Two former Indian Mujahideen members from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh and one man from Kalyan in Maharashtra feature in a new propaganda video posted by the Islamic State (IS) to recruit Indians to fight in Homs in Syria.
The video shows groups of militants on board small boats brandishing Kalashnikovs with an IS black flag in the background. It shows bearded faces of most of the militants. The video surfaced on Thursday night, but it is not clear when was it recorded. At least one Indian who features in the video was declared dead by Indian agencies in September 2015.
Top intelligence officials confirmed to The Hindu the identity of at least three of the six men who featured in the video.
Fighter killed in Syria?Two of them are former IM men, identified as Mohammad Sajid, alias Bada Sajid, and Abu Rashid, alias Sheikh, who fled to Pakistan during a crackdown on the group in 2008. Indian security agencies had earlier said Sajid was among the six Indian nationals who were killed during various IS-related operations in Syria.
The third identified person from the video is Fahad Sheikh, who left India on the pretext of a pilgrimage in Iraq with three others from Kalyan in Maharashtra in June 2014. While one of the three men from Kalyan, Areeb Majeed, returned, there was no news about the other three. Last heard, Sheikh was running a pro-IS Twitter handle, @magnetgas, which was suspended by the micro-blogging site on India’s request.
Both Sajid and Rashid are wanted by the NIA for their role in serial blasts carried out by IM in 2008-11, and Red notices exist against them. The two are said to have fled to Pakistan with other members of IM. Some members of IM, led by the Bhatkal brothers Shafi and Sultan Armar, floated another group, Ansar-ul-Tawhid, and pledged allegiance to the IS.
In one of the photographs, posted on Al-masdar.com, the six Indian men are seen taking a pledge. The face of one of the Indians is masked.
Indians killed in PalmyraThe video is part of IS propaganda campaign on foreign fighters in their ranks, the U.S.-based SITE counter-terrorism NGO said on Thursday. The terror group’s division in Homs released the video on Indian fighters aimed at recruiting jihadists to fight against the Syrian government forces, it said.
“The interviewed ISIS fighters called on Indians to leave their country and join the ‘jihad’ in Syria against the kuffar (infidels),” Al-Masdar News reported, citing the video. It is not clear how many Indians are actually fighting with the IS inside Syria, it said.
Citing Syrian Arab Army sources, it said there has been a recent surge in the number of Indian fighters killed near the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria.
