M A I N   N E W S

ISIS makes inroads into India, Pak

Peshawar/ Dera Ismail Khan, September 7
Islamic State pamphlets and flags have appeared in parts of India and Pakistan, alongside signs that the ultra-radical group is inspiring militants even in the strongholds of the Taliban and Al-Qaida.

Islamist militants of various hues already hold sway across restive and impoverished areas of South Asia, but the Islamic State, with its rapid capture of territory, beheadings and mass executions, is starting to draw a measure of support among younger fighters in the region.

Signs of Islamic State’s influence are being seen in Kashmir, the region claimed by both India and Pakistan and the scene of a decades-long battle by militants against the Indian rule. Security officials in Kashmir under Indian control say they have been trying to find out the level of support for the Arab group after IS flags and banners appeared in the summer.

Intelligence and police sources in New Delhi and Kashmir said the flags were first seen on June 27 in a part of Srinagar, and then in July when India’s only Muslim-majority region was marking Eid ul-Fitr.

Some IS graffiti also appeared on walls of buildings in Srinagar. A police officer said youngsters carrying IS flags at anti-India rallies had been identified but no arrests had been made.

Another officer who questions people detained in protests against the Indian rule, many of them teenagers, said most were only focused on winning independence from India. They are influenced by Al-Qaida, Taliban, Islamic State.

In mid-July, an IS recruitment video surfaced online with subtitles in the Indian languages of Hindi, Tamil and Urdu in which a self-declared Canadian fighter, dressed in war fatigues and flanked by a gun and a black flag, urged Muslims to enlist in global jihad.

A top official at India’s Intelligence Bureau in New Delhi said: “The problem is we know so little about this network or who is acting on their behalf here. We know roughly where the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Indian Mujahideen support groups are, where they make contacts. But this is a different challenge.”

Rise in Pakistan

A splinter group of Pakistan’s Taliban insurgents, Jamat-ul Ahrar, has already declared its support for the well-funded and ruthless Islamic State fighters, who have captured large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria in a drive to set up a self-declared caliphate.

“The Islamic State is an Islamic Jihadi organisation working for the implementation of the Islamic system and creation of the caliphate,” Jamat-ul Ahrar’s leader and a prominent Taliban figure, Ehsanullah Ehsan, told Reuters by telephone. “We respect them. If they ask us for help, we will look into it and decide.”

Arab League to back campaign against IS

US air strikes target insurgents