Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami

Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami
Ideology	Islamic fundamentalism
Size	Several hundred members
Designated as a terrorist group by
Bangladesh,  Israel,  United States,  New Zealand

Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Arabic: حركة الجهاد الإسلامي‎‎, Ḥarkat al-Jihād al-Islāmiyah, meaning "Islamic Jihad Movement", HuJI) is an Islamic fundamentalist organisation most active in South Asian countries of Pakistan and Bangladesh since the early 1990s. It was banned in Bangladesh in 2005. The operational commander of HuJI, Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed in a US drone strike using a Predator drone in South Waziristan on 4 June 2011. He was linked to the 13 February 2010 bombing of a German bakery in Pune. A statement was released soon after the attack which claimed to be from Kashmiri; it threatened other cities and major sporting events in India. A local Taliban commander named Shah Sahib was named as Kashmiri's successor.

HuJI or HJI was formed in 1984, during the Soviet-Afghan War, by Fazlur Rehman Khalil and Qari Saifullah Akhtar. It was the first Pakistani-based jihadist group. Khalil later broke away to form his own group, Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA), which became the most feared militant organisation in Kashmir. This group would later re-form as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), when HuA was banned by the United States in 1997.

HuJI first limited its operations in Afghanistan to defeating the Communists, but after the Soviets retreated, the organisation exported jihad to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. HuJI's influence expanded into Bangladesh when the Bangladesh unit was established in 1992, with direct assistance from Osama bin Laden.

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