US offers $5 million for terror leader Ilyas Kashmiri

Apr 07, 2011 |

IANS

Washington

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The United States has offered a reward of up to $5 million for information on Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri, head of a Pakistani terrorist group who played a role in the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai.

Announcing the reward on Wednesday, the state department said Kashmiri 'commander of the terrorist organization Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI), which supports Al Qaeda" has led HUJI training camps since 2001 and his organization has launched several attacks in India and Pakistan.

Indian investigators believe that suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives David Headley and Tahhawur Hussain Rana, who allegedly helped plan the Mumbai terror attacks, were reporting to the 313 Brigade, headed by Kashmiri.

On March 2, 2006, HUJI launched a suicide bombing against the US Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, which killed four people, including US diplomat David Foy, and injured 48 others, the state department said.

In January 2010, a US federal grand jury indicted Kashmiri for terrorism-related offenses in connection with a terrorist plot to attack the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Denmark.

On August 6, 2010, the US Treasury Secretary designated Kashmiri a 'Specially Designated Global Terrorist' and the US Secretary of State designated HUJI as a 'Foreign Terrorist Organization'.

Both designations, which were reached after consultation with the Attorney General, provide US law enforcement agencies the legal means to restrict resources to both Kashmiri and HUJI, the state department said.

Kashmiri was born in 1964 in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. He is approximately six feet tall and weighs about 200 pounds.

His hair is black and his eyes are brown. He has been seen with a thick beard dyed white, black, or red at various times. He has lost sight in one eye, and often wears aviator-style sunglasses. He is missing an index finger, according to the state department.

Kashmiri is also known by several aliases, including: Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri, Elias al-Kashmiri, Ilyas, Naib Amir, and Commando Commander, it said.

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