NEW DELHI: Mohammed Naser Packeer - who hails from Thanjavur and is being interrogated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) after his deportation from Sudan - was part of large network of ISIS sympathisers and recruiters operating from Khartoum in Sudan.
Express first broke the story last week about the Tamil Nadu youth’s deportation for his ISIS link.
According to senior officials in the security establishment, Naser had launched several radical web pages during his stay in Al Dhahirah in Oman, which helped him establish contact with an ISIS recruiter who was also acting as facilitator for foreigners.
Khartoum is being seen as launchpad for foreign jihadist travelling to Syria, Iraq via Turkey and Libya through the Great Sahara desert. Since last year, at least 70 Sudanese youth are suspected to have used the same network to travel to Syria, Iraq and Libya to join the terror outfit.
ISIS controls Sirte, a coastal city in northern Libya with an estimated 2,000 terrorists in its unit. They manage the city on the lines of the ISIS headquarter Al Raqqa in Syria.
Sources said Naser, who has been remanded in 12-day NIA custody, was planning to go to Libya along with Moroccan and Russian recruits. However, Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services, which is keeping a watch on ISIS network was able to detain them. A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Naser’s father works in Dubai and was issued an Indian passport, but he refused to divulge more details about his stay in Al Dhahirah and the subsequent travel to Sudan.
It is not yet clear whether the recruiter was among those detained by the Sudanese authorities.