Zakir Rashid Bhat, a breakaway Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander based in south Kashmir, has been appointed head of al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent\u2019s new affiliate for the state, Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, the terrorist group\u2019s media wing announced on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Musa is in his early twenties, and studied engineering at a college in Chandigarh before he took up arms against the Indian administration. He belongs to an educated family as his father is an engineer and brother an orthopaedic surgeon at a Srinagar hospital.<\/p>\n
Zakir Rashid Bhat, a breakaway Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander based in south Kashmir, has been appointed head of al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent\u2019s new affiliate for the state, Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, the terrorist group\u2019s media wing announced on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The announcement marks the first time the group has created an affiliate for Kashmir but Indian police and intelligence officials said it would have little impact on ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe jihad in Kashmir has reached a stage of awakening, as the Muslim nation of Kashmir has committed to carry the flag of jihad to repel the aggression of tyrant Indian invaders\u201d, the statement by al-Qaeda\u2019s Global Islamic Media Front read.<\/p>\n
Bhat had appeared in a video in May under the al-Qaeda banner, accusing Indian Muslims of cowardice, and calling on them to engage in jihad against the government. Earlier this month, al-Qaeda\u2019s Urdu-language magazine Nawa-i Afghan Jihad, had also carried an article referring to Musa\u2019s group.<\/p>\n
Ghazwa-e-Hind, from which the new organisation takes its name, is a prophecy attributed, in some Islamic traditions, to Prophet Muhammad, proclaiming that a victorious army rising from the West shall establish Islam in India before the day of judgment.<\/p>\n
It is unclear if Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind will operate under the umbrella of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, led by Uttar Pradesh born Sana-ul-Haq, or report directly to the organisation\u2019s chief, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Haq has long been a proponent of linking the jihad in Kashmir with the wider pan-India jihadist cause.<\/p>\n
Few in India\u2019s security establishment, though, saw significance in the news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zakir Rashid Bhat, a breakaway Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander based in south Kashmir, has been appointed head of al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent\u2019s new affiliate for the state, Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, the terrorist group\u2019s media wing announced on Thursday. Musa is in his early twenties, and studied engineering at a college in Chandigarh before he took up arms […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}