Status of Indian IS men unknown after MOAB blast
AROUND 24 INDIANS WERE BELIEVED TO HAVE JOINED IS IN AFGHANISTAN IN 2016. SOME OF THEM WERE IN TOUCH WITH THEIR FAMILIES AND WERE TRACED TO NANGARHAR PROVINCE
Did the largest non-nuclear bomb — termed as mother of all bombs — that the United States dropped on eastern Afghanistan kill Indian recruits of the Islamic State (IS)?
At least two-dozen Indians, including 21 from Kerala, were believed to have joined IS in eastern Afghanistan last year. Some of them were in touch with their families and these communications were traced to Nangarhar province.
Diplomatic sources in Kabul told HT that there currently was no information on the status of these Indians.
“Mopping up and damage assessment is going on and it may take a while to determine casualties. Also, after the use of such a powerful bomb, we don’t even know how many will be identifiable,” a source said.
“We have information about killing of at least two Indian recruits in the same area but both of them died prior to Thursday’s bombing,” said a senior security official.
“As per the information provided by the IS recruits hiding in Afghanistan to their family members in Kerala , two of them — Mohammed Mursheed and Mohammed Hafeezuddin — died in air attacks. Hafeezuddin died two months back but news of Mursheed’s death came to family members on Tuesday two days before the MOAB attack,” said the official.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the case of missing Kerala youth while speaking to Hindustan Times confirmed, Mohammed Haider, Mursheed’s father,received text messages stating that Murshid had been killed on April 11.
“The sender introduced her self as Mughira, wife of Mur sheed who was unmarried, when he had left for hijra(migration) to Islamic State on June 1, 2016 from UAE, where he was work ing,” NIA official said on Friday
“As of now, we don’t have information about any death of Indian recruit in the attack and even if there are some causali ties, it will take some time for information to reach here,” added the official.