Harakat ul-Mujahidin

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Harakat ul-Mujahidin (Arabic حركة المجاهدين; abbreviated HUM), previously Harakat al-Ansar, is an Islamic militant group based in Pakistan that operates primarily in Kashmir. Long-time leader of the group, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, in mid-February 2000 stepped down as HUM emir, turning the reins over to the popular Kashmiri commander and his second-in-command, Farooq Kashmiri. Khalil assumed the position of HUM Secretary General.

The group has conducted a number of operations against Indian troops and civilian targets in Kashmir. Linked to the Kashmiri militant group al-Faran that kidnapped five Western tourists in Kashmir in July 1995; one, Hans Christian Ostrø, was killed in August 1995 and the other four reportedly were killed in December of the same year. The new millennium brought significant developments for Pakistani militant groups, particularly the HUM. Most of these sprang from the hijacking of an Indian airliner on 24 December by militants believed to be associated with the HUM. The hijackers negotiated the release of Masood Azhar, an important leader in the former Harakat ul-Ansar imprisoned by the Indians in 1994. Azhar did not, however, return to the HUM, choosing instead to form the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM), a rival militant group expressing a more radical line than the HUM.

HUM is thought to have several thousand armed supporters located in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, and India's southern Kashmir and Doda regions. It uses light and heavy machineguns, assault rifles, mortars, explosives, and rockets. HUM has lost some of its membership due to defections to the JEM.

The group is based in Muzaffarabad, Rawalpindi, and several other towns in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but members conduct insurgent and terrorist activities primarily in Kashmir.

On October 10, 2005, Britain's Home Office banned HUM and fourteen other terrorist groups from operating in the United Kingdom. Under Britains' Terrorism Act 2000, being a member of a HUM is punished by a 10-year prison term.

The fourteen banned terrorist groups were:

*Libyan Islamic Fighting Group

*Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain (Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group)

*Ansar al-Islam

*Al Ittihad Al Islamia

*Islamic Jihad Union

*Ansar al-Sunna

*Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin

*Harakat ul-Mujahidin/Alami

*Jundallah

*Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan

*Lashkar-e Jhangvi

*Khuddam u-Islam

*Jamaat ul Furquan

*Harakat ul Jihad ul Islami

*Harakat ul Islami (Bangladesh)

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