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A clear and present danger – Firstpost

A clear and present danger – Firstpost



The terror attack in New Orleans in the United States on 1 January by a radicalised US Army veteran who killed 14 people by driving a rented truck into a popular street crowded by people celebrating the arrival of the new year yet again underscores the re-emergence of the Islamic State (IS). The demolished group now occupies territory in Africa’s Sahel region and its potent Khorasan Province (ISKP) in Afghanistan and Pakistan has demonstrated its capacity to carry out repeated attacks in both these countries, apart from Central Asia, Russia, Iran, and Turkey. In addition, the group’s repeated messages continue to resonate in the minds and actions of radicalised men in Europe and the Americas, making it the most potent global terror outfit.

How did the group fare in India in 2024?

Islamic State In India

It was an assembly of four individuals—all Sri Lankan nationals—pursuing distinct professions in their civil life and yet a common goal in their radicalized existence: Mohammed Nusrat, a 35-year-old businessman dealing with telecommunication devices and electrical equipment imported from countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Dubai; Mohammad Nafran, 27, son of the first wife of a underworld criminal who was sentenced to death for the killing of a High Court Judge, 35-year-old Mohammad Faris, a cart puller in Colombo; and Mohammad Rashdeen, a 43-year-old driver, also from Colombo. Both Faris and Rashdeen had been arrested earlier for criminal activities and released on bail. All four men were earlier associated with the banned Sri Lankan radical militant outfit, National Thowheeth Jamath (NJT). At different points of time, all of them pledged their allegiance to the IS, after coming in contact with a Pakistani national nicknamed Abu, who remained their handler.

After being paid SLR 400,000, all four took a flight out of Colombo and landed at Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport via Chennai on 19 May. The mission was to carry out terror attacks on the 
instructions of their Pakistan-based handler after collecting the arms and weapons already dropped for them in a location in the city. However, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) had been tipped off and all four were arrested. The ATS recovered three pistols and 20 cartridges abandoned at a location based on the geo-coordinates found on a mobile phone seized from their possession.

By all means, it was one of the most elaborately arranged terror plots spanning over three countries. The arrests led to the launch of a high-powered investigation in Sri Lanka to look into the past activities of these four men and their handlers. Colombo, scarred from the 2019 Easter Sunday attack that killed 270 people by the IS, was not taking any chances. Following the announcement of a reward of SLR 2 million, they 
arrested 46-year-old Pushpraja Osman, believed to be one of the handlers of these four men.

Other Arrests

While this could have been the most sensational terror plot on Indian soil to have been thwarted in 2024, several other arrests across several states revealed the capacity of the law enforcers to be ahead of the terrorists, and at the same time, the lurking danger of terrorism, inspired by the yet-again-rising IS and its closer home affiliate the Khorasan province (ISKP).

The arrest in Gujarat came two months after the Assam Police arrested Haris Farooqi, allegedly the IS India head, and his close associate, Anurag Singh alias Rehan, in Assam’s Dhubri district which shares border with Bangladesh. On 19 March, both had crossed over from Bangladesh before their arrest the following day. Farooqi, a former Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) student is on the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) most-wanted list and hails from Dehradun. Rehan, a neo-convert to Islam with a wife from Bangladesh, belonged to Panipat. Both were handed over to the NIA.

Explosion at the Rameshwaram café on 1 March that left nine persons injured involved Musavir Hussain Shazib and Abdul Matheen Taha, both former residents of Thirthahalli in Karnataka’s Shivamogga district who had been 
evading arrests since January 2020 in a case involving an IS-inspired module of the Al-Hind trust that operated in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Both were arrested near Kolkata, where they were hiding awaiting opportunities to flee to Bangladesh.

Other arrests included that of Tauseef Ali Farooqui, a 
student from IIT-Guwahati hailing from Delh’s Zakir Nagar, who had pledged allegiance to the IS and had disappeared from the IIT campus after his social media posts went viral. 
Police described Tauseef as ‘a studious and very intelligent loner’, who had been radicalized through the dark web. Interestingly, he had copied his pledge email to the IS to a senior police official, a step differently described as rebellious and naïve by experts. “I disassociate myself completely from the accursed ‘Indian-Construct’ that includes the so-called Indian Constitution, its institutions and so on”, he wrote in his email.

Arrests also included a number of sympathisers and members of self-radicalised groups in various parts of the country. Among them was Faizan Bakhtyar, a Master of Social Work student of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) (arrested on 17 January from Aligarh); four persons involved in clandestine radicalisation using study centres and online medium from Tamil Nadu (arrested on 10 February); 
Mohammed Zoheb Khan from Aurangabad, Maharashtra for paying allegiance to the IS (arrested on 15 February), creating a website for radicalising youths, and plotting terror activities along with a Libya-based IS cadre for anti-India; Faizan Sheikh, and an aspiring lone-wolf attacker radicalised with IS ideology (arrested by the Madhya Pradesh Anti-Terror Squad on 4 July) from Khandwa. In August, Rizwan Ali, a member of the Pune module of the IS, was 
arrested by the Delhi police at the inter-state Delhi-Faridabad border. Ali had escaped from the Pune police’s custody in July 2023, and a reward of Rupees 300,000 had been announced for tips leading to his arrest.

The Continuing Threat

The low success rate of the IS/ISKP in India, compared to their repeated terror attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan notwithstanding, the group’s attempts to find a foothold among the Muslim community have continued. In June 2024, Voice of Khurasan, the IS magazine accused the Afghan Taliban of forging alliances with India and turning a blind eye to numerous crimes allegedly committed by Hindu polytheists against Islam. The magazine concluded by calling the Muslim youth in India to rise against the government.

The message was a mix of its frustration for not being able to radicalise the Indian Muslims as well as its continuous attempt to rekindle their supposed angst against the regime. This was corroborated by the 34th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team about ISIL (Da’esh), al-Qaeda and associated individuals and entities, released in the United Nations on 30 July 2024, which 
said that the ISKP seeks to recruit lone actors through their handlers based in India, despite not being able to conduct large-scale attacks in the country. The report further said that while al Qaeda seems to be exercising ‘strategic patience’, the threat from the ISKP emanating from Afghanistan is the gravest to the region.

The Indian security agencies deserve credit for effectively managing the threat posed by the Islamic State. India’s democracy, along with the trust of all communities in the country’s governance, has acted as a strong defence against the attempts by global jihadists to incite radicalisation. However, it is important to avoid any sense of complacency, as this could be counterproductive. Such is the unpredictable nature of terrorism.

The writer is the Director of Mantraya, a Goa-based research forum and the author of ‘National Security Decision-making in India’. He formerly served as a Deputy Director in the National Security Council Secretariat. He tweets @BibhuRoutray. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.



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