Al Qaeda grooming Indian militants

• IM members are training with Al Qaeda & other groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan: Intelligence agencies
• The thing we are looking for is how Al Qaeda/ISIS will tie up with local groups, say the Agencies

New Delhi: Decrypted communications between Indian Mujahideen (IM) and Al Qaeda and testimony from suspects have triggered alarm among intelligence officials in New Delhi: the groups appear to be working together to launch major attacks in the region.

The officials told Reuters that plots they had uncovered included the kidnapping of foreigners and turning India into a "Syria and Iraq where violence is continuously happening".Allegiances between Islamist militant groups can be murky and fleeting, and providing concrete proof of operational ties is notoriously difficult. But Indian security agencies said evidence they had gathered pointed to growing ties between Al Qaeda and IM, a home-grown movement hitherto known for low-level attacks on local targets using relatively crude weapons like pressure cooker bombs.

Weeks after Al Qaeda announced the formation of a South Asia wing to strike across the subcontinent, agencies said they had discovered IM members were training with al Qaeda and other groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan for major attacks. "The thing we are looking for is how al Qaeda/ISIS tie up with local groups, especially as the drawdown takes place in Afghanistan," said Sharad Kumar, head of the National Investigation Agency (NIA).