The Islamic State, the Indian Sub-Continent & its Neighbourhood

[SSridhar]

Malaysia deports three foreign suspected militants, two of them with alleged links to ISIS - Straits Times

Malaysia has deported three foreign suspected militants, two of them Russians allegedly involved with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and a Sri Lankan, the country's police chief said on Friday (May 13).

The two Russian men, of Chechen origin, and the Sri Lankan were arrested in two operations in March and April, Malaysia's inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar said in a statement.

The Russians, aged 23 and 25, had previously been deported from Turkey before entering Malaysia in March.

[SSridhar]

Al Qaeda Turns to Syria, With a Plan to Challenge ISIS - Eric Schmitt, NYT

Al Qaeda’s top leadership in Pakistan, badly weakened after a decade of C.I.A. drone strikes, has decided that the terror group’s future lies in Syria and has secretly dispatched more than a dozen of its most seasoned veterans there, according to senior American and European intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

The movement of the senior Qaeda jihadists reflects Syria’s growing importance to the terrorist organization and most likely foreshadows an escalation of the group’s bloody rivalry with the Islamic State, Western officials say.

The operatives have been told to start the process of creating an alternate headquarters in Syria and lay the groundwork for possibly establishing an emirate through Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, to compete with the Islamic State, from which Nusra broke in 2013. This would be a significant shift for Al Qaeda and its affiliate, which have resisted creating an emirate, or formal sovereign state, until they deem conditions on the ground are ready. Such an entity could also pose a heightened terrorist threat to the United States and Europe.

Qaeda operatives have moved in and out of Syria for years. Ayman al-Zawahri, the group’s supreme leader in Pakistan, dispatched senior jihadists to bolster the Nusra Front in 2013. A year later, Mr. Zawahri sent to Syria a shadowy Qaeda cell called Khorasan that American officials say has been plotting attacks against the West.

But establishing a more enduring presence in Syria would present the group with an invaluable opportunity, Western analysts said. A Syria-based Qaeda state would not only be within closer striking distance of Europe but also benefit from the recruiting and logistical support of fighters from Iraq, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.

Mr. Zawahri released his first audio statement in several months in early May, and it seemed to clear the way for the Qaeda figures to use the Nusra Front to form an emirate in Syria with his blessing. Some Nusra leaders, however, oppose the timing of such a move, so the affiliate has not yet taken that step.

“The combination of an Al Qaeda emirate and a revitalized Al Qaeda central leadership in northern Syria would represent a confidence boost for the jihadi organization’s global brand,” Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, wrote this month in Foreign Policy.
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“Al Qaeda would present itself as the smart, methodical and persistent jihadi movement that, in contrast to the Islamic State, had adopted a strategy more aligned with everyday Sunni Muslims,” Mr. Lister wrote.

Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have the same ultimate objective to create an Islamic state, but they have used different tactics, Mr. Lister and other scholars said. The Islamic State moved quickly to impose harsh, unilateral control over territory in Iraq and Syria and declare its independence. The Nusra Front has painstakingly sought to build influence over areas it wants to control and with other Syrian rebel groups opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

American officials say the Islamic State has largely eclipsed Al Qaeda in the global jihadist hierarchy, with Al Qaeda hemorrhaging members to its more brutal and media-savvy rival. Many of the Khorasan operatives, including their leader, Muhsin al-Fadhli, have been killed in eight American airstrikes in northwest Syria since September 2014.

The Islamic State has between 19,000 and 25,000 fighters, roughly divided between Iraq and Syria, American intelligence analysts estimate. The Nusra Front has about 5,000 to 10,000 fighters, all in Syria. An emirate would differ from the Islamic State caliphate in the scale of its ambition, in that a Nusra emirate would not claim to be a government for all the world’s Muslims.

Some senior American and European intelligence and law enforcement officials say the small but steady movement of important Qaeda operatives and planners to Syria is a desperate dash to a haven situated perilously in the middle of the country’s chaos. These officials say Qaeda operatives in Syria are determined but largely contained.

“There’s always been a steady trickle, and it remains,” said Col. Steve Warren, a military spokesman in Baghdad for the American-led campaign in Iraq and Syria.

Nonetheless, the presence of a senior cadre of experienced Qaeda leaders in Syria — some with multimillion-dollar American bounties on their heads — has raised alarms in Washington as well as in the allied capitals of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

“We have destroyed a large part of Al Qaeda,” John O. Brennan, the director of the C.I.A., said this month on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “It is not completely eliminated, so we have to stay focused on what it can do.”

The evolving assessment about Al Qaeda and the Nusra Front in Syria comes from interviews with nearly a dozen American and European intelligence and counterterrorism officials and independent analysts, most of whom have been briefed on confidential information gleaned from spies and electronic eavesdropping. They also analyzed the public statements and social media commentary among Qaeda and Nusra Front members.

One of the operatives Western intelligence officials are focused most intently on is Saif al-Adl, a senior member of Al Qaeda’s ruling body, known as the Shura Council, who oversaw the organization immediately after Osama bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs in Pakistan in 2011. It is unclear whether Mr. Adl is in Syria, North Africa or somewhere else, American intelligence officials said.

The government of Iran released Mr. Adl and four other senior members of Al Qaeda early last year as part of a secret prisoner swap with Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, the group holding an Iranian diplomat, Nour Ahmad Nikbakht.

Mr. Adl, a former colonel in the Egyptian military who is believed to be in his 50s, is listed on the F.B.I.’s Most Wanted Terrorist list and was indicted in the 1998 United States Embassy bombings in East Africa. He is the subject of a $5 million American bounty.

“As a senior adviser to Al Qaeda’s networks in Syria and proximate environs, al-Adl could be especially useful in helping to define strategies that will help the group achieve confidence-inspiring successes,” said Michael S. Smith II of Kronos Advisory, a terrorism research and analysis firm.

The other four men released by Iran are also suspected of being in Syria. They are Abdul Khayr al-Misri, an Egyptian who formerly led Al Qaeda’s foreign relations council; Abul Qassam, a Jordanian who was a deputy to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of the organization that later became the Islamic State; Sari Shibab, a Jordanian operative; and Abu Mohamed al-Misri, an Egyptian who helped orchestrate Al Qaeda’s major attacks before Sept. 11, 2001, according to American officials briefed on details of the transfer. They agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s confidential nature.

It is unclear how and when Al Qaeda might form an emirate in Syria that would hold territory and most likely harden its position toward more moderate Syrian opposition groups. The Nusra Front was created in 2012 as an offshoot of Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq — which under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi later declared itself the Islamic State — to fight Mr. Assad’s government. That same year, the United States designated the Nusra Front as a terrorist organization.

But in 2013, the Nusra Front balked at joining Mr. Baghdadi when he announced the creation of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and instead pledged allegiance to Mr. Zawahri in Pakistan. This ignited an often bloody rivalry between Nusra and Islamic State fighters in Syria.

Now Al Qaeda’s top leadership is looking to stanch its losses in Pakistan and score a propaganda coup in Syria by establishing a formal emirate. A portion of Nusra’s leadership, however, supports continuing the group’s more pragmatic strategy of cultivating local support.

“The fundamental disagreement is over how far Al Qaeda’s long-game strategy should be sustained before revealing more and more of Nusra’s real face and solidifying territorial control through the formation of an emirate,” Mr. Lister said in an interview.

Many of the Syrian rebel groups that are fighting alongside Nusra against Mr. Assad’s government reject the idea of forming an emirate, fearing it would further splinter the opposition to Mr. Assad.

“From Al Qaeda’s religious perspective, the declaration of a state or of an emirate should only happen in a context where it is possible to govern effectively,” said Firas Abi Ali, a senior principal analyst with IHS Country Risk in London. “It would be ironic for Al Qaeda to declare an emirate while there’s a caliphate that it rejects.”

[SSridhar]

Radicalised Muslim youth gravitate towards IS, ignore Lashkar, Jaish - Bhavika Jaini, ToI

Islamic State (IS) is fast emerging as the new choice of jihadist-leaning, radicalised Muslim youth in India and its immediate neighbourhood, threatening to undercut more established terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad as its success in acquiring territory touted as the "caliphate" gives it significant appeal.

While Lashkar and others like Indian Mujahideen and SIMI have a demonstrated capacity to carry out jihadi attacks, these are seen to be temporary in nature compared to IS fighters who are holding on to land, despite recent setbacks, in Syria and Iraq in the face of the combined might of the US, Russia and West Asian powers like Saudi Arabia.

The IS's denunciation of Pakistan army as an "apostate" force allied with America and its harsh and uncompromising interpretation of religious tenets threaten to do to Lashkar what the terror outfit did to its rivals: label it as a theologically suspect adjunct of the state lacking the will to recreate a 7th century caliphate.

Indian intelligence sources said there was a trend of radicalised Muslims, who till recently gravitated towards Pakistan-based outfits or their Indian affiliates, looking at IS with favour.

"Many IS-inspired youth arrested recently were earlier with Jaish or SIMI. Also, those under surveillance for following IS elements online had earlier been under the influence of Jaish, IM or SIMI. They now find IS more attractive due to its ability to acquire and hold territories in Iraq and Syria," a senior officer said.

Asked if the growing preference for IS was for better or worse, an intelligence analyst said with IS having lately weakened in Iraq and Syria, the organisation's appeal might not be "much of a concern". But agencies are taking no chances. "We are more or less able to track radicalised elements in touch with IS, and intervene as and when we learn they have acquired arms/explosives or are planning a strike," the officer said.

"However, if IS does strengthen its grip and 'liberates' new territories, its following among Indian youth may pose a threat," he warned.

The lure of IS for potential jihadis is worrying top terror masterminds like LeT founder and Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed who has asked the Nawaz Sharif government to "take steps to control the spread of IS in Pakistan".

LeT's anxiety is understandable, given that IS had, through a post in online magazine Dabiq last year, slammed Lashkar and other anti-India terror outfits as Al Qaeda allies who were "puppets in the hands of an apostate Pakistan army". The post evoked a sharp reaction from Saeed, who declared in JuD publication 'Jarrar' that IS did not represent Islam or Muslims and called for a global effort in dealing with the group.

[SSridhar]

IS video shows ‘Indian jihadists’ fighting in Syria - PTI

The dreaded terror group Islamic State has launched a new propaganda video that showed off a large group of Kalashnikov-wielding jihadists allegedly from India fighting against the Syrian forces in the Homs province.

The video is part of the outfit’s propaganda campaign on foreign fighters in their ranks, US-based private SITE Intelligence Group said on Thursday.

The terror group’s division in Homs released the video on Indian fighters aimed at recruiting jihadists from the country to fight against the Syrian government forces, it said.

“The interviewed ISIS fighters called on Indians to leave their country and join the ‘jihad’ in Syria against the kuffar (infidels),” Al-Masdar News on Friday reported, citing the video.

It is not clear how many Indians are actually fighting with the ISIS inside Syria, it said.

Citing Syrian Arab Army sources, it said there has been a recent surge in the number of dead Indian fighters near the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria.

The video shows groups of militants on board small boats brandishing Kalashnikov with an ISIS black flag in the background. It shows bearded faces of most of the militants.

One militant posing with Kalashnikov is sitting in front of a trolley with a heavy gun mounted over the vehicle.

The video shows militants joining hands and pledging jihad against the Syrian forces.

[SSridhar]

He wanted to train his son for jihad - Vijaita Singh, The Hindu

Mohammad Sirajuddin (30), a marketing manager with the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) arrested last December, for his alleged links to the Islamic State (IS) wanted to travel to Syria with his newborn son and train him to become a mujahid — a person engaged in jihad. A Filipino and a Kenyan woman had a deep influence on him.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is all set to file its first charge sheet in the pan-Islamic State module it busted in December and January. Mr. Sirajuddin would be the first among the 25 arrested so far, against whom the agency will file its final report in June.

According to documents accessed by The Hindu , Mr. Sirajuddin was smitten by a woman, whom he thought was a Mauritian and wanted to travel to Syria with her. He was posted in Jaipur then. The woman, identified as Ameena, later turned out to be a housemaid from Kenya who was living in Hyderabad. She has since been deported.

Wife warned him

Mr. Sirajuddin’s wife, who was pregnant with their second child at the time, was staying in Bengaluru. She was aware of her husband’s activities and tried to dissuade him from veering towards the IS ideology.

The NIA has transcripts of messages Mr. Sirajuddin shared with his wife on WhatsApp. On one occasion, the wife tells him: “You will leave India even if I don’t come with you? Mr. Sirajuddin replied: “Yes, but I don’t want to compel you.”

“The wife was aware that Mr Sirajuddin chatted for long hours with a woman. He wanted to marry the woman and she knew it was not impossible. Mr. Sirajuddin and Ms. Ameena were also part of a WhatsApp group run by a woman ring leader, Karen Aisha Hamidon, of the Philippines,” said an investigator.

Mr. Sirajuddin’s wife is a computer applications scientist and they were married in 2011.

“We have recorded Mr. Sirajuddin’s wife’s statements, and she told us that she discouraged him on many occasions. She, however, gave up when he decided to travel to Syria along with their newborn son. She reluctantly agreed to travel with him; else he would have married Ameena,” said the official.

Mr. Sirajuddin was first arrested by the Rajasthan Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) and the investigations were later handed over to the NIA.

Lured by fake post

Officials said that it was a Facebook message posted by Ameena that made a deep impression on Mr. Sirajuddin.

“Ameena who had arrived in Hyderabad to work as a housemaid posted a photograph of an actress wielding some weapons. Mr Sirajuddin showed interest in the Facebook post and that is how they got in touch. She bluffed about her knowing everything about weapons used by IS fighters,” said a senior intelligence official in Delhi. Officials said they had sent a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) request to the U.S. and asked them to provide information about the e-mail account being used by Mr Sirajuddin.

[SSridhar]

3 Indians in IS recruitment video - Vijaita Singh, The Hindu

Two former Indian Mujahideen members from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh and one man from Kalyan in Maharashtra feature in a new propaganda video posted by the Islamic State (IS) to recruit Indians to fight in Homs in Syria.

The video shows groups of militants on board small boats brandishing Kalashnikovs with an IS black flag in the background. It shows bearded faces of most of the militants. The video surfaced on Thursday night, but it is not clear when was it recorded. At least one Indian who features in the video was declared dead by Indian agencies in September 2015.

Top intelligence officials confirmed to The Hindu the identity of at least three of the six men who featured in the video.

Fighter killed in Syria?

Two of them are former IM men, identified as Mohammad Sajid, alias Bada Sajid, and Abu Rashid, alias Sheikh, who fled to Pakistan during a crackdown on the group in 2008. Indian security agencies had earlier said Sajid was among the six Indian nationals who were killed during various IS-related operations in Syria.

The third identified person from the video is Fahad Sheikh, who left India on the pretext of a pilgrimage in Iraq with three others from Kalyan in Maharashtra in June 2014. While one of the three men from Kalyan, Areeb Majeed, returned, there was no news about the other three. Last heard, Sheikh was running a pro-IS Twitter handle, @magnetgas, which was suspended by the micro-blogging site on India’s request.

Both Sajid and Rashid are wanted by the NIA for their role in serial blasts carried out by IM in 2008-11, and Red notices exist against them. The two are said to have fled to Pakistan with other members of IM. Some members of IM, led by the Bhatkal brothers Shafi and Sultan Armar, floated another group, Ansar-ul-Tawhid, and pledged allegiance to the IS.

In one of the photographs, posted on Al-masdar.com, the six Indian men are seen taking a pledge. The face of one of the Indians is masked.

Indians killed in Palmyra

The video is part of IS propaganda campaign on foreign fighters in their ranks, the U.S.-based SITE counter-terrorism NGO said on Thursday. The terror group’s division in Homs released the video on Indian fighters aimed at recruiting jihadists to fight against the Syrian government forces, it said.

“The interviewed ISIS fighters called on Indians to leave their country and join the ‘jihad’ in Syria against the kuffar (infidels),” Al-Masdar News reported, citing the video. It is not clear how many Indians are actually fighting with the IS inside Syria, it said.

Citing Syrian Arab Army sources, it said there has been a recent surge in the number of Indian fighters killed near the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria.

[Shanu]

A Homeopathy doctor killed and a professor injured in Bangladesh.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/internatio ... 631151.ece

The Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for Friday’s murder of a homeopath in Bangladesh’s western Kushtia town, according to U.S.-based terror monitoring group SITE Intelligence.

Sanaur Rahman was riding a motorcycle with his friend Saif uz-Zaman, an assistant professor of Bengali department at Kusthia’s Islami University, on Friday morning when they were attacked by at least three men. Zaman, badly injured, is being treated in a Dhaka hospital.

“Fighters from the Islamic State assassinated a doctor who called to Christianity in Kushtia, western Bangladesh,” the IS-affiliated Amaq news agency said in a brief Arabic message, according to SITE. However, there are no reports the victim was calling to Christianity.

Fans of Baul music - Police and locals said the pair were both fans of the mystical Baul music, which is popular in parts of Bangladesh, and often opposed by Islamist extremists. The murder followed a now-familiar pattern witnessed in the murders of teachers, bloggers and online activists in recent months.

IS had earlier claimed responsibility for attacks on two foreigners, and a university professor. Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent has also claimed some of the attacks.

Anybody who has some knowledge about Bengali culture would know that Baul music is quite a popular form of local folk singing - which embraces both Hindu and Muslim traditions. For IS of course, this is heretical and blasphemy. Lets see how long the BD Govt. keep saying - "there's no IS in BD".

[SSridhar]

ISIS 'promotes' Kalyan youths as deputy khalifa, governor of Indian territories] - S. Hussain Zaidil,ToI

Two days after Daesh released a video highlighting the Indian jihadists in its ranks, it has emerged that Kalyan youths Fahad Tanveer Shaikh and Aman Naeem Tandel, featured in the video, have been promoted to the top echelons of the terror outfit.

Fahad, who is now called Abu Bakr al-Hindi, has been named naeb khalifa (deputy caliph) to lead Daesh's operations against India, while Aman, renamed Abu Umar al-Hindi, is the governor of 'Hind wal'Sindh', a Daesh usage for India and Pakistan, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) sources said.

The chilling 22-minute video, in Arabic, shows Aman -who escaped to Syria to join Daesh in 2014 along with Fahad, Areeb Majeed, and Shaheem Tanki - warning the Indian public of retaliation for "committing atrocities against Muslims".

Aman, bearded and wearing an Islamic turban, is seen in the video saying, "We will return (to India), but with a sword in hand, to avenge the Babri Masjid, and the killings of Muslims in Kashmir, in Gujarat, and in Muzaffarnagar." The NIA sources said that Fahad and Aman were "rewarded with promotions" for being steadfast in their allegiance to Daesh, unlike Areeb Majeed, who panicked and handed himself over to the Indian Consulate at Istanbul after escaping to Turkey.

Aman and other fighters also pay homage to Shaheem Tanki, who is said to have been killed in a bomb attack in Raqqa last year. The senior NIA officers said that Aman and Fahad were more orthodox, and far deeply radicalised than Majeed and Shaheem Tanki.

This is the first time that Daesh has released a video directly targeting India, and the NIA officers said its release on Friday was timed to 'celebrate' two years of the four Kalyan youths leaving the country in the guise of pilgrimage to Iraq. The four had left India on May 25, 2014 through Ajmeri Tours in Mumbai, although they had been making efforts to join Daesh since January 2013.

Interestingly, it was Areeb, now in the NIA custody, who was the first in the group to have attempted to join Daesh, and was directed to a man named Abu Rami in Iraq, and another person called Abu Fallujah in Turkey. Fahad got in touch with Areeb, and also roped in Aman and Shaheem, and the four travelled to Iraq as pilgrims. Within a few days of reaching Baghdad, the four youths separated from the group of pilgrims and checked into Hotel Burj Al Salaam at Sadoon Street. The group coordinator from Ajmeri Tours lodged a complaint with the Baghdad police and returned to India on June 1, 2014. However, the youths' struggle to join Daesh continued for weeks after they landed in Baghdad.

The NIA sources said that their induction into Daesh was facilitated by a woman named Tahirah Bhatt, who was based in Syria and was in touch with Fahad. "The four could officially join the Daesh ranks only in June 2014, after their tazkiya (purification) was completed. They were finally inducted at Mosul by top Daesh leader Umar Shishani," an NIA officer said.

The NIA interrogation of Areeb has revealed that Fahad and Aman "excelled" at training and tasks allotted to them, while he (Areeb) and Shaheem "couldn't display the martial initiative despite being assigned the fidayeen (suicide) mission on a few occasions."

According to NIA sources, Fahad was highly proficient in technology, and was inducted into the Daesh media cell, while Aman proved to be an inspirational orator. "The progress of the two youths within Daesh was so rapid that Abu Rami gave them new names and started trusting them with bigger assignments," the NIA source said.

"Daesh intends to make Fahad and Aman its poster boys in India. Those radicalized by its ideology believe it will introduce a caliphate, like the one that existed in medieval times. And that's the reason these youths have been given titles like naeb khalifa," an NIA source said.

[SSridhar]

IS video has 11 Indians, two from Tamil Nadu - Vijaita Singh, The Hindu

The new propaganda video of Islamic State (IS) that was circulated online last week features at least 11 Indians, including two of Tamil origin, a senior government official said.

The 22-minute Arabic-subtitled video, The Land of Hind: Between Pain and Hope , was distributed on Web-based applications such as Telegram and micro-blogging site Twitter on May 19. The video was first released by IS’ al-Barakah Province, its division for al-Hasakah in Homs, Syria on May 15.

One of the men who feature in the video has been identified as Haja Fakkruddin Usman Ali from Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu.

Haja and his family became citizens of Singapore about six years ago.

In November 2013, Haja along with his wife and three children went to Syria to participate in jihad but returned to India as he could not establish any contact with IS operatives there.

In Syria, he is reported to have stayed with some Chechen Mujahideen. On January 22, 2014, Haja left from Chennai for Syria and entered Turkey. He is said to have been active since then.

Another person in the video has been identified as Gul Mohamed Maracachi Maraicar also from Cuddalore.He is said to be the chief recruiter of IS and was deported from Singapore on February 27, 2014 on charges of radicalising Fakruddin. He later went off the radar in February 2015.

Earlier recording

A senior government official said the video was made at least 10 months ago.

The Hindu had earlier said that four persons in the video had been identified as Sajid alias Bada Sajid and Abu Rashid alias Sheikh, both former Indian Mujahideen members from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh and Fahad Sheikh and Amand Tandel from Kalyan in Maharashtra.

Sajid was one of the six Indians who had been declared dead by Indian agencies in September 2015.

He had fled the flat in Batla House in Jamia Nagar in Delhi, minutes before it was raided by Special Cell of Delhi Police in 2008 during a crackdown on IM members. The identities have not been established conclusively.

[SSridhar]

IM man gave shelter to IS recruit - Vijaita Singh, The Hindu

One of the Indian men who featured in the latest propaganda video circulated by the Islamic State (IS) last week was provided shelter in Dubai by a key Indian Mujahideen operative who was deported on May 20, a senior government official said.

Officials said Bada Sajid, a resident of Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh and formerly an active member of IM, had fled to Dubai along with other members of the terror group after a crackdown in 2008.

Fled Batla House

Sajid is one of the two IM terror suspects who fled from Batla House in Jamia Nagar area of Delhi when Special Cell sleuths raided the flat in September 2008.

The deported IM member Abdul Wahid Siddibapa (35), a resident of Bhatkal in Karnataka was living in Dubai then and, according to officials, he provided a safe hideout to Sajid in 2008.

From Dubai, Sajid travelled to Pakistan. In 2011, other absconding members of IM — Sultan Armar, his brother Shafi Armar and Dr. Shahnawaz — launched another terror outfit — Ansar ul Tawhid (AuT), which later pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

According to officials, Saijid was also part of AuT, which explains his presence in the new propaganda video of the Islamic State.

The 22 minute, Arabic-subtitled video, “The Land of Hind Between Pain and Hope,” was distributed on web-based applications like Telegram and micro-blogging site Twitter on May 19. The National Investigation Agency officials said they were getting the video examined by forensic experts.

Siddibapa, who is at present in NIA’s custody, has told officials that he provided a safe hideout to many IM members who had fled India in the year 2008.

Officials also said Siddibapa was in contact with another IM leader, Yasin Bhatkal and the two also met in Dubai in 2006. Bhatkal was arrested in 2014 near the Nepal border.

“We will question both Yasin and Siddibapa together to get more information about the terror outfit,” said the official.

Siddibapa was first detained in 2014 by the UAE authorities but was released later. He continued to be under the watch of the authorities and was deported on May 20. He is a close relative of Riyaz Bhatkal, the founder of IM and was providing tactical, material and financial support to members of IM in planning, preparing and organising terrorist activities.

[SSridhar]

6 Bangladeshi workers detained last month under ISA charged with financing terrorism - Straits Times

SINGAPORE - Six Bangladeshi workers detained last month under the Internal Security Act (ISA) were charged on Friday (May 27) with financing terrorism.

The six, aged between 26 and 31, were among eight men arrested between late March and early April. Calling themselves the Islamic State in Bangladesh (ISB), the men were planning attacks back home in hopes of toppling the Bangladeshi government.

Their goal was to set up an Islamic State back home and bring it under the self-declared caliphate of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

On Friday, the six men were charged with providing or collecting money for terrorism under the Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act.

[SSridhar]

500 Indians attracted to IS, being tracked in real time - Neeraj Chauhan, ToI

Islamic State may have so far failed to create a larger influence in India but the latest estimate of government and intelligence agencies suggests that 400 to 500 Indians have been attracted towards the ideological lure of the so-called caliphate.

These men, mostly youngsters, interact regularly on the web and make efforts to get in touch with someone from the IS and are seeking ways to travel to the region in Iraq and Syria held by the outfit even as they discuss the terror group's "achievements" around the world.

The government has claimed that IS has had limited sway on Indian Muslims and it is not likely to make much of an impact. But the 500-odd Indians who are 'attracted' to the IS have kept intelligence agencies, state police departments and National Investigation Agency on their toes.

Many of them have been questioned by intelligence agencies and let off after counselling for the reason that nothing serious was found against them. Officials say that those who were earlier attracted to Jaish-e-Mohammad, Indian Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and other outfits seem to be gravitating to IS and taking an interest in the damage the outfit is causing.

The analysis of agencies, based on their interrogation of sympathisers, suggests that most Indian youngsters who are trying to engage with IS get attracted to the group's basic philosophy that it will establish a caliphate based on sharia law. "The idea appeals to them. They believe that Muslims have faced atrocities at the hands of western countries over the years and they should do something about it. They also feel that there are too many social malpractices in the modern world and only IS led caliphate can provide a remedy," said an intelligence expert.

However, Indian men attracted towards ISIS don't have many grievances with the system in India. "Our assessment is these men are not bearing feelings of revenge against the Army, security forces or India as such. Many are getting everything - education, jobs and freedom to move anywhere."

These men, sources say, are spread all over including states like - Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi and use web-based calling, messaging and chat apps like Trillion, Live, Tango, KIK, Nimbuzz, Voxer, Talkray, GroupMe, Viber, Hike, KaKao Talk, IM+ and many others apart from Facebook and Twitter.

Intelligence officials say these men are being tracked in real time. In most cases, law enforcement agencies intervene before they reach a stage where they try to travel to IS territory or attempt an act of violence. The latest example is a module the NIA busted and which was led by Muddabir Sheikh where 18 members were held for IS related activities. The agency is expected to file its first two chargesheets against the module in the first week of June. So far, Indian agencies have arrested 49 IS recruits, all of them at pre-planning stage, before they could either carry out any 'lone wolf' attack or travel to Iraq and Syria.

[SSridhar]

NIA files 1st charge sheet against alleged IS operative - PTI

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday filed its first charge sheet against an alleged Islamic State (IS) operative before a Special Court for purported offences of conspiracy to commit terror acts and recruiting youths to join the outfit.

The agency filed the charge sheet before District Judge Amar Nath against Naser Packeer, who was arrested in December last year, alleging he was involved in a conspiracy to recruit Muslim youths in India to join IS and shift them to Iraq and Syria to carry out terror attacks and wage war in middle-eastern countries and in India.

According to sources, in its charge sheet filed before the court during in-chamber proceedings, the agency said, “Accused Naser had used web-based social media platforms and joined a number of chat groups and had connected with his associates within and outside India.”

“He (Naser), along with other associates, was involved in a conspiracy to recruit Muslim youths in India to join IS, transfer them to Iraq and Syria to commit terror attacks and wage war in the middle-eastern countries as well as in India,” the charge sheet said.

The court has now fixed June 9 for considering the charge sheet filed by the NIA and extended the judicial custody of the accused till that date.

The agency had filed an FIR in the matter on December 9 last year against unknown persons on inputs received from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

On October 5, 2015, Naser was apprehended by Sudani authorities for concealing his identity and trying to join the IS in Syria.

Later, he was deported to India on December 10, 2015.

The charge sheet has been filed for the alleged offences punishable under sections of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Nasser Packeer is from Thanjavur in Tamilnadu.

[SSridhar]

More info from the charge-sheet

According to the details of the charge sheet accessed by The Hindu , a text message sent by the accused, Mohammed Naser, to his father has been listed among the key pieces of evidence against him.

When he reached Sudan through Dubai on September 25, 2015, he allegedly sent a text message to his father: “Pray for me, for I will never forget you in my prayer…my prayer that we meet again if not in this world then in jannat (paradise)…I have reached to the Islamic State…

[SSridhar]

Islamic State claims responsibility in Bangladesh Hindu priest's murder case - PTI

A 70-year-old Hindu priest was on Tuesday hacked to death in Bangladesh by three suspected Islamic State jihadists who nearly severed his head, the second priest from the community to be killed this year in the Muslim-majority nation which has seen a string of brutal attacks by Islamists on minorities and secular activists.

Ananda Gopal Ganguly was attacked at around 9:30am by three bike-borne men who slit his throat with sharp-edged weapons in the western Jhinaigah district's Noldanga village, assistant superintendent of Police Gopinath Kanjilal said, adding that suspected militants carried out the murder.

"As it appears Ganguly was killed by the militants as it matches the pattern they followed previously," Jhinaidah's police chief Altaf Hossain told PTI.

"He was an old ordinary man who was known little beyond the neighbourhood and we found no clue as well that he had enmity with anyone ... the circumstances led us to point our figure to militants as we launched the investigation initially," he said.

Police said they have recovered the body and sent it for an autopsy. An investigation was launched into the incident.

The near-decapitated body of the priest was discovered by farmers at a farmland near his home.

Meanwhile, IS claimed responsibility for the killing of the Hindu priest. The terror group said it "assassinated" the priest while he was going for prayers, the SITE monitoring group quoted the terror group's Amaq news agency.

Ganguly, who was a priest at the Noldanga temple in Sadar upazila, was on his way to the temple riding a bicycle to offer prayers when the unidentified assailants struck. They first shot him and then hacked him to death to make sure that he was dead.

Launching a massive crackdown on extremists after a spate of attacks, Bangladesh police on Tuesday gunned down three suspected Islamists.

The three were operatives of the outlawed Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) outfit which was targeted by Superintendent of Police Babul Aktar whose wife was brutally killed by the militants on Sunday.

There have been systematic assaults in Bangladesh in recent months specially targeting minorities, secular bloggers, intellectuals and foreigners.

On Sunday, a Christian businessman was hacked to death by unidentified machete-wielding men near a church, hours after the wife of a top anti-terror police officer was shot dead by religious extremists.

In February, militants stabbed to death a Hindu priest at a temple in Bangladesh and shot and wounded a devotee who went to his aid.

In April, a liberal professor was brutally hacked to death by machete-wielding IS militants who slit his throat near his home in Rajshahi city.

In the same month, a Hindu tailor was also killed by IS militants in his shop while Bangladesh's first gay magazine editor was brutally murdered along with a friend in his flat in Dhaka by Islamists.

Bangladeshi authorities have been coming under mounting international pressure to end the string of attacks on religious minorities and secular activists that have left more than 40 people dead in the last three years.

The IS and al Qaida in Indian Peninsula have claimed responsibility for some of the attacks although the government denies their presence in Bangladesh and has blamed homegrown Islamists for the killings.

[SSridhar]

Kashmir must be under caliphate, not Pakistan: Islamic State - Neeraj Chauhan, ToI

Islamic State members want Kashmir under its caliphate rather than Pakistan or jihadi groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, underlining the outfit's dismissive view of Pakistan and groups it controls as compromised outfits that do not conform to its extreme interpretation of religious law.

Web chats of IS members from different countries, including India, that are part of a chargesheet filed by the NIA against IndianOil assistant manager Mohammad Sirajuddin show the group's belief in Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's caliphate as the final arbiter of Kashmir's fate.

In one of the chats, Jundhulla Minaa, a UAE-based IS operative who Sirajuddin grew close to, claimed: "Kashmir is Kashmir IS... Kashmir will be Islamic State... Inshallah!!"

Sirajuddin felt that IS, if it chooses to launch a 'Quest for caliphate' in Kashmir, will have two battle fronts — the "Indian Kuffar (apostate) Army" and the "Pakistani Jehadi groups like Lashkare-Taiba, JeM and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen etc" as these outfits will never accept a merger with IS as "their foundation is based on nationalism and patriotism".

The conflict, as IS members saw it, was between the territorialism of Pakistan and jihadis allied with it and a greater religio-political interpretation of nationhood based on identity and the prevalence of practices drawn from 7th century Arabia.

The chargesheet also mentions that IS members celebrated the death of VHP neta Ashok Singhal on November 17, 2005. "While sharing the news of the death, Sirajuddin commented 'Good News'...," it says.

Expressing his 'hate' for India, Sirajuddin, arrested by NIA in December last year, even created a special currency note for the 'IS regime in Kashmir' — "a Rs 20 denomination note saying 'IS Welcome in Kashmir'".

These conversations were recovered from his phone by NIA and are part of the chargesheet filed last week, exclusively accessed by TOI. Apart from IS members from various countries, Sirajuddin was in touch with people associated with al-Qaida over various online platforms.

On a Telegram channel — HindBattle, created on October 5, 2015, which was later renamed Ghazwathul Hind and had 353 members — posts related to the funeral of terrorists killed in Kashmir hailing them as martyrs, photos of the IC-814 hijacking in 1999 and announcement of al-Qaida in the Sub-Continent (AQIS) were shared.

Sirajuddin was in touch with 6-7 women, including Ameena, a woman from Nairobi, whom he wanted to marry and travel with to Syria, a fact he told his wife. Ameena, a maid based in the UAE, even travelled to Hyderabad sometime in September 2015 but the reason for the visit was not clear. Other women he regularly interacted with on social networking sites included Philippines-based Karen Aisha Hamidon, who ran IS networking group "Islam Q&A", an Indonesian girl, and few others from India.

[SSridhar]

India seeks info on woman IS online recruiter from Philippines - Neeraj Chauhan, ToI

Karen Aisha Hamidon of the Philippines, the woman Islamic State online recruiter who is learnt to have radicalized several Indian youths and probably arranged their travel to the IS territory, is under the radar of Indian agencies.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has approached the Philippines' government seeking details and evidence on Karen, who was in touch with recently indicted Indian IS members, including Mohammad Sirajuddin and Mohammad Naser.

In its letter rogatory (judicial request), NIA has provided her address in Diego Shilang village in Taguig City, Metro Manila, along with her phone numbers. It has provided her identity as Karen Aisha Al-Muslimah with her ID as @KarenAishaHamidon.

Karen reportedly influenced many Indians through Facebook, telegram channels and WhatsApp groups meant for IS supporters in countries like the US, the UK, India, the UAE, Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh etc.

One of the largest groups she ran was "IslamQ&A", where IS members shared caliphate's ideology and jehadi material with several of them, including Indians, expressing desire to travel to the IS territory.

Her name is mentioned in NIA's two chargesheets filed against IS last week. TOI has exclusively accessed the details of these chargesheets.

Karen, at one point, even banned IS propagandist and former Indian Oil assistant manager Mohammad Sirajuddin from the WhatsApp groups and telegram channels run and administered by her as she had differences of opinion with him.

Sirajuddin, radicalized by another IS member identified as "Mad-Mullah", felt that Karen was a traitor and responsible for his mentor's arrest in Sudan last year. Mad-Mullah arranged the logistics for travel of Indians who wished to go to Syria.

[SSridhar]

IS video of Indians shot near Lake Homs - Vijaita Singh, The Hindu

India has identified the exact point in Syria where the recent propaganda video of Islamic State (IS) featuring six Indians was shot, a top intelligence official told The Hindu .

A western coalition force instrumental in airstrikes against the IS strongholds in Syria and Iraq has helped India identify the location, the official said.

The official said the video was shot around Lake Homs, also called Lake Qattinah, in Homs around 10 months ago. It is suspected to have been made by Shafi Armar, a former Indian Mujahideen operative who fled to Pakistan after the 2008 serial bomb blasts. While in Pakistan, he floated another group, Ansar-ul-Tawhid, which later pledged allegiance to the IS.

“Our counterparts in the western country have told us that the video was indeed shot in Syria. The timing of its release is intriguing as two of the six men who feature in it were presumed dead 10 months ago. We had intelligence 10 months ago that Armar was shooting some video,” said the official.

Shot along a waterbody, the video shows groups of militants on board small motorised boats brandishing Kalashnikovs with an IS black flag in the background.

The 22-minute Arabic-subtitled video, The Land of Hind Between Pain and Hope , was uploaded on Web-based applications such as Telegram and Twitter on May 19. The featured men called on Indian Muslims to travel to IS-held territories in its “caliphate” and vowed to return to avenge “Babri Masjid [demolition] and killings of Muslims in Kashmir, Gujarat and Muzaffarnagar”.

Indians identified

The western country has identified the shop in Homs where two of them are seen buying a box of sweets. All the six Indians in the video have been identified by the security agencies.

The Hindu reported on May 21 that two of the six persons in the video had been identified as Sajid, alias Bada Sajid, and Abu Rashid, alias Sheikh, both former IM members from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh. Sajid is said to have escaped after the Batla House encounter against IM operatives in 2008.

Three others are Fahad Sheikh, Aman Tandel and Saheem Tanki, all from Kalyan in Maharashtra, who left India together in June 2014 on the pretext of a pilgrimage in Iraq. The sixth is Guntur resident Talmeez-ur-Rehman, the only English-speaking person in the video who identifies himself as Abu Salman Al Hindi.

The official said Bada Sajid and Saheem Tanki were said to have been killed 10 months ago. Security experts were able to determine that the video could have been shot around that time with the help of available online chatter of IS groups on secured platforms.

A Home Ministry official said Armar, who is from Bhatkal in Karnataka, who is said to be in Syria communicated with several Indian men on Facebook, Telegram and WhatsApp and convinced them to join the IS. His name featured in the interrogation of at least eight of the 25 IS suspects arrested during a countrywide raid in January.

[SSridhar]

The twin towers of terrorism - Mohamad Bazzi, The Hindu

In May 2011, U.S. Special Forces carried out a raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. It was a triumph for the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, but it did not mean the end of al-Qaeda.

Today, five years after bin Laden’s death, the Islamic State (IS) has, in many ways, overshadowed al-Qaeda as the world’s most serious terrorist threat. Western security officials now view IS as the greater danger to their domestic security, especially because of its mastery of social media and its ability to recruit thousands of disenchanted young Muslims into its ranks. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey warned at a security forum last summer that the IS “is not your parents’ al-Qaeda”.

On June 12, a gunman stormed a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 50 people and wounding 53 others. During the massacre and ensuing three-hour standoff with authorities, the shooter, Omar Mateen, called police and declared his allegiance to the IS. The group claimed responsibility for the attack the next day, proclaiming Mateen “one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America”.

But U.S. officials have cautioned that even if Mateen was inspired by the IS to undertake the worst mass shooting in modern American history, there is still no evidence he had a direct link to the group — that he had been trained or instructed by its terror planners. Rather, Mateen might have heeded the call of IS leaders to carry out “lone wolf” attacks in the West, especially during the holy month of Ramzan.

Competing terror economies

Since 2013, IS and al-Qaeda have been competing for funding, recruits and prestige — and they often argue over tactics. IS leaders prefer the wholesale slaughter of civilians, as epitomised by recent attacks in Paris, Baghdad, Beirut and elsewhere.

By late 2014, the IS seized large chunks of territory in Syria and Iraq. The group then proclaimed a caliphate in the territory under its control, and named its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as caliph and “leader of Muslims everywhere”.

The IS established a regional base that has allowed it to govern territory, train thousands of fighters and generate income from illicit trade in oil and other resources — all on a scale larger than anything al-Qaeda has achieved. The IS has also established a larger recruitment effort and more sophisticated social media presence than al-Qaeda’s.

With its self-declared caliphate, the IS has gained control of more resources and generated more income than the al-Qaeda. The IS generates money by selling oil and wheat, imposing taxes on residents of the territory it controls, and through extortion.

In 2014, it raked in about $2 billion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. That included $500 million in oil sales in the black market, and up to $1 billion in cash stolen from banks while the group made its initial march across Syria and Iraq. By contrast, the al-Qaeda has historically relied on donations from wealthy individuals, especially in the Gulf states.

Overall, IS has displaced al-Qaeda as the dominant force in international jihadism. But even in its weakened state, the al-Qaeda still poses a danger to the West, West Asia and the wider Muslim world. In recent years, it has become more active in Yemen and has established a strong affiliate in Syria, the Jabhat al-Nusra, which is a dominant force among the jihadists fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Al-Qaeda’s heyday

It’s essential not to underestimate al-Qaeda’s ability to evolve and adapt to a new landscape — as it has done before. When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to drive out the ruling Taliban movement that sheltered bin Laden and his supporters, the al-Qaeda was temporarily thrown off balance. It quickly regrouped, dispersing its surviving members, distributing its ideological tracts and terrorist techniques to a wider audience on the Internet, and encouraging new recruits to act autonomously under its banner.

Even while in hiding, bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, freely addressed their supporters through dozens of videos, audiotapes and Internet statements. They helped inspire hundreds of young men to carry out suicide or conventional bombings in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Spain, Turkey and Britain.

Bin Laden and Zawahiri were believed to be hiding in mountainous areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, under the protection of ethnic Pashtun tribes. They knew the area well, having fought there in the 1980s during the Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. But bin Laden was found and killed in a Pakistani city about an hour’s drive north of Islamabad, the capital. After his death, Pakistan’s leaders did not address questions over how bin Laden managed to elude them for so long, and how the al-Qaeda was able to rebuild its infrastructure in the tribal region of northwest Pakistan.

Before the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden had relied on recruits trained at Afghan camps, and many had personally pledged allegiance to him. But while in hiding, he became more of a symbol and a source of ideology than a planner of specific attacks. One of bin Laden’s former bodyguards in Afghanistan once described the group’s operations to an Arabic newspaper this way: “Every element of al-Qaeda is self-activated. Whoever finds a chance to attack simply goes ahead. The decision is theirs alone.”

‘Near’ and ‘far’ enemies

IS and al-Qaeda differ in other important ways: the latter wants to overthrow what it views as the corrupt and “apostate” regimes of West Asia — the “near enemy”. But in order to do so, al-Qaeda’s leaders focussed on the “far enemy:” the U.S. and the West.

That focus was partly motivated by U.S. actions abroad. For decades, Washington has supported repressive regimes in countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which spawned al-Qaeda’s top leaders. Both bin Laden, a Saudi, and his successor, Zawahiri, an Egyptian, at first turned against the dictators at home. Then — realising that the U.S. was helping to prop up these regimes — they targeted the “far enemy”. We will never know whether these men would have attacked America if it hadn’t supported the governments they were trying to destroy. But it did not help.

In targeting the U.S., the al-Qaeda believes it will eventually force Washington to withdraw its support for the autocratic Arab regimes and abandon West Asia entirely. But the IS does not subscribe to al-Qaeda’s vision and instead it mainly focusses on the “near enemy” — meaning the so-called apostate regimes in Syria, Iraq and other parts of the Arab world. So far, IS has been more successful in its strategy, which relies on capturing and holding territory.

It was Zawahiri who convinced bin Laden to shift his attention to the “far enemy”, helping inspire the 9/11 attacks. Zawahiri fled Egypt in the early 1980s, after serving three years in prison for belonging to an outlawed militant group. He spent time in Sudan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he first met bin Laden in 1987. At the time, bin Laden, a multimillionaire Saudi dissident, helped train and finance a cadre of “Afghan Arabs”, Islamist volunteers from across West Asia who fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Those fighters later formed the foundation of bin Laden’s network.

In the late 1980s, Zawahiri established an office in Peshawar, a Pakistani city near the Afghan border that served as training ground and supply conduit for the Afghan resistance. It was in Peshawar that Zawahiri began to cement his relationship with bin Laden — and to reshape the Saudi’s thinking about militant Islam. Zawahiri helped turn bin Laden from a financial backer of the Afghan resistance into a strong believer in the ideology of jihad, fighting against the perceived enemies of Islam.

As the al-Qaeda’s influence waned, the IS has tried to fill the vacuum by expanding into new territory. In November 2014, Baghdadi announced that the IS was creating new “provinces” of its self-declared caliphate in five new countries: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya, Algeria and Egypt. While IS sympathisers had pledged allegiance to Baghdadi in other states, the IS leader singled out only those countries where the movement has a strong base of support and could mount sustained attacks.

But Baghdadi also called on his supporters to carry out “lone wolf” attacks wherever possible. “Oh soldiers of the Islamic State, erupt volcanoes of jihad everywhere,” he declared. “Light the earth with fire against all dictators.” And for more than a year, IS militants have been heeding the self-proclaimed caliph’s call.

Mohamad Bazzi is a journalism professor at New York University and a former Middle East bureau chief at Newsday.

[SSridhar]

^Before we attempt to compare the IS and the Al Qaeda(AQ), we need to know about the philosophies of two Islamists of the 20th century who greatly influence these groups. One was Abu Ala al Mawdudi and the other Syed Qutb. Mawdudi felt that Islam has been corrupted by alien influences which led to the decline of Islamist rule in India and advocated a return to its pure, fundamentalist path. He advocated jihad but he wanted the society to reform first. His was essentially a bottom-up approach to achieve dar-ul-Islam from kafir India’s dar-ul-harb. Qutb, also influenced by Mawdudi, wanted his countrymen in Egypt to resort to violent jihad to overthrow the ‘secular’ Nasser. His was a top-down approach. Possibly, the conditions in India & Egypt dictated their respective paths. Zawahiri, as a member of Muslim Brotherhood of Qutb, influenced Osama who had already been mentored by Abdullah Azzam, another Qutbite. The IS chief Baghdadi always quotes from Mawdudi.

Surprisingly, their approaches are contradictory. AQ follows a bottom-up approach and IS, a top-down one. This is probably because, AQ never held territory. It was just a parasite on the Taliban in Afghanistan, while IS held territory. So, the tactics were changed while still clinging to the fundamentalism. Both are Sunni, Wahhabi extremist organizations. As Osama wanted to dislodge the Saud family’s stranglehold on KSA, he was expelled and had to take refuge first in Sudan and then in Afghanistan, courtesy Pakistan. The IS was attacking the Shia Iraq and Syria and so had the support from the Saud family. The IS is in fact, a breakaway faction of AQ when the notorious Abu Mos’aeb Al Zarqawi started his very violent campaign in Iraq much against Osama’s order. A formal split between AQ & IS ensued in February 2014 and soon thereafter al Baghdadi announced himself as the Caliph after routing the Iraqi army in June 2014, thus directly posing a challenge to Zawahiri.

[SSridhar]

Concern for India as Maldivians lean towards IS - Sachin Parashar, ToI

While India has remained relatively insulated from the threat of IS indoctrination, radicaliZation in the neighbourhood remains a concern for Indian authorities. A family of three from the island of Hithadhoo in southern Maldives is said to have arrived in Syria last week seeking to join IS.

According to Maldives former foreign minister Ahmed Naseem, a leader of the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), the development confirms that religious fundamentalism continues to grow in the archipelago. Naseem told TOI that the number of Maldivians who have joined IS now exceeded 300. "This is the highest number (of fighters contributed by any nation) per capita in the world, considering our small population,"' he said.

While Maldives is negotiating a counter-terrorism agreement with India and hopes to use it to deal with returnees from Syria and Iraq, who might be well-trained and armed, the united Maldives opposition accuses President Abdulla Yameen of underestimating, even ignoring, the issue. As per government estimates, not more than 50 Maldivian youths have travelled to Syria or Iraq.

While there might be a hint of exaggeration in the way MDP describes the issue, there is no denying that the government has not done enough to check attempts by fighters from Maldives to indoctrinate youths using social media. A case in point, said Naseem, was the video released last week by Maldivian fighters threatening action against present and former presidents of Maldives, including the exiled Mohamed Nasheed of MDP.

"He (President Yameen) makes statements which are seen as significant by the international community but behind that he encourages radicalised youth to remain militant," said Naseem. Former President Nasheed had told TOI last year that about 30 IS jihadists had returned from Syria to recruit more.

Terrorism and radicalization featured prominently in PM Narendra Modi's meeting with Yameen in April this year with both leaders seeking close cooperation between intelligence agencies. Any presence of IS in Maldives will have serious security implications for India. Despite the growing presence of China in the Maldives, India remains the preferred destination for Maldivians in areas like education, medical care and business. In fact, the number of Maldivians seeking visas to India has gone up significantly in the past three years.

Nasheed's party MDP has in the past accused Yameen of aligning himself with extremist groups in his attempts to convince the Muslim-majority country that Nasheed was anti-Islam. Former dictator and Yameen's half-brother Abdul Gayoom too was accused in the past of having used extremists to undermine liberal, democratic opposition.

[SSridhar]

NIA quizzes top IS recruiter in India to unravel terror plot - Neeraj Chauhan, ToI

The second-in-command of Islamic State's India unit Junood-al Khalifa-al-Hind, Rizwan Ahmed alias Khalid, is undergoing intense questioning by National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is trying to elicit details of the outfit's recruits and unravel their terror plot, besides getting to know about all those who travelled to IS territory in Iraq and Syria.

Associated with the IS since 2015, 19-year-old Rizwan, a resident of Kushi Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, was in direct touch with Yousuf-Al Hindi, code name for Shafi Armar, the alleged co-founder of the India arm of IS. Rizwan travelled across the country to meet other senior members of the outfit - Muddabir Sheikh, Nafees Khan and Zarar - and propagate its agenda of jihad.

The India 'emir' (head) of Islamic State module, Muddabir Sheikh - arrested by NIA and states police forces earlier this year - had first met Rizwan in Saharanpur last year on the directions of Armar. They were asked to expand the organisation and streamline its operations apart from assigning roles for fund-raising, recruitment, logistics and propaganda to other recruits.

About 20 members from different states were caught in a countrywide crackdown. Muddabir had given Rizwan Rs 25,000 and a mobile phone for his interaction with al-Hindi, based in IS territory in Syria, and other recruits here in India.

A senior officer said, "Rizwan was among the important people in the ring. He interacted with Yousuf al-Hindi regularly and looked after the travel of recruits, probably to other countries for sending them to caliphate. We are questioning him about the missing/absconding members of the outfit.

Rizwan was caught by Maharashtra ATS during the crackdown. NIA has taken him into custody to unearth the larger conspiracy as he attended most of the IS meetings in Lucknow, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, and other cities. Apart from Rizwan, NIA is also questioning Mohsin Shaikh, a native of Malwani area in Mumbai, who had gone missing in December just before the crackdown but was later arrested.

[SSridhar]

Fresh IS attacks in Afghanistan kill 18, wound 40 - AFP

Heavy fighting between Afghan forces and Islamic State (IS) fighters has killed dozens of people, officials said on Sunday, raising fears the militant group is staging a comeback months after Kabul said they had been defeated.

The fighting began late on Friday in the Kot area of the Rodat district in eastern Nangarhar province after a contingent of IS fighters attacked police check posts, provincial governor Salim Khan Kunduzi said.

The interior ministry in a statement said at least 18 fighters had been killed and more than 40 others wounded so far, though Kunduzi placed the number of IS fighters killed as high as 36 and said at least a dozen security forces personnel and civilians had also died.

Scores of people have been forced out of their homes, according to local officials.

IS fighters began making inroads into Afghanistan in late 2014, winning over sympathisers, recruiting followers and challenging the Taliban on their own turf, primarily in the country's east. But in March, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani announced that the Islamists had been defeated.

1,000-1,300 fighters

The U.S. military estimates between 1,000 and 3,000 IS fighters are in Afghanistan, mostly comprised of disaffected Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, as well as Uzbek Islamists and locals.

Earlier this month the U.S. President Barack Obama had ordered the U.S. military tackle the resurgent Taliban more directly — in tandem with Afghan allies, ratcheting up a 15-year conflict he had vowed to end.

On Saturday the U.S. military carried out its first air strikes against Taliban targets under the newly approved rules. — AFP

[devesh]

Maldives is ripe for picking by Islamists. As usual, the combo of Islamic theologians willing to play the long-game + trained and tested Jihadis from far away battlefields: this has historically been a successful method to tip the balance in Islamic societies toward a theocratic State that actively participates in Jihad.

Given the recent trends there, and also reports of increased interaction with Paki theological circles and cross-training of Mullahs....the long term trend for Maldives is clear. It's a small island base off of a much larger country (India). the global Islamist nexus might find in it a useful place to park Jihadis for R&R and turn it into a logistics/exchange hub.

One possible tactic could be to overtly keep a semblance of "secular" govt which allows the more covert entrenchment of Islamic criminal/jihadi/theologian elements within society and build their cross-national connections with Afghan/Pak and ME Jihadis.

[SSridhar]

5 members of Mumbai bizman’s family joined Islamic State in June - Mateen Hafeez, ToI

Twenty-six-year-old Ashfaque Ahmed's family had no inkling before he, his wife, infant daughter and cousins Mohammed Siraj (22), a businessman, and Ejaz Rehman (30), a medical practitioner, left the country to join the Islamic State (IS) in June.

"This is shocking. Four members of an extended family were inclined to join the banned outfit. We are questioning preacher Mohammed Haneef, now in crime branch custody, about his role in instigating Ashfaque and others to join IS," said a crime branch officer.

In the last week of June, Ashfaque's youngest brother received a message on his mobile from him, saying he had migrated to IS territory and did not want to come back. "Take care of mother and father," read the last line.

His father, Abdul Majeed, filed an FIR on August 6 naming Haneef, Abdur Rasheed, a Kerala school teacher who travelled to Syria with Ashfaque, Navi Mumbai resident Arshi Qureshi and Kalyan resident Rizwan Khan as the ones who "instigated his son to join IS."

In the FIR, Majeed stated he belongs to the Barveli sect of Muslims. "However, my son was inclined towards the Ahl-e-Hadees sect and converted to it in 2014. He got married in April 2014. Ashfaque informed us about his marriage later," said Majeed, 60, who owns several guest houses in Mumbai.

Majeed has two sons and a daughter; Ashfaque is the eldest. It is still not clear if Ashfaque took his wife out of India forcibly or if she went with him on her own. But in March-April this year, Ashfaque and his wife went to Sri Lanka for religious education.

In 2014, there were visible changes in Ashfaque, Majeed told police. "He stopped listening to music, watching television, changed his clothing style and started sporting a beard. The drastic changes and the people he met had the family worried," Majeed said. Ashfaque would mostly be in the company of his cousins, Rehman and Siraj, and no one doubted their conversations.

While Majeed blamed Haneef for "brainwashing" his son, the Mumbai crime branch has not yet found clinching evidence to establish that Haneef sent Ashfaque out of the country.

[SSridhar]

Dhaka attack mastermind was in India, reveals arrested IS operative - Neeraj Chauhan, ToI

The mastermind behind the Holey Artisan attack in Dhaka and the murder of English professor Rezaul Karim at Rajshahi university is fugitive Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) leader Mohammed Suleiman, a key Islamic State operative held in India has revealed.

Indian national Mohammad Masiuddin alias Abu Musa has told his interrogators that the April 23 killing of the professor and the July 1 attack on the upmarket cafe in Dhaka were linked to Suleiman, this is the first time such a claim has come to light. Musa also told investigators that Suleiman who had asked him to carry out 'lone wolf' attacks on foreigners in India travelled to Kolkata two days after the professor's murder and stayed at a hotel and was accompanied by another yet to be identified person associated with the jihadi outfit and IS.

Agencies are trying to ascertain whether the person staying with Suleiman was Abu Ibrahim Al-Hanif alias Tamim Chowdhury, the emir (chief) of Islamic State (Bangladesh). Bangladesh has already expressed apprehension that Suleiman and Canadian-Bangladeshi Tamim could be hiding in India.

Sources said Musa's latest revelation gives credence to Bangladesh's suspicion that Islamic State leaders associated with JMB used India as a "hideout". The photographs and other details have already been shared by Bangladeshi authorities with their Indian counterparts.

Top IB sources said according to Musa, the JMB leader works under a different name in Dhaka and was personally involved in the murder of the 61-year-old professor. The IS, through its media arm Amaq Agency, had claimed responsibility for the killing of the professor for "calling to atheism".

Suleiman and another JMB man associated with Islamic State met Musa in West Bengal. "They met me at Malda station. After that they went to Kolkata and stayed in a hotel there," Musa is learnt to have disclosed. Musa's revelations have given Indian investigators some food for thought as it appears that the Dhaka attack and Rajshahi killing masterminds were in India and possibly stayed for a while and planned attacks in India besides deciding on targets in Bangladesh.

[SSridhar]

‘IS in Afghanistan gets support from across the border’ - The Hindu

The war on terror has failed to discourage Pakistan from using terrorism and religious radicalism as tools against its immediate neighbours, said former President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai.

Sinister agency

Mr. Karzai said that the Islamic State militants who have emerged as a new threat to Afghanistan were finding support from a ‘sinister agency” from “across the border”.

Mr. Karzai was delivering a speech he delivered at a think tank event here [New Delhi].

“We know that the IS in Afghanistan is made of foreign fighters. We know that these fighters are being controlled by a sinister agency from across the border,” said Mr. Karzai asking big powers to display greater coordination in dealing with cross-border terror.

Mr. Karzai, who became the leader of Afghanistan following overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, blamed the United States-backed radicalisation movements during the Cold War era for the troubles facing South Asia and West Asia-North Africa. The fallout of radicalisation has been long term and has surrounded the entire region and spread to Iraq and Syria, he said.

‘Pak. paying price’

“Pakistan is paying a price of the radicalisation process that began in the anti-Soviet jihad. Just last week, some of the best educated people of Pakistan died in an attack in Quetta. We therefore are appealing to brothers in Pakistan so that we can have civilised relationship and show that religion is for good purposes,” Mr. Karzai said.

[SSridhar]

ISIS bigger threat than Pakistani terrorists: NIA official - Munish Pandey, ToI

Wow, is TSP losing its only reputation ?

Just 18 months after Daesh's early attempts to recruit Indian youth, especially from Maharashtra, were uncovered, the extremist group has emerged as the biggest threat to national security, surpassing Pakistani outfits, said one of the country's top anti-terror investigators.

Nearly 40 people — suspected Daesh operatives and sympathisers — have been arrested in different parts of the country since mid-2014 and eight jihadist modules have been broken up, according to DIG Alok Mittal of the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Mittal, a 1993 batch IPS officer, is an authority on the subject and last week, he was awarded the 'President's Police Medal' at the Independence Day celebrations in Delhi for his anti-Daesh efforts. His work — dismantling cells and stopping young men from joining the extremists in Iraq and Syria — has even won him the moniker "Daesh hunter".

During an exclusive chat with Mirror, Mittal provided a worrying assessment of the threat from Daesh, but he underscored the fact that Indian agencies had foiled every potential attack by the group's local cells. "The NIA has registered eight cases so far. Chargesheets have been filed in six of them, while the remaining two are under investigation," he said. "The sheer number of cases and recruitment attempts that have come to light in less than two years clearly show the level of threat we are facing. Daesh has become the biggest terrorist organisation."

Officials refuse to comment on the number of Indian youth who have been radicalised or influenced by Daesh, but according to one estimate, the figure is in the range of 7,000 to 8,000. A few hundred are prepared to travel to Iraq and Syria, where the extremists control large swathes of territory. Around 50 people, like Mumbai businessman Ashfaque Ahmed (26) and his two cousins, have already left the country.

Such recruits pose as a major security challenge as there are fears that they may carry out lone-wolf attacks on their return. Some of the recent attacks in Europe have been blamed on people who had previously travelled to Syria.

"There is a high possibility of lone-wolf terror activity in the country. Recently, we arrested a Daesh operative from Kolkata, Abu Musa, who had planned to travel to Srinagar and stab foreign tourists," Mittal said.

Until 2014, Indian agencies were focused mainly on Pakistan-based or supported groups such the Lashkare-Taiba, Hizbul Mujahideen and Indian Mujahideen. But Kalyan engineering student Areeb Majeed's arrest that year prompted authorities to seriously consider the threat from Daesh. Majeed was radicalised online and travelled to Iraq to join the group. He later returned to India. "Majid's arrest was our first success.

He is currently facing trial," said Mittal, who was earlier part of the investigation into the January attack on the Pathankot Air Force Station. He added: "The internet, especially social media, provides the extremists a convenient platform to recruit youngsters. In all the eight cases we detected, the suspects were drawn to Daesh after becoming acquainted with the group's handlers on social media. It's a challenge for all countries to monitor such activity. But we have had some success in this area and we continue to keep a close watch on the online chatter."

Contrary to common belief that Daesh's activities in India have been restricted to drawing youngsters to its fold, the NIA has recovered arms and explosives in at least three cases.

"We recovered weapons from a suspect arrested in Hyderabad and explosives were found during our investigation into the Haridwar module," Mittal said. "The Parbhani cell busted by the Maharashtra ATS had also planned to carry out attacks in the country."

NIA's biggest success has been what some officers call the "mother Daesh case" in which 18 suspects were arrested from different parts of the country, including Mumbai.

Their interrogation revealed Daesh's efforts to recruit members in almost every state and set up an apex body. "We recovered material used in explosives from some of the suspects. In most cases, the suspects had planned attacks on police and security personnel," Mittal said.

The DIG identified Shafi Armar as the man who manages Daesh's activities in the country. "He uses different online identities to communicate with his aides. Malwani man Ayaz Sultan, who recently left the country, is assisting him," Mittal said. Shafi, who is in his late twenties, is a native of Bhatkal, Karnataka. "He also supervises Maharashtra operations and was in touch with the main accused in the Parbhani case," Mittal said.

The top cop added that international cooperation was crucial to stop the extremist group. "In the Areeb Majeed case, we wrote to 12 countries, including UAE, Turkey, China, Kuwait and Luxemburg, to seek information. Kuwait recently arrested one person on the basis of our tip," Mittal said.

DAESH NETWORK IN THE COUNTRY

MAHARASHTRA: Many Muslim youths missing for years are suspected to be in Syria and Iraq with Daesh, including the foursome Aarif Majid, Aman Tandel, Fahad Shaikh and Saleem Tanki from Kalyan. Two of them made headlines again in May, when IS released a video highlighting Indian jihadists PARBHANI: ATS arrested Raisuddin Siddique, 37, a teacher from Hingoli, for his alleged links to Daesh's Parbhani module

KASHMIR VALLEY: According to probe agencies, Daesh wants Kashmir under its 'caliphate' rather than Pakistan

AZAMGARH: Abu Rashid Ahmad and Mohammad 'Bada' Sajid from UP featured in a still from a Daesh video in May. Rashid moved to Mumbai and is a suspect in Indian Mujahideen blasts between 2005 and 2008. Sajid went missing after the 2008 Batla House encounter in Delhi.

BANGALORE: In 2014, police arrested a multinational firm's executive Mehdi Masroor Biswas from Bangalore. He allegedly worked as a Daesh propaganda activist

KERALA: As many as 21 people in the 20-30 age group including four children are missing from the state. Police are yet to confirm if they joined Daesh. A doctor's family among those missing

WEST BENGAL: Terror suspect Mohammed Musiruddin, arrested from Kolkata in July, was in Kashmir to train for Daesh and an associated terror group Jamaat Bangaldesh

TELANGANA: In 2014, state police intercepted 17 youngsters across the country who were trying to cross over to Bangladesh. Another group was caught at Nagpur.

Some were trying to catch a flight to Srinagar and enter Pak-occupied Kashmir and Afghanistan. They were counselled in their parents' presence and letoff with a warning.

I don't know why Tamil Nadu is missing.

[SSridhar]

NIA gets custody of Yasmin Ahmed - The Hindu

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday took Yasmin Ahmed, a Bihar native and an accused in a case in connection with the alleged recruitment of several youths from Kasaragod to Islamic State (IS), to custody for three days.

Granting a custody application, the NIA special court here [Kochi] asked the Central agency to interrogate the 29-year-old woman only in the presence of a woman police officer and during the day hours. Based on a production warrant, the woman, accompanied by her four-year-old son, was brought to Kochi from Kasaragod amidst heavy security.

Yasmin had landed in the police net while attempting to leave to Kabul for allegedly joining the IS through the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi in August.

Meanwhile, the court has approved a petition to arraign Yasmin as second accused in the case. Abdul Rashid of Kasaragod, who allegedly made 18 others to join the outfit, is the first accused.

Sources said the agency would approach Google, WhatsApp, Facebook and Telegram seeking details of the communications between some of the missing persons and their relatives. They would also seek assistance of authorities in Afghanistan and Iran in connection with probe.

The FIR in the missing case from Kasaragod names 19 persons as accused while five persons from Palakkad have been arraigned in the case.

Of the 21 missing youths, 17, including two children and two women, hail from Kasaragod. From Palakkad, two men (siblings) had gone missing with their wives, who hail from Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram respectively.

[SSridhar]

Case against Salafi preacher - The Hindu

The Kasaragod police have registered a case against a Salafi preacher associated with a mosque here on a complaint that his speech being circulated in the social media will create enmity among different communities in society.

District Police Chief Thomson Jose said that he has handed over the complaint to the police station concerned and ordered them to register a case on Wednesday itself. When contacted, he told The Hindu over phone that a case was being registered against Shamsudheen Fareed alias Shamsudheen Palath under Section 153(A) (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion etc.) of the Indian Penal Code. Further charges, if necessary, would be considered following an investigation, he said.

The complaint was lodged by Kanhangad-based advocate C. Shukkur, who is district president of the Kerala Lawyers’ Forum, an association of lawyers loyal to the Indian Muslim League. He is also the district government pleader and public prosecutor.

CD handed over

Mr. Thomson also said that he had handed over to the DPC the compact disk (CD) containing the controversial speeches published on YouTube.

Shamsudheen is a preacher in a Salafi mosque at Pallipram here. His controversial speeches at Karaparamba in Kozhikode was based on a book by Saudi scholar Shekh Saleh al-Fawzan on cultivating emotional attachment among fellow Muslims and the need for showing aversion to non-Muslims and their culture.

When contacted, Mr. Shukkur said that he had lodged the complaint as an ordinary citizen. He said that the controversial speeches call upon Muslims in the State to avoid showing personal attachment and respect to non-Muslims. The speeches also urge Muslims to live in areas inhabited only by Muslims{This later led to the emergence of such hardcore fundamentalists as Sheikh Waliullah and Ahmed Berelvi who took his volunteers to Afghanistan border to fight the British and the Sikh kings, in an act reminiscent of Prophet Muhammad’s hijra from Makkah to Medinah. The Afghan borders have never been the same after this emigration by Ahmed Berelvi.}, he said adding that it was a veiled call to the Muslims to flee to territories controlled by the Islamic State.

He said in his complaint that the preacher’s speeches were suspected to be a deliberate attempt to undermine prevailing peaceful atmosphere in society. The circulation of the speeches via social media would also promote among non-Muslims suspicion towards Muslims, he said.

[SSridhar]

No trace of Kerala IS recruits, say Tehran, Kabul - Vijaita Singh, The Hindu

A month after 21 persons from Kerala went missing and are suspected to have joined the Islamic State in Afghanistan via Iran, both Iran and Afghanistan have informed India that the group could not be located.

The immigration records of the 21 people show that all of them had flown till Tehran {Does it mean that at the immigration at Tehran, they used fake passports and not the originals? Or, they were mere transit passengers at Tehran?}, Iran’s capital, before going off the radar.

“We had asked Iran and Afghanistan for information on the movement of these people. Since they travelled till Iran, we wanted to know their mode of journey till Afghanistan. Both countries have replied that they have no information,” said a senior official of the Union Home Ministry.

The Wilayat Khorasan of Islamic State, composed mainly of defectors from Tehrik-i-Taliban, came into existence in 2015. It occupies some areas in Afghanistan.

[SSridhar]

U.K. couple inspired suspected IS recruits from Kerala, says NIA - The Hindu

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the case of 21 missing people from Kerala, who are suspected to have joined the Islamic State in Afghanistan, said on Monday that some of the members were inspired by a U.K. based couple.

An NIA official said one of the prime accused in the case, Abdul Rashid, who is also suspected to have travelled to Afghanistan with his first wife and child, had asked his second wife, Yasmin Ahmed, to join a pro-Islamic State chat group run by a U.K. based couple on Telegram, a web-based application.

Mr Rashid worked for Peace International School, run by Islamic preacher Zakir Naik's NGO, Islamic Research Foundation (IRF).

The NIA came across this piece of information during the questioning of Ms Ahmed, from Bihar, who was arrested at the IGI Airport, Delhi while she was about to leave for Afghanistan to join the group. She was accompanied by her four-year-old son. An official said Mr Ahmed first met Mr Rashid at the Peace International School at Malappuram in Kerala where she had joined as an English teacher along with her first husband.

Nikah on phone

Ms Ahmed further told the NIA that she married Mr Rashid over the phone while she was in Bihar on May 3, 2016 when the latter was in Kerala.

“During this nikah (wedding) ceremony, Shihas acted as wali (guardian) of the bride while other co-accused Ashfak and Yahya acted as witnesses,” said an official. Ms Ahmed told interrogators that via Telegram, Mr Rashid had informed her in the first week of July that he along with others had reached the Caliphate in Afghanistan.

NIA said Mr Rashid has also given the ATM card of his first wife Ayesha to Ms Ahmed and transferred Rs. 1.5 lakh into her account in mid-July to facilitate her travel till Afghanistan. This money was subsequently used by Ms Ahmded to purchase flight tickets, pay for the Afghanistan visa and also purchase $ 620, said NIA.

The group belonging to Kasaragod and Palakkad in Kerala left their native places to join the IS in July in batches.

All of them exited India from Bangalore, Hyderabad or Mumbai airports for Kuwait, Dubai, Muscat or Abu Dhabi from where they are learnt to have to travelled to Iran and from there on to Afghanistan.

[deejay]

U.K. couple inspired suspected IS recruits from Kerala, says NIA - The Hindu
...

Yasmin Ahmed under police custody


Also video and text news at http://www.indialivetoday.com/is-woman- ... 18595.html

[SSridhar]

8 IS militants held in Lahore, Pakistan - PTI

Pakistan police have arrested eight Islamic State militants who were planning "large-scale" terror attacks on government installations in Punjab province.

The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) spokesman said four members of the terrorist group were arrested yesterday from Lahore, following a tip-off that "terrorists belonging to the IS were planning to attack government installations on a large scale in Lahore and assassination of officials of intelligence agencies."

He said the arrested men also had links with "terrorists who had killed policemen in Lahore and Faisalabad" and they were attempting to trigger unrest in the province.

CTD seized 1,600-kg explosives, safety fuse and four non-electric detonators from them.


In another raid in Chan Qila Gujranwala district, about 80 kilometres from Lahore, CTD in collaboration with intelligence agency officials arrested four other IS members.

They seized weapons and explosives from their possession.

CTD said the arrested terrorists were planning to target officials of law enforcement agencies in Gujranwala.

The Pakistani government has regularly denied the presence of IS in the country, but law enforcement agencies have been arresting IS members from different parts of the country.

[SSridhar]

NIA arrests six persons in Kerala with suspected IS links - Neeraj Chauhan, ToI

The National Investigation Agency has busted an ISIS inspired module from Kerala and Tamil Nadu with the arrest of six youngsters who were reportedly planning to carry out attacks at various places in India after owing allegiance to the so called caliphate led by Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Officials say that the accused persons were collecting explosive to give shape to their plans.

Earlier, 21 persons including 6 women and three children from Kerala went to Afghanistan in May-June this year and agency is talking to their parents.

"Credible information was received that some youth from Kerala and Tamil Nadu along with their accomplices have entered into a criminal conspiracy to commit terrorist acts by collecting explosives and other offensive material for targeting important persons and places of public importance in various parts of south lndia," said a senior NIA officer.

Officials say that NIA teams along with Kerala Police, Delhi Police and Telangana Police, based on specific information, launched surveillance on the movements of the accused involved in the conspiracy.

During searches conducted on Sunday in the districts of Kozikhode and Kannur in Kerala, these six operatives of ISIS have been arrested for their involvement in the conspiracy.

NIA sources say that five of them were arrested while they were conducting a meeting at Kanakamala hilltop, Kannur District, Kerala.

During subsequent searches, another person was detained from Kuttiyadi in Kozhikode district and arrested later on.

Those arrested have been identified as Manseed alias Omar Al Hindi (30), a resident of Kannur, Abu Basheer alias Rashid (29) from Coimbatore, Swalih Mohammed T alias Yousuf (26) from Thrissur, Safwan P (30) from Mallapuram Kerala, Jasim NK (25) alias Kozhikode and Ramshad Nageelan Kandiyil alias Aaamu (24) from Kozhikode.

Officials say that electronic devices have been recovered from their possession.

[Sachin]

Mean while, things are getting murkier in Kerala
NIA arrests eight for alleged IS links......
The NIA from Chennai came in with very precise information, and picked up these folks when they were meeting inside a cashew orchard. NIA says that they got the initial clues from an investigation which happened in Andhra Pradesh 4-5 months back.

PS: SSridhar has beaten me here, he has posted the same news above .

[Sachin]

NIA picks up youth with suspected IS links from Kadayanallur
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), picked-up a youth from Kadayanallur in Tirunelveli district in the wee hours of Monday. The youth is suspected to have IS links.
...
The move comes a day after the arrest of six members of a terror module, allegedly inspired by the Islamic State (IS), in Kerala on Sunday.

[SSridhar]

Both Tirunelveli & Coimbatore are possible fertile grounds for ISIS. Keelakkarai in Ramanathapuram Distt. is likely to become the third one in Tamil Nadu.

[Gus]

Looks like close to 30? 40? IS involved people total, over the last couple years?

so far no actual attack can be attributed to IS, right?

[Gus]

Both Tirunelveli & Coimbatore are possible fertile grounds for ISIS. Keelakkarai in Ramanathapuram Distt. is likely to become the third one in Tamil Nadu.

interesting to see how IM was mostly in the north, while IS is mostly in south. Is it because of online radicalization which is more targeted towards south?