By William Tucker
Ilyas Kashmiri is supposed to be dead. After all, the Pakistani’s confirmed it, eventually the U.S. did so as well, and of course, Harkatul Jehadul Islami (HUJI) released a statement shortly after a high profile drone attack. And yet, the rumors of Kashmiri faking his death persist. The most recent information leading one to believe that Kashmiri is still alive comes from RAW, the Indian intelligence service. If the adversarial relationship between Pakistan and India diminishes the credibility of the Indian claim, then perhaps word from Kashmiri’s family would suffice. Chaudhry Asghar, Kashmiri’s older brother, has recently stated that Pakistani intelligence officers have asked him several times for information on his brother’s whereabouts – several weeks after the Pakistani government declared him dead.
Of course, this isn’t all. The very beginning of the most recent ‘Kashmiri is dead’ saga left many clues to suggest that the militant leader wasn’t killed in the June 3, 2011 drone strike in South Waziristan. U.S. intelligence officials who were questioned shortly after the airstrike stated that Kashmiri wasn’t the target, although, they claimed, if he was killed it certainly wouldn’t hurt their feelings. Further undermining the claim was the location of the strike. Media reports, along with amateur video, indicate that the militants were killed while taking tea in an apple orchard. Kashmiri, however, was known to avoid outdoor meetings whenever possible and practiced rather obsessive operational security. Taking tea in an apple orchard, in South Waziristan of all places, seems out of character.
Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence casting doubts on Kashmiri’s death was the statement released by HuJI immediately after the drone strike. And by immediately, we are talking only a few minutes. A HuJI spokesman, Abu Hanzala Kashir, who, by the way, is an unknown quantity, released the following statement on a Jihadi forum and by fax to a local office of a major news organization.
“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. Insha Allah [God willing] the present pharaoh America will see our full revenge very soon. Our only target is America.”
It could be a mistake that the new ‘spokesman’ misspelled the name of his own organization, but he managed to do it twice; and not in the same way. As a way of bolstering the credibility of the claim, Kashir added a photo that was purported to be that of Kashmiri’s corpse. The many astute monitors of the Jihadi forums quickly dismissed the photo as bogus. The photograph was, in fact, that of a LeT terrorist killed during the 2008 Mumbai attack. These errors do not represent a good career move by this new spokesman, at least not in today’s economy.
The purpose of this post is not to stoke rumors of conspiracy, but rather point out problems with the claim of Kashmiri’s death. Any so-called confirmation from the Pakistani’s must be taken with a grain of salt. It is not uncommon for the Pakistani government to hold a press conference announcing the death of a wanted militant only to have that militant hold a press conference in an adjacent conference room showing the world that he is very much alive. As evidence of such, we need only look at the false claims from September 2009 in which the Pakistani’s claimed, twice in two weeks, that Kashmiri was dead. Things didn’t work out so well for the Pakistani claim then and that is reason enough to be skeptical now.
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