Daesh:
Diminishing Challenge
Nijeesh
N.
Research Assistant; Institute for Conflict Management
On October
25, 2017, three Islamic State (IS or Daesh) cadres, identified
as Midilaj K.C. (26), Rashid M.P. (23), and Abdul Razakh
K. (24), were arrested by the Valapattanam Police in the
Kannur District of Kerala. All three youth, who were natives
of Kannur District, were arrested by the Police. They
had been kept under surveillance since they returned to
India some four months earlier (date not specified), from
Turkey.
Police
said that they (the arrestees) had gone to Turkey and
stayed there for three to four months and had been captured
by Turkish authorities while they were trying to cross
the border to Syria. Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP),
Kannur, P.P. Sadanandan stated that the accused were duly
sent back to India by the Turkish Police and the accused
reached Mumbai (Maharashtra) from where they came back
to Kannur: “It’s suspected they might have received IS
training during their stay in Istanbul on their way to
Syria.” Sadanandan further disclosed that the arrestees
had “opted for different routes to enter Syria. While
Midhilaj chose the Sharjah-Iran-Turkey route, Abdhul Razakh
chose the Dubai-Iran-Turkey route and Rashid opted for
the Malaysia-Iran-Turkey route.” They were arrested by
the Turkish Police before they could cross over to Syria.
Again,
on October 26, 2017, Kerala Police arrested another two
Daesh cadres, identified as U.K. Hamsa aka Taliban
Hamsa aka Biriyani Hamsa (57) and Manaf Rahman
(42) from Thalassery in Kannur District. Hamsa was suspected
to be the kingpin of the Daesh recruitment cell in the
State and controlled Daesh-related activities in the Malabar
region [which includes six northern districts of Kerala;
Kasaragod, Kannur, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Palakkad and
Wayanad]. Rahman had been under surveillance since he
was stopped at Mangalore Airport (Karnataka) while trying
to make his way to Syria, along with his family, including
five children, in December 2016. DSP Sadanandan asserted
that Manaf Rahman had decided to go to Syria to fight
for IS after coming into contact with Hamsa.
On October
25, 2017, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested
two suspected Daesh cadres, identified as Mohammad Kasim
Stimberwala and Ubed Ahmed Mirza, from Surat. The arrestees
were reportedly planning terror attack in the State during
the two-phase Gujarat Assembly Elections scheduled to
be held on December 9 and 14, 2017. According to reports,
they were planning an attack on a Jewish synagogue in
the Khadia area of Ahmedabad in the ‘very near future’.
According to officials, the duo were in constant contact
with their Daesh handler Shafi Armar aka Zahed-al-Hindi
and Abdullah el Faisal, a Jamaica-born Muslim cleric who
faces Daesh-related terrorism charges in the US, through
social media.
On October
24, 2017, the family of one of the four boys from Kalyan
in Maharashtra, who left for Iraq to join IS in May 2014,
had received a call from an anonymous caller from a foreign
number that their son Fahad Tanvir Sheikh had been killed
while fighting for Daesh in Raqqa, Syria, the preceding
week (date not specified). Sheikh was the last active
member of the
cell, following the arrest of Areeb
Majeed who returned to India voluntarily in November 2014;
and the killing of Saheem Farooque Tanki (reportedly killed
in al-Hasakah city in Syria in January 2015) and Aman
Naim Tandel (reportedly killed in an airstrike at an unspecified
location in Iraq in November 2016). The four boys were
the first reported cases of Indians joining Daesh.
According
to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least
111 persons (six in 2014, 19 in 2015, 54 in 2016 and 32
in 2017) have been arrested and another 56 persons (nine
in 2014, 31 in 2015, eight in 2016 and eight in 2017)
have been detained in connection with their Daesh linkages
across India, thus far (data till October 26, 2017). At
least another 88 Indians (Kerala – 53, Karnataka – nine,
Maharashtra – seven, Tamil Nadu – six, Telangana – five,
Uttar Pradesh – four, Andhra Pradesh – two, Jharkhand
– one, Jammu and Kashmir – one) are believed to have joined
Daesh in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Of these 88, who
have traveled to Daesh ‘territory’, 25 are confirmed killed
while fighting for IS.
The National
Investigation Agency (NIA) has registered at least 21
cases related to IS activities in different parts of the
country, so far. The first such case was registered on
November 28, 2014, based on the allegation that “some
Indian youths had joined a banned terrorist organisation,
the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) and waged
war against Asiatic Powers in alliance with the Government
of India and are likely to commit terrorist acts in India.”
The case was registered against the four Kalyan youth
who left the country in May 2014. NIA has submitted charge
sheets in 14 of these cases. The number of charge sheeted
persons in all these cases together stands at: 98. Of
these, 65 have been arrested, while 33 are absconding.
In a separate case, NIA charge-sheeted controversial preacher
and the founder of Islamic Research Foundation (IRF),
Zakir Naik, on October 26, 2017, for inciting youth to
take up terrorist activities. Some of the youth who joined
or attempted to join Daesh have claimed to have been ‘inspired
by’ Naik, or have been linked to his organisations. According
to the charge sheet, reportedly accessed by The Times
of India,"Since he [Noor Mohammad] considered
A-1 (Naik) an authority over Islamic viewpoint, he readily
agreed to join the IS to fight jihad for them.” According
to the charge sheet, Noor Mohammad, a witness, who was
on his way to Syria to join the IS but later aborted the
plan, told the NIA that he was influenced by Naik's oratory
at 'peace conferences' organised by IRF in 2007 and 2008.
Data and
investigations suggest that South India has emerged as
a focus of Daesh-linked activities. Apart from attaining
‘numerical superiority’ in arrests and detentions, the
region also has the dubious distinction of accounting
for the largest number (21) of Indian IS recruits killed
(25) fighting for the Daesh. Moreover, 15 of the 21 killed
were from Kerala alone. Four of the 15 deceased were part
of a group 21 persons, including six women and three children,
who went missing from Kasaragod and Palakkad Districts
in June 2016 and had reportedly joined Daesh in Afghanistan.
They were reportedly killed in US drone attacks in the
Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan between February and
July 2017. Another 11 Keralites were killed fighting in
different parts of Syria and Afghanistan, while five persons
from Karnataka and one from Telangana were also killed.
While two of the five from Karnataka were killed in Syria,
there is no information about the location of killing
of the remaining three. The person from Telangana was
reportedly killed in Syria. Apart from South India, three
persons from Maharashtra have been killed fighting for
Daesh in Syria (two) and Iraq (one). One person from Uttar
Pradesh has been killed in Syria.
Large scale
non-violent radicalisation of Muslim youth and the association
of a significant number with Daesh in the southern
states such as Kerala, from where
large numbers of migrants works in Gulf countries, have
created enormous security vulnerabilities. Several Kerala
youth who were working in different Gulf countries have
also reportedly been radicalised and allegedly recruited
to Daesh. During the interrogation of three Kerlalites
who were arrested on October 25, 2017, it was also discovered
that some of the youth who joined IS were part of the
'Bahrain Salafi group', a Kerala group propagating Daesh’s
extreme ideology. The authorities also worry that the
number of Keralites who have joined IS could be much higher
than official estimates, which are based on documented
cases of missing persons.
Despite
this, the lone violent incident which has so far been
linked to Daesh in India was the March 7, 2017, train
blast. According to the NIA case (No. RC-04/2017/NIA/DLI),
preliminary investigations indicate the involvement of
active members of IS in the low-intensity blast that took
place in Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train at Jabri railway
station in Madhya Pradesh on March 7, 2017, injuring 10
passengers. In the following 12-hour long anti-terror
operation, an alleged IS-inspired terrorist, Mohammed
Saifullah aka Ali, was killed by the Anti Terrorist
Squad (ATS) in the Thakurganj area in the outskirts of
Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh on March 8, 2017. At least six
others were arrested: three from Hoshangabad District
of Madhya Pradesh and another three from Kanpur in Uttar
Pradesh. Investigations suggest that Saifullah had also
been tasked with securing arms and training facilities
for a new IS-linked terror module in Uttar Pradesh.
Daesh has,
thus, failed to make any deep inroads in India. Nevertheless,
the recent arrests occur at a time when IS is losing its
strongholds – including its ‘headquarters’ at Raqqa –
in Syria and Iraq. According to the recent (October 2017)
report of the
Soufan Group, after the IS ‘caliphate’
began to lose its territory in both Syria and Iraq, more
than 5,600 foreign fighters returned to their respective
homelands. Though the report has not mentioned any number
of Indian returnees, it disclosed that around 75 Indian
fighters were believed to have joined the IS ‘caliphate’.
However,
Iraqi envoy to India, Fakhri H. Al Issa, stated on July
19, 2017,
….We
know that at least 12 to 15 Indians were among the
large number of foreign fighters who fought against
our security forces during the ongoing operations
in Iraq…. Foreign fighters often were killed and
many managed to escape… We feel that some of the
Indian fighters might have escaped and returned
home in the way many foreign fighters returned home
in Europe...
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Indian
authorities are concerned. A July 13, 2017, report noted
that NIA had sent a list of people who left the country,
possibly to join Daesh, to Immigration departments at
airports across the country. Though the list does not
reveal the total number of such people, it includes at
least 183 youth from Kerala - 88 from Kasaragod, 33 from
Kannur, 28 from Malappuram, 19 from Kozhikode, six from
Kollam and five from Palakkad. There was no information
about the remaining five on the list. Of these 183, 95
were believed to have gone to Afghanistan and rest were
suspected to have gone to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Further,
the Intelligence Bureau (IB) had issued a ‘Red-corner
notice’ to immigration departments at the airports across
the country. Indian embassies in Turkey, Saudi Arabia,
Iran and UAE (United Arab Emirates) have been told to
remain on high alert while issuing documents, especially
to those claiming to have lost their passports.
Further,
S.K. Chhikara, Joint Secretary (Internal Security), Union
Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA), stated on October 25,
2017, that “the NIA investigation is on to probe their
[more than 50 Indian nationals who joined IS in the Middle
East after the group’s emergence in 2014] whereabouts.
The NIA must contact the families of those who left for
countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to join
IS, whose so-called ‘caliphate’ was collapsing due to
sustained military assaults.”
The October
2017 arrests and the preceding surveillance of the Daesh
returnees, demonstrate that Indian intelligence and enforcement
agencies are well aware of the risks constituted by the
trickle of beaten terrorists returning to their home country.
There is, clearly, no alarming threat from Daesh in India
as suggested by some commentators. Nevertheless, individual
or small groups of returnees do have the potential to
orchestrate incidents of violence, or to spread their
extremist ideologies among vulnerable elements within
their own communities. It is, consequently, imperative
that the Indian security establishment remains vigilant
to thwart any incipient threat in context of the collapse
of Daesh in its areas of dominance, and the potential
for mischief by surviving elements, including Indian returnees.
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