Indian Defence Review

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.