JOIN USThe Islamic State has claimed that its operative Shafi Armar from Karnataka’s Bhatkal has died carrying out a suicide bomb attack in Syria’s Raqqa.
Armar was declared a global terrorist by the United States just two months ago. No confirmation has come from Indian agencies about Armar’s death, though the US monitoring firm SITE Intelligence Group has reported about the IS claim.
Armar had been a recruiter for the IS in India. According to the SITE, the IS propaganda arm ‘Amaq’ said in a statement in Arabic on Monday that the IS killed and wounded a “number”of people, whom it described as “PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) apostates” in a suicide attack involving an Indian fighter Abu Yusuf al-Hindi.
Before joining IS and taking the name al-Hindi, Shafi had used several aliases like Chhote Maula, Yousouf al-Hindi and Anjan Bhai to hoodwink agencies.
The US had declared him a specially designated global terrorist in June. The US State Department described Shafi as a “leader and head recruiter in India for the Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) and Specially Designated
Global Terrorist (SDGT) group, ISIS”.
It said Shafi had “cultivated a group of dozens of IS sympathisers involved in terrorist activities across India, such as plotting attacks, procuring weapons, and identifying locations for terrorist training camps”.
Armar was reported dead several times before. On the run from the Indian intelligence agencies for his alleged involvement in terror attacks, he went to Syria through the Gulf. Suspected to have been a part of the Indian Mujahideen, Armar first fled to Pakistan.
However, Armar and his older brother Sultan Abdul Kadir Armar –who were held up in Pakistan- left IM protesting against the activities of one of its leaders Iqbal Bhatkal.He donned the leadership role after his brother’s killing in 2015.
His brother was one of the founding members of the IM and had persuaded Armar to join the terror network.
Born in Bhatkal in 1987, Armar is fluent in English, Kannada, Urdu and Hindi.