Islamic State group attempted suicide attacks in India last year: US Official

New Delhi : ISIS-K, the Khorasan group of terrorist organization ISIS, active in South Asia is believed to have attempted a suicide attack in India, a top American official has told lawmakers.

"Of all of the branches and networks of ISIS, ISIS-K is certainly one of those of most concern, probably in the neighbourhood of 4,000 individuals or so," Russel Travers, Acting Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said in response to a question from Indian-origin Senator Maggie Hassan.

"They have attempted to certainly inspire attacks outside of Afghanistan. They attempted last year to conduct a suicide attack in India. It failed," Travers said when Hassan asked about the ability of ISIS-K to carry out terrorist attacks in the region.

Last week, Travers had claimed that ISIS is spreaded across the globe with more than 20 branches, some of which are using sophisticated technology such as drones to conduct operations. Despite America’s key victories against the ISIS in Syria and Iraq, the terror outfit remains a deadly threat to the United States, Senator Hassan said.

"Eighteen years later, we face a homegrown violent extremist threat, almost 20 ISIS branches and networks that range from tens to hundreds to thousands of people, al-Qaeda and its branches and affiliates, foreign fighters that flocked to Iraq and Syria from well over 100 countries, Iran and its proxies, and there is a growing terrorist threat from racially and ethnically motivated extremists around the globe," Travers said.

Travers also said that al-Qaeda retains its long-standing ties to the Haqqani Network and other militant networks active in Afghanistan and Pakistan that frequently target US personnel.