The death of British terror plot suspect Rashid Rauf in North Waziristan last Friday in a US missile strike along with four other al-Qaeda members has confirmed a dangerous development — the trouble-stricken Waziristan region has become the new battlefield for Kashmiri militants who are increasingly joining hands with the anti-US and pro-Taliban elements there.

Rashid Rauf, a close relative of Maulana Masood Azhar, the chief of Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), was killed along with al-Qaeda leaders Abu Nasr Al-Misri and Abu Zubair Al-Masri after their rented hideout was spotted due to frequent use of a mobile phone.

Pakistani government sources claimed the missile attack was lined up by their intelligence services which tipped off their American counterparts about Rauf’s whereabouts, who was the main target of the attack. But media reports emanating from the US claimed that the actual targets of the missile strike were some most wanted al-Qaeda leaders, two of whom died on the spot.

Much before the death of the al-Qaeda-linked fugitive Kashmiri militant, Pakistani authorities had informed those at the helm of the affairs in Islamabad that the changing government policy on Kashmir had forced many of the Kashmiri militant groups to gradually shift their fighters to the tribal areas of North and South Waziristan.

Information collected by Pakistani authorities indicates the presence of fighters belonging to at least four Kashmiri militant groups — the Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) led by Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri, the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) led by Maulana Masood Azhar, the Harkatul Mujahideen (HuM) led by Pir Syed Salahuddin and the Jamatul Furqaan (JuF) led by Maulana Abdul Jabbar.

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