COUNTERTERRORISM• 115known as Fatah–Revolutionary Council and the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine–General Command), rejecting the authority
of the Palestine Liberation Organization. All are active in London
with, for example, Abu Nidal preferring to transfer funds through
local banks, including the Bank of Credit and Commerce Interna-
tional, which first came to the attention of the authorities in a terrorist
money-laundering context and not the outright fraud that eventually
led to its collapse.
Similarly, Kashmiris are highly fragmented, with four principal
organizations operating in England. The largest is the Lashkar-e-Tay-
yaba (LT), which operates covertly behind the front of a political
wing, the Markaz Dawa al-Irshad. The LT, which fights for the estab-
lishment of an Islamic state, is primarily focused on the Indian forces
in Kashmir, but in 1998 declared a jihad against the United States
following the first American air raids on Afghanistan. The Harakat
Mujahadeen (previously called the Harakat ul-Ansar) undertakes
bombing campaigns in India and has also abducted Western tourists.
In December 1999 it hijacked an Indian Airlines flight and success-
fully negotiated the release of some of its imprisoned members. The
Jaish-e-Mohammed is led by Mazud Azhar, who has expressed an
ambition to unite all the Kashmiri Islamic groups; he is also commit-
ted to the jihad against the United States. The Jaish is of particular
interest to MI5 as a British passport holder, of Pakistani origin, was
arrested by the Indian police in Srinigar and charged with terrorist
offenses, the implication being that he had been recruited and trained
in Britain.
Sikh secessionists, dedicated to an independent Khalistan within
the Punjab, either support the International Sikh Youth Federation,
which plots assassinations in India but does not have any quarrel with
Western interests, or the Babbar Khalsa (BK), a potent group created
in 1978 that has been engaged in terrorism continuously ever since.
The BK is regarded as having been responsible for the 1985 Air India
incident, and it has killed numerous Indian officials in the Punjab.
The BK engages in recruitment and fundraising within the e ́migre ́
Sikh community and is known to have planned the assassination of
Indian officials visiting Britain.
The largest other non-Islamic group active in Britain is the Tamil
Tigers (LTTE), who have never sought to extend the conflict to estab-