ISIL Extending Activities to South Asia: Pakistani Analyst
KARACHI (Tasnim) – The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group is extending its activities to South Asia with the help from its invisible supporters, a Pakistani analyst said.
"The presence of the ISIL terrorist group in Pakistan is undeniable," Minhaj Mousavi told the Tasnim News Agency, adding that the group's area of influence is extending from the Middle East to South Asia and that "they have also formally announced their presence in Pakistan."
Mousavi said ISIL follows a special policy for increasing its influence in the region's countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.
He further noted that "shadow supporters" of ISIL militants have been paving the ground for the group's presence in South Asian countries.
His remarks came after the recently formed South Asian chapter of ISIL, titled "Khorasan", made a military alliance with the Pakistani Taliban and other militants to resist the country's security forces.
The involvement of "ISIL Khorasan" in the alliance represents the group's first political and military activity in the region after announcing its formation in a video posted on militant websites on January 10.
ISIL is a terrorist group believed to be supported by the West and some regional Arab countries.
The extremist group, which controls parts of Syria's northern territory, sent its fighters into neighboring Iraq in June 2014, quickly seizing large swaths of land straddling the border between the two countries.
The terrorist group claims as an independent state the territory of Iraq and Syria, with implied future claims intended over more of the Levant, including Lebanon, occupied Palestine, Jordan, Cyprus, and southern Turkey.
