Concerns That Al Qaeda is Grooming Indian Militants for Big Attacks

New Delhi: Decrypted communications between Indian Mujahideen (IM) and Al Qaeda, as well as testimony from suspects, have triggered concern among intelligence officials in New Delhi: the groups appear to be working together to launch major attacks in the region.

The officials told news agency Reuters that plots they have uncovered included the kidnapping of foreigners and turning India into a "Syria and Iraq where violence is continuously happening".

"The thing we are looking for is how Al Qaeda/ISIS tie up with local groups, especially as the drawdown takes place in Afghanistan," said Sharad Kumar, head of the NIA (National Investigation Agency), the country's main counter-terrorism arm.

As evidence that militant coordination and activity are on the rise, security officials cite the weekend's suicide attack on the Pakistani side of the border crossing at Wagah, and a terror alert on Tuesday at the Kolkata post that forced the navy to withdraw two ships.

Allegiances between Islamist militant groups can be murky and fleeting, and providing concrete proof of operational ties is notoriously difficult.

But Indian security agencies said evidence they have gathered points to growing ties between Al Qaeda and the IM, a home-grown movement which has used relatively crude weapons like pressure cooker bombs but executed several major terror attacks in the last few years.

Weeks after Al Qaeda announced the formation of a South Asia wing to strike across the subcontinent, agencies said they had discovered IM members were training with Al Qaeda and other groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan for major attacks.

A chargesheet against 11 suspected members of the Mujahideen, prepared by the NIA, has gathered hundreds of pieces of evidence of Internet conversations and meetings between militants in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Internet chats, which the United States helped Indian investigators to decipher, reveal tensions between IM and Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which India says has nurtured the group with finance and equipment.

In one conversation, Riaz Bhatkal, one of the founders of IM now based in the Pakistani city of Karachi, tells his men that it was important to build direct ties with al Qaeda, cutting out Pakistan agents whom he described as "dogs".

He talks about visiting Al Qaeda leaders in the tribal belt on the Afghan-Pakistan border, despite ISI orders not to do so.

"It has been clear for some time that there is no group that is fully within ISI control. They are all itching for independent action, some want to have a go at us immediately," said an Indian security official.

Pakistani officials deny they have links with the militants.

On Sunday, at least 57 Pakistanis were killed in a suicide bombing at Wagah, near the Indian border, which the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat Ahrar group, whose leader has ties to al Qaeda, said was also aimed at India.

On Twitter, a spokesman issued a direct warning to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying his group would avenge the killings of Muslims in Kashmir and Gujarat, which was governed by Mr Modi for nearly 13 years.