ISIS-K aims to have Caliphate in India: Intel

Blurb: JeM, LeT shift base to AF

Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 28

The “rule of the Caliphate in India” is among the lofty ideological goals the Kabul bombers associated with the ISIS-Khorasan are planning to indulge in, sources in intelligence agencies have said.

Terrorists associated with ISIS-K, the sources said, had secured a strong foothold in Afghanistan after the country fell into the hands of Taliban. They said these elements had started working on their plan to export jihad to Central Asia and later to India.

Intelligence inputs suggested that the ISIS-K leadership was now planning to recruit youngsters and carry out terror strikes. “On top of their ideological agenda is to establish the rule of the Caliphate, including in India,” the sources said.

Youngsters from Kerala and Mumbai have already been there in the ranks of ISIS with the terror group finding significant traction among radicalised Indian youth. “This is a matter of great concern in the present situation as ISIS-K operators can activate the radicals to harm India and Indians,” said an intelligence official.

Another intelligence input suggested that Jaish-e-Mohammed leadership with the help of Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI has shifted base to Afghanistan’s Helmand province, bordering Kandahar. They said even the Lashkar-e-Taiba leadership, responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was shifting to Kunar in east Afghanistan. The sources said the two terror outfits, after shifting base to Afghanistan, had quickly joined hands with ISIS-K.