A 23-year-old engineering student from Kerala, who joined Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) in 2018, died fighting in Afghanistan, according to the latest issue of Voice of Khurasan, the ISKP’s publication.
The latest issue of the magazine identified the Indian national as Najeeb Al Hindi and described him as a 23-year-old MTech student from Kerala. The published piece didn’t give any details about Najeeb or under what circumstances he was killed. The article reads, “He was very quiet and spoke when needed, with always a smile on his face, he never complained about the difficult life of mountains, the only thing going on in his mind was Shahadah.”
The article further reads, “Najeeb had come to Khorasan—the area of Afghanistan where ISKP is based—from the Southern Indian state of Kerala on his own. It was very difficult for him to survive in the difficult terrain.”
The article does not exactly mention how the Keralite was killed but some media reports in Kerala’s local newspapers claimed that he died fighting the Taliban forces who have launched an offensive against ISKP. Since the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban in August 2021, clashes between the Islamic State and the Taliban had increased. The Taliban claim that they have killed most of the fighters of ISKP and forced others to flee to the remote mountains.
It is assumed that many men and women from Kerala have joined the ISKP in the last five years. A few have died in fighting or by drone strikes conducted by countries during the Syrian and Afghan conflict. In 2019, during a military operation against ISKP by Afghan forces in Nangarhar province roughly two dozen Indian nationals—13 fighters and the rest women and children—were captured.