Once again Islamic State (IS) has threatened to expand its war against India and ‘reconquer’ Kashmir for Muslims from ‘the cow-worshipping Hindus’. In an interview published in the 13th issue of ‘Dabiq’ allegedly given by Hafiz Saeed Khan, the emir of Khorasan (Pak-Afghan area), the IS propaganda magazine has labelled the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) as an apostate and claimed that ‘specific arrangements have been made to expand the caliphate in the region’. The Khorasan region historically extends from the present day Iran to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and China. “It (Kashmir) had once been under the authority of Muslims along with the regions surrounding it. Afterwards, the secularist…the cow-worshiping Hindus and atheist Chinese conquered other nearby regions, as is the case in parts of Kashmir and Turkistan,” Saeed has reportedly said in the interview to the magazine. The news item referring to the interview has been carried out by several media outlets in India. This is the second time that the IS faction in the Af-Pak region has threatened to expand war in Kashmir and India. A few months ago, the group targeted the Pakistan Army over exploiting various Islamic organisations on the issue of Kashmir for their personal interests. Though security agencies have so far ruled out any serious threat in Kashmir from the Islamic State, youths have been seen displaying the IS flags during protests in the Kashmir valley, worrying the security agencies and the State Police. Security agencies also see this as an open threat and a challenge to the LeT and the Hizbul Mujahideen, operating in Kashmir and carrying out attacks against civilian and military targets since the eruption of insurgency in 1990. It could also fuel a sectarian conflict in Jammu and Kashmir as the IS follows an anti-Shia, Salafist ideology and has killed Shias and other ethnic groups in Syria and Iraq.
