It’s big win for India!! Indian Security Agencies have been successful in averting the deadliest plan for blasting the National capital Delhi by Islamic State(IS). The security agencies deserve applause for the way how they had infiltrated Islamic State ring to thwart a bid by an IS Afghan suicide bomber to strike New Delhi. With a well planned strategy the security agencies have not only saved Delhi but also helped US Forces to kill the Taliban men.
The IS operative was sent to India after training in Pakistan to carry out bomb attacks in the region. He is an Afghan national who hails from wealthy business family. Not only he, a group of 12 IS operatives like him were sent to different countries for carrying out such attacks, as reported by Indian Express
In order to accomplish his “mission, he got himself admitted to a private engineering college on the outskirts of the capital, along the Delhi-Faridabad highway. He visited the Delhi Airport, Ansal Plaza mall, Vasant Kunj Mall as well as the South Extension market, among other places in New Delhi in order to access the places and then plan his moves. He was constantly giving feedback to his masters in Afghanistan.
Initially, he lived in the college hostel but after that he rented a ground-floor apartment in Lajpat Nagar. He arranged the explosives and improvised devices for carrying out the deadliest attack. He was at final stage of his mission. According to him everything was going well as per their plan. But here comes the twist and the intelligence plan in which he was already trapped and he was not even aware of it also, How it happened & When it happened?
It was an 18-month-long surveillance operation in Afghanistan, Dubai and New Delhi. As many as 80 Indian investigators and security personnel were deployed for “physical surveillance” during the peak one-month period of the operation to ensure that the target was never out of sight and did not slip away.
The operation began with sleuths of the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) tracking a suspicious transfer of $50,000 by individuals under their watch from Dubai to a location in Afghanistan and then linking the dots with intelligence shared by US about New Delhi being a possible target in the near future for an IS strike.
It was at this stage that a decision was taken to infiltrate the IS circuit. With a flow of telephone intercepts giving away details of the arrival of the bomber in New Delhi, a suitable candidate was picked for befriending the Afghan.
Infact, this Indian operative was the one who located the Lajpat Nagar safe house for the Afghan based IS agent. Initially a third-floor place was arranged, which was later changed to a ground-floor apartment. This Indian agent was further tasked by the security agencies to arrange for explosives for the New Delhi strike which he intentionally supplied him without triggers. It was at this stage, a multi-agency surveillance ring was thrown around the Lajpat Nagar house and the IS agent was nabbed.
The arrest by Indian agencies happened in New Delhi around September 2017 but it’s only now that top diplomatic and intelligence sources have confirmed details. The IS operative, was flown to Afghanistan days after he was arrested and is, at present, understood to be in custody at a key US military base in Afghanistan.
It was after his arrest that Indian agencies yielded that a group of 12 IS operatives were being sent after training in Pakistan to carry out bomb attacks in the region. Infact it is also indicated that the suicide bomb attack in the Manchester arena in UK on May 22, 2017, killing 23 people, could have been triggered by a member of the same IS group which included the Afghan picked up from New Delhi as the type of explosives he demanded in New Delhi were similar to the ones used in the Manchester blast.
In fact, Afghan bomber’s confessions and interrogations are seen as one of the possible reasons behind the string of successes achieved recently by US forces against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Bravo to the Indian counter-intelligence experts and US agents who averted the deadliest mission of IS.
Source : Indian Express
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