The primary objective of the Islamic State is declaring a Caliphate and ensure that the entire world is governed by Islam. However, the Islamic State is clearly not in any position to declare a worldwide Caliphate and hence is chasing region-wise goals.
For instance, it says it has a Caliphate in Iraq and the neighbouring regions. There is another one in Africa. However, its most dangerous outfit is in Afghanistan, and it goes by the name Islamic State Khorasan.
In January a message was sent out by a little-known outlet called the Al-Bengali Media which said that they were in the process of setting up the Islamic State Bengal Province.
Islamic State Bengal Province
Although there is not much chatter at the moment online, the message cannot be taken lightly. This is not exactly a new plan by the Islamic State. It always wanted an exclusive terror group that would operate in Bengal.
However, what is different this time is that the Islamic State Bengal Province would cover Bengal, Bangladesh and all the northeastern states. The poster that the Al-Bengali Media has put out speaks about the oppression of Muslims in the region. It calls on all Muslims in the region to rise and fight this oppression.
An Intelligence Bureau official tells Organiser that the plans to set up such a module in this region was always a plan that the Islamic State had. It has added more states this time. It has deliberately chosen Bengal and Bangladesh as its primary operating areas as it feels that the time has come to get the Muslims of Bengal and Bangladesh together and then form a strong terror outfit. The addition of northeast is also with the intention of covering a large region. There are scores of Muslims in the northeastern states. Like in the case of Bengal, the northeastern states too have faced for several years illegal immigration. Lakhs have settle in these states and in some areas the demographic change has been such that Muslims have overtaken the Hindus who used to be the majority community.
Further the Islamic State feels that this is the right time to invest in the region considering the turmoil in Bangladesh. The turmoil in the country has made the Indian borer extremely volatile. Further Bangladesh has given a free pass to the Pakistanis on the visa front, and this makes it easier for terror groups to operate. They can commit a crime in India, slip into Bangladesh and courtesy the easy visa norms, they can sneak into Pakistan.
While the security agencies are studying the birth of this new outfit, messages have been sent to the border agencies to heighten vigil. There are scores of Jihadis who roam in the open in Bangladesh after Muhammad Yunus took over. Several terror groups in Bangladesh are aligned to the Islamic State and hence they may look to send in their best into India and train new cadre before the Islamic State Bengal Province is fully operative.
The vigil is particularly high in the border districts of Bangladesh. Recently during a visit by National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval to Kolkata, he chaired a high-level meeting. During the meet, top officials briefed the NSA about Madrasas at Malda, Birbhum, South 24 Parganas and Murshidabad. He was told that these pose a grave security risk. The worry is that the new Islamic State outfit would target these areas to kickstart operations.
A new beginning
The Islamic State Bengal Province would be an entirely new entity. It would operate like the Islamic State Khorasan. This means it would have independent operating powers and will not have to liaison with the rest of the branches of the outfit in order to carry out operations.
It may be recalled that in the year 2016, the Islamic State announced the Islamic State Bengal Province. At that time, it was an administrative division of the terror group which was then functional in full force in Iraq and Syria.
The Islamic State had then appointed Mohammad Saifullah Ozaki alias Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif. He was born as Sajit Chandra Debnath in Bangladesh. He was an economist who believed in the ideology of the Islamic State. After he converted to Islam, he left for Syria to join the outfit. Once he was made the head, he returned to Bangladesh and headed the Dhaka attack of 2016. Following his detention in Iraq in 2019, Abu Muhammad al-Bengali was announced as the chief of the outfit.
After having a successful run in its earlier days, the outfit gradually fizzled out.
Between 2016 and 2017 during its peak it carried out acts of terror on 15 different occasions. However, all these were limited to Bangladesh.
Now with it being announced that the Islamic State Bengal Province will be relaunched, the operation would be different. It would not be restricted to Bengal alone. The group aims at carrying out attacks in Bengal, the northeastern states and Bangladesh as well.
More worry for Bharat
While the decision to relaunch the Bengal outfit is worrisome, security agencies are also closely monitoring another unit of the Islamic State.
To establish a Caliphate in the other parts of the country, the Islamic State had set up an outfit called the Harkat-ul-Harb-e-Islam or the Movement for War of Islam. During the course of the probe it was revealed that the Islamic State through its module in Kashmir wanted to set up a Caliphate which include Gujarat and Maharashtra.
What the agencies learnt that parts of North India too would fall under the ambit of this wing of the Islamic State. However, the command centre would remain in Kashmir.
It was in 2013 that the Islamic State first spoke about its ambitions in Kashmir. At that time the Islamic State had spoken about a Global Islamic Council. When the then chief of the outfit Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had spoken about the Global Islamic Council, he said that both Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir would fall under it.
More details cropped up when the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested one Sirajuddin. He said that they were told that Jammu and Kashmir should not be governed by either India or Pakistan, but by the Global Islamic Council. He also shared an image of a note of the 20 denomination. The note states, ‘ISIS welcomes you to Kashmir.’ He told the NIA that they wanted this to be the official currency of Jammu and Kashmir.
