News Brief
Key Islamic State Recruiter From Bengaluru Faiz Masood Died In Syria, Confirms Arrested Doctor
Representative image of an ISIS fighter with the group’s flag.
An MBA graduate from Bengaluru Faiz Masood, who is said to have been the key recruiter for the terror organisation ISIS in the city and missing for the last seven years, has been killed in Syria. This detail was revealed by Abdur Rahman, the opthalmologist working at the city's M S Ramaiah Medical College, who was arrested last month by the National Investigative Agency (NIA).
Masood who is said to belong to a wealthy family of Bengaluru left his parents, wife and two children as he headed to Syria seven years ago. But his family members have reportedly filed no missing complaint.
Rahman is one of the recruits who was inducted into the ISIS by Masood through his network of friends. Rahman, a resident of Basavangudi in Bengaluru, is said to have visited an ISIS medical camp in Syria in early 2014 for treatment of ISIS terrorists and stayed with Islamic State operatives for 10 days and returned to India.
Masood is said to have been active ISIS member who had gone missing after he flew to Qatar in September 2013. Apart from recruiting members to the ISIS from the city, he was also actively involved in the terror organisations' operations in Syria and Iraq.
The news of his death in 2014-2015, in an attack on a terror camp in Syria, had intensified investigations probing the growth of the terror links in different cities in India, which led to his background and his conduct of 'religious discussions' with fellow wealthy Muslim youth from the city, many of whom had later joined ISIS.
As revealed by Rahman and his fellow associate a doctor, they met Masood when they crossed over from a refugee camp in 2013 and reached the border town of Atme in Syria. Both of them had reportedly decided to return after being 'disillusioned' by the activities at the camps, including 'serious infighting' at the camps. It was during an attack on one such camps, that reportedly left one of these injured, that Masood is said to have been killed.
Masood's role in recruiting city youth for terror training was also testified for by another 'aeronautical engineer' associate of Rahman, whose travel to Syria was facilitated by the former, as reported.
The arrest of Abdur Rahman was based on a case registered by Delhi Police Special Cell in March, 2020, following the arrest of a Kashmiri couple Jahanzaib Sami Wani and his wife Hina Bashir Beigh from Okhla Vihar, Jamia Nagar in Delhi. The couple were found to be have close links with Islamic State Khorasan Province(ISKP), a banned terrorist organisation and a sister organisation of ISIS.
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