IS Indian chief recruiter from Bhatkal reportedly killed in drone strike in Syria
PTI
Bhatkal, 25 April 2016: A US drone strike in Syria reported a few days ago is said to have killed the man believed to be in-charge of recruiting Indians to the Islamic State.
Mohammad Shafi Armar, aka Yousuf (26) is said to be the one who was killed. He is said to have reportedly become an important ally of IS Chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and was helping establish the outfit in India. It is said that Shafi was a native of Bhatkal in Karnataka and so far had recruited at least 30 men in the IS.
An official has said that they were gathering more details regarding his death. However, confirmation regarding Shafi’s death might take time as it was difficult to get information from Syria, where the IS had a stronghold.
As per details given by some IS recruits arrested by the NIA, Delhi Police and police of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala, Shafi was planning on establishing an IS unit in every Indian state.
Shafi took over as the head of IS in India after his brother Sultan Armar, who was the heading the outfit’s India franchise was killed in March 2015 by a US drone.
Officials had known about the brothers IS links back in 2013 itself, details of which emerged during the interrogation of Yasin Bhatkal, head of the Indian Mujahideen.
Officials suspect that Shafi was in constant touch with at least 600-700 Indian youngsters on closed Facebook groups and messaging platforms like Trillion, Surespot, WhatsApp and Skype over the past one year and might have recruited some men for the outfit.
Shafi is said to have arranged funds through transfers and hawala transactions for IS recruits. Now with the news about Shafi’s death, security agencies believe that IS in India is ’headless’ for now.