Saheem Tanki’s family members had told the NIA earlier this month that they had received a phone call, from an unknown Iraqi number, informing them of his death. Saheem Tanki’s family members had told the NIA earlier this month that they had received a phone call, from an unknown Iraqi number, informing them of his death.

Images have surfaced online purporting to show Indian call centre employee-turned-Islamic State jihadist Saheem Tanki shortly before he reportedly launched a “suicide bombing” in the northeastern Syrian city of al-Hasaka earlier this month. The images were released on multiple platforms linked to Islamic State and appeared online late on Saturday night.

Tanki’s family members had told the National Investigation Agency (NIA) earlier this month that they had received a phone call, from an unknown Iraqi number, informing them of his death. The family has not communicated with Tanki for over two months, police sources said.

The photographs appear to resemble earlier images of Tanki but there is no means of corroborating their authenticity. NIA sources familiar with the case said they had not yet arrived at any conclusions about Tanki’s whereabouts or status.

In their online messages, Islamic State supporters have also recorded what they claim was Tanki’s last testament: an attack on Indian theologians for teaching Islam as a faith of “no jihad, only sabr (patience)”. Teachings such as these, Tanki’s purported testimony states, “are making our youth chocolate boys”.

The messages also contain Tanki’s last wish before his suicide mission: “Tell my mother to come on correct creed so we can meet in jannah (paradise; sic).”

The reference may be to the resentment Tanki and the three Thane men who travelled with him to join the Islamic State last year—Amaan Tandel, Fahad Shaikh, Areeb Majeed—appeared to have felt for their families.

The Indian Express had first reported on July 14, 2014 about their departure and a letter believed to have been written on their behalf and left behind by Majeed in which he decried their relatives for “sinning, smoking cigarettes, taking interest in watching TV, illegal sexual intercourse, living luxurious lives, intermingling of sexes, not praying, not growing beards”.

Majeed returned home to India nearly two months ago after sustaining combat injuries near Mosul, in Iraq, and is now in the custody of the NIA. He had earlier been reported to have been killed in fighting.

Islamic State supporters on Twitter have said that no video was made of the operation in which Tanki is said to have been killed. The decision, they claimed, was made at his own request. No date for the operation was provided, either.

However, intense fighting has been underway in al-Hasakah for several months, with the anti-Islamic State western coalition bombing jihadist positions around the town — a key transit point for cadre and logistics making their way through the porous Turkish border to Syria.

Fighting between Syrian government troops, Kurdish People’s Protection Force fighters and the Islamic State has also been taking place in villages just south of Hasakah.

Early this month, the Islamic State told residents of the villages it holds around al-Hasakah that it intended to impose a border between them and the government-held town within four weeks. Local media reported that the Islamic State was working to set up a new market town at Gharrat al-Waqiya, 40 km west of Hasakah, to meet the population’s needs.

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