Indian-origin chief of al-Qaeda group killed
NEWDELHI:Asim Umar, the Indiaborn terrorist who led al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) since its creation in 2014, was killed in a joint US-Afghan raid on a Taliban compound last month, Afghanistan’s spy agency announced on Tuesday.
Umar was born Shaan-ul-Haq at Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, and went to Pakistan in 1995 and joined the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), Indian security officials said. A US treasury statement on Umar’s designation as a “specially designated global terrorist” in June 2016 gave his place of birth as Sambhal and said he was born between 1974 and 1976.
The National Directorate of Security (NDS), the Afghan spy agency, tweeted: “#NDS can now confirm the death of Asim Omar, leader of #Al Qaeda in the #Indian Subcontinent, in a joint US-Afghan raid on a Taliban compound in Musa Qala district of Helmand province on Sep 23.”
The NDS said Umar was killed with six other AQIS members, most of them Pakistanis. Among the dead was “Raihan, Omar’s courier to Ayman al-Zawahiri”, the head of al-Qaeda, it added.
The NDS’s tweets described Umar as “a Pakistani citizen”, though people in Kabul familiar with developments said this could be because he was found with a Pakistani identity car
The NDS said the slain AQIS members were “embedded inside the Taliban compound in the Taliban stronghold of Musa Qala”.
US and Afghan forces conducted an overnight operation in Helmand on September 22-23 and reports suggested that Umar escaped. There were also reports that some 40 civilians were killed during the operation.
Umar’s death in a Taliban base raises questions about the militant group’s pledges during talks with the US about breaking ties with al-Qaeda. One of the key conditions in the talks, which broke down last month, was that the Taliban would not allow al-Qaeda and other terror groups to operate from Afghan soil. “The AQIS chief’s presence in a Taliban compound suggests the Taliban have no intention of cutting their ties with al-Qaeda,” said an Indian security official.