Arrest of 2 operatives confirms origin of Amir Umar

After the arrest of the two suspected operatives of Al-Qaeda, it is now official that Maulana Asim Umar, alias Sanaul Haque, is an ‘Indian’ origin and hails from Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh. 

“A small town guy is now a frontier of Islamic Jehad towards the entire South Asian continent including India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan with India being the centerpiece of action,” an official said quoting the revelation of one of the arrested accused.

Since, a video was released by Al-Qaeda leader — Ayman Al-Zawahiri in September 2014 introducing Amir Umar as the leader of the network’s new operation which will try to rouse fighters in India, Bangladesh and Myanmar, the intelligence agencies were trying to find out about the background of Umar, on whom several books were also written.

After the video was released, the intelligence agencies were monitoring and scrutinising his videos. The manner in which he speaks Urdu is very Indian like and this gave clues about his Indian origin. Several persons questioned in Uttar Pradesh were unable to confirm his origin for the want of a face.

Umar being an Indian origin was made the leader after the Delhi Police Special Cell arrested Mohammed Asif (41), who is believed to be one of the founding members and the Indian head of Al-Qaeda in the Indian sub-continent’s (AQIS) motivation, recruitment and training wing and another operative — Abdul Rehman (37). Millennium Post was the first to report about the arresting of the duo operatives. As reported, they were planning a terror strike in Delhi-NCR in the near future, the duo has confessed about such planning during the interrogation.

Asif, in his interrogation told police that in 2012, he got enamoured with terrorist tanzzems like Harkat-Ul-Mujahidin (HuM), ultimately evolving into a pan-Eurasian vision of Jehad being espoused by the dreaded international terrorist Tanzeem Al-Qaeda. While being an active operative in terror outfits, he was influenced by Umar and since then Asif wanted to be the Umar of AQIS. Soon after, one Qasim (code name), a deputy of Umar and also a resident of Sambhal motivated Asif to make a visit to Pakistan and extended invitation on behalf of Umar.

In 2013, Asif along with two recruited youth went to Teheran, Iran. They entered Iran from Sarawan, by crossing Iran-Pakistan border on foot with the help of Qasim. Asif was the first visitor from India who got to know the real face of mysterious Umar.

“Umar then discussed his hijirat, that is emigration from Sambhal in 1995 which had led him to HuM and his long story of 20 years as a top fighter, who had risen from the ranks and was poised to be anointed as the Amir of AQIS by none else than Ayam Al Zawahiri,” Asif told police.

The arrest of Asif and Rehman is a major achievement for Delhi Police, central Intelligence Agencies and UP ATS who conducted a joint operation to nab them. Asif’s arrest will provide crucial leads to the infiltration and expanse of AQIS in India and the neighbouring countries,” Arvind Deep, Special Commissioner of police (Special Cell) said.