Why JeM, LeT have 'shed' Islamist identities

NEW DELHI: In the winter of 2023, four soldiers were killed in action in J&K's Poonch and an unknown outfit named People's Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF) claimed responsibility for the attack. Months later, it claimed responsibility for another attack in Gulmarg that had resulted in four deaths, including two soldiers from Rashtriya Rifles.

In the summer of 2020, a fierce gunbattle broke out in Keran, leading to multiple casualties on both sides, and the terrorists claimed to be from The Resistance Front (TRF).

Both outfits had not been heard of before, but their emergence failed to fool too many. It did not take long for Indian agencies to figure out they were offshoots of notorious outfits Jaish-e-Muhammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which had sought to camouflage their jihadi orientation by slipping into new sloughs.

The tactical sleight of hand and rebranding of the outfits - LeT became TRF and JeM became PAFF - was prompted by the changed political landscape in J&K following abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.

Rebadging has been an old practice with terrorist outfits but the switch this time to non-Islamist nomenclatures was prompted to curry favour with influential human rights groups in the West, which have been enamoured with claims of "freedom struggle", "self-determination" and "resistance" - in short ruses that terrorist groups employ to woo public opinion in foreign capitals.

"With these seemingly innocuous monikers, groups like LeT and JeM cloaked their jihadist ideology and intensified terrorist activities in Kashmir, exploiting the rhetoric of resistance and rights to further their agenda and fuel violence, while also helping their chief backer Pakistan peddle their alibi about terrorism in J&K being a homegrown affair," said an officer from the security establishment.

In this case, the additional motivation came from the blows that Indian security forces had inflicted on LeT and JeM while also squeezing their overground supporters, and as the two needed to rally their cadre.

"By adopting monikers, both groups aimed at creating confusion among the people so that their support on the ground remained intact. This tactic, they assumed, would allow their new Mujahideens to maintain a low profile and help Pakistan avoid sanctions, and continue their nefarious activities without arousing suspicion," a senior intelligence officer said. Moreover, rebranding enabled them to reinvent their image, potentially appealing to new recruits and sympathisers who were deterred by their previous notoriety.

The rebranding was also an attempt to evade global sanctions and dodge the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which had designated LeT as a terrorist organisation. International pressure also prompted Pakistan to pretend to take action against terrorist groups, and it had resorted to putting terrorist leaders under house arrest or imprisoning them.