Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade primary tactics are suicide bombings and firearms attacks.  While the group's primary objective is to forcibly remove Israelis from the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem, the group also targets civilians and soldiers in Israel.

Al-Arifeen Squad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, The Holy Men

According to the Indian intelligence service, al-Arifeen is a front for the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), while the US State Department calls them an offshoot group. Little is known of the group beyond their claims of responsibility for intermittent attacks in Kashmir between 2002 and 2004. <P> The outfit first came to light in September of 2002 when a spokesman for al-Arifeen claimed responsibility for the assassination of state Law Minister Mushtaq Ahmad Lone, the killing of two National Conference leaders in Srinagar, and a grenade attack at the Congress party headquarters during the first weeks of September 2002.  These attacks were followed by a suicide attack on a police colony in which a policeman was killed and six were injured during the third week of September. A separate claim of responsibility was made by a Lashkar-e-Taiba spokesperson for each of the same attacks. Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is the armed wing of the Pakistan-based religious organization, Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad (MDI). MDI is an anti-US missionary organization formed in 1989. The LeT is one of the three largest and best-trained groups fighting in Kashmir against India.

Whether al-Arifeen is a fully separate splinter group or a faction of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), it is clear that the two groups hold many of the same principles. The LeT's agenda includes the restoration of Islamic rule over all parts of India, and propagates a narrow Islamist fundamentalism based on the Wahabi sect. The LeT challenges India's sovereignty over the State of Jammu and Kashmir. It seeks to bring about a union of all Muslim majority regions in countries that surround Pakistan. LeT is also a member of the United Jihad Council, as well as Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front for Jihad against the US and Israel.