India launches probe against 2 brothers indicted by Grand Jury in US

New Delhi/ Washington, Nov 9: Indian agencies and the Intelligence Bureau are investigating to see if the two Indian brothers who were indicted in the United States of America for providing support to the al-Qaeda had funded any jihadi activity locally.

The two brothers- Hyderabad-born Yahya Farooq Mohammad and Ibrahim Zubair Mohammad are alleged to have had links with the al-Qaeda the indictment by the Grand Jury in the US states.

The brothers have been on the radar of the FBI for almost four to five years. However Indian officials when asked about the case say that not once had the FBI shared any information relating to the two youth with India.

No one from the FBI approached us for details on them despite their country of origin being India, the officer also pointed out.

A background on 2 brothers:

Farooq who studied at the Osmania University between 1995 and 1999. He then moved to Louisiana and in the year 2002 obtained a Master's degree in electrical engineering. In the year 2006 he moved to the United Arab Emirates and took up a job as project manager in a reputed firm.

Zubair studied engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He then moved to Toledo and got married. The two brothers however stayed in touch via email and it was here that the FBI picked up the trail while finding that they communicated a lot about the al-Qaeda. The first of the emails was traced by the FBI in 2008.

The FBI stated that the two brothers had regular exchanges of emails. There was a trail to suggest that they had even raised money for Anwar al-Awlakki a powerful ideologue of the al-Qaeda. It was stated that they were sending out money to the al-Qaeda raised through various sources.

Why is India interested?

India has several reasons to be interested in the case against the two brothers. For one they both hail from India. Secondly it is an email conversation between the two brothers who speaks of India.

The 2005 conversation between the brothers states that the Muslims in India are our brothers. Our attitude towards them will never be subservient attitude for them. There is a time for dawah, and a time for jihad.

Indian officials say that there is nothing as of now to suggest that the two brothers were involved in activities in India. The case has all been prepared by the FBI and we have to probe further specific to the Indian link.

The FBI has stated that Farooq was instructed to hand over 22 thousand US dollars to an aide of Awlaki and the money had been raised fraudulently.

OneIndia News