Turf war Decimates Hizb leadership

KS Correspondent

JAMMU, Apr 7: In the ongoing turf war between two warring factions of the terrorist outfit, Hizbul Mujahideen, the situation took a dramatic turn with the elimination of Abdul Majid Dar, former operations chief of the Hizb, by ISI.

Dar had parted ways with Syed Salahuddin, the Hizb Supremo, in 2000 after the latter backed out from the earlier decision to hold onto the ceasefire. Majid Dar had got disillusioned with ISI and Pakistani leadership. He returned to Kashmir in 2000 and was staying mostly in Srinagar. The two factions continued to battle for supremacy. In the polarized separatist leadership, Dar was seen closer to what has come to be called the moderate group.

On August 3, 2000, a high level team of GoI officials, headed by Kamal Pande, the then Union Home Secretary, visited Srinagar. Dar and his group met them at Nehru Guest House. This group included his deputy Masood, aide Farooq Mircha and Riyaz Rasool. Masood was killed by SOG in 2001, Mircha was eliminated by security forces, while Riyaz Rasool disappeared mysteriously.

Dar was among the first five Kashmiri terrorists to had audience with Zia-ul-Haque in 1986. In 1989, at Baba Rishi, he had floated a terrorist outfit, Ansar-ul-Islam. A college drop-out, Majid Dar functioned as PRO of the Jamaat Islami leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani. In 1990, Dar founded Tehreek-e-Jehad-e-Islami (TJI) which merged with Master Ahsan, Dar’s Hizbul Mujahideen in 1991. In the outfit’s hierarchy, Dar ranked third.

Following killing of two associates of Salahuddin in Pattan and Kupwara, Majid Dar was expelled from the outfit, on May 4, 2002 and Saiful-Islam took over as the new “chief commander of operations” for Hizb. Salahuddin also expelled four top Hizb leaders, aligned to Dar. The ongoing conflict in the Hizb helped security forces to eliminate scores of top Hizb activists, affliated to Salahuddin. In retaliation Salahuddin and other Jehadi outfits liquidated many loyalists of Dar. In most cases entire families were liquidated brutally. During recent assembly elections, Dar’s group is reported to have helped PDP.

Majid Dar was no saint. A rabidly fundamentalist, he played a key role in fundamentalist indoctrination of Kashmiri youth and subsequently recruitment, launching and training of Hizb’s terrorists. He manned the training camps of Hizb in Pakistan and had direct access to Pervez Musharraf. His problems with ISI started, when ISI officials misbehaved with his wife.

In November last, Dar’s cadres staged revolt against Salahuddin group in Haripur, Kotli, Mirpur, Tarbela, in PoK. To counter Salahuddin, Dar also, patched with another outfit ‘Muslim Jehadi Force’. Majid Dar was to go to PoK to join his supporters in Tarbela camp. He had come to meet his family members, when a group of four terrorists eliminated him on March 23 in Sopore. A little known outfit, ‘Al-Nasreen’ claimed responsibility for his killing.

His funeral was attended by less than a thousand people. Fazal Haq Qureshi, was the only separatist leader to turn up at his funeral. All Party Hurriyat Conference didn’t issue even a statement. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Bilal Lone expressed sorrow in their individual capacity. Shabir Shah, another separatist leader, castigated the separatist leadership for their silence on killing of Dar.

The killing of Dar led to the formal split in Hizb in PoK on March 27. Nearly two hundred supporters of Dar walked away from the parent outfit to launch their own organization. Ahmed Yasin was appointed as the new chief of this faction. Dar’s supporters later staged a demonstration in Muzaffarabad and accused Salahuddin for orchestrating the killing.

Reports reaching from Pakistan say the two factions were preparing to have a bloody showdown. On April 1, Pakistan police swooped down to take 14 terrorists into custody. These reports further add that ISI is desperate to stop Dar’s supporters from crossing over to Valley.

Exactly ten days later, in a dramatic manner, security forces notched a major success by eliminating Ghulam Hassan Khan alias Saiful Islam, the chief of Hizb in Valley in an encounter at Pahroo, Nowgam Chowk. In a hi-tech operation, by scanning frequency of his satellite phone, security forces were able to identify his location. For security forces, revolt by Dar group and the demoralization in Hizb ranks, following the killing of its chief Saiful Islam provides a new opportunity, to put the heat back on the terrorist outfits.

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