Day after another Palakkad ISIS fighter killed in Afghan
A youth from Palakkad, Kerala, who had allegedly joined al-Qaeda in Syria has been killed in a US airstrike in that country, according to a message reportedly received by one of his relatives. The news came a day after information reached Kerala about the death of another Palakkad youth, who had joined the Islamic State (ISIS), in a US attack in Afghanistan.
Abu Tahir, a native of Puthuppariyaram in Palakkad, was killed in Syria in a US military strike against terrorist camps on April 4 and the body had been buried, according to the voice message one of his relatives in Qatar reportedly received through Tahir’s friends in Syria. The message also said that no attempt should be made to contact its source.
The Intelligence agencies are also in receipt of the information but they are yet to confirm it. Reports from Palakkad said that Tahir’s family members were in anxiety as there was no confirmation or denial of the information. Sources in the Kerala Police’s Intelligence wing said confirming such an incident in Syria was “very difficult”.
Tahir, who was working as a part-time news reporter in Palakkad, had left the country in June, 2013 for Qatar. A year later, he had informed the family that he was going to Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah. Though a friend of his father, who was working in Saudi Arabia, waited for Tahir at the airport, he failed to turn up.
Abu Tahir had then reportedly reached Syria via Turkey and joined Jabhat al-Nusra Front, which was then the official branch of al-Qaeda in Syria known as the al-Qaeda in levant, a Salafist Jihadist organisation fighting against the Syrian Government for establishing Islamic State in that country. Al-Nusra was earlier considered as the most successful arm of rebel forces in Syria.
The news of Abu Tahir’s alleged death in US air strike in Syria came within hours of the surfacing of a Telegram message that Yahia (24), a suspected ISIS jihadist from Kerala, had been killed in US attack in Afghanistan. The message was received by relatives of alleged ISIS recruits from Kasaragod on Saturday evening.
Yahia, originally a Chr-
istian named Bestin Vincent from Yakkara, Palakkad who had converted to Islam, was one of the 22 Keralites who had gone missing from the country under mysterious circumstances and were feared to have joined the ISIS in Afghanistan. He had also taken along with him his wife Miriyam, a Christian named Merin Jacob who had embraced Islam.
Of the 22 people who had gone missing, 18 were from Kasaragod and four from Palakkad. Among them were six women and two children. The others who had left Palakkad to join the ISIS were Yahia’s brother Issah (Becson Vincent) and his wife Fatima, a Hindu girl named Nimisha from Thiruvananthapuram who had converted to Islam.
As per messages received by relatives in Kerala, two others had also been killed in US attacks in Afghanistan in the last four months. TK Hafeezuddin from Thrikkar-
ippur was the first Keralite ISIS recruit to be killed in Afghanistan, according to a message sent by KP Ashfaq Majeed, another ISIS recruit from Kasaragod. Hafeezuddin was killed in a US drone attack.
Another message received on April 13 in Kasaragod had said that another Keralite Jihadist, Murshid Muhammad of Padanna, had been killed in Afghanistan. There were reports that several Keralite ISIS recruits could have been killed in the US attack on ISIS strongholds in Nangarhar using “the mother of all bombs” but there was no confirmation from the side of the NIA.