The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained an Islamic State bomber who, according to the agency, was plotting to travel to India to carry out a suicide attack on a governing party “representative”, for “insult to the Prophet Muhammad”.
The alleged terrorist – Mashrabkhon Azamov – said in a video confession that he arrived in Russia after training in Turkey, and was supposed to meet links in India to execute a suicide attack for the Islamic State at the directive of the terrorist organisation.
The Ministry of External Affairs has refrained from reacting abruptly, however, official sources have confirmed that they are closely monitoring the case.
According to a report in Sputnik, “In Turkey, the would-be terrorist was conditioned both online on Telegram and during in-person meetings in Istanbul over several months from April to June.”
The translation of Azamov’s confession in English said, “I, Azamov, born in 1992, in April 2022 made a vow to the Emir of ISIS named Yusuf Tajiki. In 2022, I underwent special training in Turkey. In 2022, by the command of Yusuf Tajiki, I arrived in Russia from where I was supposed to leave for India. In India, I was supposed to be met and given everything necessary to commit a terrorist attack by the command of ISIS for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.”
However, it remains unverified at this juncture if Tajiki is the same Tajik-speaking IS operative who was reportedly killed by the Taliban in July this year, in a factional fight between the “jihadi” groups.
The Russian FSB branded and detained the IS resource, supposedly a native of a Central Asian country. He was conspiring to commit an act of terror by self-detonation against one of the representatives of the ruling circles of India.
The arrest happened less than three months after the Islamic State-Khorasan Province released a 50-page dossier on the same matter.
The 10 minute video titled, ‘The polytheists are the brothers of the polytheists’, talking about Nupur Sharma and her controversial comments on Prophet Muhammad, aired in June. It had also mentioned the demolition drive in Delhi’s Jahangirpuri, where a portion of the mosque had been dismantled by civic authorities.
This development has prompted agencies to beef up Nupur Sharma’s security, even as they try to confirm who the actual target of the IS really was.
A special team of intelligence officials from India are likely to interrogate him at the earliest.
According to a source, agencies have already initiated a probe to find out the “Indian contact” who was to supply Azamov with explosives, as claimed by him during interrogation.
The al-Qaeda’s slaughtered leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was recently killed by a US strike in Afghanistan, had also released videos condemning Nupur Sharma.
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