Join global movement for Jihad, al Qaeda tells Kashmiris in new video

Security agencies in Kashmir are bracing themselves for a possible escalation in violence after al Qaeda’s central command released a video, explicitly meant for Kashmiri Muslims, calling them to follow the path of those fighting in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, and join the global movement for Jihad.

The video - War Should Continue, Message to Muslims of Kashmir – produced by As-Sahab, al Qaeda’s in-house media production unit, was uploaded on Shamikh a top-tier al Qaeda web forum, which in the past has also released statements of Osama bin Laden, Ayman-al-Zawahiri, and the top leadership of the group’s other affiliates.

A chilling message read in Urdu and directed at Kashmiri Muslims by Maulana Asim Umar - one of the two prominent leaders of al Qaeda’s South Asia unit - urges Kashmiri Muslims to join the global Islamist Jihadi movement and assures them of help.

“To wave Islam’s flag over Srinagar’s Lal Chowk… caravans are heading from Afghanistan to liberate India and it is not being done on instructions of any intelligence agency, and not as part of some governmental policy, but simply to abide God’s command…,” Umar reads, while an image of Kashmir’s Famous Dal Lake is played out.

The video begins with a montage of the 2010 unrest in Kashmir valley, in which scores of people were killed during violent demonstrations that lasted several months.

The al Qaeda leader also chastises the Pakistani state, its intelligence agencies, and its people for ‘failing to help the Jihad in Kashmir’.

“Those (Kashmir’s) who swore to martyrs to walk their path till their last breath and vowed to continue jihad, who convinced them to shun jihad and dream about freedom of Kashmir by resorting to protests, shutdowns and democratic ways…?” the Al-Qaeda leader says in the video.

Surprisingly, this is for the first time that any al Qaeda leader has mentioned the name of the last Hindu ruler of Kashmir Maharaja Hari Singh, and calls his decision to accede to India “a treachery,” adding that it was the “worst treachery done with the Muslims of Kashmir.”

While making a reference towards the Pakistani state, Umar puts the blame on Hari Singh, saying, “he was an enemy. We should lament about those who made the mother and sisters of Kashmir cry and then left them to the mercy of India.”

This is not the first time Maulana Asim Umar has called for a Jihad in India. Last year, the al Qaeda leader released a video statement in which he called on the Indian Muslims to “fight Hindu rulers and work for (the) establishment of caliphate.”

The video, security analysts say, is a continuation of a series of similar statements by senior al Qaeda leaders in which they have increased their focus on India.

In 2003, Ayman al Zawahiri, the top al Qaeda leader had issued a policy document titled - Draft for Victory of Islam - in which he had authorised the ‘Jihad for liberation of Kashmir,’ but never had any massage so chilling and so violently directed at the people of Kashmir as released by the terror outfit.

“Once curtains are drawn on Afghan threat of war,” the document reads, “Kashmir is our next mission.”

Perhaps Engineer Ahsan Aziz, a Kashmiri militant from Mirpur district of Pakistan occupied Kashmir, who was killed in a US drone attack in 2012 in Pakistan’s tribal belt, seems to have influenced the al Qaeda leadership about Kashmir. Aziz, according to an obituary read by Ustad Ahmad Farooq, head of al Qaeda’s preaching in Pakistan, was a high-ranking al Qaeda leader who had shifted his base to the tribal areas of Pakistan’s western border in 2005.

Although Aziz was not the only one who had a connection with Kashmir and was part of the al Qaeda, two important field commanders, Ilyas Kashmiri and Badar Mansoor, who were killed in US drone strikes, also had Kashmiri links.

Both had fought the Indian Army in Kashmir before shifting their bases to the tribal areas, according to the same obituary and confirmed by sources in the security establishment.

In February last year, senior ideologue of Tehreek-e-Taliban Punjab, Maulana Ismatullah Mawiya, had termed the hanging of Parliament attack convict Muhammad Afzal Guru as a “good sign” for Kashmir’s militant movement.

“After 2014, when the US retreats from Afghanistan, a large number of Mujahideen involved in ‘jihad’ will start looking for a new mission. Who will, due to affections and faith, not choose the land of Kashmir,” Mawiya, had said.

Reacting to the al Qaeda statement, Defense Minster Arun Jaitley, who was on a two-day visit to Kashmir last week for a special security review and a visit to the LoC, said that even though he was optimistic, there exists an element of caution as people inimical to India will try to foment trouble.

He said the government would have to wait and watch how the situation would unfold after the withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan.

“We have to watch the situation how it progresses… But I am confident our security forces would be in a position to repudiate any such attempts they are making,” Jaitley said.

Security experts and Army commanders in recent years have been warning of a spillover of militants from Afghanistan and Pakistan into Kashmir once the US withdraws from the region.

The armed militancy in Kashmir valley had ebbed to a large extent in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. A majority of the militants presently fighting forces in Kashmir are not from Kashmir but from Pakistan.