TCAP Expansion Profile: Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH)

• Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH) is a known affiliate of al-Qaeda and the operative arm of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) in Jammu and Kashmir. Therefore, under the TCAP’s Inclusion Policy, AGH is considered as designated under an alias by four designating authorities consulted for TCAP.[1]

• AGH is a violent Islamist group that aims to impose Sharia law across Jammu and Kashmir. Since the peak of AGH’s violent activity in 2017/18, the disruption of plots and arrests of AGH-linked individuals by the Indian security forces has continued.

• AGH has a centralised media foundation that publishes officially branded AGH propaganda online. AGH’s online propaganda output has often been published in conjunction with a well-established al-Qaeda-affiliated media foundation. The group posts sporadic batches of multi-media propaganda focused on Jihad in the context of the Kashmir conflict.[2]

Threat

Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH) is an al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group based in Jammu and Kashmir. The group was formed in July 2017, announced by an al-Qaeda-affiliated media foundation. It was not initially declared that AGH was a wing of AQIS, however subsequent official statements made by AQIS confirmed that AGH was acting under the guidance of AQIS. As a result, AGH is a known affiliate of al-Qaeda.

The group was led by 23-year-old Zakir Rashid Bhat (alias Zakir Musa), a former member of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM). The name of the group derives from the Islamic prophecy ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind’ or the ‘ultimate conquest of India’, and Ansar translates to supporters. The translation of AGH reflects the groups motivations as AGH aims to violently impose Islamic Sharia Law in Jammu and Kashmir and wage Jihad against the Indian authorities. The group has also threatened that if Pakistan changed their stance on Kashmir, they would expand their insurgency to Pakistan.

AGH’s activity has been explicitly linked to al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), and fits a pattern of AQIS collaborating with local militant groups across South Asia to expand operational capability and local influence. AGH has also cooperated with other insurgent groups in Jammu and Kashmir including Zakir Musa’s former group HM.

Following the group’s establishment in 2017, AGH began carrying out attacks. From November 2017 to November 2018, the group carried out a series of lethal attacks using a range of firearms and explosives. The Global Terrorism Database reports the AGH were linked to 8 attacks between 2017-2018, as reflected in Figure 1. These attacks have taken place across India, particularly in the Northern Indian provinces of Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat, and Punjab. Counterterrorism operations by the Indian authorities have led to the killing and arrests of members linked to AGH and the disruption of multiple plots has continued since the peak of AGH activity between 2017-2018.

On 23 May 2019, Zakir Musa was killed during clashes with Indian security forces. Thousands of people took part in funeral processions in the terrorist leader's hometown of Tral. AQIS released a video following Zakir Musa’s death eulogising him and reiterating their focus on Jammu and Kashmir. Zakir Musa’s successor, Abdul Hameed Lelhari, was killed by security forces in Awantipora, Jammu and Kashmir in October 2019. The group likely entered a rebuilding phase after the loss of its leadership. Since the death of Zakir Musa, AGH has not perpetrated any attacks on the scale of its activity between 2017-2018.

In 2020, the murder of Ghulam Nabi, a contractor, outside his home in the town of Tral, in the Jammu and Kashmir region was attributed to AGH and HM. Despite sustained pressure from security forces and the uncertainty around the leadership of AGH the group remains a threat. On 26 December 2021, four alleged members of AGH, including Rahi Rasool Bhat, an expert bomb maker, were killed in a confrontation with authorities. In December 2022, AGH claimed responsibility for an attack in Punjab.

Several insurgent groups are active throughout Jammu and Kashmir. Groups such as AGH, HM, and AQIS often collaborate. As a result, the attribution of attacks to group affiliation and assessments of cells capabilities is complex.

Online Activity Assessment

From its inception, AGH has leveraged social media and online propaganda as part of its strategy. AGH announced its establishment in July 2017 across social media and announced its official media foundation. AGH’s online presence is both complex and sparse. Central to the group’s dissemination strategy is its primary media arm, which produces AGH’s officially branded content.

The dissemination of AGH propaganda is often in conjunction with a well-established al-Qaeda-affiliated media organisation. This group promotes the propaganda of multiple al-Qaeda affiliates and other extremist organisations to spread violent Islamist narratives. AGH has also been referenced and promoted in several pieces of AQIS propaganda.

The group operates a multiplatform approach to disseminating content across the internet, utilising several simultaneous “beacon” channels [3] on messaging apps to share content in long lists of outlinks. AGH is a prolific user of outlinks, often uploading new multimedia propaganda to multiple platforms simultaneously, sharing batches of unique URLs to the content on its beacon platforms or on paste sites. AGH propaganda has also been hosted on archiving sites.

AGH’s last major publication of propaganda was in May 2022. AGH is also known to have operated a second media foundation, however its output appears to have ended following the death of the media foundation’s spokesperson in 2019.

Alerting AGH propaganda

We will only be alerting content via the TCAP that contains propaganda officially produced by AGH through one of its media outlets, and is clearly branded as such. This will include publications, statements, photosets, and videos. Content produced in support of the group, but not by an affiliated media entity, will not be in scope.

This entry is part of a series of monthly blogs dedicated to TCAP expansion, explaining the reasons for inclusion of each new TCAP entity. You can find our full Inclusion Policy, which explains the process and legal grounding we use for deciding which terrorist content we alert here.

[1] AQIS is designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States State Department, European Union, Canada, and Australia.

[2] The Kashmir conflict is a long-standing territorial dispute between India and Pakistan originating in the 1947 British partition of India. The dispute has led to several wars and tensions remain high between India and Pakistan. The conflict is leveraged by various militant and terrorist groups including AGH and AQIS who have exploited local grievances to gain a localised supporting constituency.

[3] A Beacon Platform is a platform used by TVE actors to centralise their propaganda dissemination, and to signpost users towards new content elsewhere online. This concept is based on analysis by Ali Fisher, Nico Prucha, & Emily Winterbotham, “Mapping the Jihadist Information Ecosystem: Towards the Next Generation of Disruption Capability,” Global Research Network on Terrorism and Technology, Paper No. 6, 2019.