Many groups, including HUM, LET and Al Badar, are members of the Army of Islam, which was formed in1979 under the direction of Musharraf and current Lieutenant General Mohammad Aziz to fight the Soviets occupying Afghanistan. Members of this clandestine army were trained at 100 specially selected madrasas (religious schools) that were modified by the introduction of military training conducted by retired officers of the Pakistan Army. Following the collapse of the government in Kabul in 1992, the Army of Islam was redirected by the ISI, Pakistan’s secret intelligence agency, to conduct operations against Indian Kashmir. In the 1999 Kargil conflict, when the Pakistani Army crossed the Line of Control into Indian Kashmir, members of the Army of Islam were used alongside regular troops.

The Harakat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), also known as Harakat-ul-Ansar (HUA), Al Faran, Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami (HUJI), Al Hadith and Al-Hadid, is a militant group led by Kashmiri military commander Farooq Kashmiri Khalil. It is directly connected to Al-Qaida. The group’s primary objective is to vanquish the Indian government in Kashmir and join the region with Pakistan.

HUM allegedly receives support from the Pakistani military and the ISI. The organization supports insurgency groups in Burma, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Bosnia, Uzbekistan, Chechnya, the Philippines and elsewhere. It condemns all western influence and adheres to a stringent interpretation of Islamic law. HUM, a member of the International Islamic Front for Jihad on the Jews and Crusaders, signed Osama Bin Laden’s fatwa against the US and Israel in 1998.

The group comprises several thousand armed troops, mainly Pakistanis, Kashmiri Muslims and Afghan war veterans from throughout the Arab world. From its base in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, it primarily targets civilians and security forces in Indian Kashmir.

This group may have been responsible for the abduction and brutal killing of journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in February 2002. It is implicated in the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight 814, which was forced to land at Kandahar Airport in Afghanistan in 1999. It is also considered responsible for kidnapping and killing western tourists in Kashmir from 1993 to 1995.

This group is based jointly in Muzaffarabad and near Lahore, Pakistan and conducts operations in the Himalayan Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. It is the armed branch of the Markaz Dawa-Wal-Irshad (MDI), an anti-missionary, Islamic fundamentalist organization led by Professor Hafiz Mohammed Saeed. LET’s mission is to destroy India and establish Islamic rule in place of the country’s secular government. It is the largest active militant group in the Kashmir Valley. Its name means Army of the Righteous.

Thriving on donations from Pakistani communities in the Persian Gulf and the UK, and from businessmen at home, and having the support of the ISI, LET maintains connections to Islamic and military groups around the world. Its several hundred members in Pakistan, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK), and parts of Indian Kashmir are almost all Pakistani nationals and Afghan war veterans. They train in militant camps across Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The group has reportedly conducted numerous attacks against Indian troops and unarmed civilians since 1993. It is considered responsible for a series of massacres in Jammu and Kashmir in August 2000 in which over 100 people have died. It is also accused of kidnapping and operating a dedicated fidayeen unit, or suicide squad, which was named Pasban-i-Ahle Hadith when LET was included on the US State Department’s List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. India has charged that LET was involved in the militant attack on the New Delhi Parliament on December 13, 2001.

The Jaish-e-Mohammed was formed in February 2001 by Maulana Masood Azhar, former leader of the Harakat-ul-Ansar, (HUA, now called HUM). The size and strength of the group have reportedly swelled rapidly with HUM defectors. In 1999, Indian authorities released Azhar from prison in exchange for 155 hostages onboard the hijacked Indian Airlines flight 814. Several previous militant operations were conducted by HUA in an effort to get Azhar released, including the kidnapping and murder of western tourists in Kashmir in 1995. The objective of the Pakistan based group is to unite Indian Kashmir with Pakistan.

JEM has close ties with Afghan Arabs and the Taliban and reportedly receives funds from Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaida. Supporters are mainly Pakistanis, Afghans, Arab veterans of the Afghan War and Kashmiris.

JEM has claimed responsibility for the explosion outside the State Legislative Assembly building in Srinagar in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir on October 1, 2001 in which 35 innocent civilians were killed. From 1994 to 2000, JEM has conducted fatal assaults against civilians in several locations in Indian Kashmir.

There are several smaller groups closely connected to HUM, LET and JEM, which proclaim the same objectives and employ similar militant tactics in Kashmir, such as abduction, killing civilians and police, bombings and extortion. The pro-Pakistan groups are allegedly financed, armed and trained by the Pakistani military and the ISI. They include the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), the Tehrik-ul-Mujahideen (TUM), the Al-Barq, the Jamait-ul-Mujahideen (JUM), the Al Badar, and the Al Jehad. The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) is a Kashmiri group that lost Pakistan’s assistance because of its pro-independence objective.