A Tamil Nadu resident who fought for terrorist outfit Islamic State (IS) in Mosul, Iraq has told interrogators that he lived in the same training camp with a Pakistani man arrested by the French police for the November 2015 Paris attacks, as per an NIA official.
The accused identified as Subahani Haja Moideen (31) has identified the Pakistani man as Mohammad Usman. He said he shared “good rapport” with Usman. Moideen left India in April 2015 but came back in September 2015 after telling the Indian authorities in Turkey that he had lost his passport. He was arrested on October 6 and an NIA official said they were not aware about Moideen's presence in the war zone till the time he was arrested.
As per an AFP report, the Pakistani man was arrested with an Algerian suspect in Austria on December 10 last year and had not been identified so far. Austrian and French authorities believe they travelled to Greece along with two men involved in the November 13 (2015) attack, posing as refugees, almost a month before the attacks. They were arrested from a migrant centre at Austria when they were trying to leave the country.
Moideen, who spent two months in the war zone said he was “neither a free bird nor a captive” in the IS controlled territory. He is learnt to have told interrogators that while they waited for an assignment, they were kept in independent houses and had access to gymnasiums, swimming pool and wi-fi centres.
Moideen told interrogators that after making it to Mosul — after clearing rigorous religious and physical tests — he was kept in an independent house with 150 other fighters including the Pakistani suspect. The Pakistani was the the only one with whom he could communicate in English and broken Hindi as the group comprised mainly Tajikis.
“He says the Pakistani man mysteriously left the camp in Mosul in September. He says it was not easy to ask questions there so he didn’t enquire much,” said an investigator.
Moideen said the name of his group was Umar Ibnu Khatab Khateeba and his leader was Abu Suleiman Al Francisi. Moideen said he was rechristened as Abu Jasmine by his group leader. There were two other groups — Gurba Khatiba comprising mainly European and Arab fighters and Ibnu Ziyad Khateeba, mostly English and Arab speaking fighters.
Though Moideen returned from the IS controlled territory in September 2015, he was arrested only earlier this month.
Moideen also said that there were hardly two-three Indians in the war-zone and India was not the immediate target of the IS leaders.
“He was a low ranking cadre but says that whatever information he gathered did not suggest that the IS leaders had any plans for India. They were more interested in targeting western countries,” said an NIA official.
Moideen says he was radicalised and recruited in IS through social media platforms and had a Swedish handler. He had left India for Istanbul from Chennai in April 2015 on the pretext of performing umrah. After reaching Istanbul he crossed over along with other people who hailed from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Iraqi territory under control of IS.
However, he told interrogators that he could not withstand the violence and war misery in Mosul and decided to leave especially after he saw two of his friends getting charred during shelling. Following this, he was put in IS prison twice.
“We are not convinced by his replies, we think he has been deliberately sent back,” said an NIA official.
