Kashmiri with IS in US custody? Officials await answer

Intelligence agencies in Jammu and Kashmir are verifying reports that a Kashmiri young man who joined the Islamic State is now in US Army custody in Syria in what could be the first such case from the Kashmir Valley.

The state government has reportedly forwarded to the Centre the application of Fayaz Ahmad, a departmental store owner who wants the government to bring his son Adil Ahmad back from captivity of the US Allied Forces.

The son apparently surrendered with many IS fighters to the US military in Syria.

A senior intelligence officer said: "We are verifying the father's plea that his son had joined the IS. We have requested our sister intelligence agencies to verify whether or not the Kashmiri boy, who had completed his MBA from Queensland in Australia, actually surrendered along with others to the US Allied Forces in Syria.

"All I can say is that the state government is trying its best to help the family," the officer said.

While studying in Australia, Adil Ahmad reportedly made contacts with some radical groups and in June 2013 left for Turkey and then to Syria to join the IS along with a Dutch woman whom he had married.

"The father claims that Adil's wife, through the Red Cross, somehow managed to inform his family that they were in the custody of the US Allied forces," said the officer.

--IANS

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