US List Ignores Anti-Indian Terrorists

[Guest guest]

US list ignores terrorist groups in J&K

By John Chalmers (Reuters)

New Delhi, September 25

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Frontline guerrilla outfits fighting in Kashmir were left off a list of

people and groups whose assets in the United States have

been frozen by President George W. Bush.

 

The move is likely to fuel concern in New Delhi that -- despite its

declaration of war on all terrorism -- Washington is overlooking a

region former President Bill Clinton branded as perhaps one of

"the most dangerous places in the world".

 

On Monday Bush ordered a freeze on the assets of more than

two dozen individuals and organisations.

 

Saudi-born Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, whom Bush

accuses of masterminding the September 11 hijacked aircraft

attacks on New York and Washington, figured on the list along

with his Al- Qaeda network and several related organisations.

 

Only one of the outfits named, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, has had

any history of activity in Jammu and Kashmir.

 

And even that group has faded into the background of the

insurgency in recent years, leaving the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, the

Hizbul Mujahideen and the Jaish-e-Mohammad -- a newcomer --

at the forefront.

 

INDIA FRUSTRATED

 

"What we're hearing on the Indian side is the Lashkar, the Jaish

and the Hizb. They're the three we worry about the most, and

none of them appears there," said Kanti Bajpai of New Delhi's

Jawaharlal Nehru University, referring to the U.S. list.

 

"It's almost like the three we care about have deliberately been

left off the list... I don't think it's going to go down very well in Delhi

again."

 

Some Indian ministers and officials have already expressed

frustration that Washington's focus on Osama bin Laden could

undermine a broader assault on terrorism around the world.

 

"Fighting against one bin Laden here or there hardly matters,"

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan said last week.

"The U.S. and all other countries should fight against terrorism

as a system, and not only the symptom..."

 

U.S. LIST A "POLITICAL GESTURE"

 

But analysts say Washington is unlikely to put pressure on

Pak-backed terrorists operating in Kashmir at a time when it is

trying to use Islamabad as a lever on Afghanistan's ruling

Taliban to get at bin Laden.

 

"I think this asset freeze list is a very preliminary one," one

Western diplomat in New Delhi said. "It has to be taken for the

political gesture that it is, and it has to be seen as the first phase

of this war on terrorism."

 

He said Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, declared a "foreign terrorist

organisation" by the United States before it changed its name

from Harkat-ul-Ansar in 1998, was probably on the U.S. list

because of its links with Afghanistan and the Taliban.

 

Harkat-ul-Mujahideen was formed in 1985 through the merger of

two Pakistani political activist groups.

 

A Sunni organisation which -- like the Taliban -- follows the strict

Deobandi school of interpretation of Islamic thought, it became a

network of fighters in 1992 for defending the rights of Muslims

around the world, including in Kashmir.

 

It became Harkat-ul-Ansar the following year, and then came

under international scrutiny in 1995 when six Western tourists

were kidnapped in Kashmir. One of the tourists escaped, one

was found beheaded and the others are still missing.

 

A shadowy group called Al-Faran claimed responsibility for the

abductions, but India says Harkat-ul-Ansar was behind them.

 

Authorities arrested a string of the group's leaders, gradually

reducing its role in Kashmir's militancy.

 

The captured included Maulana Masood Azhar, who founded the

Jaish-e-Mohammad after he was freed by India in exchange for

the release of an Indian aircraft hijacked to Afghanistan in 1999.