• Executive Summary: India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested over 180 people in 2023 for involvement in jihadist terror cases, 65 of which were associated specifically with IS, as part of a broader strategy to disrupt IS’s influence in India. 
• In December 2023 alone, the NIA conducted widespread raids across the country, arresting dozens of individuals linked to Islamic State (IS) networks and seizing weapons, explosives, and propaganda materials.

Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian businessman originally from Pakistan, was convicted in a US court in 2011. Rana was charged with providing material support to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Pakistan and for conspiring to attack the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s offices in Copenhagen and Aarhus. This followed their publishing of controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammed in 2005. In 2013, Rana was sentenced to 14 years in a US prison. [1] Rana, however, was acquitted of a third charge, which had alleged his involvement in the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.

ABSTRACT 

In mid-2022, Bangladeshi police stumbled upon a burgeoning Islamist militant conglomerate called Jamaatul-Ansar-fil-Hindal Sharqiya (Assembly of the Helpers in the East of India, or “Jamaatul Ansar”) while investigating youth disappearances in the country. More than 50 youths have reportedly left their homes to join Islamist groups under the pretext of religious migration (hijra) in the last two years (Parthom Alo, September 25, 2022).

On February 17, the Indian government banned the Kashmir-centric Islamic militant group called the Jammu and Kashmir Ghaznavi Force (JKGF) (egazette.nic.in, February 17). A relatively new entrant in the Kashmir landscape, JKGF emerged as a hybrid strike unit comprised of highly trained cadres of Pakistan-based Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen (TuM), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and Jaish-e-Muhammed (JeM).

As Rohingya refugee camps near the Naf river (which partially separates Bangladesh and Myanmar) become hubs for organized crime and militants, Bangladeshi authorities fear spillover effects for Bangladesh and for the region more broadly. Refugee camps have mushroomed along Bangladesh’s southeastern border since August 2017 as a result of the Rohingya exodus from Myanmar’s Rakhine State. However, now these refugee camps are becoming havens for crime, replete with gang violence, targeted killings, and the trafficking of drugs, firearms, and counterfeit currency.

On April 21, amid an unprecedented economic meltdown, political turmoil, and social unrest, Sri Lanka observed the third anniversary of the Islamic State (IS)-claimed Easter Sunday terror attacks. To mark the occasion, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa promised once again to punish those behind the carnage that killed 260 people and injured over 500, who were mostly Christian worshippers at Easter services, foreign nationals, and tourists in hotels. Rajapaksa reiterated his government’s commitment to ensure justice for all the victims of the Easter terror attacks.

In July 2021, Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH), the Al Qaeda linked Kashmir jihadist group, came to the limelight when several suspected militant members were arrested in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (UP). This was a significant breakthrough as, for the first time, suspected AGH operatives were arrested beyond their usual operating ground, Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Interrogations have found that detained militants planned to carry out suicide bombings in different parts of the state. The police had identified them as Shakeel, Mohammad Mustakeem, Mohammad Moid, Minhaz Ahmed and Maseeruddin.