Tuesday April 27, 1999 Muharram-ul-Harram 10, 1420 A.H

US links militant group with murder of citizens

By Amir Mir

LAHORE: The US administration has advised Pakistan to keep its distance from Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA), an Islamic militant group operating in occupied Kashmir, hinting that the HUA might possibly be involved in the brutal killing of six Americans in two Karachi street shootings.

Diplomatic sources close to the high-ranking US officials in Pakistan reminded the NBI that the two attacks, still unsolved, claimed the lives of two US consulate employees in 1995 and four oil company workers in 1997. Diplomatic sources claimed that the US government has informed Pakistan that investigations into these murder cases were being finalized and the findings would be made public shortly.

The US administration has also informed Pakistan that the Harkat leadership was working in tandem with FBI's most wanted Saudi fugitive, Osama Bin Laden. At least seven HUA members were killed and two dozen were wounded during last years attacks on Bin Ladin's six training camps inside Afghanistan. Other militants killed in the U.S. attacks were members of Lakshar-e-Taiba and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen. A total of eight of their members died, some recent findings by the American CIA suggest.

Pleading its case for complete a ban on the HUA activities in Pakistan, the US administration is learnt to have also reminded Nawaz government that after the August 20th 1998 US assault on camps near Khost and Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, the Harkat leaders had vowed [during a press conference in Islamabad] that the harm done to its members would not go unanswered. Diplomatic sources informed that the US still takes seriously Osama Bin Ladin's warning 1998 which says that: "For each of us killed or wounded in the cowardly U.S. attack, at least 100 Americans will be killed. I may not be alive, but you will remember my words."

Already declared a terrorist organization by the US, Harkat-ul-Ansar was formed in October 1993 when two militant groups, Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, merged. The HUA is believed to be linked to the Kashmiri militant group Al-Faran that kidnapped five Western tourists in Kashmir in July 1995; one was killed in August 1995, and the other four reportedly were killed in December of the same year.

The HUA has several thousand armed supporters, including Afghans and Arab veterans of the Afghan war. The HUA trains its militants in Afghanistan and parts of Kashmir. Harkat collects donations from Gulf and other Islamic states and from Pakistanis and Kashmiris. The source and amount of HUA's military funding are unknown.

According to the US intelligence findings, Harkat has sent a large number of Muslim militants in Kashmir to fight security forces in Indian-controlled areas. The HUA and a few other militant groups were using Bin Laden's Afghanistan camps to provide military training to their members. Most of the HUA commandos have gone underground since US administration labeled Harkat a terrorist group in 1997.

US intelligence findings further claim that the Lakshar-e-Taibas annual religious gathering of over 50,000 youths, held near Lahore in November last year, was also attended by a large number of HUA militants. The participants chanted slogans in support of Bin Laden and vowed to avenge the US attack on his camps, the US administration has regretted.