Separatists distance themselves from Al Qaeda, ISIS

Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, May 8: Separatist leaders while distancing themselves from global Jihadist organizations like Al Qaeda and ISIS, also called Islamic State, said they have no role in Kashmir.
In a joint statement issued here, top three Kashmiri separatists, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik, said “our ‘movement’ has nothing to do with these world level groups and practically they are nonexistent in State”. “There is no role for these groups,” they said, days after some unidentified militants in South Kashmir’s Kareemabad village of Pulwama district urged locals to support Taliban and wave black flags.
Without naming any group or individual, the separatists said that the mysterious killings (of mainstream workers), burglary, loot, plunder and vandalism are attempts to “defame ongoing freedom movement” and “to influence international viewpoint”. They appealed militant leadership of United Jihad Council “to isolate all those elements, deliberately or unknowingly, creating confusions among freedom ranks.”