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Time of India

Mystery injury lands LeT co-founder Amir Hamza in Lahore hospital days after top aide's killing

Amir Hamza, a top Lashkar-e-Taiba leader, is in a Lahore hospital under tight security. He was critically injured at his home. The incident follows the killing of Abu Saifullah in Sindh. Saifullah was a key LeT commander linked to attacks in India. These events suggest turmoil within the Lashkar ranks. It raises concerns about the group's future. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads A grim backdrop: Saifullah's assassination A cloud of secrecy surrounds the sudden hospitalisation of senior Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) ideologue and co-founder Amir Hamza , who was admitted to a military hospital in Lahore on Tuesday under tight ISI security cover. TOI sources suggest the 66-year-old veteran jihadi was critically injured at his residence, but the nature of the injuries and circumstances remain incident comes at a time of visible churn within Lashkar's upper echelons, fuelling speculation over possible internal strife or targeted eliminations. Hamza, a long-time associate of Hafiz Saeed and Abdul Rehman Makki, was a core member of Lashkar's central committee and served as the group's chief propagandist and head of its publications to the TOI report, pro-Lashkar Telegram channels, the reaction to Hamza's condition was swift and anxious. Messages urged followers to remain calm and described the episode as an 'accident,' but the tone suggested unease within the declared a global terrorist by the United States in 2012, was known as the ideological engine behind Lashkar's narrative operations.A former Afghan jihadi, he gradually shifted from field operations to overseeing Lashkar's propaganda, authoring books like Qafila Da'wat aur Shahadat (Caravan of Proselytising and Martyrdom) and Shahrah-e-Bahisht (The Road to Paradise). He also served as the editor of Lashkar's weekly newspaper and contributed extensively to its radical to US Treasury Department records, Hamza held multiple senior roles in LeT's outreach and fundraising arms and was one of three designated negotiators tasked with securing the release of detained Lashkar operatives, noted the report. He also briefly led a front organisation — Jaish-e-Manqafa — floated by Hafiz Saeed in 2018 to circumvent Pakistan's temporary bans on Lashkar and prior to being moved to lead the propaganda front of the LeT, Hamza had resided in India in the early 200s as an active the group publicly shifted Hamza into its ideological wing years ago, his deep connections with LeT's old guard and his role in negotiating factional balances have kept him a powerful behind-the-scenes abrupt medical emergency — coupled with the hush surrounding it — has only intensified the sense of instability in the hospitalisation comes just three days after the killing of Abu Saifullah, a high-ranking Lashkar commander and key recruiter, in Pakistan's Sindh was gunned down by unidentified assailants early on Sunday, in what intelligence analysts view as a major disruption to LeT's operational had been overseeing Lashkar's covert infrastructure in Nepal and was linked to several attacks in India, including the 2005 IISc Bengaluru shooting, the 2006 Nagpur RSS headquarters plot, and the 2008 CRPF camp assault in Rampur. Notably, he and Hamza were both believed to have coordinated the IISc attack together.A hallmark of Saifullah's tactics was the use of terrorists dressed in Indian Army or police uniforms — a chilling signature seen across multiple attacks. His death, unclaimed by any group, has prompted speculation over internal purges or externally driven eliminations aimed at dismantling Lashkar's with Hamza in critical condition and Saifullah eliminated, two of Lashkar's most entrenched operatives have been neutralised in the span of a few days, a development that could mark a significant turning point in the terror group's future direction — or disintegration.