PESHAWAR, Dec 12: Jaish-i-Mohammad, the Jihadi organization, led by Maulana Azhar Masood, has been renamed as Al-Furqan, states a document of the Kashmir-centred Muttahida Jihad Council.

When asked to identify Al-Furqan, mentioned on the list of MJC members, a spokesman for the council told Dawn that it was Jaish’s new name. He said the name was changed following the Jaish’s placement on US State Department’s terrorist watchlist, released on April 2000.

The US government a couple of days back put Jaish-i-Mohammad and some other organizations and individuals on its visa negative list due to their alleged links with the terrorist organizations.

Earlier, US President George W. Bush, linking 27 groups and individuals to global terrorism including Pakistan-based Harkatul Mujahideen and Al-Rashid Trust, ordered to freeze their assets.

A member of the MJC said that despite Islamabad’s shift in its Afghan policy and foreign pressure Jihadi organizations did not face any crackdown.

“We are relaxed and have no pressure from the government to stop our activities. The Jihadi organisations, fighting inside occupied Kashmir, have no link with the Taliban or any other group”, he claimed.

He said, “the western media is spreading disinformation to discredit freedom struggle. The Kashmiri freedom fighters neither got training in Afghanistan nor obtained any logistic support from the Taliban government. The Taliban movement was a source of inspiration for Kashmiri freedom fighters.”

The Jihadi organisations are optimistic that Islamabad would not bow down to US pressure to change its Kashmir policy. They claimed that the fall of the Taliban government did not affect freedom movement in occupied Kashmir and fighters still engaged in war with Indian forces.