Yet another suspected Islamic State (ISIS) recruit from Kerala, Abdul Manaf (30) of Mooppanpara near Valapattanam in Kannur district, has reportedly been killed in Syria, taking the total number of Keralite ISIS men killed in the war-ravaged West Asian country to 16. However, the police were yet to confirm the information.
The Kerala Police had last November identified Manaf, who was an active worker of Islamist outfit Popular Front of India, as one of five persons from Kannur who had joined ISIS in Syria since 2016. He was also a close associate of Shajahan Valluvakandy (32) of Koodali, Kannur who was arrested in Delhi after being deported from Turkey while trying to sneak into Syria.
The information on the death of Manaf was relayed through a message to his relatives in Kannur by Abdul Khayoom (25) of Chekkikkulam near Kuttyattoor, another Kannur native allegedly working for the ISIS in Syria. According to Khayoom’s message, Manaf was killed in an attack that had taken place in Syria last November.
Manaf was an accused in ISIS-related cases initiated by the Valapattanam police and the NIA. Another case was pending against him in the Valapattanam police station for possessing two passports. It is said that he had sneaked into Syria via Turkey using forged travel papers after meeting Shajahan and his ISIS group in Istanbul.
Manaf was also an accused in the case pertaining to the murder of CPI(M) activist OT Bineesh in 2009 at Kunnumkai, a village within the Valapattanam police station limits. A co-accused had earlier told the court that Manaf himself had hacked the CPI(M) worker. He had been granted bail two years ago and had been missing from Kannur since then.
With the death of Manaf, the number of ISIS recruits from Kannur to die in attacks in Syria in a year has gone up to six. The other Kannur natives who were killed in Syria while fighting for the ISIS were TV Shameer (45) of Pappinissery, his son Salman (20), AV Shahanad (25) of Chalad, Muhammad Shajil (36) of Munderi and Rishal (30) of Valapattanam.
Of these five men killed, Salman was the elder brother of Safwan (17) who was among the five persons – all said to be activists of the Popular Front or its political wing SDPI – the police had identified as Kannur natives who had joined the ISIS in Syria. Safwan’s mother Fousia and sister Nazia are believed to be in Syria still.
The others in this group were Shabeer Muhammad Shafi (33) from Mooppanpara, Valapattanam and one of his relatives, Suhail from Pazhanjirappally, Pappinissery. Suhail had gone to Syria from Dubai in 2016 while Khayoom had joined the terror camps there in April, 2017. The families of all these five persons had reportedly gone to Syria along with them.
Though Kannur has been under the security agencies’ scanners for extremist elements since 2008, they had got a clear picture of the magnitude of ISIS penetration into the district for the first time with the arrest by the NIA of five persons belonging to Omar Al-Hindi, said to be the Kerala module of the ISIS, from Kanakamala during a secret meeting on October 2, 2016.
Within a span of three days in October last, the police had arrested eight persons from Kannur – almost all of them belonging to the Popular Front and SDPI – for alleged connections with the ISIS and this strengthened the suspicion that the district had already become perhaps the terror outfit’s biggest recruitment ground in the State.
According to the investigating and Intelligence agencies, at least 80 Keralites had joined the Islamic State in Afghanistan and Syria and a minimum of 30 of them belonged to Kannur. The agencies also point out that most of those who had allegedly joined the terror group had been activists of the PFI and SDPI.