The year 2007 was a major setback for the terror outfits involved in anti-Indian activities in most of the parts of the country, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir. According to the report, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen has suffered the most among the other active terrorists groups in J&K. The Hizbul group lost its 34 top commanders and 307 cadres in various clashes with security personnel in the year 2007.

A senior police officer said that Hizb received a major setback this year having lost 34 top commanders and 307 cadres in the gunbattles with security forces. He further said that the killing of top commanders has broken the backbone of Kashmir militancy and Hizb cadres have taken shelters in different regions.

According to the report, the security forces killed top commanders of as many as 13 terror outfits active in the region and the Hizb tops the list of terror groups such as Lashker-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Al-Badr, Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJI), Tahreek-ul-Mujahideen (TuM), Al-Umar, Jamail-ul-Mujahideen (JuM), JK Freedom Force (JKFF), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), Hizb-e-Islami (HeI) and Al-Barq.

The report says that a total of 77 top militant commanders have been killed by the security personnel till November this year. Hizb is at the top in the list with the killing of 37 top commanders. The LeT (17), JeM (13), HuJI (10), Al-Badr (3), HuM, JuM, TuM, HeI and Al-Barq have also lost their top commanders.

In the past two years, the security forces killed 182 top commanders in which 75 commanders were of Hizb, 49 of LeT, 18 of JeM, 11 of Al-Badr and 20 of HuJI. In the year 2007, the Hizb has lost one operation chief commander, four divisional commanders, seven district commanders, nine tehsil commanders, 12 area commanders and company commander in the clashes with security forces.

The Indian Express has reported the names of the top commanders among those killed in 2007 as Bilal Afghani, chief commander of Al-Badr, Qari Umar (deputy chief of HuJI for J-K), Abu Hamza (chief operation commander of JuM), Qasim Bhatti (chief operation commander of LeT), Iajaz Ahmed Chopan (chief operation commander of HM), Aby Tallah (operation commander of LeT’s Jammu region), Mohammad Younis (commander-in-chief, HMPPR) and Mohd Khalid-ur-Rehman (LeT’s India operations head).

It further reported that Hizb had lost three chief operation commanders, Gazi Shahab-uddin, Gazi Naseer-uddin, Saif-ul-Islam in the year 2004, besides deputy chiefs, Abbas Malik, Shakeel Ansari, intelligence chief Tari Aziz.