Date: 20/03/2017
On 10 March 2017 at 11:51, cccccccccccccccccc wrote:
Islamist Radical Terrorism
Recent Islamist radical terror module busting by the combined police machinery of MP, UP and other states in tandem with each other reconfirms the wide network of “Islamist Radical Terrorist” horror prospects in India.
Where is the doubt? South Asia is the locus of terrorism delicately perched on the brink sinking into irretrievable Islamist terrorism quagmire. Political stability is quite fragile in all nations - Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Furthermore, strategic paranoia is proverbial.
Since 1970s, the build-up of Islamist radical terrorism was taking shape in different parts of India. Yet, many media outlets and panelists are in denial mode over its overarching influence in today’s India’s geo political scenario and its future dangerous portends.
Quite a few refuse to link it with the ISIS or Al Qaeda. Be that as it may, Indian radicals too draw inspiration from the same ‘gene’ – par excellence of Islam, Liberation of J & K and Islamic State in India. Of course, Muslim apologists deny “Islamist Radicalization” of youth. They blame terror acts as a phenomenon borne out of “misguided and unemployed youth”, which is rank stupid.
Let me review the story of its evolution in outline and linkages. Stating the obvious, partition laid the foundation for resurgence of Islamist radical terrorism. Having ruled India since 12th Century until the British colonial rule after 18th Century, quite a few Muslims considered it their right to reclaim its political supremacy or glory in South Asia. Many Muslims also nurture hatred against the Hindu’s for what they consider it as the “Great Betrayal” allowing the British Empire’s rise in South Asia.
Adding ‘salt to injury’ of partition, followed the stalemate of 1965, the crushing defeat in 1971 war, the Kargil fiasco. Pakistan Army avowed to take revenge through a 1000-year Jihad. General Haq coined the ‘proxy war’ to liberate J & K, the unresolved core issue. Thus, the “State and non state” support continues with Saudi Arabian funds flow to consolidate the “Madrasa” Islamist indoctrination.
Irrefutably in 1941, Maulana Abu Ala Maududi laid the foundation by calling upon the Muslims in South Asia on one path only - Jihad-Fee-Sablilillah. – under the banner of Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI). On partition, JeI Hind was formed.
Following JeI, other key milestones of spread and consolidation of Muslim radicalization included: Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in 1977, an off shoot of JeI following the emergency battering in 1977; distancing of JeI from SIMI when the later supported the dictatorship of Zia-ul-Haq and the anti-Soviet Union jihad in Afghanistan in 1982; and Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen (TIM) in 1985 in Mumbai; Babri Masjid demolition and the proscription of SIMI after its extolling Osama Bin Laden as a “true Mujahid” that resulted in young people going to LeT camps in Pakistan due to its Maududi ideological orientation; and the Indian Mujahedeen (IM) in 2010. However, the TIM got disintegrated but its ideology spread to SIMI cadres. Finally, the Popular Front of India (PFI) in Kerala.
The stated mission of SIMI is the "liberation of India" from Western materialistic cultural influence and to convert its Muslim society to live according to the Muslim code of conduct. And, the stated mission of the IM is that only Islam has the power to establish a civilized society and this could only be possible under Islamic rule.
So, “Islamic Radicalization” is irrefutable. One, Indian Muslims suffer from inherited historic “deprivation psyche” syndrome. Two, their stated objective are quite clear – to regain their historic supremacy in south Asia. Three, Islamic radicalization has taken place cumulatively over the past 80 years. Four, educated Muslim youth inspired by fundamentalist Islamic ideology are in the forefront of spreading, mobilizing and consolidating their forces based on a 1000-year Jihad. Five, “Islamic radicalization” has spread to all corners of modern India.
The list of Islamist radical names is a veritable “Who’s Who” from all parts of the country. Delhi, UP, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Mahrashtra, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Assam and Manipur have figured prominently in the past.
Safdar Nagori, founder of SIMI, organized a group that included the Bangalore IT professionals Peedical Abdul Shibli and Yahya Kamakutty; T. Nassir, Abdul Sattar and Abdul Jabbar in Kerala; Sadiq Israr Ahmad Sheikh, born in a Mumbai slum to migrant parents from Azamgarh of UP and educated at the Antonio D’Souza High School and Bharatiya Vidyapeeth in Mumbai, worked as a soft ware engineer with specialization in network solutions; and Iqbal Ismail Shahbandri and his brother Riyaz from Bhatkal in South Karnataka. Mansoor Asghar Peerbhoy, software engineer helped to design, produce and e-mail several IM manifestos.
In turn, Sadiq Israr Ahmed Sheikh recruited several educated figures. Altaf Subhan Quereshi, son of a North India Migrant, who obtained a Diploma in Industrial electronics in 1995 and worked in a computer firm DATAMATICS on a WIPRO project to set up an Intranet at Bharat Petrochemicals and edited SIMI-affiliated journal Islamic Voice, Riyaz Ismail Shahbandri from Karnataka; Mumbai including Ehtesham Siddiqui, Rahil Sheikh, Feroz Deshmukh, Arif Badr Sheikh; Shahnawaz Khan, a Lucknow based Unani Doctor, whose brother, Mohammad Saif; and killed IMs commander Atif Amin. The leaders were present at SIMI’s Conference in 1999 at Kanpur addressed by Sheikh Yasin, the Head of Hamas and Qazi Husain Ahmad, Chief of the Pakistan JeI.
Quereshi performed the critical task of networking jihadist’s modules in a single unity. He coordinated with Bhatkal and bomb-making assets raised by computer graphics designer Qayamuddin Kapadia, who provided safe houses and logistical support for Atif Amin’s assault team in the Ahmadabad attacks.
Kerala’s Abdul Sattar, a Kannur resident and his long standing associate T. Nassir also formed a key part of the circle of South Indian jihadists recruited by Bhatkal brothers. Sattar fabricated the pipe bombs used in a series of attacks after 1993 and alleged to have participated in a plot to assassinate former Kerala Chief Minister – E K Nayanar. They had sent over 40 men for training to Lashkar camps in Pakistan. In October 2008, the J & K police killed four of them. In North India, similar jihadist modules were organized based on Azamgarh in UP.
Riyaz had also met gang lord-turned-jihadist Amir Raza Khan after Gujarat violence. Also, Riyaz had met Pakistan based Mafioso Amir Raza Khan in 2001. Following training alongside the LeT in Dubai, Riyaz recruited men from Mangalore – mostly small businesspersons – Ahmad Baba Abu Bakr, Ali Mohammad Ahmad, Javed Mohammad Ali and Syed Mohammad Naushad, to form the bomb manufacture cell of the IM.
Asad Yazdani, a resident of Hyderabad, who was among Nassir’s first recruits, carried out a series of strikes starting with the assassination of Gujarat Home Minister, Hiran Pandya, Shramjeevi Express and March 2006 attack on the Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi with logistical assistance from the LeT or HUJI from across the border. Mumbai Police believe that July 2006 attacks on the City’s suburban trains were not Pakistanis at all, but rather Amin and other members of the Azamgarh cell.
Be that as it may, the template for the Islamic radical terrorism project can be traced to the Dubai-based Ibrahim's gang, which executed the March 12, 1993, blasts in Mumbai that killed 257 people. The ISI supplied the RDX for the 13 explosions using the same smuggling routes that landed gold, textile and watches in the 1970s and '80s. Ibrahim's syndicate, said the US Congressional Research Service Report, provides an example of how a profit-motivated criminal syndicate morphed into a 'criminal-terrorism fusion model'.
Next, the “Karachi Project”, conceived in 2003, is product of joint collaboration between the ISI, Pakistan Army, Lashkar, HUJI and the MCCs. Karachi served as sanctuary for Indian fugitives for arms and explosives training via Bangladesh and Nepal, where the videos of Babri Masjid and Gujarat riots were shown to indoctrinate them on ‘Hate India’.
Detailed information about Karachi Project has come from Abdul Khwaja, Shahid Bilal's (Head of the Bangladesh HUJI unit), second in command. He told interrogators that while he was at a terror camp in Karachi, IM chief Amir Reza Khan was also there during a briefing session. He revealed the targets including the RAW headquarters in Delhi's CGO complex, the German Bakery in Pune, RSS offices in Nagpur and Kolkata, and oil refineries in Hyderabad and Chennai.
In the aftermath of violence in Gujarat in 2002, dozens of Muslim youth jumped on the band wagon of the IM. In 2004, a group of former SIMI cadres – Riyaz Shahbandri, Altaf Subhan Quereshi, Sadiq Israr Sheikh, Peedical Abdul Shibly and Yahya Kakmutty – became the leading operatives of the IM. Quite a few among them belonged to the middle class families and very well educated. Although quite a few of their cadres were arrested, its leadership still remains functional – sleeper cells.
The ISI began training terror operatives in small groups of four to five. In two years, intelligence sources estimated infiltration of 40 and 50 jihadists after training. After completion of the training, many of the agents were infiltrated also into India as sleeper cells, waiting for the command to strike. Lakhvi and other LeT commanders prodded Quereshi, Bhatkal and Sheikh to set up a self-sustaining network in India. On the eve of attacking three court complex buildings in UP In November 2007, the three men finally gave their network a name. For the first time, the IM claimed responsibility for the series of blasts in the trail courts in UP on 23 November 2007 and issued the first series of manifestos explaining the rational – a war of civilization.
The IM was founded after a meeting between Amir of Kolkata and Riyaz Bhatkal by former members of SIMI in 2010 (under ban) to include Shafiq Ahmad, Abdul Subhan Quereshi, Sadiq Israr Sheikh and the Unani medicine practitioner-turned Islamist proselytizer Iqbal Ismail Shahbandri.
Also, the underworld dons and fugitives support as spotters to ensure a steady supply of recruits from India for the project. Mobster Amir Raza Khan of Kolkata, Rasool 'Party', a don from Ahmadabad, and a Tablighi Jamaat Maulvi Mufti Sufian Patangiya-- a group of fugitives whom one intelligence official calls a "bewildering array of poisonous snakes". Each had good reason to flee into Pakistan.
David Headley, Pakistan-born American Jehadi, has given the FBI details about the project and his role in it as well in December 2009. According to him, the Bhatkal brothers Riyaz and Iqbal, Mufti Sufian and underworld don Yaqoob Khan aka Rasool 'Party' were sheltered in Karachi by the LeT and ISI. Headley also told the FBI interrogators about serving and retired Pakistan Army officers being part of the project. The ISI trained the recruits in a remote region of Baluchistan.
The Government of India has released the list of major Islamist terror attacks since 2004. The list includes over 70 Islamist terror strikes that resulted in 707 lives and left over 3,200 injured. As per sources, the count of terror attacks in New Delhi alone is 19 stirkes during the past 15 years.
Furthermore, radical Jihadist crescent envelopment of the Northeast is also real. As per media reports in the Northeast India, the estimated number of Islamist terrorist groups is around 22 groups. The most active one is MULTA founded in 1996. The objective of MULTA is to fight the ‘cause of Muslims’ and to establish a ‘greater independent Islamistan’ for the Muslims of Assam. Similarly, Muslim organizations are active in Manipur and Tripura.
Finally, less known is the PFI that was formed in November 2006 in Kerala with alleged links with SIMI/IM. PFI has extended its network covering 15 States. Its network includes Goa, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Manipur, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh among others. The Asom United Democratic Front (AUDF) has declared solidarity with the group. The Milli Ettehad Parishad in West Bengal and the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhgam (TMMK) have also joined the PFI-led national alliance of Muslim groups and parties. There is significant cumulative evidence of progressive extremism in the PFI. On September 6, 2010, the Kerala State Government informed the High Court that investigators had obtained evidence regarding PFI’s connection with the HuM, LeT/JUD and AQ.
Viewed intheabove background framework, the horror prospects of “Radical Islamist Terrorism” persists unabatedly. There is nothing new about terror strikes against India Railways, which are highly vulnerable targets. “Where, When and How” terror groups will strike remains intelligence “jig-saw” puzzle. No point media and panelists crying hoarse after a terror strike. Be prepared or perish!
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