ISIS lures youth with women, meat, chocolates to recruit in Kerala

In heavily-encrypted audio transmissions from the mountains of Khorasan, he's heard extolling jihad, offering chocolates, housing and women to young Indians. Kerala's Abdul Rashid Abdulla is believed to have started ISIS recruitment and fundraising operations in the southern state in July 2015. In less than two years, he has risen through the terror ranks as the group's recruiter-in-chief for India based out of Afghanistan.


An India Today investigation has cracked open tightly-guarded tools of communications he has been using to lure young men back home into ISIS fold. Audio signals accessed exclusively by the network shed new light on the Islamist outfit's India module recruiting new insurgents, mostly from Kerala.

INSIDE THE ISIS RECRUITMENT ROOM

A resident of Kasaragod district, Abdulla had led 21 youth from the state to ISIS dens in Afghanistan. Reports suggest two to three of them died in security ops this year. But the India handler continues to send audio clips back to Kerala via the highly-secure Telegram messaging app in order to fill his rosters with insurgents from India, the investigation found.

His messages in Malalayam aim to radicalise youth in the name of Islam and a ballyhooed promised caliphate. Highly-places sources in the country's intelligence establishment have confirmed the authenticity of Abdulla's voice on Telegram audio files obtained by India Today.

ISIS AFGHANISTAN TERROR TAPES

"IS has much more territory than you can imagine in Iraq, Sham, Libya, Khorasan, Africa, etc. These lands are ruled by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He is the leader of all Muslims in the world. Therefore, it is obligatory to give bayat (oath of allegiance) to him," he says in Malayalam in one of the transmissions from his Afghan hideout to Kerala. In tapes, he repeatedly glorifies ISIS as a "normal country" espousing shariat. "This is just like a country here, just like any other government.
We lead a normal life here in Islamic State Khorasan. Everything allowed in sharia is done here and anything not allowed by sharia cannot be done here. There are different departments here under the Islamic State government, such as the Departments of Education, Agriculture, Police, Wealth, Zakat (charity), Finance and Department of Jihad." Without demanding tough commitments, Abdulla is heard tossing out baits to induce his target audience.

ON OFFER: WOMEN, MEAT & CHOCOLATES

In his messages, he presents housing, meat and even chocolates to future recruits. "There are houses here. All facilities are there including electricity and water in houses. There are individual houses. Most of the houses are owned by the government. There are markets here where everything is available.

Everything that is available back in our country is available here also -- chocolates, biscuits, meat, vegetables," Abdulla says. The ISIS' Afghanistan-based India handler is also heard enticing young men with women, saying guerrillas in the group are encouraged to marry widows of slain militants. "My friend, Murshid, married a virgin woman," he says, "Sajid married a widow with two children and Manjat a widow with one child. So whatever the case is, getting married here is easy." 

Indoctrination follows next as he gives his own interpretation of sacred texts and sharia, calling ISIS purely Islamic. In the same vein, he justifies use of brutal violence as part of jihad. "It's a sunnah to do jihad. Islamic state also does jihad - against the mushrikeen, kuffaar, murtadeen and the munafiqeen. Let Allah show the correct path to all and may we all meet in heaven."

According to top security officials, Abdulla took 17 people from Kasargod and four from Palakkad in Kerala to ISIS camps in Afghanistan. In January, the NIA named him a key motivator for the terror outfit in India. His recruits, security officials say, included professionals doctors, engineers and management experts.

Till March this year, as many as 75 people have been arrested from across India for suspected links with the ISIS. Of them 21 belonged to Kerala, 16 to Telangana, nine to Karnataka, four to Tamil Nadu, eight to Maharashtra, six to Madhya Pradesh, four to Uttarakhand, three to Uttar Pradesh, two to Rajasthan and one each to Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal, highly-placed officials told India Today.