Islamic State named one of the three terrorists who attacked gurdwara as Abu Khalid Al-Hindi, an Indian national. Three attackers were killed and 80 hostages were freed

NEW DELHI - An Indian national was one of the suicide bombers who attacked a gurdwara killing 25 Sikh worshippers in Kabul on Wednesday.

The Islamic State (IS) named one of the three terrorists who attacked the Gurudwara Har Rai Sahib as 'Abu Khalid Al-Hindi'.

His photograph, holding a Type 56 assault rifle and pointing his finger up in a one-finger Tawhid salute, was published by IS in their propaganda magazine Al Naba on March 26.

Top police intelligence sources in Kerala told India Today that the photograph was actually that of Muhammad Muhsin, 21, believed to have died in a drone strike in Afghanistan last year.

Muhsin, an engineering student from Thrikkaripur in Kasargod district, was killed on June 18 last year.

Three IS terrorists opened fire and lobbed grenades at around 200 worshippers in the gurudwara at 7.45 am on March 25.

Afghan security forces ended the siege after a six-hour gun battle in which all three attackers were killed and 80 hostages were freed.

If Abu Khalid Al-Hindi is indeed Muhsin, it would be significant because it would make him only the second Indian suicide attacker in the IS.

In August, 2015, IS operative Abu Yusuf al-Hindi alias Shafi Armar was believed killed in a suicide bomb attack in Raqqa.

Armar, a native of Bhatkal in Uttar Kannada district, was earlier a member of the Indian Mujahideen.

He was the first Indian to be declared a specially designated global terrorist by the US.

Muhsin had migrated to IS-run camps in Afghanistan from Dubai where he was working as an active member in a Telegram group floated by Shajeer Mangalassery, an engineer from National Institute of Technology (NIT) Kozhikode who had also moved to Afghanistan from Dubai.

Mangalassery was killed in a US drone attack in Afghanistan in June, 2017.

In 2014, IS, a proto-terrorist group led by Abubakar Al-Baghdadi captured and administered a territory the size of Great Britain in Syria and Iraq.

The group was routed in offensives by Russia, Syria, Iraq and the US and Baghdadi killed by US special forces in 2019.

With the group coming under increasing pressure in the Middle East, they found sanctuaries in Afghanistan's provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar.

At one point, a UN report estimated there were around 2,500 to 4,000 IS fighters operating in the Kunar and Nangarhar provinces.

Around 98 persons with families migrated from Kerala since May-June, 2016, to join the Islamic State's so called 'Khorasan Province' in Nangarhar.

Among the migrants, 30 went directly from Kerala directly and 70 joined from Gulf with their families.

Among them seven persons were killed in airstrikes in Afghanistan during past three years.

Rashid Abdullah, who led a 21-member team from Kerala to Afghanistan, was killed by US airstrike in May 2018.

Rashid and Shajeer Mangalasseri Abdulla, the engineering graduate from NIT Kozhikode, were instrumental in radicalising people from Kerala under the IS module.

Saifudeen Kunjahmed from Thirurangadi in Malappuram district was killed in second week of July, 2019.

The Islamic State's Indian network was exposed by Kerala Police after 21 persons from Kasargod and Palakad districts went to Afghanistan from May 21 to June 5, 2016, with their families.

Among them, two were medical doctors and four were Christians converted to Islam.

Islamic State was established in Nangarhar and Kunar provinces in 2014 and around 250 Indians joined the outfit since 2016.

Among them 98 were from Kerala.

In offensives by the Afghan armed forces supported by allied forces broke IS's back in Afghanistan.

The terrorist group was cleared out of sanctuaries in Kunar and Nangarhar province with hundreds of fighters either killed or captured.

The fate of many of them is still unclear.