Hizbul Mujahideen founded by Ahsan Dar in 1989, is a Kashmiri militant group active in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir is the northernmost state of India. It is situated mostly in the Himalayan mountains. Jammu and Kashmir shares a border with the states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south and internationally with the People's Republic of China to the north and east and the...

 since 1989. Their headquarters are located in Muzaffarabad

Muzaffarabad

Muzaffarabad is the capital of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, Pakistan. It is located in Muzaffarabad District on the banks of the Jhelum and Neelum rivers...

, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir

Pakistan-administered Kashmir

Azad Kashmir borders the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the west, the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan to the north west, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of People's Republic of China to the north and the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir, to the east.A...

. It is believed the group al-Badr, derived from Hizbul Mujahideen in early 1998 was encouraged by the Inter-Services Intelligence

Inter-Services Intelligence

The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence , is Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, responsible for providing critical national security intelligence assessment to the Government of Pakistan...

 of Pakistan. The current leader of the group is a Kashmiri known under the alias of Sayeed Salahudeen

Sayeed Salahudeen

Syed Salahudeen or Syed Mohammed Yusuf Shah, is the head of the Hizbul Mujahideen, militant outfit in Kashmir and head of an alliance of Kashmiri militant organizations, the Muttahida Jihad Council, that supports the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir's accession to Pakistan...

. Hizbul Mujahideen is currently the largest militant group operating in Kashmir

Kashmir

Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...

, and is widely considered by the sources on both sides of the Kashmir conflict to be the most indigenous and widely-supported group active in Kashmir.

Sayeed Salahudeen

Sayeed Salahudeen

Syed Salahudeen or Syed Mohammed Yusuf Shah, is the head of the Hizbul Mujahideen, militant outfit in Kashmir and head of an alliance of Kashmiri militant organizations, the Muttahida Jihad Council, that supports the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir's accession to Pakistan...

 is at present located in Pakistan.