Fazal ur Rehman Khalil ( ) is a founder of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and current leader of Ansar-ul-Umma, which is accused of being a front organization of the banned HuM. He also runs the Jamia

Khalid Bin Walid Khalid ibn al-Walid ibn al-Mughira al-Makhzumi (; died 642) was a 7th-century Arab military commander. He initially led campaigns against Muhammad on behalf of the Quraysh. He later became a Muslim and spent the remainder of his career servin ...

, a

madrasa Madrasa (, also , ; Arabic: مدرسة , ), sometimes Romanization of Arabic, romanized as madrasah or madrassa, is the Arabic word for any Educational institution, type of educational institution, secular or religious (of any religion), whet ...

or Islamic seminary located in the Shams Colony of

Islamabad Islamabad (; , ; ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's tenth-most populous city with a population of over 1.1 million and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital Territory. Bu ...

’s Golra town which has been accused of supporting the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. He is considered to be close to the Talibans and former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. He was sanctioned as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under the

Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List The Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, also known as the SDN List, is a United States government sanctions/embargo measure targeting U.S.-designated terrorists, officials and beneficiaries of certain authoritarian regimes, a ...

by the

United States Department of the Treasury The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the Treasury, national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States. It is one of 15 current United States federal executive departments, U.S. government departments. ...

Office of Foreign Assets Control The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is a financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the United States Department of the Treasury, United States Treasury Department. It administers and enforces economic and trade economic sanctions, ...

; where he is listed as a maulana and qari born in 1963 in Pakistan with addresses in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

Early life and jihad in Afghanistan

Born into a Pashtun family in 1963 in Pakistan, Fazal ur Rehman was a student in the ''Jamia Naumania'', a madrassa in Dera Ismail Khan, when he left to join the Afghan Jihad in 1981, at the age of 16, without telling his parents, while in Afghanistan he'd fight in the ranks of commanders Jalaluddin Haqqani and Yunus Khalis as well meeting

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden (10 March 19572 May 2011) was a militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, Bin Laden participated in the Afghan ''mujahideen'' against the Soviet Union, and support ...

, who would become a long-time friend.

Militant activities in Pakistan

Fazal ur Rehman cofounded Harakat-ul-Jihad-ul-Islami (HuJI) in 1980 with Irshad Ahmad and Qari Saifullah Akhtar, all three had graduated from

Jamia Uloom-ul-Islamia Jamia Uloom-ul-Islamia (, ''Jāmiā Ulūm-i Islāmīyā'' / , ''Jāmi‘at-ul-‘Ulūm-ul-Islāmīyah'') is an Islamic University in Binori Town, Banoori Town, Karachi, Pakistan. The university continues the tradition of the Darul Uloom system ...

Banuri Town in Karachi. He would later go on to found and lead Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen. Fazal ur Rehman was a signatory of Osama bin Laden's 1998 ''

fatwa A fatwa (; ; ; ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (sharia) given by a qualified Islamic jurist ('' faqih'') in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a ''mufti'', ...

'' called the International Front Against Jews and Crusaders. He stepped down as emir of HuM in February 2000 and his second-in-command, Farooq Kashmiri, assumed leadership of the group. In May 2004, Pakistani authorities arrested Fazal ur Rehman. After six months he was released due to lack of evidence. After Hamid and Umer Hayat reported to the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

in June 2005 that they had received training at an Al Qaeda camp run by Fazal ur Rehman, he went into hiding. In March 2006, eight assailants dragged Fazal ur Rehman and his driver from a mosque in Tarnol, about three miles northwest of Islamabad. He was held for five hours, beaten and left in front of a mosque on the outskirts of Islamabad. At the behest of the Musharraf government in 2007, Fazal ur Rehman was among a group of clerics who attempted to negotiate an end to the Red Mosque standoff.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Khalil, Fazlur Rehman Living people Pashtun people Pakistani Islamists Mujahideen members of the Soviet–Afghan War Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List Individuals designated as terrorists by the United States government Leaders of jihadist groups 1963 births Kashmiri militants