At least five persons from Kerala were killed while fighting for the Islamic State group in Syria in the past four months, according to intelligence agencies.
The latest incident to come to light is the death of Sibi, who hails from Kanjikode in Palakkad. Sibi's relatives came to know of his death two days ago. He had been working in Bahrain, and it is being suspected that he might have known Yahya alias Esa, who had left in July last year to join the ISIS, the Times of India reported.
In another incident, Muhadis, hailing from Vandoor in Malappuram, was also killed at Aleppo in Syria. Muhadis' family had shifted to Vaniyambalam about five years back. He is suspected to have died during a military attack in February. Vaniyambalam residents, who did not seem to know much about Muhadi, recalled him as a "silent" and "well-mannered" person, the newspaper reported. They added that they had no idea of him having "terror links".
Another person by the name Challad, hailing from Kannur, is also suspected to have died in Syria, in addition to one person from Vadakara in Kozhikode and another from Kondotty in Malappuram district. People in the police circle call them them as the 'Bahrain group'.
Reports say that last month, one Abu Thahir from Palakkad, who had joined an ally of the ISIS, was killed in Syria. Also, four others were killed in Afghanistan. This Afghan group aims to propagate the ideology of the Islamic State group among Malayalis via social media platforms.
The Syrian group was engaged in actual fighting while the group in Afghanistan was helping the jihadis in various capacities, the TOI report said. The members of the Afghan group got killed in a surprise attack by the US forces.
