By Yatish Yadav
Published: 06th July 2014
http://www.newindianexpress.com/magazine/Day-of-the-Hydra/2014/07/06/article2312872.ece
An explosion on the streets of a Iraqi town
Under the stoic gaze of Saddam Hussein’s once-fabled Water Palace near Tikrit, Iraq, the soldiers lay huddled in the camaraderie of death as they had fought together in life, most of them young, their bodies twisted in the irreversible rictus of murder. They were dressed in the uniform of the Iraqi Army. Satellite images showed the 190-odd bodies lying in shallow trenches, in two large clusters laid on top of the other. Beside them, the ancient Tigris River flowed, which had witnessed another bloody siege of Baghdad in 1258, then by the Mongols, when it was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. The soldiers rotting in the mass graves discovered last week were executed by Islamist forces led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), whose siege of Baghdad is leaving in its wake a trail of blood, crucifixions and civilian unrest as its fighters slaughter their way to carve a global Muslim Caliphate.
The past is on our doorstep, and it is claiming its dark heritage. ISIL has announced the return of the Caliphate; a system of Islamic rule that ended a century ago. The militants have declared its chief “Caliph” and “leader for Muslims everywhere.” The ISIL, which aims to unseat Al-Qaeda as the premier jihadi organisation, has called on all Islamist fighters to join its ranks in the struggle to create a global Caliphate, which would stretch into Gujarat.
But the Al-Qaeda remains the world’s premier terror organisation. Amar Bhushan, former R&AW Special Secretary who watched the emergence of Taliban and Al-Qaeda, cautions that India has to prepare itself as Al-Qaeda operatives are opening new fronts to keep the movement alive.
“You cannot erase a terror outfit. It will come in different forms and shades. Since focus was on Al-Qaeda, the coalition of terror groups joined hands with ISIL and they are more violent than the original Qaeda. In India, the agencies need to monitor groups like SIMI and Indian Mujahideen which have same agenda and get support from across the border to destabilise peace,” Bhushan adds.
The Terror Franchise Game
Even as the Indian government is engaged in frenetic discussions to evacuate Indians in Iraq, reports of Indian jihadis fighting with ISIL forces reveal how widespread the Islamist movement has become. “A dangerous cocktail is building up. These terror outfits are planning to take control of weapons of mass destruction to re-establish the global Caliphate. We have to recognise that these are the birds of same feather—call it ISIL, Al-Qaeda or LeT. India is on their radar and we need to take it little more seriously,” former police chief and internal security expert Prakash Singh says.
The Islamist terror footprint does not span just Afghanistan and Pakistan. The seeds of blood America sowed in Afghanistan in the late 20th century in its war against Communism has sprouted all over the Islamic world. It has spread through Africa, Syria and is now inundating Iraq. This radical change in theopolitics notes two changes.
1. Terrorism has become decentralised.
2. Al-Qaeda is alive and well.
Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, the Al-Nusra Front, Ansar al-Sharia, the old Hezbollah, the Hamas and of course the Lakshar-e-Taiba and Haqqanis are some of the most powerful Islamic terror groups waging jihad against India and the rest of the world. They are joined by Salafis, who espouse religious cleansing of non-Muslims everywhere using brutal methods. The world stands on the brink of a War of Eras that could engulf the Western world as well as India and China. Ajai Sahni, executive director, Institute for Conflict Studies, says jihadis are largely operating in “informal associations”, where foot soldiers “walk out of one group and go to another”. “Of course, loyalties are important, because that helps you rise within the group,” he says.
Spreading Net of Blood
Last week, the Delhi Police nabbed four IM terrorists from Rajasthan. The Israeli Army have arrested 413 Hamas terrorists so far in Operation Brother’s Keeper. On July 1, Boko Haram bombed Nigeria’s Maiduguri city, killing 15. In July, police busted a cell headed by a Boko Haram operative who had participated actively in the abduction of school girls in Chibok. Boko Haram has so far slaughtered over 10,000 civilians; around 2,000 people died in the first four months of 2014 alone. Last month, two men from Texas were arrested on terror charges and one of them—Rahatul Ashikim—confessed he couldn’t “wait to spill blood.”
“The rise of Islamic extremism is the issue. Its pernicious effects are felt not just in the Middle East but around the world, spread by people who violently oppose any religion but Islam, not to mention democratic elections, equality for women, and so many features of the modern world,” Joel Brinkley, Stanford University professor and a Pulitzer Prize correspondent, wrote in World Affairs.
In 2013, Kazakhstan discovered 24 Salafist terror cells with nearly 500 members operating in the country. In Austria, fears of teenage Salafi extremism have risen and Germany has banned Salafism, which opposes freedom of religion. Salafis represent literalist and puritanical approaches to Islam and, in the West, advocates holy war against civilians as the rightful expression of Islam.
In Philippines, after decades of bloodshed claimed more than a hundred thousand lives, the government is negotiating a truce with Islamist separatists, with 11,000 guerrilla members. Philippine Intelligence is on the alert for Al-Qaeda operatives who have sought refuge in Muslim-controlled areas. In Thailand, too, the government signed a peace deal with a violent Muslim separatist movement last year, but the attacks continue.
In Tanzania, whose population is one-third Muslim, Islamists beheaded a priest, warning Christians to stay away from the butcher trade, which they asserted was a Muslim occupation. The French Army is fighting fundamentalists in northern Mali, Africa.
In March, Uighur militants bombed a station in China’s Urumqi. In Kunming, militants hacked 29 to death. In a classified report, US President Obama was told of the importance of concentrating intelligence efforts on Middle East and China. The China National Security Studies warned that China’s terrorism problem is getting worse.
Terror is no longer controlled from a single base in Afghanistan or Cairo. It is today a hydra, consisting well-entrenched militant groups trained in the battlefields of Afghanistan, the Pakistan border, Syria, Iraq and Libya, nearly all of them loyal to Al-Qaeda.
“ISIL is not an individual group but a coalition of terror outfits and includes tribals who once fought against Al-Qaeda during Saddam’s regime. Now they are fighting together to establish a new order. Al-Qaeda is saying for a long time that West, India and land of Jews is legitimate sphere of Jihad and they have tacit understanding with terror groups in Af-Pak,” Sahni adds.
Osama Multiplied
Operating in close coordination under a loose chain of command, Al-Qaeda affiliates are difficult to track. ‘Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’ (AQAP), formed by merging al-Qaeda’s Saudi and Yemeni arms, aims to replace existing regimes with Islamic governments. The US State Department estimates it has around a thousand members and growing. AQAP’s strategy is local inflammation like its operations in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, against the military and diplomats. Similarly the focus of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) formed by merging the Salafist ‘Group for Preaching and Combat’ (GSPC) of Algeria with the mothership is to bring about Islamic rule in all Africa. AQUIM’s leader Abdelmalek Droukdel, whose main target is France, had fought against the Russians in Afghanistan. Its influence extends from Niger, Mauritania to Libya and Mali where it has welded together Islamist terror groups like Ansar Dine and the ‘Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa.’ It is yet to infiltrate America, but its members have been arrested in France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Britain. In Egypt, Al-Qaeda exploited the fall of the Arab Spring, and rushed terror operatives to the region. Al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula (AQSP) attacked the Egyptian-Israeli gas pipeline and slaughtered tourists outside Eilat city in Israel. The Ansar al-Jihad is another Al-Qaeda offshoot. Conversely, Islamists groups are also being brought together, like the Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, a radical coalition with jihad as its aim. In co-ordination with regional groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Al-Qaeda would escalate its presence in Afghanistan and neighboring areas, posing a serious threat to India via Kashmir.
“Al-Qaeda at the moment may not be penetrating Kashmir directly, but they are targeting potential recruits through cyber world. There are instances of self indoctrination and in addition to fighting Al-Qaeda and Pakistan-based terror groups on the ground, Indian agencies needs to take on the war to ideological level,” former R&AW chief Sanjeev Tripathi says.
An ISIL execution squad takes aimNo End in Sight
The US and Pakistan claim that drone attacks have wiped out Al-Qaeda. Experts contradict, saying that the danger has only escalated because Al-Qaeda is now decentralised and terror activity is being locally farmed out. The most influential jihadi thinker is Syrian Abu Musab al-Suri who advises inter alia, which replaces mass attacks with “individual jihad” and likeminded ‘atomized cells’, according to World Affairs magazine. President Obama had announced de-escalation in the War on Terror saying, “This war, like all wars, must end.” With the fighting in Iraq escalating, last week he sent troops once again. The Pentagon has stationed Marine Corps teams on its fleet patrolling the Middle East and North Africa. A new drone base is coming up in Niger, which borders Libya and Nigeria, where both governments are engaged in violent conflicts with terrorists. Hezbollah and its Iranian proxies operate at will in Latin America— Mexico, Central and South America—trafficking drugs and arms, counterfeiting, money laundering, pirating software and music to raise revenues. Unlike Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, which receive Saudi private funding, Hezbollah’s illegal financial operations enable it to maintain safe havens in some South American countries. Offshoots like AQAP raise money through kidnappings and extortion. The Americans are worried that hundreds of Hezbollah operatives have infiltrated the US. Investigations into the bomb attack on an Israeli diplomat in Delhi last year by terrorists believed to be Iranians reached nowhere.
Deadly Alliances
The world’s senses have become dulled to the atrocities committed throughout the Arab world in the name of religion. The choice is between dictatorships or Islamist regimes, or a combination of the two. The Al-Qaeda and the Nusra Front in Syria have entered into an alliance, which would further complicate matters should Assad fall, bringing Al-Qaeda and Syrian rebels into conflict. Al-Nusra forces are already engaging ISIL fighters. The fallout would affect Israel, Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. An Al-Qaeda controlled Syria would destabilise the region. Al-Nusra has already created an international support system in Europe, though it was formed only in 2012. Last year, the Belgian police arrested recruiters in nationwide raids. Al-Qaeda’s two offspring are threatening stability in North Africa and the southern Persian Gulf. It is already exploiting the uprising in Syria, the chaos of Iraq after Saddam and the Sinai Peninsula. It awaits the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan to expand its influence and franchises in the country again. The Kurd intelligence chief Masrour Barzani has warned that many Europeans, especially from France, have joined ISIL.
Cultural Jihad
The Islamist War is not being fought with bullets alone. A cultural conflict rages against moderate factions, women and the secular population. Armed fundamentalists, egged on by radical clerics, attack schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan where girls study. Entertainers, especially women, are publicly executed.
The NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan poses an imminent threat to India. Spreading Islamist violence is seeking a neighborhood base, supported by homegrown groups like IM. The lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq seem to have been forgotten by the Americans, who are encouraging pro-Pak Khaleda Zia against the pro-India Sheikh Hasina to counter New Delhi’s reconfiguration of territorial stability after the Narendra Modi government took over. The US, in its armed efforts to sow the seeds of democracy, has only ended up with a harvest of terror. It’s good news for the Grim Reaper.
Published: 06th July 2014
http://www.newindianexpress.com/magazine/Day-of-the-Hydra/2014/07/06/article2312872.ece
An explosion on the streets of a Iraqi town
Under the stoic gaze of Saddam Hussein’s once-fabled Water Palace near Tikrit, Iraq, the soldiers lay huddled in the camaraderie of death as they had fought together in life, most of them young, their bodies twisted in the irreversible rictus of murder. They were dressed in the uniform of the Iraqi Army. Satellite images showed the 190-odd bodies lying in shallow trenches, in two large clusters laid on top of the other. Beside them, the ancient Tigris River flowed, which had witnessed another bloody siege of Baghdad in 1258, then by the Mongols, when it was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. The soldiers rotting in the mass graves discovered last week were executed by Islamist forces led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), whose siege of Baghdad is leaving in its wake a trail of blood, crucifixions and civilian unrest as its fighters slaughter their way to carve a global Muslim Caliphate.
The past is on our doorstep, and it is claiming its dark heritage. ISIL has announced the return of the Caliphate; a system of Islamic rule that ended a century ago. The militants have declared its chief “Caliph” and “leader for Muslims everywhere.” The ISIL, which aims to unseat Al-Qaeda as the premier jihadi organisation, has called on all Islamist fighters to join its ranks in the struggle to create a global Caliphate, which would stretch into Gujarat.
But the Al-Qaeda remains the world’s premier terror organisation. Amar Bhushan, former R&AW Special Secretary who watched the emergence of Taliban and Al-Qaeda, cautions that India has to prepare itself as Al-Qaeda operatives are opening new fronts to keep the movement alive.
“You cannot erase a terror outfit. It will come in different forms and shades. Since focus was on Al-Qaeda, the coalition of terror groups joined hands with ISIL and they are more violent than the original Qaeda. In India, the agencies need to monitor groups like SIMI and Indian Mujahideen which have same agenda and get support from across the border to destabilise peace,” Bhushan adds.
The Terror Franchise Game
Even as the Indian government is engaged in frenetic discussions to evacuate Indians in Iraq, reports of Indian jihadis fighting with ISIL forces reveal how widespread the Islamist movement has become. “A dangerous cocktail is building up. These terror outfits are planning to take control of weapons of mass destruction to re-establish the global Caliphate. We have to recognise that these are the birds of same feather—call it ISIL, Al-Qaeda or LeT. India is on their radar and we need to take it little more seriously,” former police chief and internal security expert Prakash Singh says.
The Islamist terror footprint does not span just Afghanistan and Pakistan. The seeds of blood America sowed in Afghanistan in the late 20th century in its war against Communism has sprouted all over the Islamic world. It has spread through Africa, Syria and is now inundating Iraq. This radical change in theopolitics notes two changes.
1. Terrorism has become decentralised.
2. Al-Qaeda is alive and well.
Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, the Al-Nusra Front, Ansar al-Sharia, the old Hezbollah, the Hamas and of course the Lakshar-e-Taiba and Haqqanis are some of the most powerful Islamic terror groups waging jihad against India and the rest of the world. They are joined by Salafis, who espouse religious cleansing of non-Muslims everywhere using brutal methods. The world stands on the brink of a War of Eras that could engulf the Western world as well as India and China. Ajai Sahni, executive director, Institute for Conflict Studies, says jihadis are largely operating in “informal associations”, where foot soldiers “walk out of one group and go to another”. “Of course, loyalties are important, because that helps you rise within the group,” he says.
Spreading Net of BloodLast week, the Delhi Police nabbed four IM terrorists from Rajasthan. The Israeli Army have arrested 413 Hamas terrorists so far in Operation Brother’s Keeper. On July 1, Boko Haram bombed Nigeria’s Maiduguri city, killing 15. In July, police busted a cell headed by a Boko Haram operative who had participated actively in the abduction of school girls in Chibok. Boko Haram has so far slaughtered over 10,000 civilians; around 2,000 people died in the first four months of 2014 alone. Last month, two men from Texas were arrested on terror charges and one of them—Rahatul Ashikim—confessed he couldn’t “wait to spill blood.”
“The rise of Islamic extremism is the issue. Its pernicious effects are felt not just in the Middle East but around the world, spread by people who violently oppose any religion but Islam, not to mention democratic elections, equality for women, and so many features of the modern world,” Joel Brinkley, Stanford University professor and a Pulitzer Prize correspondent, wrote in World Affairs.
In 2013, Kazakhstan discovered 24 Salafist terror cells with nearly 500 members operating in the country. In Austria, fears of teenage Salafi extremism have risen and Germany has banned Salafism, which opposes freedom of religion. Salafis represent literalist and puritanical approaches to Islam and, in the West, advocates holy war against civilians as the rightful expression of Islam.
In Philippines, after decades of bloodshed claimed more than a hundred thousand lives, the government is negotiating a truce with Islamist separatists, with 11,000 guerrilla members. Philippine Intelligence is on the alert for Al-Qaeda operatives who have sought refuge in Muslim-controlled areas. In Thailand, too, the government signed a peace deal with a violent Muslim separatist movement last year, but the attacks continue.
In Tanzania, whose population is one-third Muslim, Islamists beheaded a priest, warning Christians to stay away from the butcher trade, which they asserted was a Muslim occupation. The French Army is fighting fundamentalists in northern Mali, Africa.
In March, Uighur militants bombed a station in China’s Urumqi. In Kunming, militants hacked 29 to death. In a classified report, US President Obama was told of the importance of concentrating intelligence efforts on Middle East and China. The China National Security Studies warned that China’s terrorism problem is getting worse.
Terror is no longer controlled from a single base in Afghanistan or Cairo. It is today a hydra, consisting well-entrenched militant groups trained in the battlefields of Afghanistan, the Pakistan border, Syria, Iraq and Libya, nearly all of them loyal to Al-Qaeda.
“ISIL is not an individual group but a coalition of terror outfits and includes tribals who once fought against Al-Qaeda during Saddam’s regime. Now they are fighting together to establish a new order. Al-Qaeda is saying for a long time that West, India and land of Jews is legitimate sphere of Jihad and they have tacit understanding with terror groups in Af-Pak,” Sahni adds.
Osama Multiplied
Operating in close coordination under a loose chain of command, Al-Qaeda affiliates are difficult to track. ‘Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’ (AQAP), formed by merging al-Qaeda’s Saudi and Yemeni arms, aims to replace existing regimes with Islamic governments. The US State Department estimates it has around a thousand members and growing. AQAP’s strategy is local inflammation like its operations in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, against the military and diplomats. Similarly the focus of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) formed by merging the Salafist ‘Group for Preaching and Combat’ (GSPC) of Algeria with the mothership is to bring about Islamic rule in all Africa. AQUIM’s leader Abdelmalek Droukdel, whose main target is France, had fought against the Russians in Afghanistan. Its influence extends from Niger, Mauritania to Libya and Mali where it has welded together Islamist terror groups like Ansar Dine and the ‘Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa.’ It is yet to infiltrate America, but its members have been arrested in France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Britain. In Egypt, Al-Qaeda exploited the fall of the Arab Spring, and rushed terror operatives to the region. Al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula (AQSP) attacked the Egyptian-Israeli gas pipeline and slaughtered tourists outside Eilat city in Israel. The Ansar al-Jihad is another Al-Qaeda offshoot. Conversely, Islamists groups are also being brought together, like the Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, a radical coalition with jihad as its aim. In co-ordination with regional groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Al-Qaeda would escalate its presence in Afghanistan and neighboring areas, posing a serious threat to India via Kashmir.
“Al-Qaeda at the moment may not be penetrating Kashmir directly, but they are targeting potential recruits through cyber world. There are instances of self indoctrination and in addition to fighting Al-Qaeda and Pakistan-based terror groups on the ground, Indian agencies needs to take on the war to ideological level,” former R&AW chief Sanjeev Tripathi says.
An ISIL execution squad takes aimNo End in SightThe US and Pakistan claim that drone attacks have wiped out Al-Qaeda. Experts contradict, saying that the danger has only escalated because Al-Qaeda is now decentralised and terror activity is being locally farmed out. The most influential jihadi thinker is Syrian Abu Musab al-Suri who advises inter alia, which replaces mass attacks with “individual jihad” and likeminded ‘atomized cells’, according to World Affairs magazine. President Obama had announced de-escalation in the War on Terror saying, “This war, like all wars, must end.” With the fighting in Iraq escalating, last week he sent troops once again. The Pentagon has stationed Marine Corps teams on its fleet patrolling the Middle East and North Africa. A new drone base is coming up in Niger, which borders Libya and Nigeria, where both governments are engaged in violent conflicts with terrorists. Hezbollah and its Iranian proxies operate at will in Latin America— Mexico, Central and South America—trafficking drugs and arms, counterfeiting, money laundering, pirating software and music to raise revenues. Unlike Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, which receive Saudi private funding, Hezbollah’s illegal financial operations enable it to maintain safe havens in some South American countries. Offshoots like AQAP raise money through kidnappings and extortion. The Americans are worried that hundreds of Hezbollah operatives have infiltrated the US. Investigations into the bomb attack on an Israeli diplomat in Delhi last year by terrorists believed to be Iranians reached nowhere.
Deadly Alliances
The world’s senses have become dulled to the atrocities committed throughout the Arab world in the name of religion. The choice is between dictatorships or Islamist regimes, or a combination of the two. The Al-Qaeda and the Nusra Front in Syria have entered into an alliance, which would further complicate matters should Assad fall, bringing Al-Qaeda and Syrian rebels into conflict. Al-Nusra forces are already engaging ISIL fighters. The fallout would affect Israel, Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. An Al-Qaeda controlled Syria would destabilise the region. Al-Nusra has already created an international support system in Europe, though it was formed only in 2012. Last year, the Belgian police arrested recruiters in nationwide raids. Al-Qaeda’s two offspring are threatening stability in North Africa and the southern Persian Gulf. It is already exploiting the uprising in Syria, the chaos of Iraq after Saddam and the Sinai Peninsula. It awaits the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan to expand its influence and franchises in the country again. The Kurd intelligence chief Masrour Barzani has warned that many Europeans, especially from France, have joined ISIL.
Cultural Jihad
The Islamist War is not being fought with bullets alone. A cultural conflict rages against moderate factions, women and the secular population. Armed fundamentalists, egged on by radical clerics, attack schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan where girls study. Entertainers, especially women, are publicly executed.
The NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan poses an imminent threat to India. Spreading Islamist violence is seeking a neighborhood base, supported by homegrown groups like IM. The lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq seem to have been forgotten by the Americans, who are encouraging pro-Pak Khaleda Zia against the pro-India Sheikh Hasina to counter New Delhi’s reconfiguration of territorial stability after the Narendra Modi government took over. The US, in its armed efforts to sow the seeds of democracy, has only ended up with a harvest of terror. It’s good news for the Grim Reaper.
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