MANTRAYA ANALYSIS# 83: 10 JANUARY 2025
BIBHU PRASAD ROUTRAY
Abstract
The re-emergence of the Islamic State (IS, aka ISIS) has been highlighted by the 1 January 2025 terror attack in New Orleans (United States) by a radicalised US Army veteran. Fourteen people were killed, with many injured, as the perpetrator drove a rented truck into a popular celebration of the arrival of the new year. IS has been largely ignored globally since its locus of action moved to Africa’s Sahel region and its potent Khorasan Province (ISKP) in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yet the recent atrocity serves notice that the group’s narrative of oppression and consequent need for liberation continues to activate pathways to radicalization of individuals of diverse grievances and aspirations in need of a cause. It thus has remained a powerful force. How did the IS/ISIS/ISKP fare in India in 2024?
Elaborate Planning
Four Sri Lankan nationals—pursuing distinct professions in their civil lives and yet a common goal in their radicalized existence—arrived at Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport via Chennai on 19 May 2024.
Their intent was to pull off an elaborate and IS terror plot in India. Involved were not only Sri Lankan operatives but also Sri Lankan and Pakistani handlers, as well as apparent logistics providers in India. Weapons delivery was organised in India, and money apparently passed hands from Pakistan to Sri Lanka.
The four Sri Lankans had diverse backgrounds. Mohammed Nusrat is a 35-year-old businessman dealing with telecommunication devices and electrical equipment imported from countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Dubai; 27-year-old Mohammad Nafran is the son of the first wife of an underworld criminal who was sentenced to death for the killing of a High Court Judge; 35-year-old Mohammad Faris is a cart-puller in Colombo; and Mohammad Rashdeen is a 43-year-old driver, also from Colombo. While the first two did not have any criminal background, 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 in time, all of them pledged their allegiance to 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. 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 at a location in Ahmedabad. The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) had been tipped off however, and all four were arrested. The ATS recovered three pistols and 20 cartridges abandoned at a location identified through the geo-coordinates found on a mobile phone in their possession.
The arrests led to the launch of a high-powered investigation in Sri Lanka to look into the past activities of the four men and their handlers. Colombo, scarred by the IS-inspired 2019 Easter Sunday attack that killed 279 people, 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 the four men.
Other Arrests
While this proved to be the most sensational terror plot on Indian soil thwarted in 2024, several other arrests in several states demonstrated the need for security providers to stay one step ahead of those plotting terrorist operations. The arrests also served notice of the lurking dangers posed by radicalization efforts in a world under increasing stresses of every sort and consequently of individuals seeking outlets. The IS, of course, with its closer-to-home ISKP affiliate, has demonstrated time and again its finesse at exploiting the situation to advance its strategic interests.
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 a 134-kilometre-long border with Bangladesh. On 19 March, both crossed over from Bangladesh and were arrested the following day. Farooqi, a former Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) student, was 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.
In yet another incident, an explosion at the Rameshwaram café on 1 March left nine persons injured. The perpetrators were Musavir Hussain Shazib and Abdul Matheen Taha, both former residents of Thirthahalli in Karnataka’s Shivamogga district. Although they have not been demonstrated to be IS cadres, both 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. Taha and Shazib 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 the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Guwahati hailing from Delh’s Zakir Nagar, who had pledged allegiance to the IS and disappeared from the Institute’s 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 IS pledge email to a senior police official, a step variously 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.
While Tauseef may have made the task of the police easier, other arrests seem to have been the result of meticulous cyber tracking and human intelligence. Among them was Faizan Bakhtyar, a Master of Social Work student at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), arrested on 17 January in Aligarh; four persons involved in clandestine radicalisation using study centres and online medium in Tamil Nadu, arrested on 10 February; Mohammed Zoheb Khan from Aurangabad, Maharashtra, arrested on 15 February for pledging allegiance to IS, creating a website for radicalising youths, and plotting terror activities along with a Libya-based IS cadre for anti-India operations; and Faizan Sheikh, an aspiring lone-wolf attacker radicalised through engagement with IS ideology before being arrested by the Madhya Pradesh Anti-Terror Squad on 4 July at Khandwa. Further, 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 apprehension.
The Continuing Threat
The low success rate of the IS/ISKP in India, compared to their repeated terror attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, has not stopped the effort to gain a foothold within the regional Muslim community. In June 2024, the IS magazine, Voice of Khurasan 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 upon Muslim youth in India to rise against the state. The message was a mix of the group’s frustration at being unable to radicalise the Indian Muslims as well as its continuous attempt to rekindle the supposed rejection of the current polity.
This was corroborated by the 34th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team concerning ISIL (Da’esh), al-Qaeda, and associated individuals and entities, released by the United Nations on 30 July 2024. The report said that the ISKP, despite being unable to conduct large-scale attacks in India, continues its efforts to recruit lone actors through its handlers based there. The report further said that while al Qaeda seems to be exercising “strategic patience”, ISKP has pushed forward and has become the gravest threat to the region.
The NIA claims a 100 percent conviction rate for those individuals arrested in 2024, albeit tried in the special NIA courts. The absence of any terror incidents beyond the Rameshwaram café blast calls for credit to the state police agencies and the NIA for effectively managing the threat posed by IS (aka ISIS). On a larger canvas, India’s turbulent democracy continues to claim the legitimacy of most of its citizens, which has acted as a strong antidote against the attempts by global jihadists to incite radicalization. Success serves to highlight, though, the need to avoid complacency lest the continued terroristic efforts of threat actors find gaps in the security shield.
(Dr. Bibhu Prasad Routray is the Director of MISS. This analysis has been published as part of Mantraya’s ongoing “Islamic State in South Asia”, “Fragility, Conflict, and Peace Building”, and “Mapping Terror & Insurgent Networks” projects. All Mantraya publications are peer-reviewed.)
