Cannon fodder for ISIS

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar believes the ISIS is the best user of Internet technology in promoting its cause and recruiting warriors for its worldwide jihad. He has called for enhancing the country’s capabilities in information and communications technology (ICT) to face this threat. However, the ISIS does not seem to consider South Asians including Indians, good enough to fight in the conflict zones of Iraq and Syria. Foreign intelligence agencies are sharing inputs with Indian agencies that fighters from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh as well as those from African countries like Nigeria and Sudan are being used as disposable suicide bombers. Treated as inferior to Arab fighters, they are often tricked by ISIS handlers to drive explosives laden vehicles towards a target and call a certain number. When they dial the number with the expectation that ‘another operative will come to explain the mission’, a pre-set mechanism is activated and the vehicle explodes. Thus used as cannon fodder in the frontlines, the casualty rates of South Asian and African fighters are said to be disproportiotely high, even as they are housed in small barracks, provided inferior equipment and paid less than Arab fighters. Their passports are said to be destroyed to prevent them going back to their countries. Recruits from South Asia are also supposedly brainwashed with the fear of ‘djinns’, which will haunt them if they fail in their missions and run away from battle. As many as 23 Indians are said to have joined the ISIS frontlines, with six of them confirmed dead by now. And all this sacrifice despite being at the bottom of the ISIS hierarchy!

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Sentinel Assam
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