On Saturday, the Islamic State terror group has announced that it has set up a new "province" in India. The Islamic State, which is also known by the acronym ISIS or ISIL, made the announcement through its Amaq News Agency. The terror group has named the new branch as "Wilayah of Hind" (India Province) in Arabic.

Rita Katz, the director of the SITE Intel Group’s that tracks Islamic extremists, posted on Twitter: "ISIS declares its new ‘Hind Province’ while claiming clashes with Indian forces in Amshipora. Of course, the establishment of a 'province' in a region where it has nothing resembling actual governance is absurd, but it should not be written off."

However, a senior Jammu and Kashmir police officer has rejected the claim. 

While ISIS did not elaborate on the branch's geographical remit as it mentioned the name of its new branch in a low-key announcement, it is seen as part of its overall strategy of establishing affiliate bases in other parts of the world following territorial losses in the Middle East.

The terror group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had talked about such moves in the past.

The brief ISIS statement of May 10 via the messaging app Telegram said that the Islamic State militants using machine guns had clashed with the Indian security forces in the village of Amshipora in Kashmir's Shopian district, killing or injuring a number of them. ISIS had announced its presence in Kashmir first in November 2017 when it claimed attacks on Indian security forces in Kashmir.