Al Qaeda, IM planning to convert India into Syria

According to media reports, Indian intelligence officials in New Delhi recently decrypted communications between these two terror outfits, which revealed their devious plan to disturb peace in the country. Testimony from other suspects have also triggered alarm among intelligence officials in India.

National Investigation Team (NIA), the country's main counter-terrorism arm has admitted the fact that IM and al-Qaeda are working together to launch a major strike in the region. It has been learnt that, plots which have been uncovered by intel agencies included the kidnapping of foreigners and turning India into a "Syria and Iraq where violence is continuously happening.

NIA officials said that they got evidence which suggest that IM militants are being trained by al-Qaeda to carryout terror strikes in the country. IM, a home-grown movement, known for low-level attacks on local targets using relatively crude weapons like pressure cooker bombs. Intel agencies fear, after receiving training from Al Qaeda, IM would become much powerful and will possess greater threat to nation's security.

The fact came to light after decoding the encrypted messages. It has been learnt, in one such conversation, Riaz Bhatkal, one of the founders of IM now based in the Karachi, tells his men that it was important to build direct ties with al Qaeda, cutting out Pakistan agents whom he described as "dogs", which suggest militant outfits are now trying to get out of the clutches of Pakistan's powerful spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), who till date bears authority on militant organizations.

Bhatkal also talks about visiting Al Qaeda leaders in the tribal belt on the Afghan-Pakistan border, despite ISI orders not to do so. USA helped Indian intel agencies to decipher the coded messaged. As a matter of fact, Riaz's comments were corroborated by his brother Yasin Bhatkal, who is now in NIA custody. Media reported that NIA has gathered hundreds of pieces of evidence of Internet conversations and meetings between militants in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Militant activities have been on the rise in the last few months. Earlier this year, al-Qaeda announced the setting up of South Asia military wing. The announcement gains importance in the background of US forces withdrawing from Afghanistan.

Two people were detained on Wednesday for questioning in Jharkhand’s Dhanbad district after they were found wearing T-shirts that had ‘ISIS Pakistan’ written over it. In August, two young men were arrested in Ramanthapuram district of Tamil Nadu after a photograph of a group of people posing in T-shirts with the symbol of ISIS went viral on social media. Security and intelligence officials are concerned about educated youth getting drawn into Islamic State propaganda on social media chat-rooms.

On Sunday, at least 57 Pakistanis were killed in a suicide bombing at Wagah, near the Indian border, which the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat Ahrar (TTP-JA) group, whose leader has ties to al Qaeda, said was also aimed at India. Two days after that, a terror alert on Tuesday at the Kolkata post that forced the navy to withdraw two ships.

On Twitter, the militant outfit's spokesman Ehsanullan Ehsan issued a direct warning to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying his group would avenge the killings of Muslims in Kashmir and Gujarat, which was governed by Modi for nearly 13 years.