The Indian Jihadist Movement: Evolution and Dynamics

e Indian Jihadist Movement: Evolution and

Dynamics

by Stephen Tankel

STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVES 17

Center for Strategic Research

Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University

Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University

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Cover: Indian soldier takes cover as Taj Mahal Hotel burns

during gun battle between Indian military and militants inside hotel,

Mumbai, India, November 29, 2008

(AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, File)

e Indian Jihadist Movement

Institute for National Strategic Studies

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

Series Editor: Nicholas Rostow

National Defense University Press

Washington, D.C.

July 2014

By Stephen Tankel

e Indian Jihadist Movement:

Evolution and Dynamics

For current publications of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, please visit the NDU Press Web site at:

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This paper benefited greatly from peer reviews by Jesse Bryan and Swetal Desai, and from

detailed comments and editorial support from Dr. Thomas F. Lynch III.

First printing, July 2014

Contents

Executive Summary ..............................................1

Introduction ....................................................2

e Four Phases of Indian Jihadism ............................... 2

Dynamics ......................................................9

Qualifying the reats ..........................................14

Appendix 1. Indian Jihad Dramatis Personae .......................18

Appendix 2. List of Indian Mujahideen Attacks .....................20

Appendix 3. Map of India ........................................22

Notes .........................................................23

About the Author ...............................................33

The Indian Jihadist Movement

Executive Summary

e Indian jihadist movement remains motivated primarily by domestic grievances rather

than India-Pakistan dynamics. However, it is far more lethal than it otherwise would have been

without external support from the Pakistani state, Pakistani and Bangladeshi jihadist groups,

and the ability to leverage Bangladesh, Nepal, and certain Persian Gulf countries for sanctu-

ary and as staging grounds for attacks in India. External support for the Indian mujahideen

(IM) from the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence and Pakistan-based militant groups such as

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) persists, but the question of command and control is more dicult to

discern. e IM is best viewed as an LeT associate rather than an LeT aliate.

e Indian mujahideen emerged as part of a wider jihadist project in India, but now con-

stitutes the primary domestic jihadist threat. IM is best understood as a label for a relatively

amorphous network populated by jihadist elements from the fringes of the Students Islamic

Movement of India and the criminal underworld. Today, it has a loose leadership currently

based in Pakistan and moves between there and the United Arab Emirates and Kingdom of

Saudi Arabia.

e direct threat to India from its indigenous jihadist movement is manageable and un-

likely to impact the country’s forward progress or wider regional stability. It is a symptom of

political, socioeconomic, and communal issues that India arguably would need to address even

if indigenous jihadism disappeared tomorrow.

An attack or series of attacks by indigenous jihadists, however, start a wave of communal

violence in India or trigger a diplomatic crisis with Pakistan. With or without LeT assistance,

the IM constitutes a potential, but minimal, direct threat to U.S. and Western interests in India.

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

Introduction

India has been confronting a jihadist threat from Pakistan for decades. Expeditionary ter-

rorism typically receives the most focus, but indigenous actors beneting from external support

are responsible for the majority of jihadist attacks in India. e Indian mujahideen (IM) net-

work, which announced its presence to the public via media in 2007, is the latest and most well

known manifestation of the indigenous Islamist militant threat. As this paper details, however,

its members were active before then. Moreover, a small number of Indian Muslims have been

launching terrorist strikes—with and without Pakistani support—for more than two decades.

e dynamics of Indian jihadism and the nature of India’s evolving counterterrorism response

are not easy to comprehend. is is understandable given that, even among Indian security of-

cials and analysts, a knowledge gap exists.

Discussions with issue experts and policy analysts prior to eld research highlighted that

three key areas regarding Indian jihadism remained opaque: the organizational nature and scale

of the indigenous movement, the degree to which indigenous networks could threaten U.S.

interests in India or across the wider South Asia region, and the nebulous ties between Indian

jihadist networks and Pakistan-based groups. is paper addresses these and related issues and

focuses on the evolution and dynamics of Indian jihadism.

It begins by providing an overview

of the evolution of the Indian jihadist movement, then explores the dynamics extant within that

movement today, and concludes with an assessment of the threats posed by the movement.

e Four Phases of Indian Jihadism

Phase One

In December 1992, Hindu chauvinists demolished the Babri Masjid (Babur mosque) in

Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, India, which had been constructed by the rst Mughal Emperor of

India in the 16

century. Hundreds of Muslims were killed in the communal riots that followed

the mosque’s demolition. An environment of relative deprivation aicting Indian Muslims had

already created a small pool of would-be militants.

So too did pervasive abuse by the police,

which grew once Muslims started becoming involved in homegrown terrorism and contributed

further to a sense of political alienation.

e demolition of the Babri mosque thus catalyzed

a response among an already radicalizing portion of the Muslim community. Believing that

established leaders of the Muslim community had failed to stand against a rising threat from

Hindu chauvinism, radical members took it upon themselves to ght back.

The Indian Jihadist Movement

In the wake of communal riots that killed hundreds of Muslims, Dawood Ibrahim, the

Muslim leader of South Asia’s largest crime syndicate known as D-Company, worked with the

Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to engineer a lethal series of bomb blasts in

Mumbai (Bombay at the time) in March 1993.

is series of blasts remains the most deadly

terrorist attack in India’s history and may have helped inspire or embolden would-be jihadists

to take action. At the very least, D-Company became an important recruiting vehicle, using its

logistical networks and ties to Pakistan to facilitate transit there for aspiring Indian jihadists in

search of training and support.

e link between organized criminality and Islamist militancy remained an enduring fea-

ture of the Indian jihadist movement. e Asif Raza Commando Brigade, formed by gangsters-

cum-jihadists and discussed later in this section, constitutes one of the two major building

blocks of that movement. e Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen (Organization for the Improvement

of Muslims, or TIM) is the other.

Activists from the Gorba faction of the Jamaat Ahl-e-Hadith in Mumbai formed the TIM

in the Mominpora slum in summer 1985.

Motivated by communal riots that erupted the previ-

ous year in Bhiwandi and spread to Mumbai and ane, these activists converged around the

need for a Muslim self-defense militia and the possibility of taking revenge for Hindu national-

ist violence.

ree key gures were present at the Mominpora meetings: Jalees Ansari, Azam

Ghouri, and Abdul Karim (also known as “Tunda”). (For an alphabetical reference of these and

13 other key gures in the history of Indian jihadi activities, see appendix 1.)

Even though TIM was an armed defense militia, its members largely conned themselves

to parading around the grounds of the Young Men’s Christian Association where, modeling the

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, they trained with lathis, the long, heavy wooden sticks oen

used as weapons in India.

However, Ansari, Ghouri, and Karim were already training with

explosives, the latter having earned his nickname aer a bombmaking accident blew o his le

hand.

As early as 1988, Ansari allegedly was executing “petty bombings” for which he used

folded train tickets as the timer and detonator for small explosives.

Aer the demolition of the

Babri mosque and the riots that followed, the three men outlined a signicantly grander plan

for which they found help from abroad.

In the early 1990s, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was still a small Pakistani militant group and

just becoming the Pakistan military’s most powerful proxy against India. However, LeT was

organized enough to dispatch an operative named Azam Cheema to India shortly before the

eruption of the 1992 communal violence. Soon thereaer, Cheema recruited several TIM lead-

ers. A year to the day aer the Babri mosque’s destruction and with the support of LeT, the men

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

of TIM executed a series of coordinated bombings in several Indian cities (not to be confused

with those D-Company engineered).

Ansari was captured in the midst of planning a second series of bombings scheduled to

coincide with India’s Republic Day celebrations in January 1994.

Ghouri ed to Saudi Arabia

and then traveled to Pakistan where he linked up with LeT.

Karim crossed into Dhaka, Bangla-

desh, and headed LeT operations there during the mid-1990s as part of a wider tasking to help

build the group’s pan-India capabilities. TIM members who had not ed or been arrested began

a recruitment drive, sending some of those they enlisted to Pakistan for training, oen via Ban-

gladesh.

Karim acted as a conduit for Indian recruits transiting from or through Bangladesh to

LeT camps in Pakistan.

Working via the Dhaka-based Islamic Chattra Shibir (Islamic Students

Organization), Karim coordinated the creation of a robust network throughout north India.

formed the backbone of LeT’s Indian operations branch, known as the Dasta Mohammad bin

Qasim. Cheema was its commander. Karim became its top eld operative, returning to India in

1996 to begin putting his network into action.

Collectively, Karim was allegedly involved in

over 40 bomb attacks across the country, 21 in Delhi alone, committed in 1994 and from 1996–

1998.

Ghouri returned to India in 1998 at Karim’s behest and launched the LeT-associated

Indian Muslim Mohamadee Mujahideen in Hyderabad. It executed seven bomb blasts, ve in

Hyderabad, and two in the surrounding areas of Matpalli and Nandad, targeting trains, buses,

and markets.

It was just one of a number of small outts operating in the area at the time, all

of which were part of the same network despite their dierent names.

In 1994, two Indian gangsters, Aab Ansari and Asif Raza Khan, who belonged to the other

major building block of the jihadist movement, were locked up alongside Ahmed Omar Saeed

Sheikh in Tihar Jail. Sheikh was a British-born member of the Pakistani militant group Harkat-

ul-Mujahideen.

He motivated Ansari and Asif Khan to wage jihad against India.

Both took

up this charge following their release from prison. ey linked up with militant members of the

Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which became a feeder for the burgeoning Indian

jihadist movement and a recruiting pool for Pakistan-based organizations like LeT looking to

train would-be homegrown Indian terrorists.

Founded in 1977 at Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh as the student wing of

the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, SIMI was soon at odds with its parent organization. In 1981 they

separated. During the next 10 years, some SIMI members became even more alienated from the

mainstream political culture and more prone toward militant Islamism. SIMI rhetoric hardened

in the lead-up to the 1992 mosque demolition, with some leaders of the organization ultimately

declaring Islam to be under threat in India and calling upon Muslims to wage jihad against the

The Indian Jihadist Movement

Indian state or at least members of its Hindu majority.

As the 1990s progressed, SIMI leaders

increasingly sought to link themselves—ideologically, rhetorically, and operationally—to the

transnational jihadist movement burgeoning at the time.

Some of its most hardline members,

frustrated with extremist talk but little action, linked up with Ansari and Asif Khan.

Riyaz Shahbandri (hereaer known by his alias Riyaz Bhatkal) and Mohammed Sadique

Israr Sheikh (hereaer Sadique Sheikh) were the most prominent among these hardline mem-

bers. In April 2000, Sadique Sheikh connected with Aab Ansari, aer which he and several

other would-be militants traveled to Pakistan, all of them carrying Pakistani passports. Aer

training in LeT camps, Sadique Sheih returned in July where he reconnected with Asif Khan to

begin plotting terrorist attacks.

Riyaz Bhatkal was seeking funding from Asif Khan to nance

terrorist operations in India by this time as well.

e Gujarat police killed Azam Ghouri in 2000. Karim absconded to Pakistan via Ban-

gladesh the same year. In December 2001, the Gujarat police gunned down Asif Khan, who

had been taken into custody and was allegedly trying to escape. Despite their absence from the

battleeld, the movement these men helped to build was poised for growth.

Phase Two

e second period lasted from 2001–2005. By the beginning of the decade, it was becom-

ing clear that the guerrilla war in Indian-administered Kashmir was not bearing fruit and that

some Pakistani militant groups were escalating their involvement in attacks against the hin-

terland.

e 9/11 attacks followed by the December 2001 assault on India’s Parliament by the

Pakistani militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) also may have triggered a realization within

the ISI that an overreliance on Pakistan proxies risked provoking international ire. e conu-

ence of these factors likely contributed to the LeT decision to expand its recruitment eorts in

India and terrorist operations there.

At approximately the same time, India banned SIMI in 2001, driving many of its mem-

bers underground and triggering a cleavage within it between those who, while extreme, were

not prepared to take up arms and hardliners looking to launch a terrorist campaign.

A small

number of SIMI activists who split from the organization went on to form the core of the Indian

mujahideen.

In early 2002, riots in the Indian state of Gujarat claimed the lives of 790 Muslims

and 254 Hindus.

The riots mobilized a section of India’s Muslim population already prone to radicaliza-

tion at a time when LeT and the inchoate network that would become the IM were increas-

ing recruitment efforts.

Other independent militants, often with ties to Pakistani militant

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

groups—especially LeT, the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami branch in Bangladesh (HuJI-B), or

both—were active during this time, too. The focus here is on the network that coalesced

into the IM. However, it is worth noting that key LeT operatives, including Sayed Zabiud-

din Ansari (aka Abu Jundal), the Indian who taught Hindi to the 2008 Mumbai attackers

and was in the control room for the operation, was among those recruited into the group

during this phase.

In December 2001, the men who ultimately came together to form the IM constituted only

another small cell with ties to militant groups in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Aer the Gujarat

police gunned down Asif Raza Khan, his brother Amir Raza Khan (A.R. Khan) established

the Asif Raza Commando Force in his brother’s name. He enlisted several Indians, including

Sadique Sheikh, as well as two Pakistani militants. Operating under the Asif Raza Commando

Force banner, they attacked police ocers guarding the American Centre in Kolkata killing 6 of

them and injuring 14 other people.

A.R. Khan ed to Pakistan. On his instructions, Sadique Sheikh launched another recruit-

ment drive, this time focused on his native Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh.

At the same time, Ri-

yaz Bhatkal and his brother Iqbal were recruiting a cadre for training across the border.

In his

new role as a Pakistan-based LeT interface for Indian jihadist networks, A.R. Khan facilitated

training and travel for recruits via the provision of fake passports and nancing.

As those who

traveled to Pakistan for training returned to India, they quickly became involved in launching

bomb attacks.

Indian prosecutors allege that in 2004 Riyaz Bhatkal brought various operators from the

burgeoning jihadist movement together for a retreat in the south Indian town of Bhatkal. His

brother Iqbal, Sadique Sheikh, and others, some of whom had also trained with LeT, were pres-

ent.

Together, these men formed the core of the IM network. On February 23, 2005, using Re-

search Department Explosives (RDX) provided by HuJI-B, they bombed the Dasashwadmedha

Ghat in Varanasi, the holiest bathing place for Hindus on the banks of the Ganges.

e IM

network had activated.

Phase ree

e third phase lasted from 2005–2008, during which time the IM was primarily or solely

responsible for at least nine additional bombings, not including the 2006 Mumbai blasts, which

may have been a joint LeT-IM attack, and the 2008 Bangalore blasts, which almost certainly

was. (List of attacks attributed to the Indian Mujahideen is available in appendix 2.)

The Indian Jihadist Movement

Members of the Azamgarh module led by Atif Ameen and Sadique Sheikh, who recruited

many of them, were responsible for all but one of these nine bombings.

With the Azamgarh

module active in the north, the Shahbandri brothers increased their recruitment eorts in

southern India.

is included establishing a module in Pune, Maharashtra, where the two

were based for part of 2007.

Mohsin Choudhary, who met Iqbal at a religious event in 2004

and became another high-ranking IM leader, is believed to have assisted with these eorts.

Under the direction of Riyaz Shahbandri (also known as Riyaz Bhatkal), the Pune module exe-

cuted one attack, the 2007 twin bombings in Hyderabad that killed 44 people and lent assistance

for the LeT-led 2008 Bangalore blasts that le 2 dead.

However, Indian ocials continued to

attribute these attacks to LeT and HuJI-B, which intelligence ocials now admit hampered their

counterterrorism eorts.

In 2007, the IM began publicly claiming its attacks.

By this time it was becoming increas-

ingly cohesive and consisted of three wings: the Mohammad Gaznavi Brigade, which was built

around the Azamgarh module and also known as the Northern Brigade; the Sahabuddin Bri-

gade, which was built around the Pune module and also known as the Southern Brigade; and

the Shaheed-Al-Zarqavi Brigade responsible for planning dayeen attacks (which never came

to fruition).

e IM later added the Media Group, which became responsible for claiming its

attacks via electronic and print media.

is cohesion meant that removing a key node could cause a serious blow. In September

2008, the Delhi police stumbled onto such a node: Atif Ameen and several of his colleagues in

their rented address at Batla House. Ameen and another militant, Mohammad Sajid, were killed

and two others were arrested while one suspect escaped.

e information gleaned from the

Batla House encounter led to a wave of arrests, including Sadique Sheikh. It also forced others

to go underground or ee the country.

is threw the IM into disarray and contributed to an

almost 2-year pause in attacks. It did not, however, end the IM terrorist threat.

Phase Four

e ability to nd safe haven in Pakistan and to travel from there to the Gulf, specically

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), enabled IM leaders, including the Shah-

bandri brothers who ed India, to regroup and rebuild their networks. With Atif Ameen dead

and Sadique Sheikh in prison, Ahmed Siddi Bapa emerged as the on-the-ground commander

in India. He took control of the Pune module and built another, alternatively called the Bihar or

Darbhanga module.

e Indian authorities arrested him in August 2013.

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

e IM resumed attacks in 2010, bombing the German bakery in Pune. Additional attacks

followed, some more successful than others. In several instances, discussed in the following

section, IM members allegedly worked with LeT operatives or used LeT-supplied RDX. Man-

soor Peerbhoy, who led the Media Group, was arrested before the IM resumed its bombing

campaign, and no claim of credit was issued for the rst two blasts. In December 2010, aer a

bomb exploded at the Sheetla Ghat in Varanasi, an email entitled “Let’s feel the pain together”

was purportedly sent to several media houses. It claimed, “Indian Mujahideen attribute this

attack to December 6 . . . the loss of their beloved Babri Masjid” and was signed “Al-Arbi,” the

same signature used on all the previous IM emails.

Although most interlocutors with whom

the author spoke concurred this was an IM attack, several of them observed that anyone with

rudimentary computer knowledge could send a claim signed Al-Arbi. eoretically, this makes

assigning blame for attacks more dicult and can create additional uncertainty for investiga-

tors.

In reality, no claims of responsibility accompanied subsequent IM attacks.

On average, there has been a reduction in number of attacks per year and the lethality of

attacks, correlating with a drop in the yearly death toll. e most successful strike occurred in

July 2011 when the IM executed three simultaneous bombings in Mumbai.

is was the most

calculated and organized attack to occur since the Batla House encounter; it killed 26 people

and injured approximately 130 others.

e head of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad

claims to have evidence that Riyaz Shahbandri planned the attacks from Saudi Arabia, where he

met with others involved.

He and Siddi Bapa are named in the 4,700-page charge sheet led

as having planned, funded, and provided explosives for the attack.

According to the National

Investigative Agency, which was questioning Siddi Bapa at the time of writing, the IM eld

commander told them a Pakistani national called Waqas with bombmaking expertise planted

one of the three explosive devices. He alleged Waqas was roped in specically for the operation,

was currently in hiding, and reported directly to handlers in Pakistan.

Two more attacks followed: serial blasts executed in Pune on August 1, 2012, and two

bicycle bombs in downtown Hyderabad that killed 17 and injured over 100 people.

It remains

unclear whether the IM was denitively responsible and, if so, who within the network planned

or executed these attacks. Investigators undoubtedly will seek clarication from Siddi Bapa. His

arrest also raises questions about the future of the IM network and, especially, the Bihar module.

Authorities claim to have successfully degraded the Pune module in the past 2 years, leaving the

Bihar module as the most important IM entity. Siddi Bapa’s arrest is unlikely to spell the end of

the Indian jihadist movement, but investigators and analysts can hope to learn more about its

dynamics. It is to these that we now turn.

The Indian Jihadist Movement

Dynamics

e following briey explores the scale and composition of the Indian jihadist movement,

its ideology, drivers and recruitment, the evolution of bombmaking, and external support from

Pakistan and Pakistan-based groups such as LeT.

Scale and Composition

e IM is part of a larger universe of jihadist entities operating in India. Many are con-

nected to one another and to external jihadist entities such as LeT or HuJI-B, each of which

recruits and runs its own Indian operatives in addition to supporting independent networks.

e IM also is best thought of as a label or brand for a network of modules that connect to, and

sometimes suck in, smaller cells and self-organizing clusters. Even at the peak of cohesion and

attacks in 2008, all the entities acting under the IM label were not in touch with each other.

Some of the men arrested in September 2008 had not even known they were part of the IM until

its leaders began making public announcements claiming credit for attacks that those men had

executed. As the Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) recalled, “these boys had joined Atif Amin to

do jihad and that’s all they knew.”

e Bhatkal brothers exercise a loose leadership over the IM network from abroad. ey

are believed to shuttle between Pakistan and Gulf countries, primarily Saudi Arabia and UAE.

Ahmed Siddi Bapa, who until his arrest in late August 2013 served as the on-the-ground IM

commander, allegedly told investigators the two now spend the majority of their time in Paki-

stan, where they sought to remain perhaps in order to avoid arrest and deportation.

Fayyiz

Kagzi is alleged to have acted as a main LeT/IM interface in Saudi Arabia.

Aer several LeT

and IM operatives were deported to India, Kagzi is believed to have ed to Pakistan.

According to several IB analysts who have tracked the IM network for years, the situation

on the ground in India is uid:

It’s not like Pakistan where you have JeM turf and LeT turf, JeM leaders and LeT

leaders. Here it’s about focal points. If you have 1 or 2 people connect with the

Bhatkals or LeT in a certain area here in India then they become a focal point

and can recruit others mainly from that area. So people join Person X who might

go to someone like Riyaz Bhatkal for help and if he’s successful then he will get

more support and recruit more people. Riyaz is a big focal point. But Person X is

a focal point too.

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

e IB estimates the entire number of people who are part of the IM network—includ-

ing foot soldiers within modules, but excluding individual cells tangentially connected to it—

at most 100 people, some of who may have ed the country.

ose inside India are spread

throughout the country, but concentrated in certain states: Bihar (Darbunga), Delhi and Uttar

Pradesh (Azamgarh) in the north, and Karnataka (Bhatkal and Bangalore), Kerala, and Maha-

rashtra (Mumbai and Pune) in the south. Simply being located or recruited in one area, how-

ever, does not imply being active there.

Ideology

e IM is more of a terrorist network than a jihadist organization. Its division of responsi-

bilities is almost entirely operational, and the network has never boasted a religious committee

of any sort. Nor does the IM have any clerics among its ranks. Boiled down to its essence, IM

ideology is one of exacting revenge for communal injustices. IM leaders attempt to situate their

domestic struggle in the context of a wider pan-Islamist jihad, for example by referring to India’s

capital not only as the “most strategic hindutva hub,” but also the country’s “green zone,” a likely

reference to the protected U.S. enclave in Iraq.

Yet this pretense of a grander ideological para-

digm masks what still remains an overwhelmingly locally focused terrorist campaign fueled by

communal grievance. e Bhatkal brothers repeatedly proclaim their bombing campaign as

Muslims’ Qisaas or revenge.

Although IM leaders repeatedly single out Hindu nationalist organizations, the police,

and various politicians and state institutions as the culpable parties, they do not ideologically

circumscribe their violence accordingly. Instead, they have threatened to punish the entire na-

tion.

Echoing al Qaeda’s assertion that all Americans are fair targets for terrorist violence be-

cause they elected and paid taxes to the U.S. Government, the IM labels all Hindus “combatants”

because they elected the country’s leaders.

e IM also encourages targeting fellow Muslims

if they act as hired informers or spies.

Although IM leaders establish broad parameters for

acceptable targets, they do delineate priorities and single out specic states for terrorist attacks.

ese states, which have “crossed the limits of cruelty,” are Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya

Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra.

A review of IM attack locations re-

veals that the network’s rhetoric matched its operational planning.

Drivers and Recruitment

e overwhelming majority of Indians who become involved in militancy appear moti-

vated primarily by a sense of grievance. Individual recruits may believe that violent jihad is

The Indian Jihadist Movement

obligatory, but collectively, the ambition to impose Sharia or otherwise Islamize society is sec-

ondary, if it exists at all, to the desire for revenge against real and perceived injustices. According

to police and intelligence ocials, almost every arrested militant they interrogated mentioned

the Babri mosque’s demolition, the Gujarat riots, or both as a major motivator.

Indian experts such as Praveen Swami and Shishir Gupta have written about the role that

economic hardships, especially frustration among educated Muslims who believe employment

opportunities are closed o to them, are believed to play in terms of contributing to a sense of

injustice.

Poor treatment by the police came up repeatedly in interviews with security ocials

and Muslim community leaders as well.

ere is also a pattern among some Indian militants of

moving back and forth between jihadism and for-prot crime.

Finally, as with many militant

movements, the IM also attracted its share of attention seekers. One member reportedly told an

interrogator he simply wanted to see his face on India’s most wanted list.

How are those looking to engage in violence or at least open to it recruited into the jihadist

movement? SIMI may no longer be the feeder it was in the past when a core mass in the hun-

dreds—radicalized and motivated to ght against Hindu domination—moved along a conveyer

belt into jihad. But SIMI connections still matter, as do familial and friendship ties.

In some

instances, a person is exposed to the proper “mood music,” decides he wants to “do” jihad, and

looks for assistance where he can nd it. In others cases, talent-spotters work from the top

down, but even in this instance, the connections are oen organic. Recently recruitment has

been taking place via the Internet, including Facebook and Twitter.

Recruitment also takes place in the Gulf where many Indian Muslims have sought em-

ployment opportunities. e Gulf employment boom for Indian Muslims led it to become a

place for recruiting and indoctrinating them rst by LeT and now by the IM.

Fayyiz Kagzai,

Fasih Mahmood, and Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari were the three most well-known Indian recruit-

ers based in Saudi Arabia. e latter two have since been deported to India. Notably, all three

are considered LeT members who recruit for and interface with the IM, suggesting considerable

overlap between the two.

Bombmaking

When the IM network began its bombing campaign in 2005, it used HuJI-B–supplied

RDX smuggled across the Bangladesh border.

While Sheikh’s Azamgarh module was carrying

out attacks in 2005–2006, Riyaz Bhatkal is believed to have been sourced ammonium nitrate

from Karnataka.

is eort paid o aer June 2006 when the militant responsible for smug-

gling RDX was arrested and the explosives supply line broke down. ereaer, Siddi Bapa was

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

tasked with transmitting the ammonium nitrate used for all of the attacks from 2007–2008.

is move indigenized the process, and it remained the explosive of choice through 2008.

Yet at those times when the indigenous movement has struggled, such as aer Batla House,

external entities such as LeT may have stepped in to provide an infusion of assistance. For ex-

ample, the 2010 Pune bombings used ammonium nitrate as the core charge and RDX as the

booster charge.

Networks associated with LeT commander Rashid Abdullah were suspected

of supplying the RDX.

e July 2011 serial blasts in Mumbai that killed 26 and wounded 130

were the rst successful attack to use only indigenous materials (that is, ammonium nitrate)

since the Batla House encounter.

However, more recent attacks have used pentaerythritol tet-

ranitrate to trigger ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel, once again suggesting the possibility of

external support.

External Support and Command and Control

e IM has received signicant support from abroad; most notably from Pakistan, but its

members also leveraged hospitable environments in Bangladesh, Nepal, and several Persian

Gulf countries. In addition to its support for the IM, LeT supports militants seemingly uncon-

nected or only tangentially linked to the network. For example, it helped to train and support

militant networks in the southern state of Kerala. Some of these men were connected to the IM

or later absorbed into its web, but others remained independent.

e ISI allegedly launched an enterprise, since dubbed the “Karachi Project,” to help sus-

tain the homegrown jihadist network in India without the same negative international reper-

cussions that came from attacks by Pakistani actors.

David Headley, the captured LeT operative who performed reconnaissance on all of the

targets hit during the 2008 Mumbai attacks, appears to have been the rst to use the term Ka-

rachi Project. However, it is unclear whether the term describes an actual delineated program,

or if Headley simply used it to describe LeT units based in Karachi.

Two things are clear from

Headley’s testimony. First, the purpose of each unit in Karachi was to launch operations in India

using indigenous actors. Second, he alleges the militants in charge of these units were in contact

with and received assistance from ISI ocers for their operations.

LeT emerged as and has remained the primary, though not the only, group responsible for

instructing Indian recruits. It is questionable whether as many of those recruited—either in the

Gulf or locally—still go to Pakistan for training as in the past. Over time, Indians learned how

to build explosives using locally sourced materials for explosives. Once a well-trained cohort

of operators who could pass along their skills returned, there was less need for either deploying

The Indian Jihadist Movement

Pakistanis to India or bringing new recruits to Pakistan for training. is helped to indigenize

the Indian jihadist movement and decrease the need for travel to Pakistan. Some new recruits

are now trained in places such as the Hubli jungle in Karnataka on the use of small arms or the

basics of bombmaking rather than traveling to Pakistan.

Other recruits are simply used as foot

soldiers or for logistical support and need no serious instruction.

Numerous Indian security ocials pointed to interrogation reports and intercepts cor-

roborating the existence of a nexus with Pakistan and the presence of this infrastructure, which

allegedly includes the provision of safe haven for wanted Indian militants such as Riyaz Bhatkal

and A.R. Khan.

Indian ocials have transmitted lists of militants believed to be sheltering in

Pakistan to their counterparts there on numerous occasions. Although it is by no means certain

all of those on these lists are receiving sanctuary in Pakistan, some almost certainly are.

Money matters, too. It is an article of faith among the Indian authorities that LeT continues

to nance the IM via hawala networks and cash couriers (some of whom transport counterfeit

currency).

Both are notoriously challenging to trace. Recent reporting suggests the IM also

raises money through criminal activity and by using false names to solicit donations from Gulf

donors with the pretense of using it for charity, a tactic LeT and other militants groups have

engaged in for many years.

Siddi Bapa allegedly coordinated with Gulf-based Indian opera-

tives including Fasih Mahmood to “rope in the funds through which the Indian Mujahideen

survived” aer Batla House.

is raises questions about whether the IM successfully built

semi-independent nancing operations.

Until recently Bangladesh was a major transit point for Indian and Pakistani militants.

Bangladesh-based HuJI-B and LeT operatives oen facilitated their travel, with ISI sometimes

providing passports and money as well as intervening with local Bangladeshi authorities when

necessary.

However, since the Sheikh Hasina’s Bangladesh Awami League administration came

into oce in Dhaka early in 2009, such activity has shrunk signicantly. In recent years, Indian

authorities have begun to worry more about Nepal, which they see as a growing transit point for

people executing terrorist attacks in India.

A serious lack of governance exists in Nepal and it

is unclear whether the ISI plays, or even needs to play, a major role in facilitating jihadist travel

through there. Saudi Arabia and the UAE also remain important safe havens and transit points.

Many Indians traveling between these countries carry Pakistani passports. Until recently even

known Indian militants captured in Saudi Arabia or the UAE would simply be sent back to

Pakistan if they had a Pakistani passport.

It is unclear whether the Saudis’ arrest and deporta-

tion of Ansari and Fasih Mahmood signal a permanent break from this practice.

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

While support for the jihadist movement in India from LeT and the ISI undoubtedly exists,

the degree of command and control over the movement remains unclear. Indian intelligence

analysts assert that during the IM’s heyday from 2005–2008, Amir Raza Khan was the main

interface between the network and the Pakistan-based LeT.

100

A dossier prepared by the Andhra

Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad also contends that Sadique Sheikh and Riyaz Shahbandri would

liaise with A.R. Khan regarding attack plans.

101

One captured militant supports this contention,

telling investigators that A.R. Khan took direction from LeT commanders based in Pakistan.

102

Riyaz Bhatkal’s relationship with the ISI remains unclear and is subject of speculation among

various Indian analysts. Some in the Intelligence Bureau believe he has replaced A.R. Khan as

the main interface with the ISI in Pakistan and is taking direction from it directly or via LeT.

103

In either case, one can assume Pakistan is able to exert a level of inuence over the IM.

Whether the ISI has been directing attacks remains a subject of debate. Most Indian ocials

contend the ISI, via LeT, is directing the IM. is is anchored on the theory that the ISI would

not provide safe haven to IM leaders without seeking to exert control over how the network op-

erates. However, it is possible the ISI may be protecting major IM leaders for other reasons. For

example, they could implicate Pakistan for the support it has provided and their capture would

endanger militant networks that Pakistan does not wish to see unraveled.

A spectrum of possibilities exists with signicant control on one end of the continuum and

an ISI/LeT–supported “wind-up toy” on the other. Based on what is known about ISI tasking

from the anti-Soviet jihad, insurgency in Kashmir and more recent insurgency in Afghanistan,

it may be that the ISI engages IM leaders on ad hoc basis to undertake discrete attacks. As this

report illustrates, evidence suggests LeT operatives have solicited attacks and provided support

for them, though whether they have always done so at the behest of ISI ocers (ocial, rogue,

or retired) is unknown. Direction may include instructions simply to “do something,” to do

something in a certain area (for example, Mumbai or Delhi), or to strike a particular target or

type of target. It may also be the case that in exchange for safe haven and support, IM networks

execute specic types of operations when directed to do so, but are otherwise le to their own

devices. To quote one Indian analyst, “You do what I ask you to do, but I don’t tell you to do

everything you do.”

104

Qualifying the reats

e Indian jihadist movement constitutes an internal security issue, but one with an ex-

ternal dimension. e two dimensions are historically intertwined, and in the last few decades,

the boundaries between them have become increasingly blurred. Pakistan-based groups, most

The Indian Jihadist Movement

notably LeT, have signicantly greater capacity, more robust capabilities, and considerably more

resiliency, thanks in no small part to a more hospitable environment. However, they are also

easier to detect than their Indian counterparts and typically lack the topographical and cultural

knowledge these indigenous operatives enjoy. Ultimately, trying to quantify the threats from

each set of actors—internal and external—risks misrepresenting the degree to which the two

are connected.

Indian jihadists are far more lethal as a result of external support, but no longer entirely de-

pendent on it. Even in those instances where a purely indigenous attack occurs, the perpetrators

oen will have beneted from earlier assistance. Pakistan-based actors have signicantly greater

capacity and more robust capabilities, and may remain able to launch unilateral strikes absent

Indian assistance. But they are unlikely to be able to equal the frequency of attacks achieved by

the IM. Moreover, although pure expeditionary terrorism with no indigenous assistance can

still occur, a catalogue of past attacks—attempted and successful—suggests foreign militants

oen benet from some form of Indian assistance such as safe haven or reconnaissance.

105

short, most attacks involve some admixture of foreign and indigenous elements.

Any loss of life is tragic, but as with most terrorist attacks the greater danger lies in the

wider responses they can trigger.

Although many Indian ocials now make only a minimal distinction between the IM and

Pakistani groups such as LeT, viewing both as tools of the Pakistani state, it has become more

dicult to trace Indian militants and the attacks they execute back to Pakistan. is is partly

the case because some Indian attacks really are entirely indigenous, and partly because the ISI

and Pakistan-based groups such as LeT have become more sophisticated at hiding their involve-

ment. New Delhi is unlikely to mobilize for war in the event its own citizens were responsible

for even a major terrorist spectacle. is is especially true given India’s strategic culture of re-

straint, which likely would remain the case even if it could be proved quickly that Pakistan had

provided support or direction. Nevertheless, the issue is of enough concern that it now merits

discussion at Track 2 events.

106

Furthermore, although an attack by homegrown militants with

foreign support may not spark a war, it has become yet another hurdle to overcome as the two

countries seek to navigate a peace process.

Numerous Indian interlocutors cite another threat: the prospect that another sustained

terrorism campaign could trigger a spate of communal violence. As one senior Indian security

ocial admitted, “Islamist terrorism is a manageable problem, but we do worry seriously about

the backlash eect from the Hindu community.”

107

Such concerns are understandable. Hindu

extremists launched several terrorist attacks in recent years—Malegaon, the Samjauta Express,

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

and the Mecca Masjid—in response to Islamist terrorism and what they viewed as the state’s

failure to combat it. Notably, they do not appear to have dierentiated between attacks by indig-

enous and Pakistan-based actors, both of which are equally motivated to avenge Hindu violence

as this report illustrates. Indeed, these fed the terrorism cycle, triggering reprisal bombings by

the IM, which was already partly a byproduct of past episodes of communal violence. When

asked what the state could do better in terms of counterterrorism, the aforementioned ocial

zeroed in on policing and stated, “We need to be careful and aware of the prejudices in our own

security forces.”

108

Although Lashkar-e-Taiba has become a higher priority for the United States since the

2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed six Americans, the indigenous Indian jihadist networks re-

main a signicantly lower priority.

109

is is sensible given limited resources, but that does not

mean that the IM poses no threats. e networks focus primarily on communal, touristic, eco-

nomic, and other so targets, but these have included locations where Westerners are present.

Specically, the 2010 Pune attack targeted a restaurant, the German Bakery, known to be popu-

lar with foreigners. As with the 2008 Mumbai assault, these blended attacks can serve multiple

purposes. Killing foreigners, especially Westerners, may be intended to weaken the economy

and the state. It also might indicate an attempt to satisfy an internationalist agenda within the

IM, LeT, or both, and thus the potential for further fusion of Indian and foreign targets. It is

worth noting, therefore, that David Headley, who remained a LeT operative but began freelanc-

ing aer the 2008 Mumbai attacks, told investigators he performed reconnaissance on targets in

Pune for the late Ilyas Kashmiri who led the 313 Brigade and was al Qaeda’s chief of operations

in Pakistan at the time.

110

Kashmiri sent an email to a Pakistani journalist in which he did not

directly claim credit for the Pune attack, but implied 313 Brigade’s involvement.

111

It is far from certain that the IM constitutes a horizon threat for the United States in South

Asia, but it is one that should be monitored for signs of a shi toward internationalist aims. In

the meantime, Washington has an interest in reducing Pakistan’s strategic reliance on militant

proxies, but doing so entails raising the costs to Pakistan of this reliance and/or reducing the

utility of militant proxies. e low-cost and relatively low-risk option of covertly supporting

Indian jihadists further reduces the disincentives for the Pakistani ISI of breaking with this

practice. Finally, the United States is invested in India’s peaceful rise and wider stability in South

Asia. Hence any challenge to either is problematic, though one that must be kept in perspective.

Ultimately, the issue of Indian jihadism is not now a major threat to regional stability or

to India’s rise. Rather, it is a symptom of several stubborn factors including an Indian bilateral

relationship with Pakistan dened by intense, zero-sum competition, as well as poor Indian

The Indian Jihadist Movement

domestic governance, political malfeasance, economic inequality, and a sense of injustice felt

by many. As one former ocial acknowledged, “ese problems would still be here even if we

had no terrorism.”

112

Another former police ocer concurred, adding, “Pakistan may be taking

advantage of the situation to radicalize Muslim boys. ey may even be controlling the IM. But

even if they are then so what? We still must look within as to why Indians are susceptible. And

it’s up to us to solve this problem here.”

113

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

Appendix 1. Indian Jihad Dramatis Personae

Atif Ameen: Headed Azamgarh Module of Indian Mujahideen (IM), which was respon-

sible for most bombings from 2007–2008; killed during the Batla House encounter.

Aab Ansari: Gangster-cum-jihadist radicalized in prison; facilitated training in Pakistan

and support for future IM leaders; arrested in Dubai; extradited to India; and imprisoned for

role in 2001 attack on U.S. Cultural Center in Kolkata.

Jalees Ansari: Early member of Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen (TIM); involved in 1993 serial

bombings; arrested while planning bombings during Republic Day celebrations in January 1994.

Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari: Recruited into Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) networks after 2002

Gujarat riots; fled to Pakistan during middle of last decade after involvement in Aurang-

abad arms haul; trained 2008 Mumbai attackers in Hindi and was in control room for the

attacks; key interface between LeT and the IM; arrested in Saudi Arabia and deported to

India in June 2012.

Ahmed Siddi Bapa: Became the IM eld commander in 2008 aer Batla House led to ar-

rest of Sadique Sheikh and forced migration of Shahbandri brothers; arrested by Indian authori-

ties in Nepal in August 2013.

Azam Cheema: LeT’s rst head of operations for India; deployed to India in 1991–1992;

oversaw recruitment, attacks, and helped to build LeT networks during 1990s.

Azam Ghouri: Early member of TIM; involved in 1993 serial bombings; ed to Saudi

Arabia and helped build LeT networks there; returned to India in 1998; killed by police in 2000.

Fayyiz Kagzi: LeT operative recruited into same network as Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari; ed

to Pakistan during middle of last decade aer involvement in Aurangabad arms haul; key inter-

face between LeT and the IM.

Abdul Karim: Early member of TIM; involved in 1993 serial bombings; ed to Bangladesh

and helped build LeT’s pan-India networks; returned to India in 1996 as LeT eld commander;

ed to Pakistan in 2000; arrested by Indian authorities in Nepal in August 2013.

Amir Raza (A.R.) Khan: Brother of Asif Raza Khan; founded Asif Raza Commando Force

that executed 2001 attack on U.S. Cultural Center in Kolkata; ed to Pakistan via the Gulf;

became the main interface for facilitating training and support for inchoate IM network; later

became main IM interface in Pakistan; believed to be in Pakistan.

Asif Raza Khan: Brother of A.R. Khan; gangster-cum-jihadist radicalized in prison; facili-

tated training in Pakistan and support for future IM leaders; killed by police in 2001.

The Indian Jihadist Movement

Fasih Mahmood: LeT/IM operative allegedly involved series of attacks in 2010; helped

recruit Indian cadre in the Gulf; arrested by Saudi authorities and deported to India in 2012.

Mansoor Peerbhoy: Headed IM Media Group; arrested in 2008.

Mohammed Sadique IsrarSheikh: Former Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI)

member; recruited by Aab Ansari and Asif Raza Khan; trained in Pakistan; involved in 2001

attack on U.S. Cultural Center in Kolkata; one of the founders of the IM; recruited many cadre

for Azamgarh Module.

Iqbal Shahbandri: Brother of Riyaz Shahbandri; former Tablighi Jamat member; one of

the founders of the Indian mujahideen; known for indoctrinating IM cadre; signatory to IM

communiqués; believed to be in Pakistan.

Riyaz Shahbandri: Brother of Iqbal Shahbandri; former SIMI member; one of the found-

ers of IM; signatory to IM communiqué; allegedly leads IM at time of writing; believed to be in

Pakistan.

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

Appendix 2. List of Indian Mujahideen (IM) Attacks

Attack Date Responsible

Organization(s)

Remarks

Dasashwamedh

Ghat, Varanasi

February 23,

2005

IM–Northern

Brigade

Research Department

Explosives (RDX) smuggled

from Bangladesh

Delhi-bound

Shramjeevi express

train, Juanpur

July 28, 2005 IM–Northern

Brigade

RDX smuggled from

Bangladesh

Diwali Festival,

Delhi

October 29,

2005

IM–Northern

Brigade

RDX smuggled from

Bangladesh; Lashkar-e-Taiba

(LeT) may have contributed

manpower assistance

Temple and railway

station blasts,

Varanasi

March 7, 2006 IM–Northern

Brigade

RDX smuggled from

Bangladesh

Commuter train

blasts, Mumbai

July 11, 2006 LeT and/or IM;

possible joint attack

LeT initially blamed and

some LeT operatives claim to

know bombers; arrested IM

operatives claim Northern

Brigade was responsible;

believed to have used RDX

smuggled from Bangladesh

Gorakhpur serial

blasts

May 22, 2007 IM–Northern

Brigade

Locally sourced ammonium

nitrate

Twin bombings,

Hyderabad

August 25,

2007

IM–Southern Brigade Locally sourced ammonium

nitrate; revenge for Mecca

Masjid bombing by Hindu

terrorists

Varanasi, Lucknow,

Faizabad courts

bombings

November 23,

2007

IM–Northern

Brigade

Locally sourced ammonium

nitrate; rst communiqué

issued

Jaipur serial blasts May 13, 2008 IM–Northern

Brigade

Locally sourced ammonium

nitrate; second communiqué

issued

Bangalore serial

blasts

July 25, 2008 Jamiat-ul-Ansar-ul-

Muslimeen (JIAM)

LeT provides material

support and guidance to

JIAM members; IM–Southern

Brigade assists with explosives

preparation

The Indian Jihadist Movement

Ahmedabad serial

blasts

July 26, 2008 IM–Northern

Brigade

Attempted blasts in Surat by

IM–Southern Brigade fail;

locally sourced ammonium

nitrate; third communiqué

issued

Delhi serial blasts September 13,

2008

IM–Northern

Brigade

Locally sourced ammonium

nitrate; fourth communiqué

issued

German bakery;

Pune (American

tourist)

February 13,

2010

IM–Pune and/or

Bihar Module

LeT may have provided

assistance in the form of RDX

and/or manpower

Chinnaswamy

cricket stadium

attack

April 17, 2010 IM–Pune and/or

Bihar Module

LeT may have provided

manpower assistance

Jama Masjid

shootings, Delhi

September 19,

2010

IM–Pune and/or

Bihar Module

LeT believed to provide one

shooter

Sheetla Ghat,

Varanasi

December 7,

2010

IM–Pune and/or

Bihar Module

Email claiming credit in IM

issued, rst formal claim since

Batla House encounter in 2008

Delhi High Court,

Delhi

May 25, 2011 IM–Pune and/or

Bihar Module

No fatalities

Serial blasts,

Mumbai

July 13, 2011 IM–Pune and/or

Bihar Module

LeT may have provided

assistance with manpower/

bombmaking

Serial blasts, Pune August 1,

2012

IM–Pune and/or

Bihar Module

No fatalities

Twin bicycle

bombings,

Hyderabad

February 21,

2013

IM–Bihar Module Believed to be purely

indigenous attack

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

Appendix 3. Map of India

The Indian Jihadist Movement

Notes

Extensive desk-based research augmented 4 weeks of eld research in India in New Delhi,

Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, and 1 week of eld research in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Interview

subjects included local and foreign journalists, senior Indian government ocials from the National

Security Council, Ministry of Home Aairs, and Ministry of External Aairs, Indian security ocials

from the National Intelligence Bureau (IB) and National Investigative Agency (NIA), former ocials

from the IB, NIA, and the Research & Analysis Wing, current and former police ocers, academ-

ics, think tank experts, nongovernmental organization workers, leaders from the Muslim community,

civilian politicians, and U.S. diplomats. e aim was to triangulate between what the various actors do,

what they say, and what others say about them in order to solicit enough information from dierent

sources to redress the bias or ignorance of any one party. Meetings also were held with experts from the

Department of Defense, Department of State, and others within the interagency community in advance

of travel to India and Bangladesh. Preliminary ndings were presented to individuals at the Defense and

State Departments thereaer to sharpen analysis.

For example, according to the Sachar Committee commissioned in 2005 to examine the social,

economic, and educational conditions of the Muslim community, Muslim graduates had the highest

unemployment rate of any socio-religious group. Overall, Muslims were found to be underrepresented at

elite educational institutions as well as in the Indian Administrative Service (3 percent), Indian Foreign

Service (1.8 percent), and Indian Police Service (4 percent). See Prime Minister’s High Level Committee,

Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India, November 2006.

Shishir Gupta, Indian Mujahideen: e Enemy Within (Gurgaon, India: Hachette Littlehamp-

ton, 2012), 296.

Hasan Zaidi, Black Friday: e True Story of the Bombay Bomb Blasts (New Delhi: Penguin,

2002).

Praveen Swami, “e Well-Tempered Jihad: e Politics and Practice of Post-2002 Islamist

Terrorism in India,” Contemporary South Asia 16, no. 3 (September 2008); Praveen Swami, “A Road to

Perdition: India and Its Invisible Jihad,” unpublished manuscript, April 2008.

Praveen Swami, “Harnessing Hate,” Frontline, July 29–August 11, 2006, available at <www.

hindu.com/ine/2315/stories/20060811003912800.htm>.

Swami, “e Well-Tempered Jihad.” Regarding the riots, see Asghar Ali Engineer, ed., Com-

munal Riots in Post-independence India, 33 (Hyderabad, India: Universities Press, 1991); omas Blom

Hansen, Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay (Princeton: Princeton Univer-

sity Press, 2001), 70.

Praveen Swami, “e ‘Liberation’ of Hyderabad,” Frontline, May 13–26, 2000, available at

<www.frontlineonnet.com/1710/17100390.htm>; Praveen Swami, India, Pakistan, and the Secret Jihad

(New York: Routledge, 2007), 196.

Swami, “Harnessing Hate.”

Ansari would allow potassium to burn through the paper ticket. Once complete, it would

detonate a small explosive. Rakesh Maria, chief of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, interview by

author, Mumbai, India, June 11, 2012. See also Gupta, Indian Mujahideen, 26.

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

Swami, “e Well-Tempered Jihad”; Swami, “A Road to Perdition.” See also Praveen Swami,

“e Spreading Tentacles of Terror,” e Hindu, August 31, 2003.

See “Life Sentences for 15 for 1993 Serial Train Blasts,” Redi, February 28, 2004.

Swami, “e Well-Tempered Jihad.”

Indian Security Services, “Interrogation Report of Abdul Razzak Masood”; “Lashkar Using

Gulf NRIs in Network,” e Times of India, November 29, 2002; Praveen Swami, “Behind Bangalore:

e Origins of the Long Jihad,” e Hindu, January 9, 2006, available at <www.thehindu.com/todays-

paper/tp-opinion/behind-bangalore-the-origins-of-the-long-jihad/article3237269.ece>.

Stephen Tankel, Storming the World Stage: e Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba (New York: Oxford

University Press, 2011), 90–91.

Ibid. 90.

Praveen Swami, “Why LeT Terrorist Abdul Karim Tunda Is a Big Catch for India,” Firstpost,

August 19, 2013, available at <www.rstpost.com/india/why-let-terrorist-abdul-karim-tunda-is-a-big-

catch-for-india-1040373.html>.

Swami, “e Spreading Tentacles of Terror”; Manoj Joshi, e Lost Rebellion: Kashmir in the

Nineties (Melbourne: Penguin Group Australia, 1999), 176–177.

“LeT Terrorist Abdul Karim Tunda Arrested, Sent to 3-day Police Custody,” Firstpost, August

17, 2013, available at <www.rstpost.com/india/let-terrorist-abdul-karim-tunda-arrested-sent-to-

3-day-police-custody-1040369.html>; Jatin Anand, “Who Is Syed Abdul Karim alias Tunda,” Hindustan

Times, August 17, 2013, available at <www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/Who-is-Abdul-

Karim-Tunda/Article1-1108934.aspx>.

Praveen Swami, “Road to Unimaginable Horror,” e Hindu, July 13, 2006.

K.S. Reddy, Andhra Pradesh bureau chief for e Hindu, interview by author, Hyderabad,

India, June 14, 2001. Anjani Kumar, Inspector General of Police, interview by author, Hyderabad, India,

June 19, 2012.

Arrested and incarcerated for his role in kidnapping four foreign nationals as part of a plot

to free other Harakat Ul-Mujahidin members imprisoned in India, Sheikh later gained international

notoriety when he engineered Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping in Pakistan.

Gupta, Indian Mujahideen, 128–129.

According to former head of the IB Ajit Doval, the Students Islamic Movement of India

(SIMI) was responsible for recruiting the cadre, who were then vetted by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)-linked

mosques and then sent to Pakistan for training. Ajit Doval, former head of the IB, interview by author,

May 31, 2012. Regarding SIMI’s role in recruitment see, Gupta, Indian Mujahideen; Swami, “e Well-

Tempered Jihad”; C. Christine Fair, “Students Islamic Movement of India and the Indian Mujahideen:

An Assessment,” Asia Policy, no. 9 (January 2010), 110–119.

Farhat Aysas, professor at Jamia Millia Islamia, interview by author, New Delhi, India, June

27, 2012; Gupta, Indian Mujahideen, 4, 34.

SIMI launched a national movement to mobilize support for Caliphate rule, identifying rhe-

torically with Osama bin Laden and connecting with various Pakistani and Kashmiri militant groups.

See Gupta, Indian Mujahideen, 4, 20; Swami, “e Well-Tempered Jihad.”

Information in this paragraph comes from the courts trial record of Mohammad Sadique

The Indian Jihadist Movement

Israr Sheikh Final Report Forum (Under Section 173 Cr. P.C.) in the Court of Ms. Kaveri Baweja,

CMM, Tis Hazari Courts, Delhi, FIR No. FIR No. 130/08, February 27, 2009.

Praveen Swami, “Riyaz Bhatkal and the Origins of the Indian Mujahideen,” CTC Sentinel 3,

no. 5 (May 2010).

Tankel, Storming the World Stage, 140.

e Composite Dialogue launched between India and Pakistan in early 2004 likely rein-

forced these dynamics. It made clandestinity for LeT, and hence the availability of indigenous militants

to launch attacks or provide logistical support, more important.

Former high-ranking Indian intelligence ocial, interview by author, Bangalore, India, June

14, 2012. Fair, “Students Islamic Movement of India and the Indian Mujahideen,” 114.

Swami, “Riyaz Bhatkal and the Origins of the Indian Mujahideen.”

Unocial estimates put the death toll as high as 2,000. It was widely alleged that ocials

from the Bharatiya Janata Party–led state government, whose chief minister (then and now) Narenda

Modi was named in September 2013 as that party’s candidate for prime minister in the coming 2014

elections, encouraged and assisted Hindus who were involved in violence. For ocial casualty gures,

see “Gujarat riot death toll revealed,” BBC Online, May 11, 2005. For unocial casualty gures, see We

Have No Orders To Save You: State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat (New

York: Human Rights Watch, April 2002). In 2012, a state legislator and former state education minister,

who is among Modi’s condants, was one of 32 people convicted for roles in the riots. See Gardiner

Harris and Hari Kumar, “32 People Convicted for Roles in Gujarat Riots,” e New York Times, August

29, 2012.

Rahul Bedi, “Bombay Bombings Fuel Tension,” Jane’s Terrorism & Security Monitor, Septem-

ber 12, 2003; Swami, “e Well-Tempered Jihad”; Gupta, Indian Mujahideen, 4.

Information in this paragraph comes from the courts trial record of Mohammad Sadique Is-

rar Sheikh Final Report Forum (Under Section 173 Cr. P.C.) in the Court of Ms. Kaveri Baweja, CMM,

Tis Hazari Courts, Delhi, FIR No. FIR No. 130/08, February 27, 2009. See also Gupta, Indian Mujahi-

deen, 133.

During the next year, he transited between India, Dubai, and Pakistan, enlisting cadre who

would form the sinews of the Indian mujahideen. Information comes from the courts trial record of

Mohammad Sadique Israr Sheikh Final Report Forum (Under Section 173 Cr. P.C.) in the Court of Ms.

Kaveri Baweja, CMM, Tis Hazari Courts, Delhi, FIR No. FIR No. 130/08, February 27, 2009.

New Delhi Police Special Cell, “Final Form Report Under Section 173, Code of Criminal

Procedure in the Court of Kaveri Baweja, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate,” November 2010.

Ibid.

Indian IB analysts responsible for IM portfolio, brieng for author, New Delhi, India, June 7,

2012; Swami, “Riyaz Bhatkal and the Origins of the Indian Mujahideen.”

Swami, “Riyaz Bhatkal and the Origins of the Indian Mujahideen”; Final Form Report Under

Section 173, Code of Criminal Procedure in the Court of Kaveri Baweja, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate,

New Delhi Police Special Cell, November 2010 [Final Report New Delhi Special Cell, 2010].

Indian IB analysts responsible for IM portfolio, brieng for author, New Delhi, India, June 7,

2012; Gupta, Indian Mujahideen, 135; Praveen Swami, “e Indian Mujahidin and Lashkar-i-Tayyiba’s

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

Transnational Networks,” CTC Sentinel 2, no. 6 (June 2009), 9; Organization for Counter Terrorist Op-

erations, Government of Andhra Pradesh, “Study Material on Indian Mujahideen,” n.d.

Indian IB analysts responsible for IM portfolio, brieng for author, New Delhi, India, June 7,

2012; “Study Material on Indian Mujahideen”; Gupta, Indian Mujahideen, 178, 181, 189–191, 203–205.

is information comes from an Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) analysts responsible for IM

portvisiting Hyderabad in 2007. Brieng for author, New Delhi, India, June 7, 2012; from Indian Na-

tional Investigations Agency (NIA) analyst, interview by author, New Delhi, India, June 5, 2012; “Study

Material on Indian Mujahideen”; See also Gupta, Indian Mujahideen, chapter 5.

Assessment provided by Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) analysts responsible for IM portvis-

iting Hyderabad in 2007. ere they out India, g to recruifolio, brieng for author, New Delhi, India,

June 7, 2012. Information corroborated in, “Study Material on Indian Mujahideen”; Mohd Mansoor

Ashgar Peerbhoy, Mubin Kadar Shaikh, Asif Bashiruddin Shaikh FINAL REPORT FORM, (Under Sec-

tion 173 Cr. P.C.) IN THE COURT OF MS. KAVERI BAWEJA, CMM, TIS HAZARI COURTS, DELHI,

FIR No. 293/08 Date 13.09.2008. See also Chaitraly Deshmukh and Prasannakumar Keskar, “Bhatkal

Brothers Spent 8 Years to Set Up IM Base,” DNA India, October 12, 2012.

Shishir Gupta, journalist with e Hindustan Times, interview by author, New Delhi, India,

June 1, 2012; Indian IB analysts responsible for IM portfolio, brieng for author, New Delhi, India, June

7, 2012; Praveen Swami, journalist with e Hindu, interview by author, New Delhi, India, June 5, 2012;

“Study Material on Indian Mujahideen”; Deshmukh and Keskar, “Bhatkal Brothers Spent 8 Years to Set

Up IM Base.”

“Study Material on Indian Mujahideen”; Vicky Nanjappa, “Yasin Bhatkal—e Real

S t o r y,” Journalism for Vertebrates, August 30, 2013, available at <http://vickynanjapa.wordpress.

com/2013/08/30/yasin-bhatkal-the-real-story/>. Gupta, Indian Mujahideen, 192–194; interrogation

report, adlantede Naseer (Kannur District, Kerala), Interrogation Centre, Bangalore, January 7,

2010; interrogation report, Sarfaraz Nawaz (Ernakulam District, Kerala State), Bangalore City Police,

PIN 683565.

Indian IB analysts responsible for IM portfolio, brieng for author, New Delhi, India, June 7,

2012; Indian NIA analyst, interview by author, New Delhi, India, June 5, 2012. Former Indian intelli-

gence ocial, interview by author, Bangalore, India, June 14, 2012.

One theory holds that this was done via A.R. Khan at Inter-Services Intelligence’s behest

to create the illusion of a purely indigenous movement and sow greater communal tensions. Another

suggests that, although they received support from LeT and the ISI, IM leaders were tired of Lashkar

getting credit for their attacks.

Shakeel et al., Final Report Baweja Court, December 2008; Peerbhoy, Shaikh, and Shaik, Fi-

nal Report Baweja Court, September 2008. “Indian Mujahideen’s Declaration Open War Against India,”

sent aer Jaipur bombings on May 13, 2008.

Praveen Swami, “Behind the Batla House Shootout,” e Hindu, October 10, 2008.

According to India’s Institute for Conict Management, more than 130 men allegedly be-

longing to or associated with the IM were arrested following the Batla House encounter. See Sanchita

Bhattacharya, “Indian Mujahideen: Mutating reat,” Eurasia Review, May 14, 2012, available at <www.

eurasiareview.com/14052012-indian-mujahideen-mutating-threat-analysis>.

The Indian Jihadist Movement

Shishir Gupta, interview by author, New Delhi, India, June 1, 2012; “Interrogation Report:

Statement of Salman (aka Chotu, aka Aquib),” IB brieng; Bhattacharya, “Indian Mujahideen: Mutating

reat”; Vicky Nanjappa, “Darabanga—Yasin’s Baby,” Journalism for Vertebrates, August 29, 2013, avail-

able at <http://vickynanjapa.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/darabanga-yasins-baby/>; Neeraj Chauhan,

“Investigators suspect role of rst IM module,” e Times of India, August 6, 2012.

Rajesh Ahuja, “IM Claims Blast, Says It’s Retaliation for Babri Verdict,” Hindustan Times, De-

cember 7, 2010, available at <www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Mumbai/IM-claims-blast-says-it-

s-retaliation-for-Babri-verdict/Article1-635634.aspx>; Rashmi Rajput and Prachi Wagh, “Varansi Bomb

Blast: Indian Mujahideen Email,” NDTV, December 8, 2010, available at <www.ndtv.com/article/india/

varanasi-bomb-blast-indian-mujahideen-email-71369>; Anubhuti Vishnoi, “IM Sends Email, ‘Biased’

Babri Verdict Its eme,” e Indian Express, December 8, 2010, available at <www.indianexpress.com/

news/IM-sends-email---biased--Babri-verdict-its-theme/721703>.

B. Raman, director of the Institute for Topical Studies, interview by author, Chennai, India,

June 17, 2012; Sushant Sareen, Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis, interview by author, Delhi,

India, June 28, 2013; Indian IB analysts responsible for IM portfolio, brieng for author, New Delhi,

India, June 7, 2012; U.S. intelligence analysts, brieng for author, Washington, DC, date withheld

upon request.

“3 Bomb Blasts in Mumbai; 17 Dead, 131 Injured,” IBN Live, July 14, 2011, available at

<http://ibnlive.in.com/news/twin-blasts-in-mumbai-15-injured/167291-3.html>; “ree Bomb Blasts

Shatter Mumbai’s Peace,” Redi, July 13, 2011, available at <www.redi.com/news/report/three-explo-

sions-in-mumbai/20110713.htm>; Shailesh Shrivastava, “Serial Blasts in Mumbai, at least 10 killed,”

International Business Times, July 13, 2011, available at <www.ibtimes.com/serial-blasts-mumbai-least-

10-killed-298213>.

“Mumbai Blasts: Death Toll Rises to 26,” Hindustan Times, July 30, 2011, available at <http://

www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Mumbai/Mumbai-blasts-Death-toll-rises-to-26/Article1-727292.

aspx>; “Mumbai Blasts: Death Toll Rises to 23,” NDTV, July 23, 2011, available at <www.ndtv.com/ar-

ticle/india/mumbai-blasts-death-toll-rises-to-23-121559>; “Death Toll in Mumbai Terror Blasts Rises to

19,” NDTV, July 16, 2011, available at <www.ndtv.com/article/india/death-toll-in-mumbai-terror-blasts-

rises-to-19-119692>.

Rakesh Maria, interview by author, Mumbai, India, June 11, 2012.

“MHS not kept in the loop on 13/7 Mumbai blasts arrests by Maharashtra ATS: sources,” IBN

Live, January 23, 2012, available at <http://ibnlive.in.com/news/mha-not-kept-in-the-loop-on-137-ar-

rests-by-ats/223575-3.html>.

Vicky Nanjappa, “13/7 blasts—Goof ups galore,” Journalism for Vertebrates, September 10,

2013, available at <http://vickynanjapa.wordpress.com/2013/09/10/137-blasts-goof-ups-galore/>.

“Dilsukhnagar bomb blast toll rises to 17,” e Hindu, March 6, 2013, available at <www.the-

hindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/dilsukhnagar-bomb-blast-toll-rises-to-17/article4481093.ece>; “An-

other Suspected IM Militant Held in Pune Blasts Case,” OutlookIndia.com, October 17, 2012, available

at <http://news.outlookindia.com/items.aspx?artid=778432>; Mihir Tanksale, “Yasin Bhatkal one of the

August 1 Pune Bombers?” e Times of India, August 11, 2012, available at <http://articles.timesondia.

indiatimes.com/2012-08-11/pune/33152465_1_cctv-footage-german-bakery-blast-bomb-planters>;

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

“Pune serial blasts case ‘cracked,’ three held,” e Hindu, October 12, 2012, available at <www.thehindu.

com/news/national/three-suspected-indian-mujahideen-terrorists-held-in-delhi/article3987241.

ece?homepage=true>; “Another IM member held for Pune serial blasts,” Deccan Herald (Bangalore,

India), October 17, 2012, available at <www.deccanherald.com/content/286212/another-im-member-

held-pune.html>; “Pune blasts: Key IM suspect arrested,” ZeeNews, October 26, 2012, available at

<http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/pune-blasts-key-im-suspect-arrested_807675.html>.

Indian IB analysts responsible for IM portfolio, brieng for author, New Delhi, India, June 7, 2012.

Ibid.; Rakesh Maria, interview by author, Mumbai, India, June 11, 2012; Indian NIA analyst,

interview by author, New Delhi, India, June 5, 2012; Anjani Kumar, interview by author, Hyderabad, In-

dia, June 19, 2012; Praveen Swami, interview by author, New Delhi, India, June 5, 2012; Shishir Gupta,

interview by author, New Delhi, India, June 1, 2012; Vicky Nanjappa, journalist with Redi, interview

by author, Bangalore, India, June 13, 2012. According to one captured operative, who met both brothers

when they visited Sharjah (in the United Arab Emirates) in September–October 2009 and again in Paki-

stan that winter, they are “extremely mobile and freely frequent locations such as Dubai and Shargah.”

Excerpts from the confession of Salman.

Vicky Nanjappa, “Yasin speaks of Riyaz and Iqbal,” Journalism for Vertebrates, August 29,

2013, available at <http://vickynanjapa.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/yasin-speaks-of-riyaz-and-iqbal/>.

For example, three operatives arrested while planning attacks in Bodhgaya and New Delhi

alleged to the police that Kagzai facilitated their meeting with Iqbal Bhatkal in Saudi Arabia aer which

they were told to coordinate with Yasin Bhatkal in India. See Vicky Nanjappa, “IM’s Saudi hub—Fayaz

Kagzai is the man we need,” Journalism for Vertebrates, October 5, 2012.

Nikhil S. Dixit, “ Saudi Arabia deports IM operative; held in Delhi,” Daily News and Analysis

(Mumbai), October 23, 2012, available at <www.dnaindia.com/india/report-saudi-arabia-deports-im-

operative-held-in-delhi-1755194>.

Indian IB analysts responsible for IM portfolio, brieng for author, New Delhi, India, June 7, 2012.

Ibid.

“Indian Mujahideen’s Declaration of Open War Against India,” sent aer Jaipur bombings on

May 13, 2008.

“Eye for an Eye: e Dust Will Never Settle Down,” sent prior to the Delhi bombings on

September 13, 2008; “Indian Mujahideen’s Declaration of Open War Against India.”

“Indian Mujahideen’s Declaration of Open War Against India.”

“e Rise of Jihad: Revenge of Gujarat,” sent in advance of the Ahmedabad and failed Surat

bombings on July 26, 2008.

“Crossed the limits of cruelty” from “Eye for an Eye: e Dust Will Never Settle Down,” sent

prior to the Delhi bombings on September 13, 2008. e list of states is delineated in “e Rise of Jihad:

Revenge of Gujarat,” sent in advance of the Ahmedabad and failed Surat bombings on July 26, 2008.

For example, “Interrogation report, adlantede Naseer (Kannur District, Kerala), Inter-

rogation Centre, Bangalore, January 7, 2010, author in possession of hard copy.” “Interrogation report:

Sabahuddin Ahmad, Anti-Terrorist Cell, Bangalore City Police, Oce Gandhwar, Police Station Sakri,

District Madhubani, Bihar, undated, author in possession of hard copy.

Gupta, Indian Mujahideen; Swami, “e Well-Tempered Jihad.”

The Indian Jihadist Movement

Satish Sahney, chief executive of the Nehru Center, interview by author, Mumbai, India, June

11, 2012; Farhat Aysas, interview by author, New Delhi, India, June 27, 2012; Obeid Siddiqi, professor at

Jamia Millia Islamia, interview by author, New Delhi, India, June 1, 2012; Maulana Mahmood Madani,

executive member of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, interview by author, New Delhi, June 4, 2012; Asghar Ali

Engineer, chairman of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, interview by author, Mumbai,

India, June 12, 2012; Ejaz Ahmed Aslam, secretary of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, interview by author,

New Delhi, June 27, 2012; also see Gupta, Indian Mujahideen, 296.

See, for example, Gupta, Indian Mujahideen, 86, 129–131.

Ibid., 185.

Regarding SIMI, Mirza Himayat Baig, recently convicted for his role in the 2010 Pune bomb-

ing, belonged to a SIMI module and was arrested in 2011 for links with the banned organization. See

Chandan Haygunde, “Aspiring teacher to terror accused,” Indian Express, April 19, 2013. Regarding

familial ties, the leadership roles the Bhatkal brothers and their cousin Yasin played is one sign of their

importance. In another example, while Mohsin Choudhary was helping to establish the Pune module,

his brother Akbar was allegedly one of those involved in the August 2007 serial blasts in Hyderabad for

which that module was responsible. See Rahul Tripathi, “e IM story, from its roots to sudden emer-

gence in terror,” Indian Express, October 24, 2012.

Tarique Anwar, “Jama Masjid attack: Suspected IM operative Fasih Mehmood chargesheet-

e d ,” Dailybhaskar.com, February 18, 2013; Srinath Vudali, “Terror groups luring tech-savvy youth,” e

Times of India, April 22, 2013.

ose recruited (or merely groomed) in India may also be directed to travel to the Gulf for

indoctrination and instruction.

Anwar, “Jama Masjid attack”; Sanchita Bhattacharya, “India: Terror Trails to Saudi Arabia,”

South Asia Intelligence Review, October 30, 2012.

Indian IB analysts responsible for IM portfolio, brieng for author, New Delhi, India, June 7,

2012; “Study Material on Indian Mujahideen”; Gupta, Indian Mujahideen, 123, 165.

Indian IB analysts responsible for IM portfolio, brieng for author, New Delhi, India, June 7,

2012; “Study Material on Indian Mujahideen”; Gupta, Indian Mujahideen, 178, 181, 189–191, 203–205;

Praveen Swami, “Who Is Arrested Indian Mujahideen Founder Yasin Bhatkal?” Firstpost, August 29,

2013, available at <www.rstpost.com/india/who-is-arrested-indian-mujahideen-founder-yasin-bhat-

kal-947229.html>; Vicky Nanjappa, “Yasin’s Interrogation So Far,” Journalism for Vertebrates, August 30,

2013, available at <http://vickynanjapa.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/yasins-interrogation-so-far/>.

Mohammed Shakeel et al., Final Report Baweja Court, December 18, 2008. Vicky Nanjappa,

“Karachi project—Yasin tells all”; Praveen Swami, interview by author, New Delhi, India, June 5, 2012; “Study

Material on Indian Mujahideen”; Deshmukh and Keskar, “Bhatkal Brothers Spent 8 Years to Set Up IM Base.”

Gupta, Indian Mujahideen, 261.

K.S. Reddy, interview by author, Hyderabad, India, June 14, 2001; Shishir Gupta, interview by

author, New Delhi, India, June 1, 2012; Indian IB analysts responsible for IM portfolio, brieng for author,

New Delhi, India, June 7, 2012. See also Praveen Swami, “Lashkar-linked Charity Raises Terror Fears,” e

Hindu, September 3, 2011, available at <www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2418883.ece>.

Rashmi Rajput, “Mumbai Blasts: Sophisticated IEDs Controlled by Cellphones Used,” NDTV,

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

July 14, 2011; “Ammonium Nitrate Used to Carry Out Mumbai Blasts,” CNN-IBN, July 14, 2011.

See, for example, “Explosions bear signature of Indian Mujahideen,” Indian Express, February

22, 2013.

Praveen Swami, “e Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Army in India,” e Hindu, January 17, 2009; Swami,

“e Indian Mujahidin and Lashkar-i-Tayyiba’s Transnational Networks”; Shaju Phillip, “Kochi to Kup-

wara, the Lashkar recruitment trail,” Indian Express, March 11, 2011; “Confessions of a bombmaker,”

Redi, July 24, 2009.

Headley told investigators that at least two separate units existed in Karachi for the purpose

of launching or supporting attacks against India. Sajid Mir (aka Sajid Majid), who handled transna-

tional operatives for LeT, oversaw one unit. Abdur Rehman Syed, a Pakistan army ocer who took early

retirement and joined LeT in 2003, controlled the other. Syed split from LeT in 2008, but kept control

over his unit in Karachi according to Headley. See “Testimony of David Coleman Headley to the Indian

National Investigative Agency,” June 3–9, 2010. Author in possession of hardcopy.

Ibid. For open source information, see Animesh Roul, “Aer Pune, Details Emerge on the

Karachi Project and Its reat to India,” CTC Sentinel 3, no. 4 (April 2010).

Rakesh Maria, interview by author, Mumbai, India, June 11, 2012; former high-ranking

Indian intelligence ocial, interview by author, Bangalore, India, June 14, 2012; D. Sivanandan, former

director general of Police, Maharashtra, India, interview by author, Mumbai, India, June 9, 2012.

Indian IB analysts responsible for IM portfolio, brieng for author, New Delhi, India,

June 7, 2012. An Indian operative named Salman (aka Chhotu) who traveled on a Nepali passport to

Dubai and then to Pakistan was arrested in 2010 aer returning to India. In his confession to Indian

authorities, he described having seen Bhatkal and Khan living in a protected area of Clion in Kara-

chi. Aer his deportation, Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari reportedly told Indian authorities that the Bhatkal

brothers met with LeT members in Pakistan. Another Indian militant, Sheikh Abdul Khwaja (aka

Amjad), also told interogators that IM leaders were present in Karachi and handled by Inter-Services

Intelligence in late 2009. Khwaja added that LeT commander Muzammil Butt paid him a salary for

recruiting and motivating Indian youth. Information regarding Salman from “Interrogation Report:

Statement of Salman (aka Chotu, aka Aquib),” Intelligence Bureau; information regarding Khwaja

from “Interrogation Report of Shaikh Abdul Khwaja,” Intelligence Bureau. See also Gupta, Indian

Mujahideen, 143–149. On Ansari see, “Jundal had sent shooter to India to help IM boss,” e Times of

India, June 26, 2012.

Pushpita Das, associate fellow in the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, in-

terview by author, New Delhi, India, June 5, 2012. Some Indian security officials claim that in

addition to confessions by captured operatives, signal intercepts reveal discussions about financing

for the indigenous movement. Rakesh Maria, interview by author, Mumbai, India, June 11, 2012;

Anjani Kumar, interview by author, Hyderabad, India, June 19, 2012; Indian IB analysts respon-

sible for IM portfolio, briefing for author, New Delhi, India, June 7, 2012. On hawala, see John Rol-

lins, Liana Sun Wyler, and Seth Rosen, International Terrorism and Transnational Crime: Security

Threats, U.S. Policy, and Considerations for Congress, (Washington, DC: Congressional Research

Service, January 2010).

Rakesh Maria, interview by author, Mumbai, India, June 11, 2012; Anjani Kumar, interview

The Indian Jihadist Movement

by author, Hyderabad, India, June 19, 2012; Bhattacharya, “India: Terror Trails to Saudi Arabia”; Nan-

jappa, “IM’s Saudi hub—Fayaz Kagzai is the man we need”; Vicky Nanjappa, “IM raised Rs 45 cr—How

they did it?,” Journalism for Vertebrates, October 11, 2012.

Vicky Nanjappa, “Darabanga—Yasin’s baby,” August 29, 2013, available at <http://vickynan-

japa.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/darabanga-yasins-baby/>.

Bangladesh National Security Intelligence ocer, interview by author, Dhaka, Bangladesh,

June 22, 2012; Bangladesh Enterprise Institute brieng for author, Dhaka, Bangladesh, June 22, 2012;

Gupta, Indian Mujahideen, 10.

Pushpita Das, interview by author, New Delhi, India, June 5, 2012.

Anti-Terrorist Cell, Bangalore City Police, “Interrogation Report: Statement of Sabahuddin

Ahmed”; Intelligence Bureau, “Interrogation Report: Statement of Salman (aka Chotu, aka Aquib)”; Ste-

phen Tankel, “e Mumbai Blame Game,” Foreign Policy, July 9, 2012; Tankel, Storming the World Stage,

92–95. Swami, “e Indian Mujahidin and Lashkar-i-Tayyiba’s Transnational Networks.”

100

Indian IB analysts responsible for IM portfolio, brieng for author, New Delhi, India, June

7, 2012.

101

“Study Material on Indian Mujahideen.”

102

Shakeel et al., Final Report Baweja Court, February 2009.

103

is information was relayed to the author during a brieng with Indian IB analysts respon-

sible for the IM portfolio, who believed A.R. Khan was in semiretirement. e interrogation report of

Salman both supports and contradicts this assessment. On the one hand, he clearly states, “Amir Raza

Khan has been replaced.” However, Salman also claims to have come into contact with A.R. Khan on

several occasions during which he describes him in operational terms. Citing the same interrogation

report, Shishir Gupta asserts A.R. Khan is still “running the show” (Indian Mujahideen, 266). However,

at no point does Salman state this denitely in the copy in the author’s possession. See “Interrogation

Report: Statement of Salman (aka Chotu, aka Aquib).”

104

Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conict Management, interview by author,

Delhi, India, June 1, 2012.

105

Many Indian analysts and journalists suspect that indigenous elements provided additional

assistance on the ground in advance of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, but there is no denitive evidence in

open sources. Regarding Ansari’s assistance with preparing the dayeen squad, see Tankel, “e Mum-

bai Blame Game.”

106

Senior Indian National Security Council ocial, interview by author, New Delhi, India, June

16, 2012.

107

Ibid.

108

Ibid.

109

Two of the Americans killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks had dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship.

110

“Testimony of David Coleman Headley to the Indian National Investigative Agency.”

111

Al Qaeda’s number three at the time, Sheikh Sai’d al-Masri, claimed credit for the bombing on

behalf of Illyas Kashmiri. On Kashmiri’s email, see Syed Saleem Shahzed, “Al-Qaeda chief delivers a warn-

ing,” Asia Times, February 13, 2010, available at <www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LB13Df03.html>.

On al-Masri’s email, see Praveen Swami, “Indian Mujahideen Doesn’t End with Yasin Bhatkal’s Arrest,”

Strategic Perspectives, No. 17

Firstpost, August 30, 2013, available at <www.rstpost.com/india/indian-mujahideen-doesnt-end-with-

yasin-bhatkals-arrest-1069161.html?utm_source=ref_article>.

112

Former high-ranking Indian intelligence ocial, interview by author, Bangalore, India.

113

Satish Sahney, interview by author, Mumbai, India, June 11, 2012.

The Indian Jihadist Movement

About the Author

Stephen Tankel is an Assistant Professor at American University and the author of Storm-

ing the World Stage: e Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba (Oxford University Press, 2011). He is also an

Adjunct Research Fellow in the Center for Strategic Research, Institute for National Strategic

Studies, at the National Defense University.

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