Indian Islamist group issues call to Indian Muslims to join Iraq, Syria jihad

Amid heightened fears that young Indian Muslims are being radicalised with a view to encouraging them to leave the country to join a worldwide jihad, a new report now says the first-ever public call by an Indian exhorting Indian Muslims to take up arms was made four weeks ago. According to a report in The Indian Express a digitally masked face has asked fellow Muslims to “head to the fields of jihad” via a video message posted on the website of the Ansar Ul-Tawhid, a militant organisation. The video shows a man whose face is blurred, with a laptop on and a Glock on the desk. [caption id=“attachment_1568615” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A representative image of ISIL militants in Iraqi. AFP photo[/caption] The _Indian Expres_s report quotes sources as saying the speaker is Sultan Abdul Kadir Armar, 39, belonging to the family of a businessman in Bhatkal town, northern Karnataka. Armar is reportedly a former recruiter for the Indian Mujahideen, responsible for several bomb blasts across India in the past few years. Concidentally, Bhatkal is also the hometown of key operatives of the Indian Mujahideen, Riyaz and Yasin Bhatkal. The Express report says the voice has been identified by investigators as Armar’s, based on interrogation of other alleged Indian Mujahideen men in custody. Armar is said to be a cleric from Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama in Lucknow. He is believed to have rebelled against the IM leadership before joining the Ansar ul-Tawhid, “the first jihadist group based abroad formed by Indians” According to the report, “The Ansar ul-Tawhid believes terrorism will not achieve anything. Their imagination fired by the Islamic State’s success against better-equipped and trained forces in Syria, its leaders see themselves as the kernel of a full-blown insurgency in India.” The Ansar ul-Tawhid also has a media arm, reportedly run by Armar’s brother Shafi Armar. “Shafi is allegedly also behind platforms such as Shabab-ul-Hind, the first online jihadist forum dedicated to an Indian audience,” the report says. The group is increasingly being seen as one of the biggets terror threats to india. The new video message asking Indian Muslims to join the global jihad is being seen as doubly worrisome given that only in July this year, reports emerged of four youngsters from Mumbai and the surrounding region leaving for Iraq in May claiming they were headed for a pilgrimage. The father of one of the boys then discovered a note from his son saying he had left to join jihadists in Iraq. Following those reports, Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria issued a circular ordering the Anti-Terror Cells at every police station in the city to remain vigilant for terror links among men reported as missing. The Mumbai Police also reportedly discovered that another 15 men had left for Iraq from Mumbai in May, but never returned.