center as targets.

Zakiur and the ISI's forward section in Karachi, completely disconnected from the top brass, approved the plan under which more than 10 men took Mumbai hostage for nearly three days and successfully established a reign of terror.

The attack, started from ISI headquarters and fined-tuned by al-Qaeda, has obviously caused outrage across India. The next issue is whether it has the potential to change the course of India's regional strategy and deter it from participating in NATO plans in Afghanistan.

Daniel Pipes, considered a leading member of Washington's neo-conservatives, told HNN, "It could be the other way around, like always happens with al-Qaeda. Nine-eleven was aimed to create a reign of terror in Washington, but only caused a very furious reaction from the United States of America. The 07/07 bombing [in London] was another move to force the UK to pull out of Iraq, but it further reinforced the UK's policies in the 'war on terror'. The Madrid bombing was just an isolated incident which caused Spain's pullout from Iraq."

Pipes continued, "They [militants] are the believers of conspiracy theories and therefore they would have seen the Jewish center [attacked in Mumbai] as some sort of influence in the region and that's why they chose to target it, but on the other hand they got immense international attention which they could not have acquired if they would have just attacked local targets."

Israeli politician and a former interim president, Abraham Burg, told HNN, "It was not only Jewish but American and other foreigners [who were targeted]. The main purpose may have been to keep foreigners away from India. Nevertheless, there is something deeper. This attack on a Jewish target becomes symbolic.

"I remember when al-Qaeda carried out the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen [in 2000] and then they carried out attacks on American embassies in Africa, they mentioned several reasons. The Palestinian issue was number four or five, but later when they found that it had become the most popular one, it suddenly climbed up to number one position on their priority list. Since the attack on the Jewish institution drew so much attention, God forbid, it could be their strategy all over the world," Burg said.

Al-Qaeda stoked this particular fire that could spark new hostilities in South Asia. What steps India takes on the military front against Pakistan will become clearer in the coming days, but already in Karachi there has been trouble.

Two well-known Indophile political parties, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, a coalition partner in the government comprising people who migrated to Pakistan after the partition of British India in 1947, and the Awami National Party, another coalition partner in the government and a Pashtun sub-nationalist political party, clashed within 24 hours of the Mumbai attacks. Fifteen people have been killed to date and the city is closed, like Mumbai was after the November 26 attacks.

India’s Forgotten Refugees: After 70 Years Partition Of The India, Still Hindus Who Live In Abject Poverty In Kashmir Are Not Even Allowed To Vote Or Use Basic Facilities

Around 100,000 people living in Jammu and Kashmir are classified as 'West Pakistan Refugees' (WPR) in India, and don't have the right to vote or own property. Successive governments have not acted to change their status, meaning three generations of the Hindu community are trapped in poverty. 

But after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu Nationalist party (BJP) won a won a share of power in India's only Muslim-majority state, the refugees have reason to be hopeful.

Countering Pakistani Terrorists’ Anti-India Propaganda

By M H Ahssan

For almost two decades now, self-styled jihadist outfits based in Pakistan have been engaged in a war against India in Kashmir. This war of theirs has no sanction in Islam, which does not allow for proxy war, and that too one declared by non-state actors. It is an explicit violation of all Islamic principles. These outfits, which have considerable support inside Pakistan, see the conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir as a religious struggle, and they wrongly describe it as a jihad. They regard their role in Kashmir as but the first step in a grand, though completely fanciful, plan to annex India into Pakistan and convert it into what they style as dar- ul-islam, the Abode of Islam. But what they finally dream of establishing, or so they boast, is Muslim hegemony throughout the entire world.

I have used the term ‘hegemony’ here deliberately, for radical Muslim groups in Pakistan and in the Arab world have been indelibly influenced and shaped by the hegemonic designs of European colonialism in the past and Western imperialism today, and, in some senses, are a reaction to this hegemonic project. They seek to counter Western political supremacy and replace it by what they conceive of as Islamic political supremacy.

In my view, this approach is in sharp contradistinction to Islamic teachings. The term ghalba-e islam, the establishment of the supremacy of Islam, used in the context of the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet (Hadith), refers not to any political project of Muslim domination, but, rather, to the establishment of the superiority of Islam’s ideological and spiritual message. This, in fact, was the basic crux of the mission of the Prophet Muhammad. However, the term has been distorted at the hands of the self-styled jihadists, who present it as a project to establish Muslim or Islamic political domination over the entire world.

War against India
Today, as the case of the Pakistani self-styled jihadists so tragically illustrates, many of those who claim to be struggling in the cause of Islam themselves work against Islamic teachings by deliberately or otherwise misinterpreting them. This is the case with their misuse of the term jihad in the context of Kashmir in order to win mass support for themselves. Needless to add, this is a major cause for growing anti-Islamic sentiments among many non-Muslims.

The dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir has been lingering for more than half a century. A major hurdle in the resolution of this conflict is the self-styled jihadists based in Pakistan, who insist that the conflict over Kashmir is an Islamic jihad and that, therefore, war is the only solution. They claim that participation in this so-called jihad has become a farz-e ayn, a duty binding on all Muslims, and some of them, most prominently the dreaded Lashkar-e Tayyeba, even go so far as to claim that the war in Kashmir is nothing but the ghazwat ul-hind, the ‘war against India’ which is mentioned in a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. By this they want to suggest that waging war against India is an Islamic duty, something prophesied by the Prophet Muhammad himself.

What is the actual meaning and implication of the statement attributed to the Prophet regarding the ghazwat ul-hind, which the Pakistan-based self-styled jihadists regularly refer to, and grossly misinterpret, in order to whip up anti-Indian sentiments and seek what they wrongly claim is Islamic sanction for their deadly terror attacks against India, in Kashmir and beyond? Before I discuss that, I must point out that the statement attributed to the Prophet regarding the ghazwat ul-hind is found in only one of the sihah sitta, the six collections of Hadith reports of the Sunni Muslims—in the collection by al-Nasai. This statement was narrated by Abu Hurairah, a companion of the Prophet. According to him, the Prophet prophesied a battle against India.

If he (Abu Hurairah) got the chance to participate in this battle, Abu Hurairah said, he would do so, sacrificing his wealth and life. If he died in this battle, he said, he would be counted among the exalted martyrs. According to another narration, related by the Prophet’s freed slave Thoban, the Prophet once declared that there were two groups among the Muslims whom God had saved from the fires of Hell. The first would be a group that invaded India. The other group would be those Muslims who accompanied Jesus (after he returned to the world). A similar narration is contained in the collections of Hadith by Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Baihaqi and Tabrani.

Explanation
Because this hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind mentions India, and is marshaled by self-styled Pakistan-based jihadists active in Kashmir, it marks the Kashmir conflict out as clearly distinct from other conflicts elsewhere in the world between Muslims and others. These self-styled jihadists regularly invoke this hadith, trapping people in their net by claiming that if they were to die fighting the Indians in Kashmir they would be saved from hell and would earn a place in heaven. This claim, false though it is, is regularly and constantly repeated, as is evident from a host of Pakistani websites and periodicals.

Let me quote a revealing instance in this regard. Recently, I came across the August 2003 issue of ‘Muhaddith’, an Urdu magazine published from Lahore, Pakistan. It contains a 20-page article on the ghazwat ul-hind, written by a certain Dr. Asmatullah, Assistant Professor at the Islamic Research Academy of the International Islamic University, Islamabad. The article represents a pathetic effort to project the ongoing conflict in Kashmir as precisely the same ghazwat ul-hind that the Prophet is said to have predicted. And it is on the basis of this reported hadith of the Prophet that ultra-radical Islamists in Pakistan talk about unleashing a so-called jihad, extending out of Kashmir and to consume the whole of India. This is no longer limited to just fiery rhetoric alone, but, in fact, is also now accompanied by deadly terror attacks in different parts of India, which Pakistan-based radicals wrongly style as a jihad or even as the ghawzat ul-hind reportedly prophesied by the Prophet.

It is striking to note in this connection that in the above-mentioned article, the editors of ‘Muhadith’ disagree with the views of the author, expressing their differences in the form of a footnote. Yet, this counter-view, as expressed by the editors of the magazine, is hardly ever discussed or even referred to in Pakistani so-called jihadist literature, indicating, therefore, that the rhetoric of the self-styled jihadists is based less on proper scholarly analysis of the Islamic textual tradition than on strident, heated emotionalism and a deep-rooted hatred and feeling of revenge. This applies not just in the Pakistani case. Rather, is a phenomenon common to almost all so-called jihadist movements throughout the rest of the world.

The Pakistani self-styled jihadists, it would appear, have made the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind into a plaything in their hands in order to entrap innocent people. It is quite possible that the Pakistani youth who were involved in the recent deadly terrorist attack on Mumbai were fed on this sort of poisonous propaganda and led into believing that they might go straight to heaven if they waged war against India. In India, the banned Students Islamic Movement of India appeared to have backed the same wholly erroneous and unwarranted interpretation of the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind, following in the footsteps of Pakistani radical groups. Mercifully, as far as I know, no other Indian Muslim group or scholar worthy of mention has adopted the ‘Pakistani interpretation’ of this particular hadith report.

Tragically, the concept of jihad has been subjected to considerable abuse and made to serve extremist ends by self-styled jihadists. This started in the very first century of Islam itself, when intra-Muslim wars were sought to be christened by competing groups as jihads. And because of the distorted understanding of jihad championed by many Muslims themselves, they labeled any and every controversy and conflict with non-Muslims, even if it had nothing at all to do with religion but everything to do with politics, as a jihad, as the case of Kashmir well exemplifies. Another facet of the distorted understanding of jihad by some Muslims are suicide-bombings, in which innocent civilians are killed. Yet another is proxy war by non-state actors, such as armed self-styled jihadist groups, which actually has no legitimacy in Islam at all.

Scrutiny
Coming back to the question of the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind, some aspects of the report deserve particular scrutiny. Firstly, as mentioned earlier, this report is mentioned only in the collection of al-Nasai from among the six collections of Hadith which most Sunnis regard, to varying degrees, as canonical. However, considering the merits or rewards of the ghazwat ul-hind that it talks about, it ought, one might think, to have been narrated by many more companions of the Prophet. But that, as it curiously happens, is not the case.

Secondly, and this follows from above, it is possible that this hadith report is not genuine and that it might have been manufactured in the period of the Ummayad Caliphs to suit and justify their own political purposes and expansionist deigns. On the other hand, if this hadith report is indeed genuine—which it might well be—in my view, the battle against India that it predicted was fulfilled in the early Islamic period itself, and is not something that will happen in the future. This, in fact, is the opinion of the majority of the ulema, qualified Islamic scholars. And this view accords with reason as well. It is quite likely that the ghazwat ul-hind that this report predicted took the form of the attack by an Arab Muslim force on Thana and Bharuch, in coastal western India, in the 15th year of the Islamic calendar in the reign of the Caliph Umar.

Equally possibly, it could have been fulfilled in the form of the missionary efforts of some of the Prophet’s companions soon after, in the reign of the Caliphs Uthman and Ali, in Sindh and Gujarat. Some other ulema consider this hadith to have been fulfilled in the form of the attack and occupation of Sindh by Arab Muslims led by Muhammad bin Qasim in the 93rd year of the Islamic calendar, which then facilitated the spread of Islam in the country. This might well be the case, for the hadith report about the ghazwat ul-hind contained in the Masnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, a well-known collection of Hadith narratives attributed to the Prophet, mentions that the Muslim army that would attack India would be sent in the direction of Sindh and Hind.

Thirdly, this hadith mentions only a single or particular battle (ghazwa), and not a series of continuing battles, unlike what the author of the article in the ‘Muhaddith’, referred to above, echoing the arguments of Pakistani self-styled jihadists, claims.

Fourthly, one must raise the very pertinent question of how it is at possible that, in the face of the numerous attacks on India by Arab and other Muslims over the last one thousand years, the more than six hundred rule of Muslim dynasties that controlled most of India and the rapid spread of Islam in the country in the period when they ruled, any scope could be left to consider India a target of jihad in the future. Furthermore, today India and Pakistan have diplomatic relations and are bound by treaty relations. Hence, the proxy war engaged in by Kashmir by powerful forces in Pakistan in the guise of a so-called jihad is nothing but deceit, which is a complete contravention of, indeed a revolt against, accepted Islamic teachings.

Fifthly, it must be remembered that it would have been very easy for Muslim conquerors of India in the past, men like Mahmud of Ghazni, Shihabuddin Ghori, Timur, Nadir Shah and so on, to present the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind and wield it as a weapon to justify their attacks on the country. The corrupt ulema associated with their courts could well have suggested this to them had they wished. However, no such mention is made about this in history books. In the eighteenth century, the well-known Islamic scholar Shah Waliullah of Delhi invited the Afghan warlord Ahmad Shah Abdali to invade India and dispel the Marathas, which he accepted, but yet Shah Waliullah, too, did not use this hadith as a pretext for this.

Indian ulema
It is also pertinent to examine how some well-known contemporary Indian ulema look at this hadith report. Maulana Abdul Hamid Numani, a leading figure of the Jamiat ul-Ulema-i Hind, opines that this hadith was fulfilled at the time of the ‘Four Righteous Caliphs’ of the Sunnis, soon after the demise of the Prophet Muhammad, when several companions of the Prophet came to India, mainly in order to spread Islam. Mufti Sajid Qasmi, who teaches at the Dar ul-Uloom in Deoband, is also of the same opinion, although he believes that it might also refer to the invasion of Sindh by the Arabs under Muhammad bin Qasim in the eighth century. On the other hand, Maulana Mufti Mushtaq Tijarvi of the Jamaat-i Islami Hind believes that it is possible that this hadith report is not genuine at all and that it might have been fabricated at the time of Muhammad bin Qasim’s invasion of Sindh in order to justify it.

Whatever the case might be, the misuse by radical groups of this hadith report to spearhead war in Kashmir in the name of so-called jihad and to foment conflict between India and Pakistan is tragic, to say the least. It is nothing sort of a crime against God and the Prophet. In their worldviews and in their actions as well, the self-styled jihadist outfits seem to have gone the way of the Khawarij, a group that emerged in the early period of Islam and who were rejected by other Muslims.

The Khawarij believed that they alone were Muslims and that all others, including those who called themselves Muslims, were infidels and fit to be killed. With reference to the Khawarij, the Prophet predicted that they would depart from Islam in the same way as an arrow flies out of a bow. About the Khawarij the Caliph Ali mentioned that they take the word of truth and turn it into falsehood (kalimatu haqqin urida beha al-batil). This he said in the context of the Khawarij misinterpreting the Quran and claiming that Ali and his followers were infidels who deserved to be killed.

It is imperative, and extremely urgent, for Muslim scholars, particularly the ulema, to take strict notice of, and stridently oppose the radical self-styled jihadists, who are distorting and misunderstandings Islamic teachings, following in the footsteps of the Khawarij of the past, and spreading death and destruction in the name of Islam. Jihad, properly understood, is a struggle to put an end to strife and conflict, not to create or foment it, as is being done today.

The general public, particularly Muslims themselves, should be made aware of the dangerous deviation of the self-styled jihadists and the horrendous implications of their acts and views. In this regard, a major responsibility rests with the ulema of India and Pakistan. These days, ulema groups in India are very actively involved in organizing conferences and holding rallies seeking to defend themselves and Islam from the charges terrorism leveled against them. This is a very welcome thing. However, they must also stridently speak out against and clearly and unambiguously expose and denounce the self-styled soldiers of Islam who are promoting terrorism in the name of Islam.

At the same time, it is also urgent to promote re-thinking of some medieval notions of jihad, such as that of offensive jihad, which does not actually have any Islamic legitimacy. This is essential for Muslims to live in today’s times and to come to terms with democracy and pluralism. Simply verbally defending Muslims and Islam from the charges of terrorism is, clearly, not enough. Nor is it adequate to simply condemn terrorism in very general terms. The truth is, and this cannot be disputed, that today there is also a pressing need to unleash a ‘jihad’ against the self-styled jihadist outfits themselves. And in this jihad, undoubtedly, the ulema and Muslim intellectuals have a central role to play and a major responsibility to shoulder.

Countering Pakistani Terrorists’ Anti-India Propaganda

By M H Ahssan

For almost two decades now, self-styled jihadist outfits based in Pakistan have been engaged in a war against India in Kashmir. This war of theirs has no sanction in Islam, which does not allow for proxy war, and that too one declared by non-state actors. It is an explicit violation of all Islamic principles. These outfits, which have considerable support inside Pakistan, see the conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir as a religious struggle, and they wrongly describe it as a jihad. They regard their role in Kashmir as but the first step in a grand, though completely fanciful, plan to annex India into Pakistan and convert it into what they style as dar- ul-islam, the Abode of Islam. But what they finally dream of establishing, or so they boast, is Muslim hegemony throughout the entire world.

I have used the term ‘hegemony’ here deliberately, for radical Muslim groups in Pakistan and in the Arab world have been indelibly influenced and shaped by the hegemonic designs of European colonialism in the past and Western imperialism today, and, in some senses, are a reaction to this hegemonic project. They seek to counter Western political supremacy and replace it by what they conceive of as Islamic political supremacy.

In my view, this approach is in sharp contradistinction to Islamic teachings. The term ghalba-e islam, the establishment of the supremacy of Islam, used in the context of the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet (Hadith), refers not to any political project of Muslim domination, but, rather, to the establishment of the superiority of Islam’s ideological and spiritual message. This, in fact, was the basic crux of the mission of the Prophet Muhammad. However, the term has been distorted at the hands of the self-styled jihadists, who present it as a project to establish Muslim or Islamic political domination over the entire world.

War against India
Today, as the case of the Pakistani self-styled jihadists so tragically illustrates, many of those who claim to be struggling in the cause of Islam themselves work against Islamic teachings by deliberately or otherwise misinterpreting them. This is the case with their misuse of the term jihad in the context of Kashmir in order to win mass support for themselves. Needless to add, this is a major cause for growing anti-Islamic sentiments among many non-Muslims.

The dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir has been lingering for more than half a century. A major hurdle in the resolution of this conflict is the self-styled jihadists based in Pakistan, who insist that the conflict over Kashmir is an Islamic jihad and that, therefore, war is the only solution. They claim that participation in this so-called jihad has become a farz-e ayn, a duty binding on all Muslims, and some of them, most prominently the dreaded Lashkar-e Tayyeba, even go so far as to claim that the war in Kashmir is nothing but the ghazwat ul-hind, the ‘war against India’ which is mentioned in a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. By this they want to suggest that waging war against India is an Islamic duty, something prophesied by the Prophet Muhammad himself.

What is the actual meaning and implication of the statement attributed to the Prophet regarding the ghazwat ul-hind, which the Pakistan-based self-styled jihadists regularly refer to, and grossly misinterpret, in order to whip up anti-Indian sentiments and seek what they wrongly claim is Islamic sanction for their deadly terror attacks against India, in Kashmir and beyond? Before I discuss that, I must point out that the statement attributed to the Prophet regarding the ghazwat ul-hind is found in only one of the sihah sitta, the six collections of Hadith reports of the Sunni Muslims—in the collection by al-Nasai. This statement was narrated by Abu Hurairah, a companion of the Prophet. According to him, the Prophet prophesied a battle against India.

If he (Abu Hurairah) got the chance to participate in this battle, Abu Hurairah said, he would do so, sacrificing his wealth and life. If he died in this battle, he said, he would be counted among the exalted martyrs. According to another narration, related by the Prophet’s freed slave Thoban, the Prophet once declared that there were two groups among the Muslims whom God had saved from the fires of Hell. The first would be a group that invaded India. The other group would be those Muslims who accompanied Jesus (after he returned to the world). A similar narration is contained in the collections of Hadith by Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Baihaqi and Tabrani.

Explanation
Because this hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind mentions India, and is marshaled by self-styled Pakistan-based jihadists active in Kashmir, it marks the Kashmir conflict out as clearly distinct from other conflicts elsewhere in the world between Muslims and others. These self-styled jihadists regularly invoke this hadith, trapping people in their net by claiming that if they were to die fighting the Indians in Kashmir they would be saved from hell and would earn a place in heaven. This claim, false though it is, is regularly and constantly repeated, as is evident from a host of Pakistani websites and periodicals.

Let me quote a revealing instance in this regard. Recently, I came across the August 2003 issue of ‘Muhaddith’, an Urdu magazine published from Lahore, Pakistan. It contains a 20-page article on the ghazwat ul-hind, written by a certain Dr. Asmatullah, Assistant Professor at the Islamic Research Academy of the International Islamic University, Islamabad. The article represents a pathetic effort to project the ongoing conflict in Kashmir as precisely the same ghazwat ul-hind that the Prophet is said to have predicted. And it is on the basis of this reported hadith of the Prophet that ultra-radical Islamists in Pakistan talk about unleashing a so-called jihad, extending out of Kashmir and to consume the whole of India. This is no longer limited to just fiery rhetoric alone, but, in fact, is also now accompanied by deadly terror attacks in different parts of India, which Pakistan-based radicals wrongly style as a jihad or even as the ghawzat ul-hind reportedly prophesied by the Prophet.

It is striking to note in this connection that in the above-mentioned article, the editors of ‘Muhadith’ disagree with the views of the author, expressing their differences in the form of a footnote. Yet, this counter-view, as expressed by the editors of the magazine, is hardly ever discussed or even referred to in Pakistani so-called jihadist literature, indicating, therefore, that the rhetoric of the self-styled jihadists is based less on proper scholarly analysis of the Islamic textual tradition than on strident, heated emotionalism and a deep-rooted hatred and feeling of revenge. This applies not just in the Pakistani case. Rather, is a phenomenon common to almost all so-called jihadist movements throughout the rest of the world.

The Pakistani self-styled jihadists, it would appear, have made the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind into a plaything in their hands in order to entrap innocent people. It is quite possible that the Pakistani youth who were involved in the recent deadly terrorist attack on Mumbai were fed on this sort of poisonous propaganda and led into believing that they might go straight to heaven if they waged war against India. In India, the banned Students Islamic Movement of India appeared to have backed the same wholly erroneous and unwarranted interpretation of the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind, following in the footsteps of Pakistani radical groups. Mercifully, as far as I know, no other Indian Muslim group or scholar worthy of mention has adopted the ‘Pakistani interpretation’ of this particular hadith report.

Tragically, the concept of jihad has been subjected to considerable abuse and made to serve extremist ends by self-styled jihadists. This started in the very first century of Islam itself, when intra-Muslim wars were sought to be christened by competing groups as jihads. And because of the distorted understanding of jihad championed by many Muslims themselves, they labeled any and every controversy and conflict with non-Muslims, even if it had nothing at all to do with religion but everything to do with politics, as a jihad, as the case of Kashmir well exemplifies. Another facet of the distorted understanding of jihad by some Muslims are suicide-bombings, in which innocent civilians are killed. Yet another is proxy war by non-state actors, such as armed self-styled jihadist groups, which actually has no legitimacy in Islam at all.

Scrutiny
Coming back to the question of the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind, some aspects of the report deserve particular scrutiny. Firstly, as mentioned earlier, this report is mentioned only in the collection of al-Nasai from among the six collections of Hadith which most Sunnis regard, to varying degrees, as canonical. However, considering the merits or rewards of the ghazwat ul-hind that it talks about, it ought, one might think, to have been narrated by many more companions of the Prophet. But that, as it curiously happens, is not the case.

Secondly, and this follows from above, it is possible that this hadith report is not genuine and that it might have been manufactured in the period of the Ummayad Caliphs to suit and justify their own political purposes and expansionist deigns. On the other hand, if this hadith report is indeed genuine—which it might well be—in my view, the battle against India that it predicted was fulfilled in the early Islamic period itself, and is not something that will happen in the future. This, in fact, is the opinion of the majority of the ulema, qualified Islamic scholars. And this view accords with reason as well. It is quite likely that the ghazwat ul-hind that this report predicted took the form of the attack by an Arab Muslim force on Thana and Bharuch, in coastal western India, in the 15th year of the Islamic calendar in the reign of the Caliph Umar.

Equally possibly, it could have been fulfilled in the form of the missionary efforts of some of the Prophet’s companions soon after, in the reign of the Caliphs Uthman and Ali, in Sindh and Gujarat. Some other ulema consider this hadith to have been fulfilled in the form of the attack and occupation of Sindh by Arab Muslims led by Muhammad bin Qasim in the 93rd year of the Islamic calendar, which then facilitated the spread of Islam in the country. This might well be the case, for the hadith report about the ghazwat ul-hind contained in the Masnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, a well-known collection of Hadith narratives attributed to the Prophet, mentions that the Muslim army that would attack India would be sent in the direction of Sindh and Hind.

Thirdly, this hadith mentions only a single or particular battle (ghazwa), and not a series of continuing battles, unlike what the author of the article in the ‘Muhaddith’, referred to above, echoing the arguments of Pakistani self-styled jihadists, claims.

Fourthly, one must raise the very pertinent question of how it is at possible that, in the face of the numerous attacks on India by Arab and other Muslims over the last one thousand years, the more than six hundred rule of Muslim dynasties that controlled most of India and the rapid spread of Islam in the country in the period when they ruled, any scope could be left to consider India a target of jihad in the future. Furthermore, today India and Pakistan have diplomatic relations and are bound by treaty relations. Hence, the proxy war engaged in by Kashmir by powerful forces in Pakistan in the guise of a so-called jihad is nothing but deceit, which is a complete contravention of, indeed a revolt against, accepted Islamic teachings.

Fifthly, it must be remembered that it would have been very easy for Muslim conquerors of India in the past, men like Mahmud of Ghazni, Shihabuddin Ghori, Timur, Nadir Shah and so on, to present the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind and wield it as a weapon to justify their attacks on the country. The corrupt ulema associated with their courts could well have suggested this to them had they wished. However, no such mention is made about this in history books. In the eighteenth century, the well-known Islamic scholar Shah Waliullah of Delhi invited the Afghan warlord Ahmad Shah Abdali to invade India and dispel the Marathas, which he accepted, but yet Shah Waliullah, too, did not use this hadith as a pretext for this.

Indian ulema
It is also pertinent to examine how some well-known contemporary Indian ulema look at this hadith report. Maulana Abdul Hamid Numani, a leading figure of the Jamiat ul-Ulema-i Hind, opines that this hadith was fulfilled at the time of the ‘Four Righteous Caliphs’ of the Sunnis, soon after the demise of the Prophet Muhammad, when several companions of the Prophet came to India, mainly in order to spread Islam. Mufti Sajid Qasmi, who teaches at the Dar ul-Uloom in Deoband, is also of the same opinion, although he believes that it might also refer to the invasion of Sindh by the Arabs under Muhammad bin Qasim in the eighth century. On the other hand, Maulana Mufti Mushtaq Tijarvi of the Jamaat-i Islami Hind believes that it is possible that this hadith report is not genuine at all and that it might have been fabricated at the time of Muhammad bin Qasim’s invasion of Sindh in order to justify it.

Whatever the case might be, the misuse by radical groups of this hadith report to spearhead war in Kashmir in the name of so-called jihad and to foment conflict between India and Pakistan is tragic, to say the least. It is nothing sort of a crime against God and the Prophet. In their worldviews and in their actions as well, the self-styled jihadist outfits seem to have gone the way of the Khawarij, a group that emerged in the early period of Islam and who were rejected by other Muslims.

The Khawarij believed that they alone were Muslims and that all others, including those who called themselves Muslims, were infidels and fit to be killed. With reference to the Khawarij, the Prophet predicted that they would depart from Islam in the same way as an arrow flies out of a bow. About the Khawarij the Caliph Ali mentioned that they take the word of truth and turn it into falsehood (kalimatu haqqin urida beha al-batil). This he said in the context of the Khawarij misinterpreting the Quran and claiming that Ali and his followers were infidels who deserved to be killed.

It is imperative, and extremely urgent, for Muslim scholars, particularly the ulema, to take strict notice of, and stridently oppose the radical self-styled jihadists, who are distorting and misunderstandings Islamic teachings, following in the footsteps of the Khawarij of the past, and spreading death and destruction in the name of Islam. Jihad, properly understood, is a struggle to put an end to strife and conflict, not to create or foment it, as is being done today.

The general public, particularly Muslims themselves, should be made aware of the dangerous deviation of the self-styled jihadists and the horrendous implications of their acts and views. In this regard, a major responsibility rests with the ulema of India and Pakistan. These days, ulema groups in India are very actively involved in organizing conferences and holding rallies seeking to defend themselves and Islam from the charges terrorism leveled against them. This is a very welcome thing. However, they must also stridently speak out against and clearly and unambiguously expose and denounce the self-styled soldiers of Islam who are promoting terrorism in the name of Islam.

At the same time, it is also urgent to promote re-thinking of some medieval notions of jihad, such as that of offensive jihad, which does not actually have any Islamic legitimacy. This is essential for Muslims to live in today’s times and to come to terms with democracy and pluralism. Simply verbally defending Muslims and Islam from the charges of terrorism is, clearly, not enough. Nor is it adequate to simply condemn terrorism in very general terms. The truth is, and this cannot be disputed, that today there is also a pressing need to unleash a ‘jihad’ against the self-styled jihadist outfits themselves. And in this jihad, undoubtedly, the ulema and Muslim intellectuals have a central role to play and a major responsibility to shoulder.

Kashmir Politics: Promoting Traitors As Martyrs

Kashmiri leaders of virtually all political hues seem to have embarked on a competitive spree of bestowing the halo of ‘Martyrs’ on ‘Traitors’ who waged war against India. Afzal Guru’s recent hanging on the orders of the Supreme Court after a lengthy trial for his role in the Parliament House attacks in December 2001 was the igniting point for Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to demand that the remains of not only Afzal Guru but also of Maqbool Butt hanged decades back be exhumed and sent back from their Tihar Jail burial sites to the Kashmir Valley for interment there.

Treating traitors as martyrs was the appellation used by a former Director of the Intelligence Bureau on a recent TV panel debate. He aptly described this competitive game between Kashmiri political leaders. Going further, is it not strange that Kashmir Valley political leaders who have or had assumed power on oath of allegiance to the Indian Constitution should now be airing such outlandish assertions.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has been unwise in making such calls and it belies the claims projected in the media of his being a secular Kashmiri political leader. Strangely he seems to have come out with these assertions even though he wields power on the coalition support provided by India’s ruling party – the Congress.

Such calls normally were expected from Kashmiri separatist leaders but not from the Chief Minister and not to be outdone by the main opposition party Chairman who at one time was India’s Home Minister and India had to pay heavily thereafter to get his daughter released from hostage captivity of terrorists.

This competitive game of bestowing the appellation of martyrs on traitors was soon overtaken by other sensational events in the fast churning political happenings in India. But that should not induce complacency in the Indian governing and Kashmir policy establishment.

It is a danger signal that cannot be ignored or overlooked and portends the shape of Kashmir Valley political stances against New Delhi. It becomes more ominous when viewed against the backdrop of Kashmir Valley separatist leaders on visits to Pakistan hobnobbing with the likes of the Mumbai 26/11 main conspirator.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has been a vocal critic of the Indian Army and security forces being armed with the legal cover of AFSPA - an Act which provides legal cover to combatting terrorism and insurgency in the State. Shockingly as if to placate him partially, Government orders were given to CRPF policemen to patrol the streets without arms. What was the result? Two unarmed CRPF policemen were gunned down by terrorists.

Something is really amiss in the Kashmir Valley and if not tackled seriously and strongly by the Government in New Delhi, India may have to pay a heavy price for overlooking the trend that is surfacing. Obviously, no nation-state with even an iota of respect for national honor can afford to let such trends go unchallenged.

Opinion: Why The Police Is Now Target In Kashmir Valley?

A sudden spurt in attacks by militants in Kashmir has raised eye brows in the security grid. However, many believe that it was on expected lines as militancy is not completely out, though surely on the decline.

Last week militants registered their presence by attacking three places in a single day. The major attack took place in South Kashmir’s Shopian district where three policemen were killed in an ambush.

What made these attacks different was that in two cases they targeted policemen and in the third one a former militant was shot at. Given the history of militant presence in Kashmir, these attacks are not unusual.

Insight: 'Fake Doctors Scam' Sprout In Kashmir Valley

By Saleem Shakir | Srinagar

Exam board chief’s arrest blows the lid off MBBS entrance test scam in Kashmir. In June 2012, thousands of aspirants in Jammu & Kashmir sat for the Common Entrance Test (CET) for admission into professional courses, little knowing that the examination was just a mock exercise. 

The question papers for the MBBS entrance examination had already been sold to a select group of candidates in south Kashmir, who took the test at a high-end hotel on the scenic Dal lake. 

And the seller was none other than Mushtaq Ahmad Peer, the chairman of the state’s Board of Professional Entrance Examinations (BoPEE).

India’s Security Challenges Fall Prey to Politicization

By Dr. Subhash Kapila

India’s political leaders and politicians can never arise up and overcome the propensity to politicize every conceivable issue that falls in their path. But what is reprehensible is that they do not restrain themselves from politicizing external security and internal security issues. Three issues that recently have been sprung on the consciousness of the Indian public; (the credit for this goes to Indian English TV networks especially Times Now) are the impact of the Indian Army troop withdrawals from the Kashmir Valley on the security situation in this proxy war arena of Pakistan, the prolonged delay in the hanging of the Parliament House convicted mastermind Afzal Guru and the recent killings of CRPF police forces personnel in the Dantewada area of Chattisgarh.

Touched in earlier Columns was the Government’s decision to withdraw nearly 30,000 Indian Army troops from the Kashmir Valley when the security situation in the Valley had not returned to normal. Nor had Pakistani infiltration decreased and nor had the number of incidents of border clashes on the LOC. The pressure to make sizeable withdrawal of Indian Army troops was made under political pressure of coalition politics as the Congress- supported Government in Srinagar was under pressure from the main opposition party there on this issue who presumably wanted to please the Pakistan lobby. To stave off this political pressure on its political partner in Srinagar, the Congress Government in New Delhi ordered the withdrawal of 30,000 troops endangering the security grid in Kashmir.

The other significant reason was that Dr. Manmohan Singh as per media reports was under intense United States pressure for troop withdrawals from Kashmir as the Pakistan Army Chief had made conditional that Pak Army forces would not be moved to the Afghan border till USA prevailed on India for thinning out of Indian Army presence in Kashmir.

Here we have a classic case of the Congress Government succumbing to compromises on India’s external security imperatives and internal security imperatives for political reasons. The net result has been an increase in Pakistan’s proxy war activities in the Valley and especially in the hotbed area of Sopore. This was acknowledged on TV by a senior Indian Army officer a few days back Was the Indian Army hierarchy taken into the decision-making loop before such a withdrawal of troops was ordered?

Coming to the Afzal Guru hanging case the record of the Congress Government has been the most deplorable. It would be recalled that Afzal Guru was sentenced to death by hanging for his mastermind role and facilitating the heinous attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. The Supreme Court had rejected Afzal Guru’s appeal petition and he should have been hanged four years back. In a shocking display of abdication of the Congress Government’s responsibility and duty to implement swift punishment on Terrorism Attacks against India, the Government of the day has on political grounds sought to delay carrying out the Supreme Court’s sentence on one flimsy excuse or the other. Congress spokespersons adopted a crude line of excuse that Afzal Guru’s case was 29th in the list of those to be hanged and that his turn is to be awaited.

Preposterously naive and inexcusable, the Congress spokespersons and even Ministers, expected the Indian people to swallow this blasphemy of equating those who waged war on India with common murderers and equating an attack on the Indian Parliament to a normal crime. The Congress needs to be reminded how swift was the retribution to the killers of late Indira Gandhi .

The first politicization of Afzal Guru’s hanging was made by the Congress Chief Minister of J&K Ghulam Nabi who raised the issue of law and order problem following the hanging. It was recently echoed by the Delhi Chief Minister and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah of Kashmir.

Is India to be led to believe that terrorists will not be hanged either because they are Kashmiris or Moslems? The Congress seems to have woken up as it has now to face the hanging of Mumbai 26/11 terrorist Kasab and muted calls from within the Congress have started pouring out that Afzal Guru should be hanged. Why were they silent all these years? Obviously vote bank considerations were in play.

What is to be noted is that on both the first two issues the propensity of the Congress Government to soft-pedal Kashmir issues or Kashmir-related issues becomes glaringly evident.

Coming to the last issue of the Maoist attacks on CRPF personnel and their inability to defend themselves. This arises basically from long years of neglect of the Congress Government in equipping, training and providing the right type of leadership to the forces in the field. When it comes to non-Congress ruled states the common refrain from Congress leaders is that law and order are State subjects and hence the Central Government can do nothing much. That may be technically and politically correct but then the CRPF is a Central armed police force and the provision of modern weapons and equipment is the responsibility of the Central Government and so also training in counter-insurgency roles. The senior appointments in this Force are garnered by Indian Police Officers who come on deputations and who neither have the determination to provide dynamic leadership nor are they so inclined. They need to be weeded out as they are reluctant to lead from the front the men they command.

How deleterious all this is to India’s image can be gauged from readings from the Pakistani media where satisfaction is derived that India despite all the strength and resources at its command is like Pakistan similarly incapable of meeting threats to its security. One cannot blame them; it is India’s political leaders and politicians who provide such images.

Must To Understand The Indian Constitution Article 370

By Amitabh Mattoo (Guest Writer)

Article 370 was and is about providing space, in matters of governance, to the people of a State who felt deeply vulnerable about their identity and insecure about the future.

At the Bharatiya Janata Party’s recent Lalkar rally in Jammu, its prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, called for a debate on Article 370. This is encouraging and suggests that the BJP may be willing to review its absolutist stance on the Article that defines the provisions of the Constitution of India with respect to Jammu and Kashmir.

Kashmir: The Political Circus

By M H Ahssan

Caught between warring politicians who are hell bent upon pulling down each other in the race for power, the people in Jammu and Kashmir have been caught in an unending political circus. Unhappy to stay out of power even sensible, experienced and “educated” leaders are raising charges which they well know cannot be proved even in a kangaroo court, yet their persistence with the ridiculous will baffle many. The common man in Kashmir perhaps sees this political theatre as a welcome relief from the bandhs, strikes and cross fire that he was used to earlier. How long he will have patience remains to be seen, but the Abdullahs, Begs and Sayyeds in the Valley need to search for issues which are closer to the people’s welfare than charging each other and then retracting these at the drop of a hat.

The order-disorder paradox was thus once again evident in Jammu and Kashmir, with political stability threatened over allegations of involvement of the Chief Minister in an infamous sex scam of 2006, continuous bandhs and strikes over killings alleged at the hands of security forces and militant activities. The main political crisis in Kashmir seems to have blown over at least for now, with the Governor rejecting the resignation of the Chief Minister Mr. Omar Abdullah.

Given the highly complex political contest involved, it was evident that aim of the Opposition to embarrass the National Conference-Congress led government has not succeeded. The rather emotional outburst by Mr. Abdullah after he was accused of being involved in the sex scandal worked in his favor and the PDP the main opposition has been placed on the back foot. But such incidents are likely to occur in the days ahead for the extremely murky politics in Kashmir has been witnessing such charges and allegations from time to time.

The first fortnight of the month saw a series of bandhs and protests with the cycle finally broken with revelations that the death of a youth in Srinagar was caused by his own friends. The body of Asrar Ahmed Dar, 20, a student who was reported missing from uptown Maisuma area, was found in Rainawari, leading to a follow up of the protests but this came to be attributed to rivalry. Other alleged murders also came to be attributed to crime rather than atrocities or action by the security forces.

The Muzaffar Jan Commission appointed to probe the Shopian murders found four personnel of the Jammu and Kashmir police guilty which to an extent assuaged the local sentiment but separatists continued to harp on the issue over the month. There are also concerns that this may fester into serializing such incidents which has been happening in the past when law and order issues have been converted into attacks on security forces particularly when involving women or young men,. The larger implication of resentment in the youth also needs to be addressed so that in the long term this does not snow ball into deep rooted affliction in the people.

It is however clear that all these incidents are not spontaneous and have been largely engineered with allegations that most of the bandhs have been monetarily sponsored. Thus there is no grass roots support for such activities. The government would also have to ultimately seek a way out by exposing the nexus thereby gaining credibility as the cycle of bandhs related to the killings was exposed only when it was seen that the Srinagar boy killed allegedly by the security forces later turned out to be a victim of rivalry with friends. The Chief Minister is getting a hang on the situation as he has issued instructions that, “No law and order situation or protests should be dealt without the presence of a magistrate.” At the political level the role of grass roots workers is important. The authorities will also do well to shift the debate to larger issues as development and tourism.

The central design of the separatists and the terrorist groups at present appears to be to get the CRPF troops out of the Valley. However after supporting this demand for some time, Mr Abdullah the Chief Minister recognized that this was not practical. "We have over 70 battalions of the CRPF and the state police's strength is not even one-third of it. Five battalions of the state police which includes India Reserve Police are undergoing training. So any rash decision in this aspect can be detrimental to state's security," he said. "A lot is required to be done in terms of augmenting the numbers of J&K police, upgrading their equipment and improving their levels of training," he added.

Omar faces the challenge as a young chief minister in many spheres, so far the young man has not distinguished himself in the high office, he has very less time to prove his credibility, for the political wolves in Kashmir are waiting to pounce on his next gaffe.

Focus: Why J&K Police Want This FB Image To Be Blocked?

By Likha Veer - Group Executive Editor

EXCLUSIVE: This photo of 11 young men, with their faces clearly visible, is proof that militant groups are winning new recruits. The Jammu and Kashmir police asked a local court to block all Facebook pages that had uploaded this image of 11 uniformed boys.  The picture was clicked over the last month, the authorities believe. The boy in the centre of the second row is 19-year-old Burhan Muzaffar Wani. He is the face of the new militancy movement in the Valley. 

Analysis: How To Resolve Kashmir

By M H Ahssan

Former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri’s interview to Karan Thapar has stirred up a lot of interest in his claims on the results achieved in the backchannel negotiations between New Delhi and Islamabad. Kasuri said that most of the negotiations on Kashmir were successfully completed during his tenure as foreign minister under Pervez Musharraf and draft agreements were ready to be signed. They were to have been signed during the visit of the Indian PM to Pakistan which did not take place, according to Kasuri, because of elections in India, the crisis in Pakistan following the ouster of the supreme court chief justice and subsequent polls and change of government.

There is another view that the Indian government backed off at the last moment. Some informed observers in India maintain that developments in Pakistan came in the way of the agreements being finalised. In this connection, it is pertinent to recall the much-criticised comment of national security adviser M K Narayanan in an interview that India found it easier to do business with Musharraf. The latest article by Steve Coll in the New Yorker goes some way in confirming the Indian and not Kasuri’s version.

In the last few days US special envoy Richard Holbrooke has been holding discussions with the Pakistani army chief and ISI chief along with senior Afghan officials in Washington on the proposed strategy for the Af-Pak region, especially in the light of the ceasefire agreement reached with the Taliban in the Swat valley. While India is staying out of this meeting, the idea appears to be to persuade the Pakistani army and ISI that the concerns of Pakistan about its eastern front, often used as an alibi to justify the inadequate response against the al-Qaeda and Taliban, are totally misplaced. Kasuri’s revelations and Coll’s report should strengthen the hands of Washington.

There is general agreement in India and the US that the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack was carried out by people with the intention of provoking New Delhi to react militarily. This, in turn, would have resulted in Pakistan shifting forces from its western to eastern borders and arguing that it was unable to effectively support the US-NATO strategy in Afghanistan. India, however, did not walk into the trap. It is obvious that some people would not like to see a solution to Kashmir as envisaged in the Indo-Pak backchannel dialogue. It would also appear that such opposition may not be restricted to a small group in Pakistan but may extend to a much larger section that is not interested in a bilateral solution to Kashmir but to continually bleed India through a thousand cuts. It is unfortunate that the Simla Pact efforts to solve Kashmir bilaterally were torpedoed and the Lahore Declaration was followed by the Kargil infiltration.

There are reasons to worry whether there is continuity of policy and approach in Pakistan. General Kayani was fully in the picture, according to both Kasuri and Coll, and was supportive of the draft agreement arrived at on Kashmir. However, the present government and army chief have discarded Musharraf ’s version of A Q Khan being the sole nuclear proliferator. According to the findings of the Islamabad high court, the charges against Khan were not substantiated. If this was so, who authorised the proliferation from Pakistan to North Korea, Iran and Libya? For reasons best known to them, the present rulers of Pakistan have decided to repudiate past policy.

Can we be sure that in respect of the backchannel understanding on Kashmir the current regime has not repudiated that too, as they have done with the version on Khan? If the Pakistani government feels bound by that backchannel understanding, why did they use the eastern border as a security concern preventing their full cooperation against Taliban? Two books by journalists David Sanger and Ron Susskind quote intercepts of telephone conversations in which Pakistani generals had referred to Taliban leaders Haqqani and Mullah Omar as strategic assets. Musharraf was prepared to assure the Americans of his cooperation to fight Taliban and at the same time use them.

If we are able to conclude a mutually satisfactory arrangement between India and Pakistan, which is also acceptable to the people of Kashmir, we should go ahead with it. But before we do that, we have to be sure that the backchannel understanding is not one more instance of running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. Second, we have to be sure that the present army leadership still stands by the understanding reached earlier and has not changed its mind as it has done in the case of Khan. The result of the repudiation of the earlier story on Khan is to restore the image of Pakistan and hold a pistol to the head of the US about the consequences of not giving full aid.

Now that Kasuri and Coll have spilt the beans, the Indian government should organise an education campaign, especially among US think tanks, that a framework for a Kashmiri settlement already exists. And as US president Barack Obama pointed out, Pakistan does not have to worry about any threat from its eastern border; its threats are from within. But the Pakistani army’s leadership is yet to be convinced that Taliban is a threat and not an asset and Khan was a proliferator.