Thursday, August 14, 2014

New to India: youths recruited to ISIS via internet

"KALYAN, India...Four young men from this city on the outskirts of Mumbai — well-educated children of a rising middle class — disappeared from their homes with no warning in late May, leaving behind a note about fighting to defend Islam. Investigators traced them to Mosul and have said they were recruited over the Internet by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — a process that, while relatively well-known in the West, has not been documented in India.

The case, though still viewed as an aberration, has opened up the unsettling possibility that Indian Muslims could be vulnerable for recruitment into sectarian conflicts in the Middle East via the Internet. Officials in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, in the north, have taken notice of youths displaying ISIS banners and insignia in recent days, and on Sunday, the authorities in the southern state of Tamil Nadu detained a young man for questioning over a social media posting showing a large group of Indian Muslims in ISIS T-shirts.

In a country that is home to the world’s second-largest Muslim population, and that has long struggled with low-level domestic terrorism, the possibility of a returning flow of well-trained jihadis is a chilling prospect.

8 comments:

Michael Haz said...

Isn't this a net positive? When I hear about Americans going to the ME to fight for AQ or ISIS, my reaction is be glad that the twerps are going over there to blow themselves to bits. Better there than here.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Well, apparently not all ISIS sympathizers end up going.

They get to frighten the hell out of their neighbors right here.

Christy said...

Now I'm worried. Capturing the left behind weapons was troubling, but from everything I've read Middle Eastern culture does not produce the minds required for maintaining the weapons. India's middle class does.

Dad Bones said...

Ideally the twerps would be obliterated before they return home as enemy citizens of America, and proceed to recruit and train more Muslim jihadists.

edutcher said...

Uncle Akbar wants you?

Lem said...

In a way ISIS (or whatever they are being called ISIL Islamic State) is more dangerous than al Qaeda.

They think Al is too warm and fuzzy.

Trooper York said...

Does that mean there will not be anyone to answer the phone when I call about my Dell computer?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

No, but, it may mean that your doctor Patel will no longer be seeing you however.

deborah said...

The way everything is happening at the same time...Russia/Ukraine War, ISIS, Iran getting nukes, border crisis, ebola, what am I missing, a successful terrorist attack here would not come as a big surprise. With emphasis on terror, as in terrifying us to the point of idiocy. And martial law. It's about time we made use of those 160 million rounds, isn't it?