Dangerous global Islamist turn in Kashmir militancy

The recent killing of a few militants of a newly created al-Qaida cell in Kashmir called the Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH) has signalled a new chapter in the nearly three-decade-old insurgency in the Valley. Though AGH announced itself in July last, what has added a new dimension is that one of the militants killed was from far away Hyderabad city in Telangana.

The AGH emerged as a result of a split in the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen outfit, which has been active in Kashmir since 1990. It announced that one of the militants killed in Hakoora village in south Kashmir's Anantnag was from Hyderabad. Its statement said, "Responding to the call of 'Shariat or Shahadat' (Islamic rule or martyrdom), Mohammad Taufeeq started his jihadi journey in 2017 after making hijrah (migration) from India's Hyderabad city to the mountains of Kashmir and was among the first in the ranks of Ansar Ghazwat-ul Hind." It was later confirmed by police.

Given the Islamist appeal AGH has delivered since the announcement of its formation in Kashmir, the global jihadi organisation could be a formidable challenge for security agencies in the coming months as it could draw more young Muslim boys from outside the state and the country to Kashmir to fight the Indian state.

Since al-Qaida's announcement that former Hizbul commander Zakir Musa would head its cell in Kashmir, more than a dozen active militants, including former Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) chief Abu Dujana, had joined its ranks. Dujana was killed in an encounter with security forces last year along with another Kashmiri militant, who had also joined the Musa-led AGH. Though in 2014 al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had in a video warned of operations in Kashmir, it had no immediate impact on the security situation as the terror outfit had no modules in the Valley then.

But with the emergence of AGH, militancy in Kashmir could become more radical and aggressive as global terror groups like al-Qaida and Islamic State (IS) could take centre stage in the troubled valley. Given the ground situation in Kashmir and deep-rooted anti-India sentiment, in the next one or two years, there is all likelihood that militancy in Kashmir will change for the worse due to hardcore radicalisation of the youth, whose aim is to establish the Islamic Caliphate in the region.

The sudden transformation of Musa, an engineering college dropout whose views are more aligned with pan-Islamist jihadist groups than with pro-Pakistan Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, proves that Kashmiri youth are not immune to radicalisation. Musa makes a case for a larger pan-Islamist struggle spanning India and Pakistan, with Kashmir as its subsidiary cause and a base camp. The ultimate purpose of the jihad, he says, is to unite Kashmir, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India under the flag of 'Tawheed'

With the emergence of groups like the AGH, Kashmir could soon be swarming with 'good terrorist' and 'bad terrorist' narratives, like in Pakistan. This prognosis may appear farfetched today, but it would be naïve to reject it offhand.

However, amid such a scary emerging scenario, there is a silver lining, too. The Pakistani establishment, including its spy agency InterServices Intelligence (ISI), will probably want to prevent the proliferation of any global terror factions in Kashmir as it doesn't suite their policy. The emergence of global terror outfits in Kashmir will complicate matters for Pakistan as well. Pakistan would like to keep the pot boiling in Kashmir and for that a few hundred local militants supported by some well-trained Pakistani ultras is enough. Al-Qaeda does not have a logistical chain in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir that can feed AGH units operating in Kashmir Valley. The al-Qaida brand name alone will not be enough to help it survive, and the group will find it difficult to compete without Pakistan's logistical support.

Even a majority of the people in Kashmir who support secession from India view groups like AGH as harmful to the Kashmiri cause. Hizb-ul Mujahideen has accused Musa of being an Indian agent and of "helping Indian forces kill Kashmiris." The separatists and the United Jihad Council (UJC), an umbrella of militant organisations operating in Kashmir, have already disassociated themselves from the AGH. This is understandable: Musa has openly threatened to execute separatist leaders.

So far, Muslim youth from other parts of India joining militancy in Kashmir has been an aberration. In the last 28 years of militancy, the number of youth from Indian cities who joined the Kashmir insurgency is negligible. But it is imperative that policymakers in Delhi and Srinagar examine this development so that it doesn't become a pattern in future. The need of the hour is to get over the habit of wishful thinking and instead act immediately to prevent the scourge of fundamentalism from spreading in Kashmir.

While till now there has been no concrete evidence of IS presence in Kashmir, there is no doubt that hundreds of well-educated Kashmiri boys have been influenced by the terror outfit's ideology and they are potential recruits, if corrective measures aren't taken by the State. Some sections of the society, radicalised by the lingering conflict, have been receptive to Musa's contention about Shariat, or Islamic rule.  

For now, the challenge before the governments in Delhi and Srinagar is to find a way out to persuade young Kashmiri boys and girls that the solution to their problems lies in peaceful means and not violence. Kashmir is essentially a political problem and needs a political solution. Kashmiris are citizens of a great democracy like India, but have been alienated. They need to be befriended, not dealt with force.

DH News Service