Clear and present danger

http://www.asianage.com/columnists/clear-and-present-danger-453
Jul 08, 2014

Shankar Roychowdhury

India should keep its sights fixed on its own near neighbourhood in the AfPak region, and the likely impact of ISIS on the Taliban there, after the withdrawal of the US troops. Are ISIS and the Taliban, Pashtun or Punjabi (Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Taliban), two sides of the same coin?

Both politics and religion have long been known as the last refuge of scoundrels, which is becoming increasingly apparent as toxic waste from the Shia-Sunni conflict in the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, aka ISIS, inexorably creeps towards India like a smoking flow of molten lava.

The threat posed by ISIS echoes in the slogans raised by motley groups of shrill demonstrators on the streets of Delhi, exhorting volunteers from India to proceed to Iraq and join in the defence of Shia shrines at Najaf, Karbala, Samarra and elsewhere in Iraq, some of which, like the Imam Hussain shrine in Najaf, were devastated by Sunni suicide car bombers in 2003.

The headlong military offensive of ISIS has overrun large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq where their shadowy leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has proclaimed an Islamic Khilafat under his supreme leadership. Meanwhile, Russia, understandably chary of stepping into another foreign quagmire after their Afghanistan experience, has sent a few Su-25 ground attack aircraft to Iraq to be flown by Iraqi pilots, while the United States is still holding out for a more inclusive governance and a change in the Nouri al-Maliki regime in Iraq before making up its mind about providing F-16 fighters to the beleaguered Iraqi armed forces.

Whether the presence of “volunteers” of Indian origin, who might have made their way to Iraq disregarding travel advisories issued by the Indian government, can be construed in any way as official acquiescence, stated or unstated, the tangled thicket of thorny sectarian issues pervading that country requires to be examined with the utmost circumspection.

The communally-tinged law and order problems triggered throughout India not all that long ago following an inflammatory “protest meeting” organised at the Azad Maidan in Mumbai in August 2012 by a little known fringe fundamentalist Sunni group calling itself the “Raza Academy”, allegedly to condemn atrocities against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, are warnings that “agitational intervention” in foreign countries can have serious repercussions on the internal security of India itself.

The Indian government is reportedly examining despatch of Indian forces to Iraq to assist in the evacuation of Indians stranded in that country, some of whom have reportedly been abducted and held for ransom by elements within ISIS. In the event Indian troops and aircraft are at all permitted to enter that country, they would be utilised solely for rescue and evacuation of Indian nationals. Protection of religious shrines in foreign countries does not fall within their mandate, no matter how revered these might be to their faithful in India.

However, it is also true that religious and sectarian issues are at the origin of many if not most of the current flashpoints on which international attention has been focused. Reports from Iraq about the intensifying Shia-Sunni conflict and stories of the gross atrocities said to have been perpetrated by the advancing ISIS have been brought back by Indian pilgrims returning from Karbala, Samarra and other holy places of Shia Islam. Some of these will undoubtedly have been embellished in the telling, but the net effect of any intervention will be to stoke the myriad internal stresses and strains already festering.

As always, the United States has been quick to protect their own interests and assets in that country, and to orchestrate a regime-change for the embattled government of their protégé, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The US military presence in Iraq has been strengthened with a “mini surge” of 700 US troops into Baghdad with more to follow, to secure the airfield and the US embassy, and guard against a possible replay of the Benghazi incident of September 2012 when the US consulate at Benghazi in Libya was attacked by a mob, and the US ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, killed.

The United States is said to be also considering airstrikes against ISIS locations and force concentrations, as also patrolling the airspace over Baghdad, all these possibly by armed, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Meanwhile, a polarising debate about responsibility for the deteriorating situation in Iraq has been revived in the US in the run-up to the presidential elections due in 2016.

India should keep its sights fixed on its own near neighbourhood in the AfPak region, and the likely impact of ISIS on the Taliban there, after the withdrawal of the US troops. Are ISIS and the Taliban, Pashtun or Punjabi (Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Taliban), two sides of the same coin? And will they co-exist in peace or as rivals keeping a wary eye on each other? More importantly for India, what will be the impact of ISIS on India’s own internal demons — Students Islamic Movement of India (Simi), Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), or the Hizbul Mujahideen? All vitally important questions, whose answers are yet to emerge. One thing is for sure though — India’s counter-terrorism agencies can look forward to a heavier work schedule.

The writer is a former Chief of Army Staff and a former member of Parliament