Kashmir's al-Qaida cell names Musa's successor

NEW DELHI: Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH), an affiliate of al-Qaida, announced that Zakir Musa’s successor and its new chief, is 30-year-old Hameed Lelhari, a native of Pulwama and a member of Islamist organization Jamait-Ahl-e-Hadith.

The announcement on Id coincided with flags of Pakistan, banners of Pakistani terror groups and ISIS being exhibited on the streets of Srinagar during Id celebrations.

Zakir Musa, who headed the AGH, was killed by security forces on May 23. Lelhari served as his deputy after Musa along with a group of around a dozen terrorists split from Hizbul Mujahideen and swore allegiance to al-Qaida in July 2017.

In a new video released on Wednesday by al-Hurr (official media wing of AGH), which was widely circulated on Whatsapp groups, Abu Ubaidah Hafizahullah, spokesperson of AGH said that Lelhari alias Haroon Abbas has replaced Musa while Ghazi Ibrahim Khalid appointed as his deputy.

Jammu and Kashmir police officials confirmed the veracity of the claim in the video. “Lelhari has taken over AGH but he is hardly a top terrorist,” an officer told the TOI. But police in Kashmir was clueless about his deputy’s identity and background.

In the 11-minute video, an embedded audio, presumably recorded just hours before Musa’s death, the former AGH chief is heard persuading a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist to join his group.

Almost in coordination, hours later, al-Qaida’s official media group as-Sahab released a promotional video on Kashmir titled ‘Soldiers of Ghazwa-e-Hind’, according to a UK based terror-monitoring think tank called ITCT. In the trailer, al-Qaida glorified a terrorist whose face was blurred but identified him as Faisal Ishfaq Bhatt, a resident of Srinagar, ITCT said on its website.

ITCT claimed that a new audio tape released by al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) spokesperson Usama Mahmood eulogized slain Zakir Musa. AQIS, which released a PDF translation of the audio, called on Kashmiri terrorists to follow Musa’s cause, which was to fight for the establishment of Caliphate in the Indian subcontinent.

Officials in Kashmir said they were trying to verify the claims of the as-Sahab video.

Incidentally, several banners and flags of terror groups based in Pakistan along with ISIS flags were waived and displayed by masked youth in Srinagar on Id while many visited Zakir Musa’s grave.

For long, J&K police have been claiming that Musa headed a ten-member team, out of which eight were killed. However, on Thursday, police sources said both AGH and ISIS have less than 10 terrorists each. “But we don’t have an estimate of sympathizers and supporters of the two radical terror groups,” a police officer said.

A day before Id, a Wilayat al-Hind Media group released new posters on social media calling on supporters across Kashmir and India to make flags of Wilayah Hind (instead of ISJK) and raise them over mosques and streets on Eid.

On May 10, this year, ISIS in a statement acknowledged the killing of their local commander in Kashmir by Indian security forces, Abu Nader al-Kashmiri alias Ishfaq Sofi. The IS however, called him a soldier of ‘Wilayat al-Hind’ instead of ‘Islamic State in Jammu Kashmir’ (ISJK), the name which it used earlier for its Kashmir cell.

Who is Hameed Lelhari?

Son of Mohammad Ismail Lone, 1990-born Hameed Lelhari, is a native of Lelhar Kakpora, Pulwama. Raised in a middle class family, he recieved his initial schooling at Evergreen Public School Lelhar. He did his eighth class from Government Middle School Kakpora. Lelhari dropped out of school, police sources said, “due to some domestic problems” following which he worked as a labourer, a cook and a mason.

Police sources said Lelhari, who is known for his religious radicalism, attended Ahl-e-Hadith (called Ahl-e-Hadees in Kashmir) programs organized by clerics. He married Afrooza of Drubgam area of Pulwama in 2005, probably when he was a minor, sources said. Days after marriage, there was a dispute over property in the family. A month later, he and his wife moved out and began living in a tin shed at New Colony Pur Lelhar. His family, police said, gave him Rs.3.5 lakh, his share from the property, which he used for the construction of his own house.

However, he did not complete construction and went missing in May 2015. Police sources said he joined Lashkar-e-Taiba and was active in district Pulwama. He had worked as an over ground worker for the terror outfit before he took up arms. Police said he was involved in threatening panchs and sarpanchs of Pulwama.