ISIS Is Here, And the Threat Is Real. Let’s Stop Being Ostriches

Even as probes are on in Sri Lanka post terror attacks, news of possible sleeper cells in South India has emerged.

On 26 April 2019, Sri Lankan police officers show ISIS flag recovered from alleged hideout of militants, in Kalmunai, in Eastern Sri Lanka. Image used for representational purposes.

(Photo: AP)

The revelations continue to trickle in about the Sri Lanka terror attacks. One report indicates that among the suspects who perpetrated the bombings are two women, one of them seeming absurdly young.

At least two were from very affluent families. Another brings out a damaging admission by Sri Lankan authorities, that the planning for the attack had been going on for months, a revelation that is likely to lead to considerable political repercussions.

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And finally, the most recent news is of ongoing investigations into possible sleeper cells in South India, particularly Kerala and Tamil Nadu, that are related to the Sri Lankan attack. This is disturbing, to say the least.

ISIS: Eyes On India

This investigation is probably one that preceded the Sri Lankan attacks, but has been accelerated by several factors. In the first instance, neither of the two states is a stranger to the Islamic State’s activity.

In Kerala, the investigations started even before 2016, leading to arrests in Coimbatore, of several young persons and a prominent recruiter for ISIS. In that sense, arrests in Tamil Nadu were more of a spillover of the Kerala module, but it was dismaying nonetheless.

In that year, some 14 persons from Kasargod – but working in the Middle East – were known to have left for Afghanistan, and then joined the ISIS. One important member of that module was 25-year-old Habeeb who was a recruiter, and was caught just three months ago. It seems that Habeeb and others of his ilk were doing their job well. Since then, other modules have been caught, including one three months ago in Delhi NCR, of a group of young men, all in their mid-20s.

Another group was detained recently in Hyderabad. What began fitfully in Kerala – where the group included a 25-year-old woman named Shamsiya Kuriya – has spread to other states.

The profile is similar in terms of the age group, as are the grievances, and the sense of identification with the Islamic State. But here’s the difference.

Where earlier, the cadres were moving out of the country to ‘serve’ the ISIS, the harkat Ul Harb e Islam– the Delhi-based group ‘inspired’ by the ISIS, had turned inwards. It was not going anywhere at all. It meant to target India.

ISIS Roots in India ‘Spreading from Kerala?’

In the second instance, are the ‘accelerating factors’ that will characterise the ongoing Kerala investigations. Some of these are now common knowledge. It is accepted that the warning of an attack in Sri Lanka came from Indian authorities.

Clearly, there are links that may include or emanate from Indian nationals, living here or elsewhere. Second, it appears that the main ring leader and suicide bomber of the Sri Lankan terror team, Maulvi Zahran Bin Hashim, was in touch with persons in both these states, with the aim of creating an Islamic Federation.

His motivational videos spewing hatred, were seized from the Coimbatore module, a case that is more than two years old, and partially centres around Kannur native Abdul Rashid Abdullah, who left India at the time.

Those investigations have uncovered more leads, as cyber experts unearthed deleted data from hard drives, and followed hundreds and hundreds of Facebook posts. The sum of all this is that there is a clear and present danger.

What the ‘War on Terrorism’ Is Really About

India has been accustomed to adopting a rather superior tone in the face of severe ISIS activity elsewhere. That narrative has been one where phrases like ‘second largest Muslim population’, ‘Sufism’, ‘tolerance’ and ‘secularism’, jostled with each other into an enthusiastic argument.

Indian authorities were merely thankful that ISIS recruitment was minimal, without being entirely sure why it was so. This is changing, and it doesn’t take an analyst to understand why. True, total numbers are still few compared to countries in Europe or even Australia, which have a minuscule Muslim population. But they’re there.

To know the reasons for this, just listen to any of the election speeches from all sides of the political spectrum. Suddenly, religion matters, whether it is the majority or the minority. It seems that terror and politics have become so intertwined, that for each – to quote French philosopher Michel Foucault – ‘war has become politics by other means’. That’s what the ‘war on terrorism’ by George W Bush was about. That’s what it is still about. Watch the news.

(Dr Tara Kartha was Director, National Security Council Secretariat. She is now a Distinguished Fellow at IPCS. She tweets at @kartha_tara. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses, nor is responsible for them.)