HuJI posts fake pix of Kashmiri’s body
June 07, 2011
LAHORE: The June 4, 2011 statement supposedly issued by a Harkatul Jehadul Islami (HuJI) spokesman, confirming the death of Commander Ilyas Kashmiri in the June 3, 2011 drone strike in South Waziristan, has lost its credibility after a photograph of the al-Qaeda-linked jehadi commander posted on internet by the HuJI turned out to be bogus.
The HuJI statement was issued on June 4, 2011 by Abu Hanzla Kashir, a previously unknown spokesman of the HuJI’s 313 Brigade and faxed to several newspaper offices in Peshawar. The statement said: “On behalf of Harkat Jihad al-Islami 313 Brigade, we confirm the fact that our leader and Commander-in-Chief Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri, along with other companions, has been martyred in an American drone attack at 11:15 pm on June 3, 2011. InshaAllah (God willing) the present pharaoh America will see our full revenge very soon. Our only target is America”.
The HuJI statement was then posted on the Shamukh al Islam forum, a website frequented by al-Qaeda sympathisers, along with an image purported to be that of Ilyas Kashmiri’s face after his death. However, those in the Pakistani security circles who are still trying to ascertain if the 313 Brigade chief has actually been killed, have concluded that the picture posted by HuJI is in fact that of Abu Ismail Khan, one of the 10-member Lashkar-e-Taiba fidayeen squad which had attacked the Indian port city of Mumbai on November 26, 2008 and killed 166 people, including over two dozen foreigners.
A resident of Dera Ismail Khan, Abu Ismail Khan, 25, was the leader of the Mumbai attackers and was killed by the Indian security forces after commandeering a car. His companion in the vehicle, Mohammad Ajmal Kasab was the only attacker to have been captured alive after the assault. During interrogations, Ajmal Kasab had claimed that Ismail Khan was the one to have killed the chief of India’s anti-terror squad, Hemant Karkare. On May 5, 2010 a special court in Mumbai headed by judge Tahaliyani found Ajmal Kasab, 22, guilty of the murder of seven people directly and 65 others in common intent with his dead partner, Abu Ismail Khan whose pictures are available on the internet.
The Pakistani authorities have in their possession at least three pictures of Abu Ismail Khan, one showing his body lying on a Mumbai road after a shootout with the police; the second one being a close up of his face after being killed while the third one is a regular passport size photo. In fact, Kashmiri, around 47, is known to have been blind in one eye after fighting the Soviet occupation troops in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Though one eye of the picture posted on Internet seems to have been blinded, it is difficult to determine if the damage was caused by an injury or it was a wound sustained in a predator strike. The photograph posted by HuJI shows the face of a clean-shaven young man in his 20s despite the fact that Ilyas Kashmiri sports a full-grown black beard, dotted with henna.
Those trying to determine Kashmiri’s fate also doubt the authenticity of the statement released by HuJI, confirming his death, saying the name of the jihadi group has been misspelled by its spokesman. The name of the outfit - Harkatul Jehadul Islami - is actually in Arabic but the letter written by Abu Hanzla Kashir had misspelled the name twice. Firstly, he wrote Harkat-e-Jehad al-Islami and secondly he wrote Harkat-e Jehad-e-Islami. But grammatically speaking, both the names of the outfit - in Arabic and Urdu languages - are grammatically incorrect.
Keeping in view the discrepancies with both the pictures and the statement released by HuJI and in the absence of the DNA, it is hard for the investigators to believe that Kashmiri has actually been killed and there is a possibility that the reports of his death are being spread intentionally to deceive those who are out to hunt him down.
Similarly, a video released on Internet, showing the pre-burial scene of those killed in the June 3 US drone strike in Wana, failed to show the faces of the dead ones. The 50-second video shot in an apple orchard brings to the screen a scene of eight dead bodies already shrouded in white robes - the kafan - as per the Islamic rituals. The apple orchard is located opposite to a barren space of land. Both the deserted piece of land and the orchard are separated by a rickety path. Along the edges of the apple trees, very close to the path are dead bodies, which are ready for burial. A couple of motorcycles can also be seen parked under those apple trees, which were supposedly shading militants when the drones hit them. Though eight out of nine dead bodies are placed on the grass, the ninth one has been given special treatment and is resting on a jute bed, giving the impression that it is the dead body of someone important may be Commander Ilyas Kashmiri.
Several Taliban leaders in South Waziristan, including Mullah Nazir’s spokesman and a HuJI leader Qari Mohammad Idrees, have claimed that Ilyas Kashmiri was killed in the June 3 attack. Qari Idrees told newsmen that Kashmiri was sitting with friends at an apple orchard when he was targeted. He said the predators first fired two missiles and hit the same place where the HuJI Ameer and his men were sitting. With a gap of five minutes, he said, two more missiles were fired which hit their dead bodies, blowing them to pieces. Idrees added that some of the slain men had been buried at a graveyard near Ghundai village in Wana, but showed reluctance to provide information when asked whether Ilyas Kashmir had also been laid to rest at the same graveyard.
Kashmiri had reached the Laman village of South Waziristan on Friday night as part of his plans to relocate there in the wake of an imminent military operation in North Waziristan and form a new terror group called the “Laskhar-e-Osama” for carrying out reprisal attacks to avenge the killing of bin Laden. But the US drone struck merely half an hour after his arrival in Laman when tea had just been served. Therefore, there are reports that the Pakistani intelligence sleuths had provided ground intelligence to their American counterparts to target Kashmiri, who was on a list of five wanted terrorists the United States gave to Pakistan last month.
However, there are those who believe that the ground intelligence could have been provided by members of the Spider Group, consisting of retired Pakistani military and intelligence officials, assisting the American CIA in hunting down fugitive al-Qaeda leaders. The CIA has recruited hundreds of retired khakis as moles in the Pakistani tribal areas to provide real-time intelligence on the movement of the fugitive al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
However, the Spider Group has not yet confirmed the death of Ilyas Kashmiri in the June 3 attack, amidst rumours that the key jehadi leader who got killed along with several others was in fact al-Qaeda’s spokesman and propaganda chief for Pakistan, Ustad Ahmed Farooq.
The HuJI statement was issued on June 4, 2011 by Abu Hanzla Kashir, a previously unknown spokesman of the HuJI’s 313 Brigade and faxed to several newspaper offices in Peshawar. The statement said: “On behalf of Harkat Jihad al-Islami 313 Brigade, we confirm the fact that our leader and Commander-in-Chief Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri, along with other companions, has been martyred in an American drone attack at 11:15 pm on June 3, 2011. InshaAllah (God willing) the present pharaoh America will see our full revenge very soon. Our only target is America”.
The HuJI statement was then posted on the Shamukh al Islam forum, a website frequented by al-Qaeda sympathisers, along with an image purported to be that of Ilyas Kashmiri’s face after his death. However, those in the Pakistani security circles who are still trying to ascertain if the 313 Brigade chief has actually been killed, have concluded that the picture posted by HuJI is in fact that of Abu Ismail Khan, one of the 10-member Lashkar-e-Taiba fidayeen squad which had attacked the Indian port city of Mumbai on November 26, 2008 and killed 166 people, including over two dozen foreigners.
A resident of Dera Ismail Khan, Abu Ismail Khan, 25, was the leader of the Mumbai attackers and was killed by the Indian security forces after commandeering a car. His companion in the vehicle, Mohammad Ajmal Kasab was the only attacker to have been captured alive after the assault. During interrogations, Ajmal Kasab had claimed that Ismail Khan was the one to have killed the chief of India’s anti-terror squad, Hemant Karkare. On May 5, 2010 a special court in Mumbai headed by judge Tahaliyani found Ajmal Kasab, 22, guilty of the murder of seven people directly and 65 others in common intent with his dead partner, Abu Ismail Khan whose pictures are available on the internet.
The Pakistani authorities have in their possession at least three pictures of Abu Ismail Khan, one showing his body lying on a Mumbai road after a shootout with the police; the second one being a close up of his face after being killed while the third one is a regular passport size photo. In fact, Kashmiri, around 47, is known to have been blind in one eye after fighting the Soviet occupation troops in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Though one eye of the picture posted on Internet seems to have been blinded, it is difficult to determine if the damage was caused by an injury or it was a wound sustained in a predator strike. The photograph posted by HuJI shows the face of a clean-shaven young man in his 20s despite the fact that Ilyas Kashmiri sports a full-grown black beard, dotted with henna.
Those trying to determine Kashmiri’s fate also doubt the authenticity of the statement released by HuJI, confirming his death, saying the name of the jihadi group has been misspelled by its spokesman. The name of the outfit - Harkatul Jehadul Islami - is actually in Arabic but the letter written by Abu Hanzla Kashir had misspelled the name twice. Firstly, he wrote Harkat-e-Jehad al-Islami and secondly he wrote Harkat-e Jehad-e-Islami. But grammatically speaking, both the names of the outfit - in Arabic and Urdu languages - are grammatically incorrect.
Keeping in view the discrepancies with both the pictures and the statement released by HuJI and in the absence of the DNA, it is hard for the investigators to believe that Kashmiri has actually been killed and there is a possibility that the reports of his death are being spread intentionally to deceive those who are out to hunt him down.
Similarly, a video released on Internet, showing the pre-burial scene of those killed in the June 3 US drone strike in Wana, failed to show the faces of the dead ones. The 50-second video shot in an apple orchard brings to the screen a scene of eight dead bodies already shrouded in white robes - the kafan - as per the Islamic rituals. The apple orchard is located opposite to a barren space of land. Both the deserted piece of land and the orchard are separated by a rickety path. Along the edges of the apple trees, very close to the path are dead bodies, which are ready for burial. A couple of motorcycles can also be seen parked under those apple trees, which were supposedly shading militants when the drones hit them. Though eight out of nine dead bodies are placed on the grass, the ninth one has been given special treatment and is resting on a jute bed, giving the impression that it is the dead body of someone important may be Commander Ilyas Kashmiri.
Several Taliban leaders in South Waziristan, including Mullah Nazir’s spokesman and a HuJI leader Qari Mohammad Idrees, have claimed that Ilyas Kashmiri was killed in the June 3 attack. Qari Idrees told newsmen that Kashmiri was sitting with friends at an apple orchard when he was targeted. He said the predators first fired two missiles and hit the same place where the HuJI Ameer and his men were sitting. With a gap of five minutes, he said, two more missiles were fired which hit their dead bodies, blowing them to pieces. Idrees added that some of the slain men had been buried at a graveyard near Ghundai village in Wana, but showed reluctance to provide information when asked whether Ilyas Kashmir had also been laid to rest at the same graveyard.
Kashmiri had reached the Laman village of South Waziristan on Friday night as part of his plans to relocate there in the wake of an imminent military operation in North Waziristan and form a new terror group called the “Laskhar-e-Osama” for carrying out reprisal attacks to avenge the killing of bin Laden. But the US drone struck merely half an hour after his arrival in Laman when tea had just been served. Therefore, there are reports that the Pakistani intelligence sleuths had provided ground intelligence to their American counterparts to target Kashmiri, who was on a list of five wanted terrorists the United States gave to Pakistan last month.
However, there are those who believe that the ground intelligence could have been provided by members of the Spider Group, consisting of retired Pakistani military and intelligence officials, assisting the American CIA in hunting down fugitive al-Qaeda leaders. The CIA has recruited hundreds of retired khakis as moles in the Pakistani tribal areas to provide real-time intelligence on the movement of the fugitive al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
However, the Spider Group has not yet confirmed the death of Ilyas Kashmiri in the June 3 attack, amidst rumours that the key jehadi leader who got killed along with several others was in fact al-Qaeda’s spokesman and propaganda chief for Pakistan, Ustad Ahmed Farooq.
