Does terror outfit have members from Bhatkal
Seven terror suspects from Bhatkal have reportedly joined AuT
Bengaluru: Does the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat Ahrar (TTP-JA), which on Wednesday allegedly threatened to launch fidayeen attacks in India have fugitive terror suspects from India including Bhatkal in Karnataka?
According to Intelligence sources after the split of the banned terror outfit Indian Mujahideen (IM) in 2013 one faction, led by Riyaz Shahbandri alias Bhatkal and his associate Muhammad Ahmad Zarar Siddibapa alias Yasin Bhatkal, who was arrested in August 2013 from Raxaul in Bihar near the Nepal border, merged with the global jihadist organisation Al-Qaeda and the other faction of the IM emerged as Ansar-ul-Tawheed fi Bilad al-Hind (AuT), which is reportedly training militants in camps run in the Afghanistan-Pakistan (AfPak) region by the TTP-JA.
Seven terror suspects from Bhatkal Armar Abdul Khader Sultan, Armar Shafi, Mohammed Hussain Farhan, Abdul Wahid Sidibappa, Anwer Bhatkal, Salim Ishaqi and Afeef Mota along with Mirza Shadab Baig from Azamgarh and Tehseen Akhtar alias Monu from Bihar have reportedly joined AuT with Armar heading ‘Al Isabah’ the media wing of the militant organisation through which the outfit released videos inviting Indian Muslim youth to join the jihadist forces against India.
Threat tweet
The threat tweet to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by TTP-JA spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan comes close on the heels of the strongly contested forthcoming Assembly elections in Jammu & Kashmir between November 25 and December 20 and shares sinister similarity with May 23 bombing of the Indian consulate in Herat, three days before Modi was sworn in as the PM.