He Graduated As The First Indian Suicide Bomber From ISIS Training School

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Nov 17, 2015:  In August last year, 23-year-old Arib Fayyaz Majeed, a civil engineer by training, set out for what was meant to be a suicide attack on Iraq and against the Kurdish Army positions in Mosul city.

 

It was his first attempt at a suicide bombing. Thrice more, he would try to blow himself up and would fail each time.

Arib, from Panvel in Maharashtra, was the first Indian graduate from terror group ISIS’ training school as a fidayeen or suicide bomber.

Back home now, Arib detailed his failed attempts to his interrogators, whose report NDTV has accessed.

Arib said the August attack was thwarted by an air raid the previous day, which destroyed the explosive-laden vehicle that he was to have rammed into the Army positions.

Days later, in September 2014, he tried a similar suicide mission on a Kurdish Army position in Rabea. As he was racing towards his target, the Kurds hit his killer vehicle, damaging and immobilising it.

In the gunbattle that followed, Arib was shot, but ISIS fighters rescued him and he survived.

He set off for his third attempt not long after, this time in Talal Huwa in Iraq. "I moved towards the Kurdish Army, but the Hummer car (laden with explosives) was hit by a 23 caliber anti-aircraft gun from which they were continuously firing at my car," Arib told interrogators.

Injured again and forced to get out of his immobile vehicle, Arib said he decided to continue fighting and blow up his suicide vest after he ran out of ammunition, but his commander - an ISIS fighter called Abu Sadik - forced him to withdraw.

"I tried my best to die as a martyr but was unable to achieve martyrdom," Arib told interrogators, explaining why he had gone to Syria, where, he said, he also used his civil engineering skills to build underground bunkers in and around Raqqa, controlled by the ISIS, which is now under severe aerial bombardment.

Arib left Mumbai along with four friends on May 24, 2014. He returned to India last November and has been in custody since. He was questioned by the security agencies and is now being prosecuted for several offences, including waging war against a friendly state - Syria.

 

Courtesy: NDTV