Islamic State establishes ‘province’ in India for the first time after clash in Kashmir region

The militant group’s news agency announced the province, ‘Wilayah of Hind’, in a statement that also claimed Islamic State inflicted casualties on Indian army soldiers in a town in Kashmir region

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An illustration of the Islamic State flag. Photo: Reuters

Published: 7:29pm, 11 May 2019Updated: 7:29pm, 11 May 2019

Islamic State (IS) claimed for the first time that it has established a “province” in India, after a clash between militants and security forces in the contested Kashmir region killed a militant with alleged ties to the group.

IS’ Amaq News Agency late on Friday announced the new province, that it called “Wilayah of Hind”, in a statement that also claimed IS inflicted casualties on Indian army soldiers in the town of Amshipora in the Shopian district of Kashmir.

The IS statement corresponds with an Indian police statement on Friday that a militant called Ishfaq Ahmad Sofi was killed in an encounter in Shopian.

IS’s statement establishing the new province appears to be designed to bolster its standing after the group was driven from its self-styled “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in April, where at one point it controlled thousands of miles of territory.

The chief of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, seen in a propaganda video. Photo: AFP

IS has stepped up hit-and-run raids and suicide attacks, including taking responsibility for the Easter Sunday bombing in Sri Lanka that killed at least 253 people.

“The establishment of a ‘province’ in a region where it has nothing resembling actual governance is absurd, but it should not be written off,” said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intel Group that tracks Islamic extremists.