ISIS threat is increasing with growing radicalisation in India and the terror group’s entry into the war theatre in West Asia is dangerous for Indian youth, top intelligence sources told CNN-News18 on Friday.
India has a huge number of ISIS sympathisers and the neighbourhood has seen many attacks by operatives linked to the group like in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, they said, adding that such attacks are ongoing and continuous in these countries.
Pakistan’s ISI and the Taliban may join hands and pose a major threat to India, said the sources.
“India also faces a strong ISIS threat but due to continuous interventions we have been able to avert these attacks so far,” said an official. “Though we have not seen major ISIS cadres in India, we can’t rule it out.”
Major arrests that have happened linked to ISIS in India in the past three years were of those radicalised but not very dangerous, said intelligence sources.
“But we have seen the Coimbatore attack by Jamesha Mubeen who was influenced by Sri Lanka ISIS attacker Zehran Hashim in 2019,” an official said. “He was not successful, but he could have killed 50 people easily. Mangaluru attempt by Shariq who wanted to create a blast through a pressure cooker to attack Kadri Temple could have also killed around 20 people.”
India also has many ISIS-K sympathisers in south Kashmir but they don’t have weapons and don’t even work in groups, said the sources.
However, the changing scenario can create problems for India, also in the light of the recent terror attack in Iran, they added.
The Iranians have a positive view of the Taliban because they had helped them “kick out” the United States, officials said. That is the view of a dominant faction in Iran but there are others who feel differently, they added.
“Now the question is, who planned the attack in Iran and where? How did they smuggle in the explosives, etc?” an official said. “And if they demand more action from the Taliban, they will bring them on par with Pakistan. This scenario is too far-fetched. Or maybe the entire attack was planned elsewhere. So Iran is vulnerable to such infiltration. The same scenario is possible in India also.”
The ISI and some factions within the Taliban have been working against India very visibly in recent years, the sources said.
Thousands of Taliban fighters were housed with ISIS-K operatives in a Bagram prison, they added.
Pakistanis are exaggerating their rift with the Taliban to hide their potential role in future anti-India operations, the sources added.
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