Kerala man fighting for IS killed in Afghanistan

A Kerala man who went missing last year and later joined the Islamic State (IS) has been killed in an operation conducted by the Afghan-US forces in Afghanistan, a senior intelligence official said on Friday.

Saifuddin, the deceased person, is the second resident from Kerala to have been killed fighting for the IS in Afghanistan in the last fortnight, raising serious questions as to how the state's people are being influence by the Salafi ideology.

It has been learnt that Saifuddin was a resident of Kerala's Malappuram district, about 350 km from state capital Thiruvananthapuram.

Another Keralite Muhammad Muhasin, a resident of Edappal town in Malappuram, who joined the Islamic State in October 2017, also died in an American drone strike in Khorosan province of Afghanistan on July 18 along with Huzaifa-al-Bakistani, a key commander of the banned group.

Bakistani was a highly-trained Pakistani terrorist, who radicalised several Indian youth.

A number of people from Kerala, both men and women, have joined the Islamic State over the last few years.

According to government data, majority of the people who have joined IS from Kerala are from Kannur city.

Security agencies have been able to track 98 cases of men, women and children from Kerala joining the IS. As on June 15 this year, nearly 40 people, including eight women, from Kannur have joined the Islamic State out of which 38 have died.

Besides Kannur, some misguided people from Kasaragod, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Palakkad, Eranakulam and Thrissur have also joined the Islamic State after being influenced by social media.

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