India’s war on terror faces a fresh threat from the cyber propaganda of the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda who are trying to radicalise vulnerable youth of the country to disturb peace where they are residing.
After the huge success of Coalition Forces in Islamic State-controlled territories of Syria and Iraq, the terror outfit is not promoting the arrival of Foreign Terrorist Fighters at present and the calls for Hijrath (migration to ISIS theatre) have been decreased. However, this has not stopped the IS leaders from instigating their sympathisers and supporters around the world.
So far as India is concerned, IS leaders are found to have given calls for arson attacks, targeted killings of right wing leaders or atheists, police personnel and foreign tourists. Islamic State propaganda also targeted Hindu religious symbols and calls were made to target religious festivals.
In the latest move by the outfit, Islamic State’s India-centric online magazine ‘Voice of Hind’ listed out lone wolf attack techniques for sympathisers.
Going regional
It was also found that subsequent to the Easter Sunday serial blasts in Sri Lanka in April 2019, Islamic State and al Qaeda propaganda was diversified into regional languages. The original Islamic State propaganda materials in English and Arabic were translated to vernacular languages, including Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Urdu and Bengali among others and disseminated for instigating a wider audience.
Bhatkal-based arrested IS cadre Jufi Jawhar Damudi was recruiting youth from different parts of the country for exclusive translation of terror propaganda material to regional dialects. The timely arrest of Damudi was a massive blow to IS propaganda machinery, which was aiming to disseminate voluminous vernacular propaganda materials through cyber platforms.
In another worrying trend, both IS and al Qaeda are trying to utilise local conflicts and domestic issues by instigating vulnerable youth in communally sensitive areas.
For instance, al Qaeda-affiliated magazine ‘Nawai Ghazwa e Hind’ and India-centric ‘Voice of Hind’ had published cover stories on the recent Hijab controversy in Karnataka. al-Qaeda Central had recently published a video by its chief Ayman Al-Zawahri trying to fish on the Karnataka Hijab row.
In a viral video, Zawahri praised Muskan Khan, a hijab-clad girl, who came into the limelight for confronting a mob of boys who were opposed to women wearing the hijab. Zawahiri called Muskan his sister and said that he wrote a poem praising her courage.
The thumbnail of the video and the poster that accompanied the upload was titled ‘The Noblewoman Of India’. The terrorist said that he was made aware of Muskan Khan’s actions through social media. He accused the government of allegedly mistreating Muslims living in the country and asked the community to react to the hijab controversy.
After the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan in August 2021, al-Qaeda had initiated waves of cyber propaganda against Indian interests with a focus on the Kashmir issue.
Sympathisers of the terror outfit were elated with the Taliban victory and urging supporters to emulate the same in Kashmir. This may be also been seen as an attempt to boost Qaeda-linked Ansar Ghazwatul Hind (AGuH) terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir as most of AGuH cadres were eliminated by Indian security forces.
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