The man believed to be in-charge of recruiting Indians to the Islamic State was killed a few days ago in a US drone strike in Syria. "We have learnt about his death. We are gathering more details. The final confirmation and details may take time as it is difficult to get information from Syria, where IS has presence, but it's big news," said a top official.

Mohammad Shafi Armar, aka Yousuf, who had reportedly become an important ally of IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and was helping establish the outfit in India. Shafi, a native of Bhatkal in Karnataka is learnt to have recruited at least 30 men for the group.

According to some IS recruits arrested by the NIA, Delhi Police and police forces of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala, Shafi planned to establish an IS unit in every Indian state.

The 26-year-old took over as the head of IS in India last year after his brother Sultan Armar, who was heading the outfit's India franchise was killed in March 2015 by a US drone.

Authorities came to know about the duo's IS links in 2013 emerged during the interrogation of Yasin Bhatkal, the head of the Indian Mujahideen.

It is suspected that Shafi was in touch with at least 600-700 Indian youngsters on closed Facebook groups and messaging platforms like Trillion, Surespot, WhatsApp and Skype over the past one year, and may have recruited some men for the outfit. He even arranged funds - through transfers and hawala transactions for IS recruits

Security agencies believe, with the death of Shafi might have left the IS in India 'headless' for now.