[Reader-list] Kashmiri separatist group 'disappears' post crackdown

[Aditya Raj Kaul]

*Kashmiri separatist group 'disappears' post crackdown*

Islamabad (IANS): A coalition of Kashmiri jehadi groups led by Syed
Salahuddin "has simply disappeared" in Pakistan following the crackdown on
the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which the UN has declared a terrorist group, a media
report said on Saturday.

The United Jihad Council (UJC), comprising among others the Hizbul
Mujahideen, Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen, Al-Barq, Ikhwan-ul-Mussalmin and
Tehrik-ul-Mujahideen, "has temporarily dissolved itself, closed its offices,
removed all signs and asked its leaders to stay quiet", *The News* said.

"The strategy follows the current Pakistan-India tension following the
Mumbai (terrorist strike) and the ban imposed by the UN on several such
organisations in Pakistan," it added.

The UN moved Wednesday against the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a front for the
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group that New Delhi has blamed for the Nov 26 Mumbai
carnage and the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament.

"Following the Mumbai attacks and the subsequent tension between Pakistan
and India, the United Jihad Council has decided to remain silent," The News
quoted a commander of one UJC affiliate as saying.

"In the current situation, the UJC is maintaining complete silence and has
no contact with any Pakistani organisation or institution," he said.

"The outfits banned in Pakistan, including the Lashkar-e-Taiba, have never
worked with the UJC nor maintained with it any direct or indirect contact,"
he added.

The UJC came into existence in 1994 with the amalgamation of several armed
organisations. It is headed by Salahuddin of the Hizbul Mujahideen, the
largest group operating in Jammu and Kashmir.

The organisation was created "to unify and focus efforts of various armed
resistance groups fighting the Indian rule in Kashmir. This made
distribution of resources like arms, ammunition, propaganda materials and
communication more streamlined", *The News* said.

"It also made it easier to coordinate and pool resources of various jehadi
groups to collect information, plan operations and strike at targets of
military importance in the [Indian] Kashmir," it added.
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Aditya Raj Kaul

Freelance Correspondent, The Times of India
Cell -   +91-9873297834

Campaign Blog: http://kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com/
Personal Blog: http://activistsdiary.blogspot.com/