KOZHIKODE: Intelligence agencies have found out that at least five Malayalis from Kerala’s Malabar region have been killed while fighting for the Islamic State in Syria in the past four months. With this the number of Malayalis killed in the IS stronghold has risen to 10.Information on the death of Sibi from Kanjikkode in Palakkad reached his relatives two days ago. Further details of Sibi, who was working in Bahrain, is not immediately available. It is suspected that he had links with Yahya alias Esa, who left to join the IS in July last year.Another person killed in Aleppo in Syria is Muhadis, hailing from Vandoor in Malappuram district. His family was shifted to Vaniyambalam around five years ago. Sources told TOI that his brother Manaf, who was working in Bahrain, came to Malappuram one month ago to tell the family about the death of Muhadis. It is suspected that he was killed in the military operations in Aleppo in last February.Local residents in Vaniyambalam do not know much about Muhadis and his family. “He appeared to be very silent and well-mannered. We didn’t know about his terror links or any other organizational links,” said a person from the locality.A person hailing from Chalad in Kannur is also suspected to be killed in Syria. Two more people, one from Vadakara in Kozhikode district and another from Kondotty in Malappuram district, are also believed to have been killed in Syria. All these people are branded as ‘Bahrain group’ in the police circles.Hafisudeen, Murshid and Yahya from Padne in Kasaragod district and Shajeer Mangalassery Abdulla have been killed in Nangarhar in Afghanistan in the last two months. Abu Thahir from Palakkad, who joined the Jabahat al-Nusra, an ally of the IS, was killed in Syria last month.Sources said that the group which joined the IS in Syria, unlike the 21-member group in Afghanistan, were the frontline soldiers of the terror organization. “The Syrian group was engaged in actual fighting while the group in Afghanistan was helping the jihadis in various capacities. The members of the Afghan group got killed in the surprise attack by the US forces,” they said.The Afghan group is mainly engaged in propagating the IS ideology among the potential recruits among Malayalis through social media. Abdul Rasheed, a member of Afghan group, had released around 30 audio clips from the strongholds through ‘Message to Kerala’, a WhatsApp group created by him.