Impact on India

These developments could signal a new phase of terrorism within India. Transnational terrorist groups like LeT and HuJI, and through them al Qaeda, are likely to exert influence over small and

diffused groups of individuals to take up arms against the State in the name of religion. The Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) had also claimed that it had been training terrorists to target India. Since these

groups are directly or indirectly linked with al Qaeda, it will be naïve to believe that limited crackdowns on their activists and supporters, particularly after an incident, will neutralise their ability to carry out terrorist activities in any part of India in future.

This networking ability, coupled with their common ideology and objectives, makes these groups, however small, an integral part of the global jihad. A case in point is the Indian Mujahideen (IM), a group, which has links with terrorist groups based in Pakistan.

exchanges of Danish Riyaz, an IM operative, seized by the Gujarat police in 2008 revealed a plan to send Indian recruits from across the country for training to Pakistan and then Afghanistan to carry out attacks against India.

David Headley, the LeT operative accused of facilitating the Mumbai attacks, had revealed that around 2008 there were two distinct factions of the IM, one trained by the LeT and the other by a retired Pakistan military officer called Abdur Rehman HashimSimilarly, following IM leader Yasin Bhatkal’s arrest in August 2013, it was reported that that his handler was a Lieutenant Colonel serving in the ISI, who instructed him on executing attacks  in India. Bhatkal also claimed that IM wanted to be closely associated with the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda, and not the TTP.



Media reports indicate the possibility of al Qaeda involvement in the German Bakery bombing of 13 February 2010. Headley told investigators that he performed reconnaissance on other targets in

Pune for Ilyas Kashmiri who led the 313 Brigade and became al Qaeda’s chief of operations in Pakistan. Kashmiri, a former Pakistan Army commander, was a sought-after trainer at LeT and JeM camps. He was killed in a drone strike in July 2011.

To be continued....