Harkat-ul-Mujahideen was originally formed as a splinter group of Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami in 1985. In 1989, at the end of
Soviet–Afghan war, the group entered
Kashmiri politics by use of militants under the leadership of
Sajjad Afghani and Muzaffar Ahmad Baba Alias Mukhtar. In 1993 the group
merged with Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami to form
Harkat-ul-Ansar. Immediately following the merger
India arrested three senior members: Nasrullah Mansur Langaryal, chief of the former Harkat-ul Mujahideen in November 1993;
Maulana Masood Azhar, General Secretary in February 1994, and
Sajjad Afghani (Sajjad Sajid) in the same month in
Srinagar. Muzaffar Ahmad Baba was killed in an
encounter at Pandan Nowhatta with the
BSF in January 1994. As a response the group carried out several
kidnappings in an attempt to free their leaders, all of which failed. It was linked to the Kashmiri group
al-Faran that kidnapped five Western tourists in Kashmir in July 1995; one,
Hans Christian Ostrø, was killed in August 1995 and the other four reportedly were killed in December of the same year. In 1997, the
United States designated Harkat-ul-Ansar as a terrorist organisation, and in response it renamed itself to Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. In 1999, Sajjad was killed during a jailbreak which led to the hijacking, by the group, of
Indian Airlines Flight 814 in December, which led to the release of
Maulana Masood Azhar,
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and
Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar by the Indian Government. Azhar did not, however, return to the HUM, choosing instead to form the
Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM), a rival militant group expressing a more radical line than the HUM, in early 2000. ==Post 9/11 attacks==