Who is Maulana Asim Umar, AQIS chief who's calling Indian Muslims to join Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan?

Global terror outfit Al-Qaeda, in a new effort to shift its focus to the Indian subcontinent, has said that it's primary aim now is to target Indian security organisations and leaders of Hindu "separatist" organisations.

Al-Qaeda's India unit, Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), issued a document titled 'Code of conduct for Mujahideen in the subcontinent' on Monday, mentioning in details about its targets, objectives and do's and don't for its members. The outfit said its members should target all personnel of the military, particularly the officers who kill their "Kashmiri brothers."

"Officers are a greater priority than soldiers. The greater is the seniority, greater is our priority to kill him. Those officers of the military who have the blood of our Kashmiri brothers on their hands are our targets," it said.

The document's opening note refers to a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal, Maulana Asim Umar, as the 'Emir' or chief of AQIS.

So, who is AQIS' head Maulana Asim Umar?

In September 2014, Al-Qaeda's leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had announced the formation of an Indian branch of his militant group, stating that the group would spread Islamic rule and "raise the flag of jihad" across the subcontinent.

Zawahiri had announced that the formation of AQIS was good news for Muslims "in Burma, Bangladesh, Assam, Gujarat, Ahmedabad, and Kashmir" as it would rescue Muslims living there from injustice and oppression.

The outfit's head had also declared Maulana Asim Umar as the head of AQIS' operations in India. 

Born between 1974 and 1976 in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, Umar attended the Darul Uloom Deoband seminary, before leaving India and moving to Pakistan in the late 1990s. Reports state that he provided ideological training to jihadists in camps run by Harkat-ul-Mujahideen in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) in late 1990s to 2004, before relocating to HuM's office in Haroonabad in 2004.

Umar is considered to be a long-time propagandist of the militant group and was earlier associated with Pakistan Taliban. A report by research organisation Wilson Centre states that Umar first featured in an Al-Qaeda film which commemorated the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Umar had also published a book titled "The Army of Anti-Christ: Blackwater, Documentation of the Dreadful Terrorist Activities of America's Blackwater in Islamic Countries."

The AQIS head, in a video message, had called for "global jihad to give a final push to the collapsing edifice of America," adding that "lives are being sacrificed in this jihad to defeat America and its allies everywhere," according to The Long War Journal.

Umar has also appeared in various video, appealing Indian Muslims to join the global movement for jihad.

"To wave Islam's flag over Srinagar's Lal Chowk... caravans are heading from Afghanistan to liberate India and it is not being done on instructions of any intelligence agency, and not as part of some governmental policy, but simply to abide God's command," Umar had said in one of the propaganda videos, while an image of Jammu and Kashmir's Famous Dal Lake is played out.

AQIS calls Muslims to join 'Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan'

AQIS, in its recently-released 20-page "code of conduct", also emphasised its allegiance to Zawahiri and the Emir of Taliban. The Indian outfit said that its members are currently fighting "shoulder-to-shoulder with the Mujahideen" of the Taliban and called on Muslims across the subcontinent to join or support the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan."

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), which is an Islamic government based on the application of Shari'ah, was established in September 1996 when Taliban began its rule in Afghanistan after Kabul's fall. 

When Taliban was at its peak, it had established control in over 90 percent of Afghanistan, and ruled majority of its region through its government, IEA.