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Indian ISIS returnee to face US Intel grilling
Highlights
Sleuths of US intelligence agencies are likely to question Arif Majeed, who returned home after being associated with ISIS in Iraq and Syria, as he is believed to have loads of information about the group running a reign of terror in the region.
New Delhi: Sleuths of US intelligence agencies are likely to question Arif Majeed, who returned home after being associated with ISIS in Iraq and Syria, as he is believed to have loads of information about the group running a reign of terror in the region.
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Official sources said the US, which is fighting a battle against ISIS, is keen to know about activities of the terrorist group and Arif could give inputs about the ground situation in the territory the outfit holds on.
Arif has told interrogators that even though he was a civil engineer, he was deployed to work in Mosul dam as a mason following instructions from some ISIS leaders. He was injured while working at the dam following an aerial attack, the sources said.
The dam is the largest in Iraq and located on the Tigris river. For several weeks in July and August, ISIS held Mosul dam.
On August 17, the Kurdish and Iraqi military launched a successful operation to retake control of the dam from ISIS.
The US air strikes assisted the Kurdish and Iraqi army.
After his stint at the Mosul dam, Arif had moved to Rakka or ar-Raqqah, a Syrian town located on the north bank of the Euphrates river, which is now under the control of ISIS.
At Rakka, Arif was given an AK-47 rifle but soon he was injured for the second time due to splinter fire.
During interrogation, Arif has said that apart from him and three other Mumbai youth, he had met one more Indian- origin youth who joined the ISIS. That youth had come from one of the Gulf countries, the sources said.
According to the sources, Arif told interrogators that he does not regret going to Iraq-Syria to fight for ISIS but returned home as he was unable to resist family pressure, which he termed as mistake.
He, however, said that he was disheartened as he only cleaned toilets and worked as a mason and was given no role in the actual fight.
Arif said the other three boys from the Mumbai suburb, from where all of them belong, were kept in different cities.
He has given details of latest location of the other three boys and claimed that they too were not involved in actual fighting but given manual works like cooking for ISIS fighters, the sources said.
Arif said the ISIS leaders told him that the Indian youths' physique was not adequate to fight a war.
He crossed over to Turkey to get treatment for his bullet injuries and contacted family members from there.
The sources said the National Investigation Agency was keen to conduct a narco analysis on Arif but would do only when he gives his consent.
The family members have been given full access to Arif and he is getting home cooked food in the custody, they said.
Arif will be given psychological and other clinical help to come out of his ordeal, they added. Arif, who was believed to have been killed while fighting for ISIS in Syria, was arrested on Friday hours after he landed in the metropolis.
In May, four youths from Kalyan - Shaheen Tanki, Fahad Shaikh and Aman Tandel, besides Arif - had left India to visit holy places in the West Asia, but they disappeared thereafter and since then were suspected to have joined the Sunni extremist group.
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