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Detailed account of how the Kashmir Jihad started
A separatist leader based in Pakistani-administered Kashmir has alleged that Kashmiri militants were initially trained by Pakistan's intelligence agency - the ISI - in the late 1980s. Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Amanullah Khan says the move had the blessings of Pakistan's then military ruler General Zia ul-Haq. His allegations are made in a new edition of his book Continuous Struggle, which was first published in 1992. The new edition of the book is yet to be published but the BBC News website was able to secure extracts of the book. It contains the most hard-hitting account of Pakistan's alleged involvement in the Kashmir insurgency from a Pakistan-based Kashmiri leader so far.Mr Khan says the ISI first made contact with the JKLF in early 1987, through the organisation's senior leader Farooq Haider. He says Mr Haider made a deal with the ISI whereby the JKLF was to bring young Kashmiris willing to fight Indian rule to Pakistan-administered Kashmir. They would then be given military training and arms by the ISI, he says. The objective was to start an insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir. According to Mr Khan, the JKLF was told by the then chief of the ISI, General Akhtar Abdur Rehman, that the ISI would not interfere with the JKLF's ideology. "I was told by Brigadier Farooq of the ISI that the agency would lend us unconditional support as directed by General Zia ul-Haq," he says. "He also said the ISI would not intervene in JKLF's organisational matters." Mr Khan says it was also agreed that no JKLF leader "engaged at the political and diplomatic front" would accept money in cash from the ISI. It was a verbal agreement, he says. The first batch of eight young fighters from Indian-administered Kashmir were said to have reached Pakistan-administered side in February 1988. They were given military training and weapons by the ISI and sent back with instructions not to start anything until they were given a green signal from Pakistan, Mr Khan writes. Mr Khan then says that three separatist leaders, Mohammed Afzal, Ghulam Hasan Lone and Ghulam Nabi Bhatt were called to the Pakistan side in June 1988. "After lengthy deliberations, we asked them to start the insurgency on 13 July, 1988. But for some reason, the insurgency could not begin before 31 July when the Amar Singh Club and the central post and telegraph office in Srinagar were bombed." Mr Khan gives "credit for the first action" to six militants - Humayun Azad, Javed Jehangir, Shabbir Ahmed Guru, Arshad Kol, Ghulam Qadir and Mohammed Rafiq. "After that, there was an endless stream of militants coming into Azad [Pakistan-administered] Kashmir." Mr Khan says the JKLF parted ways with the ISI in early 1990 when the ISI demanded that one of its officers be allowed to attend the JKLF meetings "as an observer". It was after this that ISI support shifted to Hezbul Mujahideen, and the movement went from being a nationalist insurgency to a pan-Islamic Jihad. Posted by: Omoluger Ebbatle8086 2005-06-17 |
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