Jamiat ul-Mujahedin (JuM) -- Splinter Group
Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) -- Ally (Suspected)

Hizb ul-Mujahidin, HM of the Jamaat-e-Islami

Hizb ul-Mujahideen is the largest Kashmiri militant group, and officially supports the liberation of Kashmir and its accession to Pakistan, although some cadres are pro-independence.  The group is the militant wing of Pakistan's largest Islamic political party, the Jamaat-i-Islami.  It primarily targets Indian security forces and politicians in Kashmir and has conducted operations jointly with other Kashmiri militants.  It reportedly operated in Afghanistan through the mid-1990s and trained alongside the Afghan Hizb-I-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) in Afghanistan until the Taliban takeover.  The group is made up primarily of ethnic Kashmiris but with some foreign sources.  While Indian intelligence reports that it is responsible for only about 10 to 20 percent of all terrorist strikes, Pakistani reports estimate that it controls about 60 percent of terrorists operating in Kashmir. <p><p>The group was originally called Al Badr but was quickly renamed Hizb-ul Mujahideen.  The Jamaat-e-Islami is reported to have set up this terrorist front at the prodding of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), as an Islamic counter to the Jammu Kashmire Liberation Front (JKLF), a secular terrorist group with an indigenous cadre base.  Since 1997, this group has been operating in tandem with the Lashkar-e-Toiba. It seems that HM provides the local knowledge and support to organizations like Harkat-ul Ansar and the Lashkar-e-Toiba, whose cadre are largely foreign.  HM has also been the target of counter-insurgent groups whose members are primarily former terrorists of groups that were decimated by the Hizb-ul Mujahideen during the early nineties, in its endeavor to dominate the insurgency in Kashmir.

HM supports the liberation of Kashmir and its accession to Pakistan.

The Holy Jihad Brigades is a militant group active in Gaza and the West Bank.  No information is available regarding their leadership and group structure, or when they first formed.  However, the group is most likely comprised of a small number of militants with limited financial and tactical resources.  As their name and only claimed incident suggests, the Holy Jihad Brigades seeks to expel Western influence from the Middle East region, and spread the teachings of radical Islamic faith.  <P><br /><br />The Holy Jihad Brigades claimed responsibility for the 2006 kidnapping of Steve Centanni, a correspondent for Fox News Corp., and Olaf Wiig, his cameraman.  The group's purpose for the kidnapping was to coerce the U.S. government to free all Muslims incarcerated in American prisons, a task the Holy Jihad Brigades wanted accomplished within seventy-two hours.  Even though these demands were not met, Centanni and Wiig were released after 13 days of captivity.  According to their statements, neither were physically harmed, although group members forced them to "convert" to Islam by aiming guns at their heads and dressing them in Arabic robes.  This incident, lasting nearly two weeks, remains the most lengthy foreign hostage situation in Gaza.  <br />