The fate of at least 21 Indians who had left Kerala under mysterious circumstances and suspected to have joined ISIS in Afghanistan, is unknown after United States dropped bomb on Islamic State target in Nangarhar on Thursday.
The US military on Thursday dropped a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), nicknamed as "Mother Of All Bombs" on a tunnel complex of ISIS-Khorasan, a regional affiliate of the terror group, in Achin district of Afghanistan's Nanagarh province, close to the Pakistani border.
21 persons including 17 from Kasaragod and four from Palakkad had gone missing on August 8, 2016. They include four women and three children. Their disappearance came to light after the families approached officials in Kasaragod.
However, Hafeesuddin TK, one of the youths was reportedly killed in a drone strike at Nangarhar in Afghanistan on February 26. According to multiple media reports, those youths were last spotted in Nangarhar which was peppered with MOAB on Thursday. Their fate is currently unknown.
According to General John Nicholson, commander of US Forces in Afghanistan: "As ISIS-Khorasan's (ISIS-K) losses have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers and tunnels to thicken their defence, this is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of US offensive against ISIS-K.
A total of 75 people in Indian have been arrested for alleged links with dreaded terror group ISIS.
In 2016, a mobile phone and a memory card, recovered by National Investigation Agency (NIA) officials from Yasmin Ahmed, the alleged female recruiter of Islamic State (IS), had apparently revealed the blueprint of the plans that the dreaded terror outfit had in store for Kerala.
"From the conversations, it appear that the Afghanistan-based recruiter had convinced Yasmin that the other missing persons from Kerala had safely reached Afghanistan through Iran. Yasmin herself was supposed to take a direct flight from Delhi to Kabul," the official had said.
With PTI inputs
