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New jihadis, new
threats
By B Raman
International jihadi terrorism of the
al-Qaeda model will continue to pose the most
serious challenge to the intelligence and
counter-terrorism agencies and the police forces
of the world in the short and medium terms, that
is, for another five to 10 years. It shows no
signs of any dilution of motivation and
determination. There has been no dearth of
volunteers. The more the number of terrorists
killed or captured by the security forces, the
more the number of volunteers for suicide and
other terrorist missions. Their ability to learn
from their successes and failures, to profit from
the advances in science and technology and from
the inadequacies in the intelligence and security
set-up of the state, their spirit of innovation
and their resilience remain impressive and even
forbidding.
The end of the jihad against
Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the late 1980s led
to a crop of terrorists of Afghan vintage, with
their morale strengthened by their successes
against the troops of the Soviet superpower,
spreading across to other states and creating
havoc. They commonly came to be known as the
Afghan alumni. The end of the current jihad in
Iraq against the United States could result in a
similar spread of terrorists of Iraqi vintage (the
Iraqi alumni) to other countries and their
creating a new wave of violence and destruction.
Suicide terrorism through human bombs, car bombs
and other means will continue to be their main
repertoire. The states confronting them will
continue to face difficulty in finding an
effective response to suicide terrorism.
The ability of small cells to operate
autonomously of each other without over-dependence
on a centralized command and control and, at the
same time, to effectively network with each other
is a defining characteristic of the jihadi
terrorists coming out of the Iraqi school.This
will continue to be so in the years to come in
other countries too.
The ease with which
they have been able to expand their areas of
operations circumventing the counter-terrorism
firewalls built by the states of the international
coalition led by the US is a cause for worry.
Examples of such expansion could be seen in the
recent incidents in Kuwait, Lebanon and Qatar.
Anti-US anger is a common motivating
factor of all international jihadi terrorist
groups belonging to the International Islamic
Front from wherever they operate. They may talk of
their ultimate objective of forming regional
Islamic caliphates, but their short and
medium-term objective is to punish the US and its
allies in Afghanistan and Iraq wherever they can,
whenever they can and in whatever manner they can.
They have no qualms over killing innocent
civilians in whatever number they have to and over
collateral deaths of the members of their own
community as a result of their operations directed
against their perceived adversaries.
Since
reprisals and the urge to humiliate the US and
force it to leave the Islamic world are their
basic motivating force, there is little scope for
political and economic approaches for dealing with
them and little possibility of countering them
intellectually and ideologically and of winning
their hearts and minds. The campaign against
international jihadi terrorism will, therefore,
have to depend on a basket of professional,
operational and psychological measures such as
better collection, analysis and use of
intelligence, better physical security, better
scientific and technical means, better arms and
ammunition, better tradecraft, better tactics,
better psywar etc. Since the terrorists' modus
operandi keep changing fast, the
counter-terrorism techniques of the state agencies
have to change fast too. The campaign against
jihadi terrorism will be long and hard before
jihadi fatigue and the weakening of the will
triggers off the process of their withering away.
Just as there has been what has been
projected as a revolution in military affairs and
a revolution in intelligence affairs, there has
also been a revolution in the unconventional way
non-state actors, particularly domestic and
international terrorists, operate against the
state. Even while confronting what they see as the
evils of globalization such as the dilution and
distortion of religious values and the religious
conviction of the communities to which they
belong, Westernization or Americanization of their
way of life and culture etc, they have shown a
remarkable capability for adopting very
effectively the scientific and technological
advances made by a globalized world for making
their terrorist operations more lethal.
They
often network better than the agencies of the
state. While operating in wide areas, as in Iraq
and Afghanistan, they have been remarkably able to
avoid more successfully than the security agencies
of the state pitfalls of intense and swift
operations, such as killings due to friendly fire.
They have not allowed the absence of air cover and
armor support to affect their morale and mobility
on the ground. Their psywar and counter-psywar
methods have considerable sophistication as seen
from their ability to break the will of those
captured by them without resorting to the kind of
brutal methods such as those adopted by the US
forces. Allegations of misbehavior toward the
local population, particularly women, are more
common against the security forces than against
the international jihadi terrorists.
Two
examples of their ability to adapt to modern
technological innovations for improving their
operational capability can be found in their use
of the Internet for clandestine communications,
networking, command and control, virtual training
and psywar and in their use of the mobile phones
for detonating explosive devices on the ground as
well as in the air, as was seen during the
reported blowing up of two Russian passenger
planes by the Chechen terrorists from the ground
in August last year.
The question before
the international community in its fight against
international jihadi terrorism will continue to be
not how to wean the terrorists away from the path
of violence. This is unlikely unless and until
their will is broken. The real question is how to
wean their own community and co-religionists away
from the terrorists. For this to succeed, it is
important to contain the spread of anger in the
Islamic world and to remove the causes of anger.
The dilemma faced by the international community
in this task is due to the fact that only the US,
because of its material and technological
resources, has the ability to lead the
international coalition in the so-called "war
against terrorism", but its over-militarized
approach, its inability to understand the Muslim
mind and the Islamic culture and its insensitivity
to what hurts Muslim pride are aggravating Muslim
anger, instead of making it subside. Its
counter-terrorism methods, with the use of the air
force and heavy armor, are themselves becoming an
important root cause of terrorism.
The
dilemma before the international community is: it
cannot prevail over the international jihadi
terrorists without US leadership and assistance.
At the same time, it cannot prevail with US
leadership and assistance either, unless and until
the US realizes its mistakes, has the humility to
admit them and changes its methods.
Weapons of mass destruction and mass
disruption (WMD) terrorism will continue to be the
likely threats of the future against which the
state has to be well-prepared. Weapons of mass
destruction or the threat to use them to achieve
demands or objectives need not necessarily aim to
cause actual destruction. They could also aim to
cause mass panic and demoralization and consequent
public pressure on the state to bend to the will
of the terrorists, by claiming to have smuggled in
WMD and threatening to use them if their demands
are not met. It would be difficult for the state
to verify their claims of having smuggled in WMD
and to reassure the public that it has nothing to
fear. Effective physical security for
establishments producing and storing WMD material
and a crisis management drill for dealing with
different scenarios involving the use or
threatened use of WMD material will continue to
require high priority in the short and medium
terms.
Among the possible mutations of
weapons of mass disruption terrorism are attacks
on economic targets, such as the tourist industry,
capture and/or destruction of oil and gas
production and distribution facilities, capture of
power in key oil-producing states such as Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq and the use of the oil
weapon to achieve their objectives and maritime
terrorism. As one saw in Bali in Indonesia and
Mombasa in Kenya toward the end of 2002 and in
Casablanca and Madrid subsequently, the disruption
of tourist economies through well-planned attacks
on soft targets is easy to plan and achieve.
The fact that they succeeded in the places
mentioned above spoke poorly of the physical
security set-up in those countries. The fact that
they have not succeeded in similar measure
subsequently shows how effective physical security
and international cooperation in investigation can
prevent terrorist attacks against physical
targets. On the negative side, there are so many
such physical targets available to the terrorists
that it would be very difficult to provide equal
physical security to all of them. Effective
physical security need not necessarily be in the
form of static security for physical targets.
Vigorous investigation, surveillance and law
enforcement to detect and neutralize sleeper cells
as they are getting ready for a terrorist
operation can help in preventing such attacks even
on soft targets not having physical protection.
The possible use of oil for causing
massive disruptions in the world economy has been
receiving increasing attention from the
international jihadi terrorist elements. The need
for attacks on oil installations is a frequently
occurring theme in the messages of Osama bin Laden
and his lieutenants. Till now, the attacks on the
oil industry have been in the form of one reported
attack on a oil tanker at the Aden port, attacks
on the foreign experts working in the oil industry
in Saudi Arabia and the blowing-up of oil
pipelines in Iraq. The attacks, though
spectacular, have not had a sustained effect. The
oil industry, like the tourism industry, has shown
itself to be resilient despite its vulnerability.
Both the tourism and oil industries have so far
been able to recover from the sporadic attacks on
them fairly quickly. The economic disruption,
though considerable, was temporary and did not
have a serious effect on the availability and
affordability of oil. This should not lead to any
feelings of complacency that attacks of a more
disastrous nature are unlikely. Counter-terrorism
techniques tailor-made for the energy sector need
urgent attention.
The terrorist situation
in Saudi Arabia should be a cause for great
concern in this connection. Till now, the Saudi
security agencies have been able to absorb the
sporadic terrorist strikes in the country without
the terrorists being able to cause serious
political or economic destabilization. At the same
time, despite the successes of the Saudi security
agencies in detecting and neutralizing many
terrorist cells in the country, the motivation and
determination of the terrorists remain high.
The international jihadi terrorists look
on Iraq and Saudi Arabia as the key elements in
their grand strategy for bringing about the defeat
and humiliation of the US forces and their
withdrawal from the Islamic world and for
disrupting the oil economy in order to disrupt the
economy of the Western world. If they manage to
capture power in Saudi Arabia or seriously disrupt
its oil industry, the Western economies would not
be the only one to suffer. The aspirations of
India and China to emerge as major economic powers
of the region, if not the world, could equally
receive a setback.
India's plans for
ensuring the supplies of energy to fuel its
expanding economy through a network of pipelines
from Turkmenistan and Iran via Pakistan and from
Myanmar via Bangladesh would remain a pipe dream
till the already-established international jihadi
terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan and
Pakistan and the fast emerging one in Bangladesh
are neutralized by the international community
through appropriate pressure on these countries.
The surviving terrorist infrastructure in
Pakistan continues to pose a threat to peace and
security and economic prosperity in South, West
and Central Asia. The emerging one in Bangladesh
has serious implications for South and Southeast
Asia.
International threat perceptions of
maritime terrorism are high and will continue to
remain high in the foreseeable future. The fact
that till now there has been no major terrorist
strike on the high seas except a claimed, but
unproved one by the Abu Sayyaf last year in the
waters off the Philippines should not lead to a
feeling of complacency that the international
jihadi terrorists feel more comfortable operating
on land and are, therefore, unlikely to expand
their operations to the high seas. The fact that
the Malacca Strait and other areas in the
Southeast Asian region continue to witness a large
number of piracy attacks on the high seas despite
the temporary setback to piracy operations caused
by the recent tsunami disaster and that some of
the terrorist groups operating in the South and
Southeast Asian regions such as the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam of Sri Lanka and the Free
Acheh movement of Indonesia have proved seafaring
capabilities would make this region particularly
vulnerable to the emergence and growth of maritime
terrorism.
Despite the rapid development
of the technological element, the human element
will continue to be the most important factor in
determining the outcome of the campaign against
terrorism. In spite of the superiority of the
state in numbers and material and technological
resources, the international jihadi terrorists do
not show as yet any signs of withering away. The
quality of the human element they have at their
disposal would substantially account for this. The
quality of the human element available to the
security and counter-terrorism agencies should
surpass that of the terrorists if the state has to
ultimately prevail.
With an only mediocre
human element, even the best of technological
capability cannot produce adequate results. The
best human element can ultimately prevail even if
the technological capability is not up to the
mark. The human element is very important at every
stage of counter-terrorism - intelligence
collection and analysis, use of the intelligence
for prevention, neutralization of the capability
of the terrorists, investigation of terrorist
strikes and successful prosecution. How to develop
an unbroken chain of human competence of high
quality? That is a question which would continue
to need attention in the years to come.
There has to be a revolution in the
intelligence culture and tradecraft or operating
techniques in order to be able to prevail over the
terrorists. The existing tradecraft served
adequately the purpose of the penetration of the
state adversaries in order to collect human
intelligence (humint). It has been found to be
inadequate, if not unsuited, for penetrating the
set-ups of non-state actors, particularly the
terrorists, who operate on the basis of the
principle of autonomous cells. The progress toward
the evolution of new tradecraft and new techniques
has been unsatisfactory.
A revolution in
the intelligence culture also calls for the
effective networking of national and foreign
intelligence agencies and the sharing without
inhibition of all relevant intelligence. The
intelligence and counter-terrorism networking has
to be as effective as the networking by the
terrorists. Such networking was found difficult
even in days when the number of intelligence
agencies in each nation was small and manageable.
How to ensure this in an era of mushrooming
agencies is another question which needs urgent
attention.
There has been some progress
toward international intelligence cooperation at
the bilateral level, but the progress toward
multilateral cooperation is still years away.
Since the US is and will continue to be a
predominant player in all intelligence cooperation
networks, suspicions of its real intentions and
fears of its using such networks for serving its
hegemonistic and strategic interests would
continue to dog any progress towards multilateral
cooperation.
There is an equally urgent
need for a revolution in counter-terrorism
training methods with an emphasis on joint
training in specialized counter-terrorism schools
for the officers and staff handling
counter-terrorism in all intelligence and security
agencies and police forces and the improvement of
language capability. The training should develop
in the officers an ability to think and act
unconventionally with the help of suitably devised
counter-terrorism games similar to the war games.
It has been seen from the experience of
the ideological terrorist groups of West Europe of
the 1970s and the 1980s, which withered away after
the collapse of the USSR and other communist
states of West Europe, that trans-national
terrorist groups cannot survive without the
sponsorship and complicity of another state in
matters such as sanctuaries, training, supply of
funds and arms and ammunition. If international
jihadi terrorism continues to thrive despite the
united action of the international community, it
is largely because of the continued availability
of sponsorship and complicity from Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia and Bangladesh. The provision in the UN
Security Council Resolution No 1373 calling on all
member-countries to stop providing direct or
indirect assistance to terrorists remain unheeded
by these countries. Unless and until these three
states are called to account by the international
community, it is unlikely to prevail over
international jihadi terrorism.
Despite
the improvement in the atmospherics in
Indo-Pakistan relations since November 2003, there
is no evidence to show that Pakistan has given up
the use of terrorism as a weapon for achieving its
strategic objectives vis-a-vis India. It is
unlikely to do so, so long as it remains reassured
that the US will continue to close its eyes to its
use of terrorism against India if it helps in
putting an end to terrorism threatening American
lives and interests. India's victory over jihadi
terrorism emanating from Pakistan and Bangladesh
is, therefore, not for tomorrow or the day after.
This is a campaign which we have to fight with
very little prospects of significant assistance
from the US and the rest of the world. We have
fought it for decades at tremendous human
sacrifice, without letting it affect our emergence
as a major economic and technological power. We
can continue to do so in the future too, provided
we continue to learn the right lessons from our
successes and failures and keep our
counter-terrorism methods constantly evolving to
meet the needs of the situation.
Despite
India having the second largest Muslim community
in the world, we have managed to keep al-Qaeda out
till now. The jihadi terrorism in our territory is
largely due to pro-al Qaeda jihadi organizations
from Pakistan, which have joined bin Laden's
International Islamic Front. In the past, their
members used to consist largely of Pakistanis. The
investigation into the twin Mumbai blasts of
August 25, 2003, and the recent unearthing of some
cells of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), which were
reportedly planning terrorist strikes in Dehra Dun
and Bangalore, indicate a disturbing trend of
elements from our Muslim community in growing
numbers volunteering their services for
organizations such as the LET aligned with
al-Qaeda. This is a trend, which needs to be
checked through better attention to the grievances
of the Muslim community and other appropriate
measures.
(Copyright B Raman, 2005)
B Raman is additional secretary
(retired), cabinet secretariat, government of
India, New Delhi, and, presently, director,
Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and,
distinguished fellow and convenor, Observer
Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter. Email:
itschen36@gmail.com |
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