Jihadist Violence: The Indian Threat - 1: An examination of a terrorist group, a loosely organized indigenous Islamist militant network known as the Indian Mujahideen

 

 

By Stephen Tankel

India, the world’s most populous democracy, faces a multitude of challenges that, if not wisely managed, could threaten India’s hopes of becoming one of the 21st century’s major global actors: growing disparities between rich and poor, a decrepit education system that too often fails to prepare its students to flourish in the modern economy, food and water insecurity, corrupt or unresponsive institutions, and horrific environmental degradation, to name just a few. Less often noted, particularly by foreign observers, is the wide range of terrorist groups and violent insurgencies that, to one degree or another, plague most of the states of India.

This report examines one of those terrorist groups: a loosely organized indigenous Islamist militant network known as the Indian Mujahideen, or IM. This Indian jihadist movement, Stephen Tankel notes, is “an internal security issue with an external dimension.” Most often, the author argues, analysts have focused on what he calls “expeditionary terrorism,” or violence perpetrated by actors from countries outside India—typically Pakistan or Bangladesh. Quite clearly, there is also an external dimension to IM, whose leadership is currently based in Pakistan. But it would be incorrect, Tankel asserts, to explain Indian jihadism primarily by reference to Pakistan.

The IM threat is a response to Indian domestic failings, including political malfeasance, economic inequality, and a widespread sense of injustice. However, it is one far more lethal as a result of external support. The Wilson Centre’s Asia Program is pleased to have worked with Professor Tankel to make this scholarly study available to a wider public. As Tankel sensibly concedes, the IM may not be a threat of the first order to U.S. interests in South Asia and beyond. P Nonetheless, Washington does have a compelling incentive to understand the evolution and dynamics of Indian jihadism, and to work with Indians to ensure that their home-grown jihadist movement does not morph into one that could either directly endanger central U.S. interests or become a genuine threat to a stable, democratic India.

 Robert M. Hathaway

Director, Asia Program

Woodrow Wilson Centre

Dramatis Personae

Rashid Abdullah (aka Wali), LeT commander for the Indian Ocean rim Sabauddin Ahmed, Indian LeT operative involved in 2005 attack against the IISc in Bangalore, arrested Mohammed Atif Ameen, Indian militant, head of the Indian Mujahideen’s Azamgarh module, deceased Shahnawaz Alam, Indian militant, member of Azamgarh module Ali Abdul Aziz al-Hooti, Indian militant, acted as interface for LeT and the Indian Mujahideen Sheikh Sai’d al-Masri, former al-Qaeda number 3, deceased Aftab Ansari, Indian gangster turned militant, briefly led Asif Raza Commando Force, arrested Jalees Ansari, Indian militant, founding member of Tanzim Islah ul  Muslimeen, deceased Syed Zabiuddin Ansari (aka Abu Jundal), Indian militant, LeT  operative who fled following the Aurangabad arms haul, in LeT’s  control room in Karachi for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, arrested Maulana Masood Azhar, founder of Jaish-e-Mohammad, former  member of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen Ahmad Siddi Bapa (aka Yasin Bhatkal and Shahrukh), Indian militant,  became IM field commander, arrested Muzammil Butt, Pakistan-based LeT commander for Indian  operations Mohsin Choudhary, Indian militant, member of Azamgarh module Lalbaba Farid (aka Bilal), Indian militant, arrested  Muhammad Azam Ghauri, Indian militant, founding member of  Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen, deceased D Afzal Guru, doctor from Kashmir, participant in December 2001  attack on Indian Parliament, executed in 2013 Abu Hamza, alias of Pakistani LeT commander responsible for 2005  IISc attack in Bangalore David Headley, Pakistani American operative for LeT, conducted  reconnaissance for 2008 Mumbai attacks, in prison in United States Fayyiz Kagzi, Indian LeT operative, wanted for his role in 2006  Ahmedabad railway bombing Abdul Karim (aka Tunda), Indian militant, founding member of Tanzim  Islah ul Muslimeen, LeT’s top field operative in India during 1990s,  arrested  Ilyas Kashmiri, leader of 313 Brigade, head of operations in Pakistan  for al-Qaeda, presumed dead Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, Muslim leader of South Asia’s largest crime  syndicate, D-company, responsible for 1993 blasts Sheikh Abdul Khaja (aka Amjad), Indian militant, arrested Amir Raza Khan, Indian gangster-turned-militant, founder of Asif Raza  Commando Force, LeT interface with Indian Mujahideen Asif Raza Khan, Indian gangster-turned-militant, deceased Fasih Mahmood, Indian LeT operative, arrested Tiger Memon, mobster, associate of Dawood Ibrahim, engineered  the lethal series of bomb blasts in Mumbai in March 1993 Jalaluddin Mullah (aka Babu Bhai) Indian militant, smuggled RDX  from Bangladesh to Indian Mujahideen, arrested Safdar Nagori, SIMI leader, arrested T. Naseer, Indian militant from Kerala allegedly responsible for 2008  Bangalore blasts, arrested Maulana Nasiruddin, Hyderabad cleric who founded Tehreek- Tahaffuz-e-Shaair-e-Islam (protection of Islamic shrines and  monuments) Sarfaraz Nawaz, Indian militant, former SIMI member, allegedly  involved in 2008 Bangalore blasts, arrested Haren Pandya, civilian, Gujarat Home Minister assassinated in 2003 Rasool Khan Yakub Khan Pathan (aka Rasool “Party), Indian mobster,  facilitated training for Indian militants Mohammad Mansoor Ashgar Peerbhoy, militant, software engineer,  command of IM Media Group, arrested Abdul Subhan Qureshi (aka Tauqir), took over SIMI after arrest of  Nagori Shaikh Abdur Rahman, Bangladeshi militant, founded the Jamaat ul- Mujahideen Bangladesh in 1998 Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Amir of Lashkar-e-Taiba and its above  ground wing Jamaat-ud-Dawa  Mohammad Abdul Sahed (aka Shahid Bilal), independent Indian  militant who led a network in Hyderabad, deceased Salman (aka Chhotu), Indian Mujahideen operative, arrested Abdul Sattar, Pakistani LeT member, allegedly established a cell in  Uttar Pradesh Iqbal Shahbandri (aka Iqbal Bhatkal), brother of Riyaz and founding  member of the Indian Mujahideen Riyaz Shahbandri (aka Riyaz Bhatkal), brother of Iqbal, founding  member of the Indian Mujahideen and its leader at the time of  writing Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, British-born Pakistani member of  Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, helped radicalize Indian militants, engineered  Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping, arrested in Pakistan Mohammad Sadique Israr Sheikh (Sadique Sheikh), SIMI activist,  founding member of Indian Mujahideen, arrested  Rahil Abdul Rehman Sheikh, Indian LeT operative India has been confronting jihadist violence for decades.

Introduction

Yet these dynamics remain underexplored and difficult to comprehend, particularly in terms of ties to either the Pakistani state or non-state Pakistani and Bangladeshi jihadist groups. Expeditionary terrorism by Pakistani militants typically receives the most focus, but indigenous actors benefiting from external support are responsible for the majority of jihadist attacks within India. The Indian Mujahideen (IM) network that announced its presence in 2007 is only the latest and most well-known manifestation of the indigenous Islamist militant threat. A few Indian Muslims have been launching terrorist strikes - often with Pakistani support and sometimes on their own -- for more than twenty years. Despite this steady drumbeat of at least partly indigenous attacks, Indian officials did not acknowledge edge the problem until the end of the 2010s.1  Instead, the over whelming majority of attacks were blamed on non-state Pakistani  and Bangladeshi groups. Little attention was paid to investigating the dynamics of the Indian networks involved in perpetrating them.

 This contributed to a knowledge gap in understanding Indian jihadism. U.S. analysts, policymakers, and practitioners have highlighted the paucity of information regarding the nature and scale of the indigenous Indian jihad threat, the degree to which indigenous networks could threaten U.S. interests in India or across wider South Asia region, and the nebulous ties between Indian jihadist networks and Pakistan-based groups.

This report seeks to address these and other questions. It argues  that the Indian Mujahideen - the primary indigenous jihadist threat - is part of a larger universe of Islamist militant entities operating in  India, many but not all of which are connected to external entities  such as the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the  Bangladeshi Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI-B). It also asserts that the IM should not be viewed as a formal organization, but instead is best understood as a label for a relatively amorphous network populated by jihadist elements from the fringes of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the criminal underworld.

The improper use of the IM label for all indigenous jihadist violence contributes to confusion about its composition and cohesion. Today, the decentralized IM network has a loose leadership currently based in Pakistan, but moving between there and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The IM connects to and sometimes attempts to absorb smaller cells and self-organizing clusters of would-be militants. Finally, this report illustrates that the Indian jihadist movement formed organically and as a result of endogenous factors, specifically communal grievances and a desire for revenge, but is more lethal and more resilient than it otherwise would have been, thanks to external support from the Pakistani state and Pakistan- and Bangladesh-based militant groups. In other words, external support was a force multiplier for Indian militancy rather than a key driver of it. Although the IM receives support from LeT, it should not be viewed as an affiliate within the same command-and control hierarchy. This distinguishes the IM from some of the other LeT cells or operatives active in India.

Methodology

This report is based on research conducted over twenty months from January 2012 to September 2013 and draws on primary and secondary source material as well as on field interviews conducted in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Interview subjects in India included Intelligence Bureau (IB) analysts, officials from the National Investigative Agency (NIA), senior police officials in multiple cities as well as former police officials, former senior officers from the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), scholars from multiple think tanks, Muslim clerics and community activists, and journalists.

Interview subjects in Pakistan included journalists, security analysts, and members of Lashkar-e-Taiba’s above-ground wing, Jamaat ud-Dawa. Interview subjects in Bangladesh included officers from National Security Intelligence, former military officers, think tank scholars, and journalists. Scoping interviews were held with U.S. analysts, policymakers, and practitioners before desk-based research and again before departing for field research. Finding and  analysis based on this information was then sharpened in a series of  briefings with U.S. officials and analysts who track the Indian jihadist  movement  Research benefited from a wave of arrests of Indian Mujahideen  operatives in 2008, the arrest and subsequent deportation to  India in the summer of 2012 of two key Indian operatives by Saudi  authorities and, as this report was being finalized, the arrests of  Abdul Karim, one of the progenitors of India’s jihadist movement,  and of Ahmed Siddi Bapa, the Indian Mujahideen’s field commander.

Drawing on this new information as well as on interrogation reports, government documents, arrest reports (known as charge sheets), and the numerous interviews conducted, a team of researchers and I constructed a database of attacks dating back to 2001. It includes information about the militants allegedly involved in each attack, where they came from, the identities of the alleged masterminds, the explosives used, the logistical support provided, and the documented evidence of alleged assistance from external actors in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and the Persian Gulf. This enables a more thoroughly detailed and rigorous assessment, especially in terms of the organizational and operational aspects of the Indian jihadist movement.

Despite these efforts, ambiguity still surrounds many of the activities of Islamist militants in India and those who support them. Indian media reporting is often unreliable and contradictory. Charge sheets and interrogation reports must also be used cautiously, especially given the pressure on police to make a case after a bombing and their practice of using torture to elicit information that might help them do so. The questionable validity of certain primary and secondary sources creates a significant challenge to conducting research of this nature, which may help explain why analysts have shied away from exploring the evolution and dynamics of Indian jihadism.

When this is the case, I make clear that uncertainty exists. I also attempt to outline competing claims, to identify clues or trends that might point the way forward, and to suggest possible explanations as well as the alternative consequences different scenarios could create. Although this effort opens the door to possible errors of fact or analysis, the same risk accompanies any empirical work about clandestine phenomena. I am confident that the material gathered is extensive enough to chart the significant trends in the Indian jihadist movement’s evolution and to identify its relevant dynamics. However, the movement and our understanding of it remains a work in progress, and new information continues to come to light. This report does not endeavor to be the final word on Indian jihadism, only to provide a baseline for further analysis.

Source: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/jihadist-violence-the-indian-threat

URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/jihadist-violence-indian-threat-1/d/35174