Al-Qaeda Confirms the Killing of its Indian Amir: The Rise and Secret Fall of Shaikh Asim Umar
Al-Qaeda Confirms the Killing of its Indian Amir: The Rise and Secret Fall of Shaikh Asim Umar
Two years after his death, al-Qaeda has confirmed that Shaikh Asim Umar, the founding amir of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), al-Qaeda’s south Asian franchise, was killed. Umar died in a U.S. and Afghan forces joint raid on September 23, 2019 in the Musa Qala district of the Afghanistan’s Helmand province (Dawn, October 8, 2019). Several AQIS and Taliban members were killed alongside Asim Umar, including the al-Qaeda amir Ayman Zawahiri’s courier to Umar. In addition, U.S. forces arrested Umar’s wife in this raid, who was later released among 5,000 Taliban prisoners who were exchanged according to the terms of Doha peace deal between the U.S. and Taliban in February 2020 (UNSC, June 1, 2021).
This first al-Qaeda confirmation of Umar’s death came through the latest book of Ayman al-Zawahiri (Twitter.com/Ab.Sayed, September 10, 2021). The book was written in April and the al-Qaeda central media arm, as-Sahab, published it a day before the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. Al-Zawahiri counted Umar among a long list of important al-Qaeda commanders killed in the Khorasan region after 9/11.
As-Sahab regularly published the latest audio, video, and written statements of Asim Umar, even after his death in September 2019. The media agency, for example, published his archived data after his death, while tactically looking over the fact that the mainstream media had already reported his death in the raid in Musa Qala. Jihadists use the religious supplication of “May Allah protect him” after stating its leaders’ names when they are alive. The AQIS flagship Urdu magazine, Nawai Afghan Jihad, which was renamed Nawai Ghazwai Hind in March 2020, along with as-Sahab would sometimes add this supplication to Umar’s name or leave it as it is. This was to keep his killing a secret.
Al-Qaeda had a strategic reason for keeping silent on Umar’s killing. Umar was killed in a hideout provided by the Afghan Taliban local commander in Musa Qala (UNSC, 27 May 2020). The Taliban and al-Qaeda silence was, therefore, intended to protect the U.S.-Taliban peace negotiations, which would result in the Doha peace deal five months after Umar’s death. The Taliban had promised the United States that there was no presence of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, nor were there any past relations with the group (Tolo News, September 5, 2019). Therefore, the assassination of a senior al-Qaeda leader under the protection of the Taliban could result in obstacles for the peace negotiations, which neither the Taliban nor al-Qaeda could afford.
Who Was Shaikh Asim Umar?
Asim Umar was an important figure and interesting case study in the Afghanistan and Pakistan jihadist landscape. Asim Umar’s real name was Sana Ul Haq, and he came from Uttar Pradesh in India (Economic Times, October 10, 2019). He moved to Pakistan in the mid-1990s, leaving behind his siblings and parents to join the militant groups fighting against the Indian government. This was the peak era of the Pakistani state supporting Kashmiri militant groups carrying out attacks inside India. [1] Indian Muslims were highly opposed to the Indian government after the demolishing of the historical Babri Mosque in 1992, which helped fuel the anti-Indian jihadist groups that were covertly supported by Pakistan (Hindustan Times, March 15, 2019).
After moving to Pakistan, Umar joined the Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (HUJI), which was one of the Pakistani militant groups active in Kashmir and Afghanistan with close ties to al-Qaeda. [2] He continued his religious studies in the top Deobandi seminaries in Karachi and the Jamia Haqqani Akora Khattak, [3] where most of the Afghan Taliban founding commanders also studied (Jirga Geo News, September 18).
Umar later became part of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and then joined Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM). [4] Both HuM and JeM were large militant groups of the Deobandi sect. [5] Maulana Masoud Azhar was a senior leader of HuM who established JeM in 2000 after he was released from Indian prison, where he had spent six years. Like Umar, hundreds of militants from HuM and other Kashmiri jihadist groups joined JeM.
Umar had similar skills to Azhar. While neither of them were military commanders, they both were jihadist ideologues famous for fierce oratory and writings in the jihadist circles. JeM established its military centers in Afghanistan and became close to al-Qaeda [6]. Umar accordingly established close personal relations with al-Qaeda senior commanders in Afghanistan, which helped his rapid rise in al-Qaeda after becoming part of it in 2010-2011. [7]
The Pakistani state banned JeM along with dozens of militant organizations in 2002. [8] Umar at this time was focused on teaching in top Pakistani Deobandi religious seminaries and writing jihadist literature. This earned him increasing respect in the Pakistani religious and jihadist circles, which he held during the time that Pakistani jihadists had announced an open war against the Pakistani state after Pakistan’s military operation against the Red Mosque, a pro-jihadist religious seminary and mosque in Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad. [9] This caused Pakistani jihadists to mobilize against Pakistan. Joining the militant ranks in Waziristan was al-Qaeda amir, Osama Bin Laden, who also was declaring war against Pakistan as revenge for the Red Mosque operation. [10] This resulted in the establishment of the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in December 2007. [11]
A close JeM co-fighter with Umar, Asmatullah Muavia, also revolted against the state and joined TTP. [12] Muavia later became the TTP non-Pashtun wing’s amir, known as the Punjabi Taliban. Umar also joined Muavia in Waziristan in 2009 or 2010 in Waziristan, where for the first time he appeared in a jihadist video produced by a TTP media wing. [13]
Asim Umar as AQIS’ Founding Amir
Al-Qaeda’s written documents provide no exact date for when Asim Umar joined al-Qaeda in Waziristan, but he started appearing in as-Sahab videos in 2011. One account in al-Qaeda sources suggests that Umar was introduced to al-Qaeda’s Pakistani leadership’s top circles in September 2011 by a senior Pakistani al-Qaeda leader, Ustad Ahmad Farooq. [14] The narrator stated that most of al-Qaeda’s Pakistani members in that meeting did not know about Umar beforehand, but Umar soon afterwards started regularly appearing in as-Sahab’s Urdu documentaries. By 2012, he was called the amir of the “al-Qaeda Sharia committee in Khorasan” in as-Sahab videos, which was a significant role.
The question remains about how Umar became the AQIS founding amir despite belatedly joining al-Qaeda in Waziristan. Several other senior Pakistani commanders joined al-Qaeda shortly after 9/11 played central roles in al-Qaeda’s post-9/11 survival, including establishing its wing in Pakistan, such as Ustad Ahmad Farooq, Haji Wali Ullah (alias Imran Siddiqi), Rana Umair Afzal (alias Mustafa Abdul Kareem). There were three apparent reasons for this. First, Umar was a senior Pakistani Deobandi religious figure highly respected in the jihadist circles for his religious credentials, and the Deobandi community dominates the Afghanistan and Pakistan militant landscape. Second, the Afghan Taliban also originates from the Deobandi sect, and most leaders graduated from the Pakistani Deobandi seminaries, particularly Jamia Haqqani in Akora Khattak, where Umar was a faculty member. This showed his deep links to the Afghan Taliban, which could further help al-Qaeda cement its relations with the latter. Third, although Umar had deep ties to Pakistan, he was an Indian citizen. This provided a significant opportunity for al-Qaeda because its target zone was beyond Pakistan and Afghanistan and into India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.
Further, al-Qaeda was in great need of ideologues who could become influential media faces. They had lost many senior ideologues in the region, including the Libyans Abu Yahya and Atiyya al-Libi, Mustafa Abu Yazid, and Mansur al-Shami, after the U.S. drone strikes. Thus, a local South Asian replacement like Asim Umar had extra significance for al-Qaeda. This was evident from the Umar’s audio-video lectures and essays published by as-Sahab, which focused on the local issues of Pakistani and Indian Muslims and explained to reader that the jihadist ideology of al-Qaeda is the only option for achieving their goals.
Notes
[1] Mohammad Amir Rana, Gateway to Terrorism, (New Millennium: London, UK, 2003). [2] Abdul Basit, Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses, Vol. 6, No. 10 (November 2014), pp. 8-12. [3] Ibid. [4] Author interview with senior Pakistani journalist Majid Nizami based in Lahore, Pakistan, September 25, 2021. [5] Rana, 2003. [6] Ibid. [7] Author interview, 25th September 2021. [8] Mujahid Hussain, Punjabi Taliban: Driving Extremism in Pakistan, (Pentagon Press: New Delhi, India, 2012). [9] Syed Salim Shahzad, Inside al-Qaeda and Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11, (Pluto Press: London, UK, 2011). [10] Ibid. [11] Ibid. [12] Hussain, 2012. [13] Author text interview with Mr. Orange (@Mr0rangetracker), who is an expert on jihadist media, September 20, 2021. [14] Moeenuddin Shami, “With Ustad Farooq: Part 14th,” Nawai Afghan Jihad (in Urdu), Vol. 12, Issue 12, pp. 27-28.
