Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (, HuJI) is a Pakistani Islamist extremist, fundamentalist and terrorist organization affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It has been the most active in the South Asian countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India since the early 1990s. The militant organisation has been designated as a terrorist group by India, Israel, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States and Bangladesh when its Bangladesh branch was banned in 2005. The operational commander of HuJI, Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed in a US drone strike in South Waziristan on 4 June 2011. He was linked to the 13 February 2010 bombing of a German bakery in Pune. A statement was released soon after the attack which claimed to be from Kashmiri; it threatened other cities and major sporting events in India. A local Taliban commander named Shah Sahib was named as Kashmiri's successor.

History

HuJI or HJI was formed in 1984, during the Soviet–Afghan War, by Fazlur Rehman Khalil and Qari Saifullah Akhtar. Khalil later broke away to form his own group, Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA), which became a highly feared militant organisation in Kashmir. This group would later re-form as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), when HuA was blacklisted by the United States in 1997. HuJI first mainly operated in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets, but after the Soviets retreated, the organisation also started operating in Jammu and Kashmir. HuJI's influence expanded into Bangladesh when the Bangladeshi branch of the organisation was established in 1992, with direct assistance from Osama bin Laden.

Ideology

The organisation along with other jihadist terrorist groups such as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Al-Qaeda & Lashkar-e-Taiba had similar motivations and goals. Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen were both strongly backed by the Taliban, Al-Qaeda & therefore the group professed Taliban-style fundamentalist Islamist ideology. The organisation aims to spread Radical Islamist ideology, to take over Kashmir, Afghanistan, Palestine & the rest of Muslim majority lands from what they claim to be "enemies of Islam" and enforce their extremist interpretations of Sharia in all of the mentioned regions.

Activities in Bangladesh

In the 1990s, HuJI gave recruitment training near the hilly areas of Chittagong and Cox's Bazar. Later on, members of the organisation committed an attack on Shamsur Rahman, a Bangladeshi poet in January 1999. The organisation claimed responsibility for the 2001 Ramna Batamul bombings, where 10 people were killed. The organisation was also the prime suspect in a plot to assassinate the former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina in the year 2000. In October 2005, it was officially banned by the government of Bangladesh. The group has been condemned by various Islamist groups such as the Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh.

Activities in India

Government of India has declared and banned it as a terrorist organisation. In April 2006, the state police Special Task Force in India uncovered a plot by six HuJI terrorists, including the mastermind behind the 2006 Varanasi bombings, involving the destruction of two Hindu temples in the Indian city of Varanasi. Maps of their plans were recovered during their arrest. The organisation has claimed responsibility for blasts at the Delhi High Court which claimed the lives of 10 and injured around 60. Vikar Ahmed, a member of an Islamist group, and connected to HuJI, has been accused of murdering police officers in Hyderabad. He is also a suspect in the Mecca Masjid bombing. HuJI has claimed responsibility for the 2011 Delhi bombing. However, this has not been confirmed by the National Investigation Agency. 14 people were killed and 94 people were injured in the bomb blast. Police have released two sketches of the suspects. The organisation has also made threats to target other Indian cities.

Designation as a terrorist organisation

On 6 August 2010, the United Nations designated Harakat-ul Jihad al-Islami as a foreign terror group and blacklisted its commander Ilyas Kashmiri. State Department counterterrorism coordinator Daniel Benjamin asserted that the actions taken demonstrated the global community's resolve to counter the group's threat. "The linkages between HUJI and Al-Qaeda are clear, and today's designations convey the operational relationship between these organizations," Benjamin said.

Militant attacks claimed by or attributed to HuJI