Al-Qaeda calls on Indians to carry out lone-wolf attacks in country

New Delhi: Just two days after a deadly terrorist attack at a popular Dhaka café killed 20 people, Al-Qaeda has asked Indians to carry out lone-wolf terror attacks in the country.

According to a report, the head of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) Asim Umar, issued a statement "inciting Indian Muslims to rise up and to follow the example of lone-wolves in Europe and kill administrative and police officers in India".

Read: US designates al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent as terror group

Al-Qaeda has attempted to recruit Indian Muslims for its operations over the last two years but has struggled to find good response.

US-based SITE Intelligence Group tracked the AQIS statement, putting Indian intelligence agencies on alert. Both Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS) have been trying to recruit Indians to carry out attacks in the country. So far, this has yielded little fruit as Indian intelligence has been cracking down on suspects assiduously. NIA and state police forces have arrested 54 ISIS members at the stage of planning.

Read: ISIS losses could spark more attacks, boost al-Qaeda: analysts

Umar's exhortation to Indian Muslims to carry out attacks comes four days after the US state department designated AQIS as a "foreign terrorist organisation" and added Umar to the list of "global terrorists".

Counter-terrorism officials feel that this the Al-Qaeda call is a cause for concern, because the organisation is competing with ISIS to recruit from India and establish themselves in India and Bangladesh.

But because neither Al-Qaeda nor ISIS have made much headway in their recruitment plans, the lone-wolf strategy is being pushed forward.

Asim Umar, whose real name is Sanaul Haq, belongs to Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal and moved to Pakistan in the 1990s. He was named the head of AQIS by the organisation’s chief Ayman Al Zawahiri in 2014.