The Jaish-e-Mohammed carried out the IC814 hijacking in 1999, the first suicide attack on the Army headquarters in Srinagar in 2000, the attack on Parliament in 2001 and the attack on the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot in 2016.
This 'claim of responsibility' was part of a short video by the Jaish suicide bomber recorded before he drove an explosive-laden SUV into a CRPF convoy on the Srinagar-Jammu highway at Pulwama on Thursday, killing at least 44 jawans and injuring several others.
In the two-minute video, Adil Ahmed Dar alias Waqas commando, is seen holding an AK 47 rifle and sitting in front of a stash of weapons. Dar owns, with nonchalance, the first suicide attack by the Jaish in Kashmir on the Army headquarters in 2000. That failed attack was carried out by a Srinagar youth, Afaq Ahmed (17), who tried to crash an explosive-laden car into 15 Corps headquarters. The alert sentries had challenged him well before he could crash into the headquarters' entrance. Ahmed was killed when the car exploded.
After mentioning the attack, Dar warned, ''We will deal with you with such hands that you will not be able to handle it. We have inflicted deep wounds on you in the past. The healing of those wounds is impossible.''
Then, he mentioned the IC 814 hijacking. Dar talked of incidents ''from the hijacking of IC814 to the attack inside your Parliament to the suicide bombings in Badami Bagh (Army Cantonment) to the burning down of camps at Tanghdar and Nagrota”.
''From Pathankot airbase to the attack on District Police Lines in Pulwama and lines to BSF camp at Srinagar Airport to the bullets of our brave sniper and the blasting of Caspers (Army's mine-protected vehicles) are the nightmares that will spoil your sleep,” Dar declared.
The 22-year-old suicide bomber said the Jaish was not requesting for stopping “oppression or begging for mercy”. “Your oppression gives more strength to our jihad,” he said. “It was a debt on us to repeat the history of fidayeen of Jaish and offer our blood to bring grief to you,” Dar declared.
Dar claimed by offering his life, he would be making the Ummah (Muslims of the world) proud. “And there are thousands like me,” he warned.
A resident of Gundibagh, Kakapora, in Pulwama in volatile south Kashmir, Dar lived only 10km away from the site where he attacked the CRPF.
Dar quit studies after class 12 and joined the Jaish in 2018. In police records, he was listed as a 'C-category' militant. Police sources said he was not among the most dreaded militants operating in south Kashmir.
Local residents in his village assembled for his funeral prayers in absentia after the news of his killing in the suicide bombing spread.
Dar is the second local boy in south Kashmir who Jaish recruited to train and indoctrinate to the level that they decided to carry out audacious attacks.
Earlier, Fardeen Khandey of Nazeenpora, Tral, had carried a fidayeen attack on the CRPF camp at Lethpora along with another local militant, Mudasir, and a Pakistani militant on December 31, 2017.
The attack left five CRPF men dead and several injured. The fidayeen had for the first time used steel- tipped bullets for maximum impact.
Security forces and NIA experts have collected samples of the explosives at Pulwama for forensic analysis.
(This story originally appeared in The Week)
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