Indian Defence Review

In today’s context when we talk of international terrorism, we invariably refer to Islamic/jehadi terrorism. Unfortunately, the response to this, described as the global war on terror, is neither global, nor is it against terror. It seems restricted to handling the problem in only one part of the globe against targets that are unevenly defined. The war either in Afghanistan or in Iraq, is not about defeating terror because both have created more terrorists than it destroyed. An over-militarised response has given it the wrong description of a war on terror whereas one should be thinking in terms of counter-terrorism.

The battle has become globalised capitalism versus global Islam. One is affluent, powerful, politically empowered mainly Christian but running out of resources; the other is poor, politically un-empowered and Muslim, and resource rich. Both find nationalistic politics an impediment to their progress because nationalism impedes economic domination and theological control. The former wants unhindered access to finance, markets and resources required to retain its primacy while the other strives for Islamic Caliphates, which practice a puritan Islam and return to former glory.

Suicide terrorism is the latest weapon in the armoury of the terrorists. Although non-Muslims, like the LTTE in Sri Lanka, had used this weapon even before the jehadis did, the incidence of suicide terrorism has been on the rise since 2001.

To the Muslim world, Osama bin Laden is not necessarily the devil incarnate that is perceived in the rest of the world. Osama had promised to deliver his followers from centuries of oppression and humiliation by the West and by their own rulers. Western media and propaganda to demonise Osama have made him into a cult figure. Many believe in him and his ideals and are willing to die for them. And there is no way you can kill a man who is willing to die.

Suicide terrorism is the latest weapon in the armoury of the terrorists. Although non-Muslims, like the LTTE in Sri Lanka, had used this weapon even before the jehadis did, the incidence of suicide terrorism has been on the rise since 2001. Tackling this is the most difficult aspect of counter-terrorism because it is the most acute form of asymmetrical warfare and there is no effective military response to it.

There may be Muslim anger at the West, but there has also been considerable state assistance to Islamic terrorism. Saudi Arabia has funneled billions of dollars into West Asia, Pakistan and the rest of the world for over three decades for the propagation of puritan Islam in madarssas. This has made it easier for young minds to accept the cult of violence and be prepared and ready to kill in the name of religion. The other sponsor of jehadi terrorism has been Pakistan. This in fact has been the main weakness of the so-called global war on terror for it accepts the two main sponsors of Sunni Islamic terrorism as partners in the war on terror. Both the countries remain reluctant partners, or even duplicitous partners, yet continue to receive certificates of good behaviour from the US.

There has been a lethal mix of Saudi money and Pakistani manpower supplies to jehad. Saudi funding through various trusts like the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and the Al Rashid Trust, have helped finance madarssas and mosques. Saudi financial contribution to the making of the Pakistani nuclear bomb and contribution to the Afghan jehad has emboldened Pakistani adventurism as well as obduracy.

In Europe, the problem is that socio-economic factors lead to political-religious manifestations. In India, externally inspired political factors threaten Indias socio-economic fabric.

It is becoming apparent that after being asked to lie low for some months after September 11, 2001 and December 13, 2001, Pakistani jehadis have again become active. They surfaced in style after the October 8, 2005 earthquake. It is easy for the jehadis to operate in Pakistan because of the jehadi inclinations of the Pak Army and whatever Musharraf may claim, the motto of the Pak Army is still – jehad fi’isbillla – jehad in the name of Allah. Pakistan remains the base for the Taliban, for the al Qaeda elements and the Waziristan problem is a result of these indulgences.

From being the region’s nursery for terrorism, Pakistan has “progressed” to becoming the globe’s university of terrorism. Arrangements for their training, supply of arms, ammunition and logistics remain intact. Operating either on the eastern front or the western front, Pakistan-based jehad’s foot soldiers operate with ease. It is pressure from these groups that make Musharraf anxious to have a deal with India and paradoxically, so long as these groups provide the jehadi mindset to the Pakistani establishment, no deal is likely to stick.

Years of education in religious madarssas and even in mainstream schools where jehad and hatred for other religions is taught, has spawned jehad’s foot soldiers required to do duty in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Chechnya and beyond. The thousands of Taliban have been the alumni of these madarssas that are spread all over the western border of Pakistan. Aided and abetted by the army and the intelligence, leaders of these jehadi organisations cannot afford to keep them unemployed in Pakistan.

Even if there is de-escalation in Kashmir, they will be diverted elsewhere – West Asia or Europe. Add to this the spectre of a failing state armed with nuclear weapons, a highly organised terrorist infrastructure primarily aimed against India but available for other theatres and mentally equipped with a jehadi mindset that seeks the destruction of its neighbour, makes it a very uncertain neighbourhood.

In Pakistan, for instance, despite the often repeated claims by Gen Musharraf, the main jehadi groups – Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen (HuM) – remain active as new incarnations. Their leaders – Hafiz Saeed, Maulana Masood Azhar and Maulana Fazlur Rahman Khalil – roam around freely preaching hatred and jehad and ready to do battle in Jammu and Kashmir or even in the rest of India. Their publications – Ausaf, Taqbeer, Ghazwa Times, Al Haq, Majalla-tul-Dawa, Zarb-e-Taiba, Shamsheer, Zarb-e-Momin and others have a circulation of millions and some of them are distributed free of cost. Despite all the so-called anti-jehadi crackdowns none of the main leaders have been arrested. Just a few months ago in March, Hafeez Saeed held a massive rally at the Minar-e-Pakistan, Lahore where he preached jehad. The sectarian Sunni mafia grouping, Sipaha Sahaba also remains active distributing anti-Shia literature and was allowed to take out a rally in Islamabad last April.

The Taliban, resurgent in Afghanistan from sanctuaries in the turbulent Waziristan of Pakistan, have been sending their volunteers to Iraq for training in suicide terrorism and arms.

The Lashkar-e-Tayyaba that operates in India and other parts of the world like Australia, (a French national involved in a plan to carry out an attack in Australia had stayed at an LET camp in Pakistan) has also set up branches in Saudi Arabia and Dubai. The LET had been trying to recruit Indian Muslims in the Gulf for their anti-American activities but without success. But it would seem that at least some Indian Muslims have succumbed to help the LET in its campaigns in India after the two bomb explosions in Mumbai in August 2003. However, the response of the Indian Muslims to the Danish cartoon issue would indicate that some Indian Muslims have begun to take part in pan-Islamism.

In Europe, the problem is that socio-economic factors lead to political-religious manifestations. In India, externally inspired political factors threaten India’s socio-economic fabric. In Europe, the Muslim population is a result of immigrations after the Second World War and their succeeding generations. In India, the Muslims are indigenous. In fact, it is Pakistan where its Muslim immigrants from India – the Mohajirs -after independence, have had difficulty being accepted by the Punjabi-dominated society. In Europe, the original population and the host governments have had difficulty in accepting outsiders who are extremely aggressive about preserving their way of life. The challenge in Europe is how to amalgamate; the challenge in India is how to preserve the amalgam.

Europeans, unlike the Americans (although this is changing) are sometimes accused of having been exclusivist in their attitude towards these foreigners. Equally and quite often, it is also the immigrant who wishes to preserve his exclusivity, his cultural, ethnic and religious bonds, which create problems for the second-generation immigrant. The assimilation is superficial in that they speak with the same accent, but peer pressure at school, college or at place of work, and the claustrophobic atmosphere at home, especially for the girls, does not help. Besides, all this talk of gender equality, secular democracies, and cultural mores are foreign to the conservative Muslim immigrant. These are not those laid down in the Koran, hence are an anathema.

Add to this the sermons of the mullah in the mosque who continually asserts the superiority of his religion but the youth find it difficult to reconcile this with the reality that the man or woman from a professedly inferior religion is doing considerably better than them. All this internal resentment eventually leaves the second and third-generation immigrant uncomfortable in the place his parents still call home but is not quite acceptable in a place he wants to call home. This mutual unacceptability and resentment are more perceptible after the Madrid and London terrorist attacks.

The problem is not in the Pakistani madarssas alone. Jehad continues to be taught in mainstream schools even today. Hatred towards other religions and India is a common diet.

Post 9/11 and particularly post-Madrid 2004 have led to a hardening of positions in Europe among the majority population and at the same time there are more second and third generation Muslim youth finding their way to jehad. The stereotype of the jehadi coming from the Arab world is changing. Post-September 11, recruits are just as easily to be found in poly-techniques, high schools and university campuses in Europe. Hundreds of European youth, mainly second generation immigrants, have found their way to Iraq to fight in the Sunni triangle. There were reports of a two-way traffic between West Asia and Europe of illegals coming in to Europe and legals going to perform jehad in far away places. Three of the July bombings in London were young second-generation youth of Pakistani parentage. Youth in the UK have been increasingly under the influence of the Deobandhi mosques where al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Lashkar e-Jhangvi (LEJ) and Hizbut Tehrir (HT) activists have been active.

In Europe, intelligence and police officials from the UK, Spain, Germany, France and the Netherlands meet in state-of-the-art environments to exchange information and data, reports and wiretaps that would help follow leads in their anti-terror effort. Cooperation on this scale or even at a much lower scale is unthinkable on the Indian sub-continent as this would be counterproductive to policies followed by the Pakistani establishment. Indo-Pak talks on curbing terror are more a dialogue of the deaf than any purposeful discussions.

Post-World War II European liberalism that had tolerated other religions and political beliefs, is today threatened with an immigrant Muslim population that constitutes four to five per cent of the population (European census usually do not ask for religion). This is expected to go up to ten per cent by 2025 and the indigenous populations is expected to decline. So long as multi-culturalism did not affect Europe’s way of life, immigration was acceptable but once it became clear that this being taken advantage of by the immigrant and seen as encouraging terrorism, restrictions have begun to be applied. This push of immigrants from Asia brings its own social problems. This aspect is going to be a major cause for concern in Europe in the years ahead.

The ferment in the entire Muslim world creates the impression of a monolith with one common or a set of common remedies to the problem. The Muslim ummah did get together in the Afghan jehad and now seems to be getting together again post-Iraq and even more strongly should there be a post-Iran, but there are continuing differences and Muslims still kill Muslims in defence of the same religion. It is also assumed that Osama is the symbol of this ferment. He has been glorified into a cult figure but he is not really the single unifying factor in the Muslim world. There are many who are anti-US and anti-Israel but who feel that al Qaeda over reached by attacking the US, which invited massive US military retaliation and occupation of Muslim lands.

There is a naive assumption that if local grievances or problems are solved, global terrorism will disappear. The belief or the hope that, if tomorrow, Palestine, or Kashmir or Chechnya or wherever else, the issues were settled, terrorism will disappear, is a mistaken belief.

A new ideologue for the Islamists seems to have been active in recent years. Syrian born but hiding in Pakistan, 48-year old Mustafa Setmariam Nasar turned out volumes on the Net arguing that with the Afghan base having been lost, Islamic radicals would have to revise their approach. His thesis, in a 1600-page work called “The Call for a Global Islamic Renaissance” has been in circulation on the Internet for 18 months and its thrust is that a truly global conflict should be on several fronts and carried out by small cells or individuals rather than traditional guerrilla warfare. Nasar was arrested in Quetta last October and handed over to US officials but his creed continues to be assimilated and followed.

The problem is not in the Pakistani madarssas alone. Jehad continues to be taught in mainstream schools even today. Hatred towards other religions and India is a common diet. The worry is that while most of the madarssa alumni end up in the caves of Tora Bora or the heights of Parachinar, those from mainstream schools go to mainstream colleges and end up with main line jobs at home or abroad. Assuming that 3 million school children are added to Pakistan’s schools every year, an unknown number of the 70 million young persons have already imbibed jehadi leanings in the last twenty-five years.

The centre of jehad at the time of September 11, was in Afghanistan, specifically in the Pushtoon belt between Kandahar and Jalalabad. Since then, running away from the American onslaught, the epicentre for international jehad for the rest of the world (except West Asia) is now in Pakistani Waziristan. The Taliban, resurgent in Afghanistan from sanctuaries in the turbulent Waziristan of Pakistan, have been sending their volunteers to Iraq for training in suicide terrorism and arms. Waziristan is also a sanctuary for Chechens and Uzbek Islamic insurgents.

The recent spectacular come-back of the Taliban in southern and eastern Afghanistan operating from their sanctuaries in Pakistan where they have declared an Islamic Republic of Waziristan has been achieved with help from al Qaeda operatives, Gulbuddin Hikmetyar’s Hizb-e-Islami and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. It is probably more accurate to say that today Mullah Omar commands more dedicated battalions than does Osama whose followers are dispersed in concept, space and even ideology.

More dangerous than al Qaeda in the Indian context are the activities of the International Islamic Front established by Osama in February 1998. Five Pakistani terrorist organisations are signatories to this IIF – HuM, LeT, Harkat-ul-Jehadi-ul-Islami (HUJI), JEM and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) – all Sunni, all anti-Christian, anti-Jew and anti-Hindu and continue to exhort the destruction of India and prophecy victory over Jews and Christians.

Modern terrorism thrives not on just ideology or politics. The main driver is money and the new economy of terror and international crime has been calculated to be worth US $ 1.5 trillion (and growing), which is big enough to challenge Western hegemony. This is higher than the GDP of Britain, ten times the size of General Motors and 17 per cent of the US GDP

Another centre is Bangladesh where jehadi organisations propagate jehadi terrorism in India and South-east Asia. The location of the continuing jehad against Christians, Jews and Hindus can be anywhere. It will be where the jehadis feel that it would be easier to operate and have the maximum impact. This obviously makes the US and Europe the most likely targets.

Groups like the al Qaeda and LET cannot be controlled by a purely non-military response because they seek the establishment of Caliphates, through violence if necessary, and which is not acceptable in the modern world. It is necessary to militarily weaken these forces, starve them of funds and bases and then to tackle long-term issues and by providing them better education, employment and so on.

While discussing roots of terrorism in his book “No End to this War,” Walter Laqueur says that Muslims have had a problem adjusting as minorities, be it in India, the Philippines or Western Europe. Similarly, they find it difficult to give their own minorities a fair deal, Muslim or non-Muslim in their own countries  – the Berbers in Algeria, the Copts in Egypt or the Christians or Shias in Pakistan or the Sudan. This has in turn led to what Olivier Roy calls globalised Islam – militant Islamic resentment at Western domination or anti-Imperialism exalted by revivalism. State sponsorship of terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy and strategy to negate military and other superiority, has been another facet of this problem.

There is a naive assumption that if local grievances or problems are solved, global terrorism will disappear. The belief or the hope that, if tomorrow, Palestine, or Kashmir or Chechnya or wherever else, the issues were settled, terrorism will disappear, is a mistaken belief. There is now enough free floating violence and vested interests that would need this violence to continue. There has been a multifaceted nexus between narcotics, illicit arms smuggling and human trafficking that seeks the continuance of violence and disorder.

Modern terrorism thrives not on just ideology or politics. The main driver is money and the new economy of terror and international crime has been calculated to be worth US $ 1.5 trillion (and growing), which is big enough to challenge Western hegemony. This is higher than the GDP of Britain, ten times the size of General Motors and 17 per cent of the US GDP (1998). Loretta Napoleoni splits into three parts. About one-third constitutes money that has moved illegally from one country to another, another one-third is generated primarily by criminal activities and called the Gross Criminal Product while the remaining is the money produced by terror organisations, from legal businesses and from narcotics and smuggling. Napoleoni refers to this as the New Economy of Terror.

All the illegal businesses of arms and narcotics trading, oil and diamonds smuggling, charitable organisations that front for illegal businesses and the black money operations form part of this burgeoning business. Terror has other reasons to thrive. There are vested interests that seek the wages of terrorism and terrorist war.

Terrorism can be contained and its effects minimised but cannot be eradicated any more than the world can eradicate crime.  An over-militaristic response or repeated use of the Armed Forces is fraught with long-term risks for a nation and for the Armed forces.

Narcotics smuggling generates its own separate business lines, globally connected with arms smuggling and human trafficking, and all dealt within hundred dollar bills. These black dollars have to be laundered, which is yet another distinctive, secretive and complicated transnational occupation closely connected with these illegal activities and is really a crucial infusion of cash into the Western economies.

The nineties were a far cry from the early days of dependence on the Cold War sponsors of violence and terrorism. In the seventies, terrorists began to rely on legal economic activities for raising funds. The buzzword today is globalisation, including in the business of terrorism. Armed groups have linked up internationally, financially and otherwise, have been able to operate across borders with Pakistani jehadis doing service in Chechnya and Kosovo, or Uzbek insurgents taking shelter in Pakistan.

In today’s world of deregulated finance, terrorists have taken full advantage of systems to penetrate legitimate international financial institutions and establish regular business houses. Islamic banks and other charities have helped fund movements, sometimes without the knowledge of the managers of these institutions that the source and destination of the funds is not what has been declared. Both Hamas and the PLO have been flush with funds with Arafat’s secret treasury estimated to be worth US $ 700 million to 2 billion.

It is not easy but the civilised world must counter the scourge of terrorism. In a networked world, where communication and action can be in real time, where boundaries need not be crossed and where terrorist action can take place on the Net and through the Net, the task of countering this is increasingly difficult and intricate.  Governments are bound by Geneva Conventions in tackling a terrorist organisation, whatever else Bush’s aides may have told him, but the terrorist is not bound by such regulations in this asymmetric warfare.

The rest of the world cannot afford to see the US lose the war in Iraq, however ill-conceived it might have been. If the US cuts and runs then the jehadis will proclaim victory over the sole superpower. If the US stays or extends its theatre of activity, this will only produce more jehadis. That is the dilemma for all of us. Unfortunately, the manner in which the US seeks to pursue its objectives, one is fairly certain that the US cannot win. What one is still not certain is whether or not there is a realisation of this in Washington or whether there is still a mood of self-denial and self-delusion.

It has to be accepted that there can be no final victory in any battle against terrorism. Resentments, real or imagined, and exploding expectations, will remain. Since the state no longer has monopoly on instruments of violence, recourse to violence is increasingly a weapon of first resort. Terrorism can be contained and its effects minimised but cannot be eradicated any more than the world can eradicate crime.  An over-militaristic response or repeated use of the Armed Forces is fraught with long-term risks for a nation and for the Armed forces.  Military action to deter or overcome an immediate threat is often necessary but it cannot ultimately eradicate terrorism. This is as much a political and economic battle and also a battle to be fought long-term by the intelligence and security agencies, and increasingly in cooperation with agencies of other countries.

Ultimately the battle is between democracy and terrorism. The fear is that in order to defeat the latter, we may be losing some of our democratic values.

References

1. Jessica Stern,  “Terror in the Name of God,” Harper Collins 2003. Walter Laqueur, “No End to War – Terrorism in the Twenty First Century” Continuum New York 2003.
2. Walter Laqueur’s essay “The Terrorism to Come”.
3. B Raman’s various essays on international terrorism can be accessed at www.saag.org. The more relevant ones are ”International Jihadi Terrorism – An Indian Perspective” May 20, 2005.
4. “International Jihadi Terrorism and Europe – An Indian Perspective”. This was a talk delivered at the Fifth International Conference on “Asia and Global Security” organised by the Orient Institute of Lisbon from November 15 to 17, 2005.
5. “Al Qaeda, The IIF and Indian Muslims” March 20, 2006
6. “Iraq and the Jehadi Scorpions” March 21, 2006.
7. Loretta Napoleoni, “Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars behind the Terror Networks” Pluto Press 2003.
8. Essay by Napoleoni, “Handicapping Hamas” February 25, 2006.
9. Robert S. Leiken, “Europe’s Angry Muslims”, Foreign Affairs July/August 2005.
10. Paul Rogers’  essay “Endless War” which appeared in Open Democracy www.openDemocracy.net
11. Benjamin R. Barber, “Jihad vs McWorld – Terrorism’s Challenge to Democracy” Random House 1995.
12. Gilles Kepel, “Jihad – The Trail of Political Islam” Harvard University Press 2002.