SRINAGAR: “Perhaps we should start calling ourselves the Hizb ul-Mujahireen instead of the Hizb ul-Mujahideen,” the terrorist group’s supreme commander, Mohammad Yusuf Shah, joked with a confidant last month. Shah’s wordplay did nothing to mask the bitterness of his tone: the feared mujahideen, or religious soldiers, he had once commanded now degenerated into a ‘party of exiles’, unwanted either at home or in Pakistan.Although the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections are still three months away, both the National Conference and the People’s Democratic Party have held dozens of rallies in preparation of an intense contest. Islamist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani is also campaigning vigorously, calling on his supporters to boycott the elections.
From his headquarters in Pakistan, Shah shaped the outcome of the 2002 elections, using his terror squads to attack NC activists and coerce rural supporters of the party. One hundred political workers, mainly from the NC, were killed — adding to 61 lives claimed by terrorists in 1996; 57 in 1997; and 76 in 2001.
Robbed of a near-certain victory by NC rigging in the 1987 elections, when he contested as a Muslim United Front candidate, Shah crossed the Line of Control and joined an Inter-Services Intelligence-run jihad training camp. He vowed to wreak vengeance on India and the NC — and delivered on his threat. But the triumphant homecoming Shah hoped for has proved a mirage. In the years since 2002, the Hizb has haemorrhaged commanders and cadre — leaving the terror group and its supreme commander powerless spectators this time around. Its rank and file are demoralised; its field units strapped for funds and weapons; and its patrons in the ISI suspicious of its motivations.
Decimated organisation
For all practical purposes, what was once Jammu and Kashmir’s numerically-strongest terror group has just one field unit — a dozen-odd operatives grouped around southern division commander Shabbir Ahmed Mir in Tral town. It has been unable to mount a single attack of consequence for over a year, as cell after cell has been betrayed to the Jammu and Kashmir police or penetrated by Indian intelligence.
Ideologically committed leaders like Pervez Ahmed Dar, who, using the codename “Musharraf” acts as the Hizb’s financial chief, have attempted to staunch the tide — but to little avail. Dar’s immediate superior Farooq Ahmad Bhat was shot dead in February; key lieutenants such as central division commander Tajamul Islam and top south Kashmir operative Raees Dar are in jail.
No successor yet
Ever since Nasir Ahmad Dar, the organisationÂ’s chief of military operations within Jammu and Kashmir, surrendered to authorities earlier this year, the Hizb has been unable to appoint a successor. Kulgam-born Riyaz Ahmad Bhat was selected, but the commanderÂ’s parents travelled to Pakistan and arranged for his marriage, ensuring that he stayed on in Pakistan rather than risk death by returning home.
To make matters worse, the ISI no longer seems to trust the Hizb. Pakistan Army units actually turned back Hizb units attempting to cross the LoC this summer — a reflection of the ISI’s fear that the group’s cadre are likely to tamely surrender once they are home. It is not an unfounded suspicion: almost a hundred Hizb operatives have done just that over the past year.
Jihadist build-up
Instead, the ISI is putting its faith in Pakistani jihadists. Upwards of 300 Lashkar cadre are thought to have massed at the Sawai Nallah near Muzaffarabad, along with similar numbers of Jaish at Chela Bandi and al-Badr at Chetiyan. Signs of the jihadist build-up are already evident. Last month, bus passengers near the Lolab Valley, for example, were twice stopped by jihadist units and asked to turn in any policeman among them.
Polemic sans bite
Hizb chief Shah has been increasingly theatrical in his polemic, promising attacks against Israeli tourists in Jammu and Kashmir, for example, and threatening to take the jihad “to Lahore” unless Pakistan reverses its policies. But in both Pakistan and India, this polemic is understood for just what it is: the rage of an ageing and battered beast that has lost its bite.