The ‘Pir’ of Terror: A Brief Sketch of Syed Salahuddin of Kashmir Jihad
The ‘Pir’ of Terror: A Brief Sketch of Syed Salahuddin of Kashmir Jihad
Syed Salahuddin (a.k.a. Muhammad Yusuf Saha), heads the most dreaded Kashmir-centric militant organization, Hizbul Mujahideen (HM – Party of Holy Warriors). He has led a proxy war against India since the early 1990s. The organization has worked hand in glove with Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), and largest Islamic religious party, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), since its inception. [1]
Born in Jammu and Kashmir’s Soya Bugh village in 1946, Salahuddin was educated in traditional medicine and political science. He went on to become a leading activist and preacher for the JeI’s Jammu and Kashmir wing. His knowledge of Islamic religious scriptures and command of English, Urdu and various local languages earned him much popularity among college and university students. He was assigned various organizational positions within the JeI and its student wing, the Islami Tehrik-e-Talaba, (Islamic Student Movement) throughout his early career. Interested in politics and public administration, Salahuddin even contested election for the Muslim United Front from Srinagar’s Amira Kadal constituency in 1987, but was disqualified for protesting against alleged booth rigging and bogus voting (Daily Excelsior (Jammu), December 3, 2013). In the following months, he became much more disgruntled and radical as he started to openly address gatherings with jihadi sermons laced with anti-India rhetoric and exhortations to the youths of Jammu and Kashmir to join the separatist movement. He was frequently jailed for anti-India activities and hate speeches during a time when the Kashmir separatist movement was steadily brewing. Salahuddin went into hiding after his release from Indian prison and later joined JeI’s militant front, Hizbul Mujahideen. After joining the militants, Salahuddin travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Amongst his peer group, Salahuddin is a revered figure for being a militant ideologue and is often referred to as Pir Sahib (pir is a title of respect for an Islamic guide). [2] For the Indian security establishment, however, he is a proclaimed offender and a terror mastermind wanted for channeling funds for jihad in Kashmir and waging war against India. An Interpol red notice has been pending against him since 1998 when the Jammu and Kashmir state police registered the first case against him for conspiracy and subversive activities. Salahuddin is also officially proscribed from Pakistan-administered Kashmir (PAK), but he continues to operate from his headquarters in the Pakistani cities Rawalpindi and Muzafarabad. India’s premier terror investigating agency, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), late last year charged Syed Salahuddin and nine other top Hizbul Mujahideen commanders with funding militancy in Jammu and Kashmir. [3]
Kashmir Jihad
Hizbul Mujahideen emerged as the largest militant formation in Jammu and Kashmir in the early 1990s in an apparent effort by Pakistan agencies to set up a united jihad front for Kashmir’s liberation. [4] Although HM was initially under the leadership of Ahsan Dar, an Islamic teacher and militant from Pattan, Baramulla, by 1991, the supreme council of HM appointed Salahuddin as its supreme commander due to his knowledge, popularity and military skills. With the objective of establishing a state based on Islamic order and governance adhering to the Shari’a, Salahuddin set three major goals: to create awareness about jihad, to prepare the youths of Kashmir for jihad and to raise resources for mujahideen involved in jihad. It is noteworthy that the name of HM was inspired by two jihadi movements in the region: Hezb-e-Islami of Afghanistan and the Tehrik-ul-Mujahideen of Pakistan. During HM’s early phases of existence, Salahuddin was in contact with a number of Afghan-Kashmiri groups, including Hezb-e-Islami. He also received the support of Afghan mujahideen leaders such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Burhanuddin Rabbani for the armed struggle in Kashmir. [5]
An expert in military tradecraft, Salahuddin devised a guerrilla strategy to execute jihad in Kashmir. His training in Afghanistan and Pakistan and knowledge of the local geography helped him immensely in many attacks on communication networks and bridges as well as ambushes on Indian security force convoys in Kashmir. Some of the major militant events perpetrated by Hizbul Mujahideen under the leadership of Salahuddin include the January 1995 bomb attacks on Maulana Azad Stadium in Jammu, targeting a meeting of Jammu and Kashmir Governor General KV Krishna Rao where at least eight people died and scores injured; and the May 1995 burning of the Charar-e-Sharif shrine (Free Press Kashmir, February 20, 1995). HM’s name also surfaced when a series of attacks on government offices (including the army headquarters and CGO complex in New Delhi) occurred in May 2001. The New Delhi attacks were carried out with the help of radical Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) operatives (Tribune (Chandigarh), July 31, 2001).
Salahuddin supports suicide (fidayeen) attacks as part of his group’s guerrilla tactics and terms these attacks the “highest level of jihad” and legitimate under the mujahideen code of conduct (Deccan Herald, April 7, 2013). Salahuddin and HM threatened to unleash large scale fidayeen attacks against Indian security forces and government establishments in Jammu and Kashmir in July 2003 (AFP, July 16, 2003). Salahuddin announced the formation of a suicide squad named al-Shuhada Brigade (a.k.a. Shoidah-i-Brigade) that has attacked Indian security forces and political targets since September 2013 (Kashmir Watch, September 27, 2013). The most recent suicide attacks took place in Kathua on March 28 and on the residence of a National Conference leader in Pulwama district on April 13. Salahuddin claimed responsibility for these attacks by al-Shuhada Brigade (Greater Kashmir, April 13; Kashmir Times, April 1). Claiming that HM’s strike unit is expanding bases in Rajouri, Poonch and the Banihal area of Jammu and Kashmir, Salahuddin underscored that the “gun is the only way to dislodge Indian Army from the state of Jammu and Kashmir” (New Indian Express, April 1).
United Jihad Front
HM and Syed Salahuddin have dominated two militant groups fighting for Kashmir’s liberation since the mid-1990s; the Muttahida Jihad Council (MJC, a.k.a. the United Jihad Council – UJC) and Shura-e-Jihad (SeJ). These were created by Salahuddin and other militant leaders along with the ISI in November 1990 to bring all Kashmir-centric militant groups under one platform in order to remove mutual differences and institute a common military strategy. The MJC was established in Muzafarabad in Pakistan. At present, it has some 14 active militant organizations operating in the Kashmir region, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad and al-Badr Mujahideen. Syed Salahuddin remains the chairman of this loose militant conglomerate. He was instrumental in reorganizing the MJC in the post-January 2004 peace overtures between India and Pakistan when the Pakistani government under Pervez Musharraf came down heavily on the Kashmir militant groups. Even though Pakistan has restricted the activities of HM and its leadership since May 2003 and barred Syed Salahuddin from entering Pakistan-administered Kashmir, it failed to impose the restrictions on the activities of the group or on Syed Salahuddin on the ground (Rediff.com, May 20, 2003).
Even though Salahuddin once nourished a political ambition in Kashmir, presently he and Hizbul Mujahideen maintain a link with Tehrik-i-Hurriyat, a hardline party within the Kashmiri political umbrella group, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC). Salahuddin admitted that Syed Shah Geelani’s Tehreek-i-Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir (JKTH) represent HM’s goals and ideologies. Both HM and Tehrik-i-Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir support complete military evacuation from the territory of Kashmir and a unified Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh (Times of India, April 30, 2011). Probing further into both organizations’ media arms and web platforms reveals more similarities in their goals and propaganda. Both websites have been designed and developed by a person named Zakirullah, which is presumably an alias. [6]
Fighting Pakistan’s War?
With the clout inside Pakistan’s security and political establishments, Salahuddin managed to organize military training and supplies from Pakistan’s ISI directorate. The Islamist elements in Pakistan remain sympathetic to HM’s Kashmir cause. HM and Salahuddin consider Indian-administered Kashmir (IAK – Jammu and Kashmir) an integral part of Pakistan and seek to establish a merger of IAK with PAK (Pakistan-administered Kashmir) to turn the region into an Islamized entity. Salahuddin has reiterated this idea in his various speeches and often opposes bilateral parleys or any efforts by India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir issue. Whenever there is a bilateral bonhomie between India and Pakistan, Salahuddin and the MJC Council often come out in the open to derail that process (The Hindu, December 6, 2007).
Salahuddin has not only opposed the ceasefire agreements, but has also vehemently opposed Pakistan’s plan to give Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to India, which according to him, is against the spirit of the Kashmir cause. He was quoted in media as saying, “We do not agree to states and we do not agree to any kind of autonomy, we do not agree to Line of Control [LoC] trade at the cost of independence of the occupied state. We stand for complete independence from Indian slavery.” (Times Now TV, April 30, 2011). His argument has been that the cross-LoC trade between the disputing countries and stepped up people-to-people contact, trade and commerce can be “detrimental for the interests of Kashmiris and Pakistan” (Greater Kashmir, January 27, 2013). He has even threatened Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with harmful consequences if Pakistan pursues friendship with New Delhi. Salahuddin urged Pakistan “not to repeat the mistake of putting Kashmir on the back burner and try to foster friendship with New Delhi through trade, cultural exchanges and tourism” (Zee News, May 16, 2013).
Arguably, Syed Salahuddin and his jihadi brethren still have the blessings of Pakistan’s establishment. Flaunting his closeness to the Pakistani establishment, Salahuddin once said that Pakistan will never hand him over to India (Daily Times [Lahore], January 1, 2007). He has mentioned repeatedly in many of his interviews that Pakistan has extended moral, military and diplomatic support to HM to continue an armed struggle against India over Kashmir (Rediff.com, August 28, 2001). He openly stated: “We are fighting Pakistan’s war in Kashmir and if it withdraws its support, the war would be fought inside Pakistan” (Arab News [Jeddah], May 31, 2012).
Even after receiving multiple setbacks at the hands of the Indian security forces over the years, Salahuddin and HM remain a potent force that could elevate the Kashmiri jihad to a different level, especially with its newly-formed suicide squads. Having remained for years on India’s most wanted list, Salahuddin is still a fugitive and one of the remaining jihadi masterminds India would like to apprehend and bring to justice.
Notes
1. Amelle Blom, “A Patron-Client Perspective on Militia–State Relations: The Case of the Hizbul Mujahideen of Kashmir,” Armed Militias of South Asia: Fundamentalists, Maoists and Separatists, Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot (eds.).
2. Zafar Meraj, “Syed Salahudin: Hizb ul Mujahideen,” in Harinder Baweja (ed.), Most Wanted: Profiles of Terror, Roli Books, 2002, p 116.
3. National Investigation Agency (Press Release) “RC-11/2011/NIA/DLI pertaining to Hizbul Mujahideen (HM),” November 30, 2013, https://www.nia.gov.in/writereaddata/PressRelease30112013.pdf.
4. Amir Mir, True Face of Jihadis, 2004, pp. 129, 130.
5. Zafar Meraj, op cit, p 123. Also cited in Patterns of Global Terrorism 2002, Appendix C, Background Information on Other Terrorist Groups, U.S. State Department, https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/20120.pdf.
6. For more information on similarities between Tehrik-i-Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir and Hizbul Mujahideen’s websites, please see: https://www.jkth.org/Articles.php (https://www.hizbmedia.org/Articles.php.
