Maldives, an island country situated in the Indian Ocean to the south of India and west of Sri Lanka,
It has become a major center of terrorism and drug smuggling. This has been disclosed by intelligence sources.
Top intelligence sources have told a channel that Maldives has become a major center not only for Islamic State (ISIS) operatives but also for Pakistan-based terrorist organizations and drug smugglers.
According to information received from intelligence sources, a Lashkar-e-Taiba base has also been identified in Maldives recently.
Speaking to CNN-News 18, intelligence sources said that drug trade is very common in the Maldivian islands and is linked to gangsters lodged in local jails.
He said, Maldives is facing Islamic fundamentalists who, in collaboration with some big business houses, are not only controlling the local governments but also funding them.
According to intelligence, in their greed to grow, such business houses have been attracted towards China’s Ministry of Internal Security (MSS) and Pakistan’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). According to him, many LeT leaders have settled in Maldives to expand their global activities.
After the intervention of the then Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram in 2010 for the safety of Indian tourists, it was decided that Maldives would not provide shelter to Lashkar terrorists after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in 2008. Despite this, not only Lashkar-e-Taiba has spread its foothold in Maldives but the black business of drug smuggling has also increased a lot. According to intelligence sources, narcotics and terrorist networks are often linked in South Asia.
According to him, key ISIS-K operative Omar Nisar Bhat (alias Qasim Khorasani) who was arrested by Indian agencies in 2021, said in his confession that he was in regular touch with Bangladesh and Maldives-based Islamic emirs (chiefs), And he was expanding the terrorist propaganda network there.
Khorasani was also in touch with Huzaifa al-Bakistani, a Pakistani national who was killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan. Sources said that after questioning him, the Indian agencies gave this data to the FBI and he was later arrested. Khorasani had told Indian agencies during interrogation that his main objective was to spread cyber propaganda and terrorist literature and for this reason he was in touch with the Maldives-based ISIS module. He was working on a mission against India.
According to officials involved in the interrogation of Khorasani, he was supposed to become an Ansari (soldier) due to material supplied by the Maldives-based ISIS chief, but was caught at an early stage.
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