The five ISIS terror suspects, including brothers Ibrahim and Ilyas Yazdani, have confessed to National Investigation Agency and Telangana Intelligence officials that they had planned “mass killings” in Hyderabad before Id.
There ISIS handler, Shafi Armar, was to give them final instructions on making live bombs from Syria over Skype or video call in one of their houses. “Shafi used to show how to make the bombs and they used electronic scales to weigh the IED ingredients,” said an official.
They were awaiting orders from Shafi and had tentatively fixed the evening of Saturday, July 2 to carry out the terror strikes in Hyderabad.
Intelligence sources said, “They had purchased fire arms and some explosives in Maharashtra and other chemicals... They had gloves, masks, electronic balance and other material
for IEDs. This shows that they were ready to strike. Their target was Inorbit Mall, the IT corridor, police stations, temples and crowded places.”
Ibrahim, Ilyas and Fahad, were to take instructions online from Shafi a day or two before the target date as the chemical-based IEDs are unstable and should be made only a few hours ahead of the attack, like it was done in Paris and Brussels.
According to sources, Shafi had sent ISIS manuals on making IEDs using kitchen and household stuff and another manual describing using Hydrogen Peroxide and fertilizer bombs to the Hyderabad suspects. The accused had also downloaded few of the material from the Internet.
“Their target was Inorbit Mall, the IT corridor, police stations, temples and crowded places. They had identified 26 localities. They were also planning to eliminate three leaders of a right-wing group or party. They went to Nanded to buy weapons. They also visited Rajasthan and Anantapur to meet the mediators but no one met them,” said an official.
As per previous confessions of ISIS suspects, including Sirajuddin of Karnataka, the doctrine of ISIS is that Kashmir doesn’t belong India or Pakistan, bit to the ISIS. A senior police official said, “Lashkar-e-Tayyaba had a similar agenda of liberating Kashmir, Hyderabad and Junagadh initially. Likewise, IS took up the same strategy and wanted to focus on Hyderabad.”
NIA’s legal interception of calls of Ibrahim Yazdani and others on June 24 had revealed that they had already tested the IED. In one of the intercepts, the suspects used code language like ‘Bail ka doodh leke aao (get the bull’s milk)”, asking to bring certain bomb material. Investigators have ruled out the suicide bomb angle in the case.
