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COMMENTARY
Prairie fire of terror spreads to
Moscow
By B Raman
Is there a
prairie fire of jihadi terrorism spreading across the
world?
New Delhi, Kolkata, Karachi, Tunisia,
Yemen, Kuwait, Bali and now Moscow - one year after the
start of Operation Enduring Freedom, are the US and the
rest of the world even dimly aware of the nature of
Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front and the
seriousness of the threat posed to millions of
innocents? Is the international community anywhere near
finding an effective response to the scourge of
religious terrorism?
Have countries such as
India, China, Russia, the Central Asian Republics,
Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines been
wise in their uncritical acceptance of US perceptions of
the threat? Have they been wise in identifying
themselves closely with US, which has been carrying out
its international war on terrorism, in the name of the
international community, without consulting the members
of that community?
These questions ought to come
to mind as one analyzes reports of the Chechen terrorist
strike in a Moscow theater on October 23. The picture is
still not clear. Media reports say that Chechen gunmen
are holding from 500 to 700 hostages after releasing
women, children and non-Russians. Valery Gribakin, a
spokesman for the Moscow police, has been quoted as
saying that between 40 and 50 gunmen were inside the
building, and have demanded that the Russian troops
leave the breakaway republic of Chechnya. A French
diplomat who was among the spectators and who was
released has told the media that all the hostage takers
were clad in camouflage fatigues and that the "women
among them were more fierce than men".
According
to the information posted on a web site hosted by the
rebels, the theater has been captured by a suicide squad
led by Movsar Barayev, described as the nephew of
recently killed Chechen warlord Arbi Barayev.The site
also reported that 40 widows of mujahids were part of
the suicide squad.
Before commenting on the
developments in Moscow, it would be in order to draw
attention to some of my past observations on Operation
Enduring Freedom as they have relevance to the questions
posed above.
In an article titled "Will
terrorists have the last laugh?" published on September
27, 2001, I wrote, "Will the terrorists of the world
have the last laugh? That should be the disturbing
question in everyone's mind as Mr George W Bush, the US
president, and his aides mishandle their much-trumpeted
'war' against terrorism, which seems to have lost its
direction, momentum and credibility even before it
began. Counter-terrorism strikes should be felt and not
seen. They are delivered in stealth and not before TV
cameras.
"One doesn't go to a 'war' against
terrorism with bagpipers playing Colonel Bogey's March
and thousands of patriotic citizens waving the US flag
as an armada sets sail. In an effective
counter-terrorism campaign, one thinks unconventionally,
plans unconventionally and strikes unconventionally -
while all the time having one's feet firmly on the
ground. One avoids bombast and rhetoric and focuses on
action based on ground realities. Lack of
professionalism has been the defining characteristic of
the war so far."
In another article titled
"Enduring Freedom or enduring terrorism?" published on
October 10, 2001, I further wrote, "The present 'war' as
being waged by the US and the UK is unlikely to see the
end of international terrorism fed by religious
fanaticism. It will, most probably, be the beginning of
a new and more virulent form of punishment terrorism of
the kind witnessed on September 11. No country having a
sizeable Muslim population and no economy would be safe
from its debilitating impact."
In a subsequent
article of January 30, 2002, titled "New crop of Afghan
returnees", I had drawn attention to the dangers from
terrorists of different countries fleeing Afghanistan in
the following words, "The Afghan war of the 1980s
against the Soviet troops gave birth to what came to be
known as a crop of Afghan returnees - mainly Arabs,
Pakistanis and others who had fought in Afghanistan.
After the withdrawal of the Soviet troops, they spread
to other countries in the Islamic as well as the
non-Islamic world and created havoc through acts of
terrorism. The present US-led war against terrorism in
Afghanistan has given birth to a new crop of Afghan
returnees ... The old wave of international terrorism,
which culminated in the terrorist strikes of September
11, 2001, in the US, came largely from this first crop
of Afghan returnees. A new wave of international
terrorism, of which the attack on the Indian parliament
(December 13, 2001), the attack on the security
personnel outside the American Information Center in
Kolkata (January 22, 2002) and the kidnapping of Wall
Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl (January 23, 2002)
are the beginning, would largely come from this second
and new crop of Afghan returnees. The international
coalition against terrorism has to closely monitor and
neutralize the activities of the new crop."
As
the survivors of the US air strikes manage to return to
their countries of origin or find their way to new
theaters of jihad, they have been hitting out at soft
targets in order to demonstrate to the world and their
followers that they are still alive and kicking and that
their motivation remains as strong as ever. The
motivation for the strikes at different places has not
been the same. In India, Pakistan, Tunisia, Yemen,
Kuwait and Bali, the motivating factor was the desire to
punish. These were acts of punishment - terrorism pure
and simple, without any strategic objective.
The
Moscow strike is an attempt by a terrorist organization
concerned with taking advantage of widespread anger over
Russian cooperation with the US in Afghanistan and the
casualties suffered by the Chechens, many of whom were
ruthlessly massacred at Kunduz. The goal is to step up
the struggle for the achievement of the strategic
objective of an independent Chechnya.
By
attributing each and every terrorist incident to
al-Qaeda, Western - and particularly US - analysts are
failing to understand the real nature of the new threat
confronting the international community. The new threat
is more from the members of the constituent units of the
International Islamic Front than from al-Qaeda. This
front, which came into existence in 1998 under the
leadership of bin Laden, consists of the Taliban,
al-Qaeda, five organizations from Pakistan, and the rest
from Egypt, the Central Asian Republics, China
(Xinjiang) and the Philippines (the Abu Sayyaf).
It was this front that helped the Taliban in its
fight against the Northern Alliance before September 11
and which fought against US and British troops and the
Northern Alliance afterward. A large number of
terrorists from other countries, too, such as those of
Southeast Asia and Chechnya in Russia, joined the
International Islamic Front's jihad. While the Filipinos
fought under the banner of the Abu Sayyaf, those from
the other countries of Southeast Asia and Chechnya and
Dagestan fought under the banner of different Pakistani
organizations. They went to Pakistan in their individual
capacity, got trained in the madrassas (religious
schools) there and joined Pakistani organizations in
order to get jihadi inoculation in the battlefields of
Afghanistan.
Similarly, the small number of
African Americans and others from the US and West Europe
fought under the banner of the Pakistani organizations
or the Taliban. None of them fought under the banner of
al-Qaeda, because bin Laden, for reasons of personal
security, did not admit non-Arabs into al-Qaeda.
Instructors from al-Qaeda trained them, but made them
fight as members of the other constituents of the
International Islamic Front, and not of al-Qaeda.
As these remnants find their way back to their
countries of origin, they join the indigenous terrorist
organizations and give their jihad a domestic dimension,
directing their anger against their governments. This is
what happened in Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Chechnya
when the victorious armies of the first Afghan war of
the 1980s returned to their countries. They turned their
prowess acquired in Afghanistan against their own
governments, each starting its own domestic jihad in the
name of Islam. The world saw a prairie fire of
Afghanistan-originated jihad in different countries. The
fire was put out in Egypt and Tunisia, but is still
burning in Algeria and Chechnya.
The anger
against the US and Israel is a common thread uniting all
these organizations, but there are also other influences
on them arising from purely domestic factors. A new
aggravating factor is their anger at their governments
for cooperating with the US in its global war on
terrorism.
Religious terrorists tend to be
extremely irrational. In the way counter-terrorism
operations are conducted by governments and projected to
the public, one has to be careful not to add to their
irrationality. The campaign and the multilateral
cooperation have to be more covert than overt, avoiding
the high profile, the spectacular and the bombastic. The
ill-advised rhetoric and bombast from Washington and the
reliance more on spectacular military operations than on
unpublicized covert actions have acted as a red rag to
the terrorist bull, adding to the irrationality.
In fighting against this fire, each affected
country has to take into account the local circumstances
and sensitivities and avoid being bulldozed by the US,
as it has been trying to do in Indonesia, into adopting
a counter-terrorism response that may suit the US
interests, but not those of the countries of the region.
All countries facing the scourge of jihadi
terrorism have to fight the evil according to their own
genius, with the help of intelligence and legal
assistance from the other members of the international
community, including the US. The US cannot win this war
for them. They have to win it by their own thinking and
action. Unfortunately, since the so-called war on
terrorism started, all countries affected by this cancer
- whether India, Russia, China or those of Southeast
Asia - have been hoping that they can ride to victory on
the shoulders of the US. They cannot. On the contrary,
domestic perceptions of an undue dependence on the US
and undue deference to the US-dictated counter-terrorism
requirements could aggravate the problem.
That's
the message loud and clear from Moscow.
B
Raman is Additional Secretary (ret), Cabinet
Secretariat, Government of India, and presently
director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai; member
of the National Security Advisory Board of the
Government of India. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com. He was also
head of the counter-terrorism division of the Research
& Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence
agency, from 1988 to August, 1994.
(©2002
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