New Delhi:
Ilyas Kashmiri, dubbed as the new Osama bin Laden, was one of the most wanted men for Indian security agencies for his role in a number of terror strikes in the country including the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Kashmiri first shot to infamy when in 1994, he along with Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Al Qaeda operative Omar Sheikh, involved in the killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl, kidnapped four foreign tourists and demanded the release of Maulana Masood Azhar, founder of JeM.
Their luck ran out when a milkman knocked at their Ghaziabad house door and saw gun-wielding men inside.
The milkman immediately tipped off the local police who laid a cordon around the house and informed the central security agencies.
In the ensuing gun battle, the then Ghaziabad SHO was killed while Sheikh was injured and arrested. However, Kashmiri managed to escape.
Later in 1999, both Sheikh and Azhar were released in exchange for the passengers aboard hijacked Indian Airlines IC-814.
Kashmiri, who carried a reward of USD five million on his head, in February 2000, killed an Indian army personnel in North Kashmir near the LoC and beheaded him, officials said.
He did not stop there but went on to show his beastly side by getting himself photographed with the head, which was later circulated among his men and in the Pakistani press.
He is also known for making inflammatory speeches about waging jihad not only in Kashmir but also in other parts of the country.
Kashmiri's role in the 26/11 attack came to the fore when Pakistani-American terrorist David Headley recognised one of the voices samples of the LeT control room in Karachi as his.
In the tape, Kashmiri was informing the LeT men that 313 brigade, commando wing of HuJI, has also been deployed to assist them. However, it turned out that he had only lied to the 10 attackers who claimed 166 lives.
Born in January 2, 1964 at Kotli in Pakistan-occupied- Kashmir, Kashmiri left his studies at Allama Iqbal Open University in Islamabad and started indulging in terror activities to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan during which he lost an eye and a finger.
Initially beginning his terror career with Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT), Kashmiri developed differences with its founder Hafiz Saeed and later formed his own Harkat-e-Jehadi Islami (HuJI).