New Delhi, April 25 (IANS) The deadly alliance between terror outfit Hamas and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), now expanding its network and operations from the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) to the streets of Bangladesh, lies exposed once again after Tuesday’s barbaric killing of innocent civilians in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam.
Intelligence officials have found several striking similarities between the tactics used by the four attackers, two of them from Pakistan, in the Pahalgam attack and the brutal murders carried out by the Hamas terrorists in Israel, in October 2023.
Sources reveal that all four terrorists were trained in PoK where Hamas has set up a training module in camps operated by terror groups Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) which are fully backed by the ISI.
In February, Hamas leaders released by Israel had visited Pakistan at the behest of the country’s government and were taken to PoK to meet Lashkar and Jaish terrorists.
As they travelled to the terror dungeons, Hamas leaders were paraded as liberators on horses in the streets of Rawalakot.
Hamas spokespersons Khaled al-Qaddoumi and Naji Zaheer besides Hamas leaders Mufti Azam and Bilal Alsallat were present at the Rawalkot rally, which was attended by Talha Saif, the brother of JeM chief Masood Azhar, and several other top terror commanders from both outfits, including Asghar Khan Kashmiri and Masood Ilyas.
The event titled ‘Kashmir Solidarity and Hamas Operation Al Aqsa Flood’ was designed to convey that both Kashmir and Palestine were subjects for pan-Islamic Jihad and urged the Ummah to unite against India and Israel on the victimhood card.
Several leaders in India and the Israeli Ambassador had also voiced their concerns over Pakistan’s involvement with terrorist organisations to fuel unrest in the region.
“Unfortunately, terrorist organisations work in networks and many times they find ways to support each other in a way that is detrimental for many countries, not just for our region,” Reuven Azar, the Ambassador of Israel to India, told IANS in an exclusive interview on February 26, 2025.
“The fact that, for example, there was a meeting only a couple of weeks ago in the areas that are under Pakistani control in Kashmir of leaders of Hamas tells you something about how these terrorist organisations are inspiring each other… Apparently, they are cooperating in order to achieve their common goal which is to terrorize us and to terrorize you. So, this is something that we have to take into account,” Azar had added.
Earlier, in October 2024, ISI had also taken Hamas leaders to Dhaka to inspire a similar radical mindset to conduct terror attacks in the North Eastern states of India.
The event organised by ‘Al Markazul Islami’, a group whose founder had direct ties to al-Qaeda, was attended by senior Hamas and Pakistani Islamist figures.
The organisation’s founder, Mufti Shahidul Islam, who died in 2023, had direct ties to al-Qaeda, and his long-standing involvement in terrorism has added to the anxiety surrounding the motivations behind this event.
Islam, a notorious figure in the Islamist militancy scene in Bangladesh, was previously arrested in 1999 for orchestrating a deadly bomb attack on an Ahmadiyya mosque in Khulna, which claimed eight lives. Following his release, Islam travelled to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and several African countries, where he received explosives training directly from al-Qaeda. Even after his death, his influence remains strong, with extremist organisations like the Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) continuing to regard him as a key figure in their operations.
The Dhaka event, held on October 7, was attended by senior Hamas leaders, including spokesperson and senior leader Sheikh Khaled Quddumi, Sheikh Khaled Mishal and Chairman of Hamas’ Political Bureau Mufti Shahidul Islam. Also present at the event were prominent Islamist figures from Pakistan, such as Shaikhul Islam Mufti Taqi Usmani and Maulana Fazlur Rahman, both influential within the country’s radical circles.
Pakistan’s deep-rooted ties with global terror outfits have already rung alarm bells – from Washington to Jerusalem, and beyond.
Drawing similarities between Tuesday’s terror attack in Kashmir and the October 7 massacre that took place in 2023 back home, Israeli Ambassador to India Reuven Azar on Thursday termed the horrific terrorist ambush on innocent civilians in Pahalgam as “barbaric” and “atrocious”, asserting that the fact that Hamas terrorists were invited to Pakistan is a bad sign of things to come.
“This is an atrocious, barbaric attack. People have the right to go on vacation without being attacked in such a terrible way. This is shocking. It’s absolutely unacceptable. We must do whatever we can, not only to catch the perpetrators but to prevent such incidents from happening again,” Azar told IANS in an exclusive chat.
Much before Pahalgam, the diplomat had expressed concerns over the Palestinian terror outfit Hamas going into a huddle with Jaish and Lashkar terrorists in the PoK.
“Terror cannot be tolerated, cannot be contextualized, cannot be justified. The fact that terrorists are not only being hosted but embraced by other organisations is something that cannot be accepted. The fact that Hamas terrorists were invited to Pakistan is a bad sign of things to come, because these terrorists are copying each other, inspiring each other, and we have to defend ourselves against them,” he said on Thursday.
“You have a similar situation in which people were going to a music festival and were massacred, and people here were on vacation, and they were massacred. It’s the same death cult, the same distorted interpretation of religion, the same supremacist thoughts – the fact that people think that by breaching every norm of humanity, they will achieve something. This is something that has to be completely eliminated. That’s why Israel has had the resolve to attack Hamas the way it did. We’re going to continue doing it while defending our principles, our laws, and our values. And I am sure India is going to do the same,” said Azar.
Vowing to share intelligence, the Ambassador praised the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for its “tremendous achievements” in stabilising Jammu and Kashmir, emphasising that this is something that Israel can learn from India.
“I trust the Indian government that will do whatever is necessary, and they know it best because they have the intelligence. They know the terrain, they know the nature, not only of the terrorists, but of those who are sponsoring them. And I am actually happy that there is determination that is being shown by the Indian leadership, not only by the defence forces, but also by the foreign policy establishment, by the Prime Minister and the entire leadership. This is a watershed moment, and it’s very natural that India will take steps and say enough is enough,” the Israeli Ambassador stated.
–IANS
scor/as
