News Analysis |
The suicide bomber who attacked the US Consulate in the Saudi city of Jeddah two years ago was an Indian national, confirmed Saudi Arabia on the basis of DNA tests. This is the latest addition to the increasing footprint of Daesh terror in India.
A senior security official confirmed to News18 that the DNA samples they sent to Saudi Arabia matched with those of the Jeddah bomber — Fayaz Kagzi, an alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba operative. The Jeddah blast on July 4, 2016, which injured two security officers, was the first of three attacks to hit the kingdom that day. The other two were also in the form of blasts near a Shia mosque in Qatif and outside the Masjid-i-Nabvi in Medina.
The National Investigation Agency informed the Patiala house court in Delhi that the terror mastermind was dead. The NIA claims Kagzi, who hails from Beed in Maharashtra, was the ‘mastermind’, ‘financier’ of the 2010 German bakery blast and 2012 JM Road bombing. The 34-year-old was also wanted in the Aurangabad arms haul case and is suspected of teaching Hindi to 26/11 terrorists, including Ajmal Kasab.
The study by Conflict Armament Research (CAR) showed that 51 companies from 20 countries such as Turkey, India, Brazil, and the US produced, sold or received the over 700 components used by Daesh to build improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Saudi authorities had first released the picture of the Jeddah bomber and called him Abdullah Qalzar Khan, a Pakistani national. Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) officers identified the man in the picture as Fayaz Kagzi and subsequently, with the help of NIA, shared their suspicion with Jeddah.
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NIA further alleges that Kagzi fled to Pakistan via Bangladesh in 2006 and shifted his base to Saudi Arabia in 2009 to oversee the recruitment of Indian nationals to LeT. Sources say that it is possible that he took on a new name of Abdullah Qalzar Khan while in Pakistan.
Abu Jundal, a convict in the Aurangabad arms haul case, had told investigators that he met Kagzi in Saudi Arabia. Jundal was extradited to India in 2012 and is currently facing trial in a conspiracy against India cases. Agencies believe after Jundal’s extradition, Kagzi switched alliance to Daesh and became part of the Jeddah suicide bombing conspiracy.
India and Saudi Arabia have in recent times cooperated in terrorism-related cases. India could arrest another suspect Abdul Karim Tunda only after Saudi authorities cooperated. Saudi Arabian ambassador to India, Dr Saud bin Mohammed Al Sati, had said last week that the kingdom has a very strong cooperation with India on countering terrorism, extremism and terror financing.
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Many links between India and the terror group Daesh have arisen. In December 2017, as many as 103 people accused of being Daesh sympathizers were arrested across 14 states by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the central counterterrorism law enforcement agency, and other state security agencies, according to government data.
The Jeddah blast on July 4, 2016, which injured two security officers, was the first of three attacks to hit the kingdom that day. The other two were also in the form of blasts near a Shia mosque in Qatif and outside the Masjid-i-Nabvi in Medina.
Uttar Pradesh — India’s most populous state — reported the most (17) arrests, followed by Maharashtra (16), Telangana (16), Kerala (14) and Karnataka (8), said this reply to the Rajya Sabha (upper house of Parliament) by Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, minister of state for ministry of home affairs, on December 20, 2017.
These states accounted for 69% of all arrests across 14 states. The state of Kerala, India’s most progress has been found to be a fertile breeding ground for the terror cult. Daesh’s India connect became national headlines when 21 people, including women and children, from the southern state of Kerala, went missing in 2016. On Jan 19, 2018 the Kerala police confirmed that a 30-year-old youth who had left the country two years ago to join the terror outfit has been killed in Syria.
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In January 2016, Seven Indian companies are among those from 20 countries named in a list whose components were used by the ISIS to make explosives, an EU-mandated study said, suggesting that more work needs to be done to track the flow of chemicals and other items to the terror group.
The study by Conflict Armament Research (CAR) showed that 51 companies from 20 countries such as Turkey, India, Brazil, and the US produced, sold or received the over 700 components used by Daesh to build improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
It can be concluded that the often abused and marginalized Muslim minority of India now under the sustained threat of Saffron terrorists supported by the Indian state have become a lucrative recruitment target for Khwarij terror cults such as Daesh and Al Qaeda.