ISIS Threat: Dance of Barbarians

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/isis-threat-dance-of-barbarians/0/

ByLt Gen Prakash Katoch

IssueNet Edition| Date : 06 Sep , 2014

The fact that Al Qaeda has been bamboozled by the ISIS in the Middle East is no secret. Pressured by US-NATO, Al Qaeda was in the mode of shifting its major base from Pakistan to Africa when opportunity arrived for assisting the rebels in Syria (and in the process the US) plus even helping US directly like destabilizing and destroying Libya.

National Investigation Agency (NIA) reports that more than 300 Indian youth have been recruited by the Pakistan-based Tehreek-e-Taliban(TTP) which has joined hands with ISIS…

But as Al Qaeda started establishing in the Middle East, its offshoot the ISIS was trained and armed to counter and gobble up its own mother; Al Qaeda – talk of the snake eating her own eggs. That the ISIS was funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and UAE is well known, as is the fact that British mercenary outfits including former Special Forces officers trained the ISIS.

Had ISIS stopped short of Baghdad and not ventured into the Iraqi Kurds autonomous region, the West would have not interfered. However, as always Frankenstein can hardly be expected to act on predicted lines. If the Al Qaeda in conjunction Taliban were beheading journalists and informers, and shooting Shias in the head after lining them up at point blank range (captured Pakistani military soldiers included), the ISIS has gone a step further; dramatizing beheadings of James Foley, Steven Soltof and showcasing this to the world, along with videos of mass executions of unarmed civilians, headless photos of women and children posted on social media, human blood collection in pans and buckets for whatever purpose, the obvious aim being to instill horror, fear and awe.

More the barbarianism displayed, more the aura and amongst all this macabre dance of death and killings, the distorted and jaundiced teaching of Wahabism promises Jannat (Heaven), where one would have countless Hoors (beautiful celestial women) perpetually at one’s beck and call.

But then there can be malfunctions in this mythical transportation to Jannat, as was brought home by US General ‘Black Jack’ Pershing fighting as bizarre and barbaric radicals’ decades back in Southern Philippines. The story goes that having got hold of some 50 odd radicals he had them tied to stakes in the woods. Some pigs were then brought, slaughtered and the radicals forced to drink the pig blood – which closed the gates to Jannat as per the radical own teachings. But Black Jack went a step further. 49 of the radicals were chopped to pieces, put in the same pit as the slaughtered pigs and burned off – which to the horror of the 50th fellow sent those burnt directly to hell. Finally this fellow, who had also been forced to drink pig blood, was set free to get the message across to his bretheren. And, the story goes that all was quiet thereafter for a couple of years.

The process of radicalization has been orchestrated over decades in consistent fashion. Look around and see how Wahabi thoughts are destroying the Sufi culture of J&K.

Now with all the good work put in by the ISIS in securing the passport to Jannat and more importantly the Hoors, supposing flame throwers are used against them or President Obama, who now vows to kill the ISIS, starts napalming them, would all the plans for Jannat and Hoors not go to naught?

The recent video broadcast by Ayman al Zawahri appears to have put the ISIS in the background in the Indian media. But let us look at the ISIS threat first. Not only is Saudi Arabia continuing to finance ISIS, it continues to finance Al Qaeda, Taliban, LeT and others because of sympathy for anti Shia militancy, as recently brought out in an article by Patrick Cockburn, former head of MI-6 quoting a cable by Hillary Clinton released by Wikileak.

A recent report from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) reports that more than 300 Indian youth have been recruited by the Pakistan-based Tehreek-e-Taliban(TTP) which has joined hands with ISIS, the youth are being recruited from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka, and that they are being trained in Pakistan, Iraq and Syria to become Fidayeen. Jamaat-e-Ahrar is the latest breakaway group from the TTP that has proclaimed allegiance to the ISIS but before this the Syrain Ambassador to India had already said many weeks back that some 5000 Pakistan Taliban had been fighting alongside the ISIS in Syria and Iraq past several months.

Earlier, our media had covered news about five youth from Thane area of Maharashtra having joined the the ISIS in Iraq-Syria, one of whom was killed in fighting subsequently. Then there was also news of 25 Muslim youth of Mizoram having been recruited by the ISI of Pakistan besides reports about Maldivian youth joining the ISIS and two of them having been killed as well.

It is logical that when youth from India and Maldives have been joining the ISIS, youth from Bangladesh must be doing so too. In his recent book, Patrick Cockburn points out that the ISIS Caliphate already has area larger than Britain, housing six million people – a population larger than Denmark, Finland and Ireland. But it is typical of the Indian media, whether by design or default, that a particular issue having earned its TRPs is simply is shoved aside and forgotten thereafter. This happened to the news about the ISIS too despite the NIA report suggesting that these youth may carry out massive attacks across the country, overtaken by the video threat of Al Qaeda, opposition lamenting 100 days of GoI gone to naught, gross underdevelopment in Amethi, floods in J&K, Why PM should talk to children on Teachers day, Delhi government formation, so in and so forth.

Recruitment by ISIS is not difficult considering that the internet facilitates radicalization by all terrorist organizations.

But what caught one’s fancy was a former diplomat voicing ISIS threat was really not much in the Indian context. His contention was, first, that Indian Muslims don’t really get led astray easily and second, that the ISIS Caliphate is quite remote.

The first logic apparently doesn’t even take into account the lakhs of illegal immigrants that we have had over the years (40 lakh Rohangiyas alone reported in year 2010), how many of them have been trained in terrorist training camps during the BNP rule in Bangladesh when at least four major anti-India terrorist training camps were being run openly, replete with Al Qaeda and SSG instructors. How many of these would have been sent across with specific missions as sleeper cells.

In the above context, it is relevant to note that as early as 1992-93, Pakistani armed modules were inducted pan India; in the states of J&K, Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Kota/Ajmer region of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and that SIMI had already started deputing ‘volunteers’ to Pakistan for training along with the mujahedeen, Taliban and Al Qaeda cadres, as penned by MK Dhar, former Joint Director IB in his book ‘Open Secrets – India’s intelligence unveiled’ published in 2005. He went on to say that these youth deputed by SIMI “established firm linkages with Islamic Chhatra Shibir, Al Qaeda affiliated HUJI, Al Badr, Al Jihad and other organizations in Bangladesh and were trained in facilities located inside Bangladesh and under the very noses of DGFI and BDR”. So those who think that Indian Muslims will not get lured by ISIS are only fooling themselves.

The process of radicalization has been orchestrated over decades in consistent fashion. Look around and see how Wahabi thoughts are destroying the Sufi culture of J&K. We need to review how many clerics and scholars from Saudi Arabia visited India in past years, who they meet and whether their mission included propagating that anyone other than Wahabi is anathema and a burden to the earth. India reportedly has some 300,000 mosques (much more than any country in the entire world) but are they and the madrassas leaning towards this radical thought process? To top this all we have the largest youth bulge in the world, 4.68 crores unemployed (majority youth), 40 lakh illegal weapons in circulation and 17 tons of heroin alone being consumed annually. So why would the youth not fall prey if convinced about the JH Concept – Jannat and Hoors?

In recent times, some Muslim youth in Tamil Nadu were taken into custody for supporting ISIS shirts and an Imam too was questioned in the same context. Recruitment by ISIS is not difficult considering that the internet facilitates radicalization by all terrorist organizations. The five youth from Maharashtra were reportedly influenced through the internet. But involvement of an Inam itself is indicative what other means are being used to influence youth. And, why would SIMI and IM not assist in recruitment with the allure to serve with the top barbaric outfit in the world?

The pamphlet appeals to the local population for supporting its struggle for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate.

BBC reports that in a bid to extend its influence in the South Asian region, the ISIS has distributed pamphlets in Peshawar and border provinces of Afghanistan, some copies also sent to Afghan journalists working in Peshawar. It is not known where these pamphlets have been printed but similar documents have been published in the past by other terrorist groups in the region including the Haqqani network, which is part of Al Qaeda. Now where would Haqqanis get such material printed if not in Pakistan or the backwaters of Peshawar with a section of the ISI, Pakistani military and even Pakistan government linked with them, and when attempts by many journalists to expose such nexus have cost them their lives?

The pamphlet appeals to the local population for supporting its struggle for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. A number of hardliner Wahabi-Salafi groups operating in AfPak region backed by Saudi Arabia, including in Nuristan and Kunar Provinces of Afghanistan, have already pledged support for ISIS. Then you also have groups like the Ahrarul Islam (another splinter group of TTP) and the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) also working on the lines of the ISIS because the don’t respect national boundaries and want a global Islamic World.

As regards, the ISIS caliphate being far off, you don’t need to really elaborate how absurd the thought is considering the movement between India and the Gulf, both legal and illegal including the number of boats and dhows transiting to Karachi and beyond. Pakistan apart, with UAE and Qatar supporting the ISIS, travel of fresh recruits to the ISIS Caliphate should be well tied up. We also must acknowledge that the ISIS with its barbaric characteristics would gleefully indulge in chemical, biological, radiological attacks and already have access to old Iraqi chemical weapons, some half filled with Sarin. Such attacks don’t need numbers.

We also must acknowledge that the ISIS with its barbaric characteristics would gleefully indulge in chemical, biological, radiological attacks…

Coming to the announcement about formation of an Indian branch of his militant group that would spread Islamic rule raising the flag across the Subcontinent, Ayaman al Zawahiri has said that the new group “is the fruit of a blessed effort of more than two years to gather the mujahedeen in the Indian Subcontinent into a single entity.” The last part is misnomer because Pakistan with its Al Qaeda links and Al Qaeda itself has been at it for past decades, not just “more than over two years”. We must take into account global linkages of international terrorist organizations and the focus to destabilize India by forces that will remain inimical to us always.

We have an imploding Pakistan where the military’s stranglehold on the country refuses to budge from a state policy of terrorism. The military is inexorably linked with Al Qaeda through Haqqanis and the recent split in the TTP, with the breakaway group Jamat-e-Ahrar proclaiming allegiance to the ISIS may well have been engineered. As it is, the IM are the creation of the ISI and the LeT has been attending meetings of Indian Maoists on behest of the ISI. Training of a core group of Maoists in mines, IEDs and explosives was done by the LTTE under aegis of the ISI of Pakistan. Al Qaeda and LeT footprints in Kerala appeared a decade back that resulted in creation of the Popular Front of India (PFI). The PFI is armed and trained though dormant but the capability exists, though they are not banned due to vote-bank politics. Maldives is fast radicalizing and has LeT and Al Qaeda infiltration.

The danger to South India should also be viewed with ISI plans to undertake terrorist attacks against India using Sri Lanka’s north coast right from the time when veteran Colonel Basir Wali, former Director Pakistani Intelligence Bureau and active member of Tabligi Jamaat was posted as Pakistan’s High Commissioner at Colombo. Incidentally Husaiin Haqqani, now turned pacifist, at one time was proponent of destroying India through cyber attacks.

Al Qaeda and ISIS may be at loggerheads but their recruitment base is the same in India; headed by IM and SIMI.

It would be naïve for us not to learn from the past. In hey days of the LTTE, Al Qaeda had sent a team to train with Sea Tigers of the LTTE, one fallout of which was the Al Qaeda attack on USS Cole. The LTTE has had firm links with Al Qaeda, LeT, ISI and HUA (now HuM) since 1995. Around the same time, Pakistan (through its High Commission at Colombo) in conjunction Al Qaeda had engineered the concept of an ‘Osama Brigade’ in North and North East Sri Lanka by radicalizing Muslims of Batticaloa area. Pakistan originated ‘Osama Brigade’ literature had been circulating in North East and some parts of North Sri Lanka, some of which was recovered. The LeT has been intensifying efforts since 2002 to bring the anti-India jihad to Northern parts of Sri Lanka. Of course the ISI was grateful to the LTTE for assassinating Rajiv Gandhi and continued to use its LTTE links against India.

Obviously Zawahri’s shift of focus to the Subcontinent also aims at reneging vestiges of prestige lost to the ISIS but the threat is real as far as India is concerned considering that the mother of terrorism, Pakistan is in cahoots with Al Qaeda. The Al Qaeda threat would also include maritime and air strikes (9/11 type) but that is not all. Zawahri may take heed from his oriental cousin and lookalike Soko Asahara whose Om Shinrikyo cult had bombed the Tokyo Subway with Sarin gas in 1995. He actually wanted to kill one million people of Tokyo through aerially spraying the Sarin but providence intervened and he lost both remote controlled helicopters during practice runs plus the Russian Mi-8 helicopter he had smuggled in parts was yet to be assembled. So Al Qaeda can well try such attacks. At the same time, it would be foolish to discard the ISIS threat.

Additionally, Al Qaeda and ISIS may be at loggerheads but their recruitment base is the same in India; headed by IM and SIMI. In any case the final objectives of both these barbaric organizations are the same – kill all other than Wahabis and establish an Islamic Caliphate. There need not be a singlr Caliph either – Baghdadi has not objected to the declaration of Caliphate by Boko Haram. So we need to exercise extreme caution and put measures and resources in place. On the other front, China is sheltering Paresh Barua and the ULFA hierarchy on Chinese soil, pumping arms to the northeast insurgents and Maoists, and lethally arming the United State Wa Army (USWA) of Myanmar in our neighbourhood, which does not bode well no matter tattempts to push through the National Ceasefire Accord by the Myanmar government, which does not include disarming any militant group in the first place.

…we need to go proactive and establish “credible” deterrent against irregular warfare.

The post scrip to this article is what one has written numerous times – that we need to go proactive and establish “credible” deterrent against irregular warfare. Pakistan appears overconfident we will continue to rely on conventional power alone and therefore her rogue behaviour. Amidst all the talk of international cooperation to counter terrorism, at best one can expect only intelligence but that too when it suits the national interests of the provider.

Pakistan has actually been given a free hand in generating terrorism as well as nuclear proliferation and that will likely continue unless a major event changes the equation. That we need to go pro-active in establishing a deterrent is unquestionable but considering the incidents of communal violence being engineered by politicians in the recent past that is polarizing the society, causing demographic shifts and facilitating operations by radical terrorist organizations, establishment of the deterrence must include ruthlessly targeting such individuals.