September 26, 2014
The determination of the United States to lead the war against global terror was signalled on September 24. Addressing the 69th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, President Barack Obama said that the threat posed by the “cancer of violent extremism” has “perverted one of the world’s great religions”. The US, along with a coalition of 40 nations, would militarily degrade and destroy the Islamic State (IS). The time has come, he said, for the world to explicitly and forcefully reject the ideology on which this violent extremism is based and “forge a new compact”. He hit out at those who make money from the global economy and then funnel it back to these groups.
The sectarian conflicts within Islam needed to be urgently addressed, and he called upon the Islamic world, particularly the Arab nations, to concentrate on developing the potential of its youth. This, and the fact that he personally presided over the UN Security Council meet, also on September 24, where it adopted Resolution 2178, dealing with foreign terrorist fighters (FTF), suggests the alarm bells are ringing.
Resolution 2178 will be counted along with Resolution 1267, dealing with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and Resolution 1373, adopted after 9/11, as one of the milestones in the development of the counter-terrorism framework under the aegis of the UNSC. The IS calls into question the effectiveness of the global counter-terrorism strategy. Resolution 2178 seeks to get a grip on
the growing threat posed by FTFs through action by individual countries, regionally and globally. Obama said that he looked forward to countries reporting to the UN next year the specific actions they had taken, in pursuance of this resolution, to curb the financing and movement of FTFs.
The international community’s concerted efforts to evolve a global counter-terrorism strategy notwithstanding, the global terror network is becoming more threatening and menacing. The enemy is no longer unseen or hidden. Al-Qaeda began to physically control territory in Yemen some years ago. Al-Shabab has registered spectacular successes in Somalia. Boko Haram is taking over towns in northern Nigeria, and the IS is holding territory in Iraq and Syria that is equivalent in size to the land area of the United Kingdom. This represents a paradigm shift. Terrorists continue to receive funding and are able to mount ever more complex operations. The fusion of ultra-extremist ideology, continued public support and funding in parts of West Asia explain, to some extent, the rise of the IS. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on September 17, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Martin E. Dempsey, confirmed that some of the closest allies of the US in the Arab world fund the IS. “They fund them because the Free Syrian Army could not fight Assad. They were trying to beat Assad. I think they realised the ‘folly of their ways’ ”.
Terrorism and violent extremism find breeding grounds either in weak and fragile states or in societies
- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/a-new-compact-against-is/#sthash.HttMeTaF.dpuf
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