Listed in Australia 14 November 2002, re-listed 5 November 2004, 3 November 2006 and 3 November 2008

(Also known as: Harakat ul-Mujahideen (HuM), Movement of Holy Warriors, Harakat ul-Mujaheddin, Harakat ul-Mujahedeen, Islamic Freedom Fighters Movement, Islamic Freedom Fighters Group, Harakat ul-Mujahidin, Harakat ul-Mujahedin, Harkat ul-Mujahideen, Harakat Mujahideen (HM), Harakat-ul-Ansar (HuA), Harkat ul-Ansar, Al-Faran, Al-Hadid, Al-Hadith)

The following information is based on publicly available details about Jamiat ul-Ansar (JuA). The JuA is listed under the name Harakat ul-Mujahideen (HuM) in the United Nations 1267 Committee’s consolidated list and is a proscribed terrorist organisation by the governments of Canada, the UK, the US and Pakistan.

Current status of JuA

JuA is a Sunni Islamic extremist organisation based in Pakistan that operates primarily in Indian administered Kashmir (IAK). Founded in 1985 as the Harakat ul-Mujahideen (HuM), JuA was initially formed, with support from the Pakistan government, to participate in the Soviet-Afghan conflict in the 1980s. Following Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, JuA concentrated its efforts on the disputed territories of Kashmir and Jammu, where it conducted numerous attacks against Indian troops and civilians. Using the alternative name, al-Faran, in order to mask its activities, JuA also kidnapped, and in some cases murdered, a number of foreigners.

JuA is aligned politically with Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam Fazul Rehman faction (JUI-F), a prominent radical Islamic party in Pakistan. Funding for JuA is received through donations to Islamic charities and is collected from sympathisers in Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the Gulf states. JuA has cooperated with other Islamic militant groups operating in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Pakistan such as the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), Jaish e-Muhammad (JeM), and the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). JuA is a member of the United Jihad, an umbrella organisation formed to bring all insurgent groups in Kashmir together in order to coordinate strategies and improve communication between groups.

In 1993 the JuA (then known as HuM) merged with another Kashmir-focused terrorist group, the Harakat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI), to form the Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA). As a consequence of reports linking the group to al-Qa'ida, HuA was proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the US in 1997. The group immediately re-adopted the name Harakat ul-Mujahideen to escape the ramifications of proscription. In 1998, the group’s leader, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, signed Usama bin Laden’s fatwa calling for attacks on the US and its allies. In the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, HuM was declared a terrorist organisation by the US for its extensive links with Usama bin Laden. HuM was also banned by the Pakistan government in November 2001. Following the ban, HuM again renamed and is now operating under its present name of Jamiat ul-Ansar. JuA was subsequently banned by Pakistan in November 2003.

Following his release from an Indian prison in 2000, JuA member Maulana Masood Azhar established the JeM as a splinter group with almost identical aims as the JuA. This led to a large number of JuA operatives defecting to JeM, including a number of experienced field commanders, which has impacted on JuA’s operational capabilities. The JeM was initially proscribed in Australia on 11 April 2003 and was last listed on 31 March 2007.

Indian and Pakistani initiatives to resolve the conflict in Kashmir have led to an overall reduction in the level of JuA infiltration and insurgent activity since 2006. JuA remains active in IAK, for example, the 2 November 2006 shooting of a former Special Police Officer in Kashmir accused by JuA of collaborating with a police operations group. JuA has also been linked to the kidnapping and subsequent beheading of a Hindu businessman in Pakistan’s Sindh Province in February 2007. An exchange of gunfire with Indian Security Forces in Jammu, on 4 January 2007, is further evidence of their ongoing activity.

Individuals trained at HuM/JuA facilities have, in the past, engaged in terrorist operations in other places where Islamic extremists have arisen including, Tajikistan and Bosnia and Herzegovina. While IAK and Indian interests remain JuA’s primary focus, reporting indicates JuA is active in Pakistan’s western provinces and is directly engaged in advocating and fostering terrorist attacks against Afghan and coalition forces in Afghanistan. On 19 June 2005, several JuA trained individuals were arrested in Afghanistan preparing to carry out acts of terrorism. Since his release in 2006 from Pakistan detention, JuA leader, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, has reportedly visited JuA linked mosques and madrassas in Pakistan urging local Muslims to engage in jihad against NATO forces in Afghanistan under the leadership of Mulla Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Taliban. On 16 December 2006, leaders of JuA and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) called for a joint strategy and pledged to cooperate with Afghan insurgents to target US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

JuA camps in Pakistan provide both religious instruction and military style guerrilla training and support, not only to JuA members, but also to other associated terrorist organisations and individual jihadists from all over the world. Reporting indicates JuA may be helping to facilitate training, in Pakistan, of members of the Pakistani diaspora in the UK, some of whom are possibly intending to return to the UK to conduct terrorism related activities. The group also operated terrorist training camps in eastern Afghanistan prior to their destruction by coalition air strikes in 2001. Other JuA training facilities are less conspicuous and focused on preparing jihadists for more low intensity, hit and run type operations or suicide attacks.

Some elements within JuA want to re-focus their activities and bring them more into line with Usama bin Laden’s ‘global jihad’ against the US and Israel, and their allies. In 2004, several members of a JuA-trained splinter group were arrested for their involvement in separate suicide car-bomb attacks outside the US Consulate and the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi in May and June 2002, and a failed attempt to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf with a remote-controlled car-bomb in April 2002. As members of a previously unknown group “Jundallah,” JuA trained members were among a number of militants drawn from several Pakistani extremist groups responsible for the twin car-bomb attack near the US Consulate in Karachi on 26 May 2004. On 9 June 2004, the same terrorist cell was involved in a terrorist attack against a heavily-armed military convoy carrying Karachi’s military commander, resulting in seven deaths.

More recently, individuals who attended JuA training camps were involved in the preparation of terrorist attacks in 2005. Additionally, the JuA continues to undertake terrorist activity such as shooting of a former Special Police Officer in Kashmir in 2006 and the kidnapping and beheading of a Hindu businessman in 2007.

Objectives

JuA is a group that uses violence in pursuit of its stated objective of uniting Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan under a radical interpretation of Islamic law.

Leadership and membership

The leader of JuA is Fazlur Rehman (sometimes Rahman) Khalil, (aka Maulana Farzul Ahmed Khalil, Maulana Ahmed Khalil). Reporting indicates that the JuA has a strength of no more than a few hundred, but exact membership numbers cannot be accurately determined. The majority of JuA’s membership consists of jihadists from Pakistan, Kashmir, and Afghanistan. JuA has also attracted new recruits and provided training to transnational Islamic militants drawn from around the world, including Bangladesh and South-East Asia, the UK and the US.

JuA engagement in terrorist activities

JuA has been involved in a number of terrorist activities, including hijacking, bombings abductions, and training. Terrorist activities for which responsibility has been claimed by, or reliably attributed to, JuA over the past nine years include:

• December 1999: An Indian airliner was hijacked en route from Nepal to India, one passenger was stabbed to death.
• November 2000: 30 Indian soldiers were killed at two army posts in Kashmir.
• January 2002: The abduction and subsequent murder of US journalist, Daniel Pearl. Four people, including JuA member Ahmed Omar Sheikh, were convicted of Pearl’s murder;
• June 2002: A suicide car-bomb attack outside the US Consulate in Karachi, which killed 11 persons;
• June 2005: The arrest, in Afghanistan, of several JuA trained individuals preparing to carry out acts of terrorism;
• June 2005: The arrest of two American citizens for suspected participation in an al-Qa'ida plot to attack the US. Both claimed to have attended a terrorist training camp run by JuA leader Fazlur Rehman Khalil;
• November 2006: The shooting of a former Special Police Officer in Kashmir accused by JuA of collaborating with a police operations group;
• February 2007: The kidnapping and subsequent beheading of a Hindu businessman in Pakistan’s Sindh Province.