A detailed reading of the interrogation reports of Areeb Majeed, the Mumbai youth who spent five months in the Islamic State territories last year, shows the IS is not only training hardcore terrorists but also building a highly militarised modern state.
Majeed went to Iraq in May 2014, along with three other friends, and returned to India on November 27, 2014.
The interrogation details show the IS is building up a caliphate where every one seems to be receiving basic arms training, but then is deployed to different departments of the government, based on their qualifications. Only those who are good enough to fight are sent to the military arm.
At the Hudood Centre in Raqqa, the IS capital now, people from various countries had lined up to join the IS, according to Majeed.
Probe reveals Islamic State trainees are put through their paces
On June 14, 2014, Areeb Majeed, the Mumbai youth who spent five months in the Islamic State territories last year, and those from various countries were taken from the Hudood Centre in Raqqa City, the IS capital now, to a place called Sharaee Moazkar, where about 300 people from various countries were present in the small camp.
The trainees used to get up at 3 a.m. and after prayers underwent three hours of physical exercises, then practised swimming, and attended lectures. In the afternoon, they attended further religious lectures. The inductees were given training in handling weapons like AK-47. The camp lasted 15 days. In the second stage, they were given military training called Tadrib Azkari, during which the trainees were taught further arms handling and survival tactics. They were taught to handle AK-47, machine guns and RPGs and to assemble a landmine from local fertilizers.
Majeed also told his interrogators about another 15-day training during which they were taught formation tactics and close combat. They were also taught how to use Russian-made PK machine guns as snipers, and how to measure the distance to a target by firing bullets.
After the three rounds of training, the ameer decides whether a candidate can be deployed for fighting or for other functions of the state. From the available information, the first three rounds of training seems to be compulsory and basic for all the residents of IS territory or at least all new entrants to the caliphate. Each of them was allowed to retain an AK-47 for personal safety.
After the basic training, Majeed and two other friends, all of them engineers, were kept together with other engineers, while doctors and other professionals were segregated into different groups.
While Saheem, one of the four Mumbai youths, was sent to do guard duties in a different city, Majeed stayed back to work in a project to provide free WiFi to the entire Raqqa city. Fahad, a mechanical engineer and one of the Mumbai youths, was sent to Tabqa city to work in a garage. Aman, the fourth member of the group, was sent to Raqqa to work in the electrical department.
Majeeb also told his interrogators that two days after Ramzan he was sent to Iraq and then to Mosul. While he was travelling to Mosul, he was injured when Apache helicopters carried out an aerial attack on the convoy. When he recovered, he was asked to do civil engineering work at the Mosul dam. While he was at the dam, the Kurdish army attacked the dam and Majeed was again injured, a bullet piercing his right armpit and emerging out through upper side of the right chest. He was unconscious for two hours, and the IS local people thought he was dead and informed his friends who in turn told his family that he was dead. That is how the false news of his death spread.
Once he recovered, Majeeb worked on a mortar-firing section in Zammar. He yet again came under fire from the Kurdish army and sustained a bullet injury on his upper bicep of the right hand. Later, he was asked to work with the ministry of defence and development. He was involved in the construction of an underground air strike prevention site, according to the interrogation.
Soon enough, Majeed seemed to have grown disappointed with the IS and contacted his family in Mumbai, and returned.
The interrogation details paint the emergence of a highly militarised state, where everyone seems to have basic military training. It also shows the IS is operating more like a modern nation state than a medieval unruly entity, which may have been much closer to the bloody ideology they believe in.
