“No, No, We Killed Jalib”: Al-Ansar-ul-Islam

The Baloch Hal News

QUETTA: The investigation in Habib Jalib murder case has taken a dramatic twist after two underground and unknown armed groups have simultaneously claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s killing of top Baloch nationalist leader. Both the groups accuse each other of “taking credit away from us” for the killing.

While a spokesman for Baloch Musla Defai Tanzeem, Mir Jhang Khan, had called Noshki Press Clubs hours after the killing of senior Baloch leader to accept responsibility for the killing, another organization, Al-Ansar-ul-Islam, which is the least known but the newest outfit to join the rank of ever-increasing mysterious armed groups operating in Balochistan, said it had killed Mr. Jalib.

Abu Hamza, the self-proclaimed spokesman of the organization which seems to have Islamic inclination, contradicted the claim of Baloch Musla Defai Tanzeem and said it had killed Jalib because he was a socialist who did not believe in Islam.

“We have ample evidence that Jalib spoke against Allah and Rasool (Prophet Mohammad). He was punished for his blasphemous remarks about Islam. We will provide all evidence of his anti-Islam remarks on our website,” said the spokesman, warning that anybody who spoke against Allah (God) and his Rasool (Prophet) would meet a fate similar to Habib Jalib. The spokesman did not provide the address of the official website. However, the Wikipedia mentions a similar organization as a Kurdish  Sunni Islamist group, promoting a radical interpretation of Islam. It is still not know whether it is the same outfit which has probably opened a covert chapter in Balochistan or a local organization has been formed under an identical name which shows that the activists of this organization have been inspired by the Kurdish organization.

Al-Ansar-ul-Islam has never carried out any operations in Balochistan in the past, local analysts say.

On the other hand, another armed group, the Baloch Musla Defai Tanzeem, which had accepted responsibility for murdering a senior National Party leader, Mir Maula Baksh Dashti, who was also a former city nazim of Kech district, on Sunday said Jalib had been killed by its activists. The Baloch Musla Defai Tanzeem had also accepted responsibility last month for a firing incident in Quetta on a BNP rally by saying that the actual target in the firing was Jalib who survived the attack this time. The same outfit, which had previously killed two BSO students in a cultural show in Khuzdar and then opening fire and killing two more BSO students in the same district, had accepted responsibility for the assassination attempt on Rasheed Baloch, the central Vice President of the Baloch Students Organization, a faction of the BSO which is close to BNP of Sardar Akhtar Mengal.

Like Jalib’s murder, two underground groups i.e. Baloch Musla Defai Tanzeem and People’s Liberation Army, yet another unknown group, had simultaneously accepted responsibility for the killing of Maula Baksh Dashti.

The spokesman for Al-Ansar-ul-Islam issued a second statement the other day asking Baloch Musla Defai Tanzeem once again to refrain from taking credit for killing the NBP secretary general.