While much attention has been focussed on the inclusion of the Harkut-ul-Mujahideen in the list of terrorist organisation identified by the United States, an organisation that is active in Kashmir and is also on the list, has passed largely unnoticed.
That organisation is the Al-Rasheed Trust run by the notorious Maulana Masood Azhar, the extremist who was released from an Indian jail in exchange for the hostages on board IC-814. Azhar's brother was one of the hijackers of that plane.
The Al-Rasheed Trust is based in Karachi, Pakistan, and was originally set up as a welfare organisation. In the 1980s, it was co-opted by the ISI to channel Saudi Arabian funds to Afghan mujahideen. The trust paid compensation to the families of those killed in the Afghan 'jehad'.
After the Taliban took over in Afghanistan, the ISI shifted the Trust's focus to Kashmir and used it to finance insurgency in that state. When Maulana Masood Azhar was released in December, 1999, the ISI put him in charge of handling the Trust's assets.
While Azhar has maintained the Trust's links with the Taliban, he has expanded the concept of jehad to include Kashmir. The Trust now openly funds Kashmiri mujahideen and pays compensation to their families.
It runs a network of Deobandi madrassas all over Pakistan that act as recruiting centres for jehadis and runs a small hospital in Muzaffarabad for the treatment of jehadis.
Unlike many other organisations on the US list, the Trust makes no secret to its activities. It publishes an Urdu paper called Zarb-e-Momin as well as an English paper, Dharb-e-Momin, and even runs a radio station out of Kabul.
The Dharb-e-Momin openly supports the Jaish-e-Mohammad, a terrorist group that is involved in suicide attacks in Kashmir. It publishes advertisements in the Pakistani press asking for funds for 'welfare work' in "Kashmir, Chechnya, Kosovo" etc, but clearly informs donors that it will decide how to spend the money. For instance, it says, if there is "a dire need of the mujahideen", the money will be used for that purpose.
Unusually for a group that makes no secret of raising funds to finance violence, its advertisements list all its accounts with Karachi's Habib Bank, giving separate account numbers for donations received in dollars or pounds sterling. Pakistan has just announced it has frozen these accounts.
The Americans have, however, not asked for action against the jehadis.
For instance, Maulana Masood Azhar,
who controls the Trust, made headlines in Pakistani papers in January 2000
when he called for a jehad on both India and the US. Despite this, Azhar
remains a valued ISI asset. And despite the circumstances of his release
after the IC-814 hijacking, Pakistan has no hesitation in allowing him
to function openly on its territory.