by Sonia Shukla
Published in Business Standard, September 2009
Terrorism: Patterns of Internationalization
Edited by Jaideep Saikia & Ekaterina Stepanova
Published by Sage
Price: 695
Pages: 266
As you go through this book, it makes you wonder what its target audience is. The publishers, or the authors, answer this question on the back cover. They say, this book is targeted at the military, the police, law enforcement agencies and government training institutes, in addition, it will also benefit political analysts and professionals such as counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism experts.
With that knowledge you begin to assess the success of this compilation of essays. On the face of it, Terrorism: Patterns of Internationalization, edited by Jaideep Saikia and Ekaterina Stepanova, appears to be a well-timed effort to compile studies on international terrorism in its various regional avatars. In its 266 pages the two editors have collected 11 chapters written by 12 experts on terrorism from different parts of the world.
Going by sheer numbers it is a laudable effort, but there is a problem: the text doesn’t go beyond being a 101, a mere introduction to the way several parts of the world have come to be threatened with menacing levels of violence. Most chapters, and we will discuss them shortly, have some interesting details but they don’t say much more than what is already available in newspapers every day and in dozens of other texts that have sprung up since 9/11.
Before going further afield, let’s examine some of the chapters on terrorism in South Asia.
Saikia, one of the editors, has a chapter that concentrates on the northeast of India. He says it is geographically distant from the centre and for decades has been facing militancy, insurgency, inter-ethnic conflicts and the strategic threat of Islamisation of the region. With painstaking research, he has documented the ISI-Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (Bangladesh)-ULFA nexus to shelter and train various terrorist outfits and plot terrorist attacks in India. But we already know this.
Subir Bhaumik’s chapter on Bangladesh details information about India’s neighbour facing the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism and how the Jamaat-e-Islami works through the democratic process to support violent Islamist groups. Some facts are interesting but they don’t break new ground.
Hariharan has a chapter on the LTTE’s role in Sri Lanka. He gives his observations on the LTTE and the support it still enjoys from the Tamil diaspora, despite their military defeat at the hands of the Sri Lankan army. He describes the international character of the LTTE and its widespread political, military and financial linkages. All this is well-known, but there is a new twist to the tale. Hariharan claims the IPKF withdrew from Sri Lanka because of the LTTE’s political links within India. If that was indeed the case, the contributor fails to explain why it went into Sri Lanka in the first place. LTTE’s political connections in India are well-documented but it is stretching the imagination to say this is why the IPKF was recalled.
Jennifer Lynn Oetken’s chapter on terrorism in Kashmir does not break limits of credulity but it does not break any new ground on analyzing the transforming nature of terrorism in the Valley either.
Bishnu Raj Upreti does a study of terrorist activity in Nepal and although Maoist violence is far from taking over the world, its linkages with India technically qualify it for a study of patterns of internationalization.
Other parts of the world also come up for study. Alonso and Iribarren’s paper focuses on two traditional Europe-based terrorist organisations, the Irish Republican Army and the Basque separatist group, ETA, and their connections beyond the border.
But it does not discuss the recent phenomenon of terrorist networks in Europe that have their connections both in Europe and South Asia, specifically in Pakistan. The threat from IRA and ETA is now diminishing in Europe, but there are new terrorist modules being discovered in Britain and in other parts that have linkages abroad, especially Pakistan and they form the real new lexicon of terrorism in that continent.
In Chapter 9, Mohamed Nawab Bin Mohamed Osman discusses how the Afghan war was instrumental in the transformation of Jemaah Islamiyah from a group with local aspirations to a trans-regional organization with linkages across South-East Asia.
The editors themselves use the book to address dilemmas facing academics, like what is the meaning of terrorism, what is international terrorism, while stressing the difficulty in drawing a strict line between international and domestic terrorism. Some of these observations are interesting but you are not convinced that they are the last word for practitioners of the anti-terrorist trade.
The final chapter by Adam Dolnik studies if the unlimited goals of the al-Qaeda and the broader transnational violent Islamist movements require or are matched by unlimited means to advance these goals. Dolnik suggests the upcoming trend of terrorist operations by Islamist cells around the world is likely to be one of decreasing, rather than increasing in technological sophistication. This is a reassuring point but I doubt if anti-terrorist squads are going to stop working overtime because of it.
Showing posts with label Terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Terrorism. Show all posts
Friday, September 11, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
‘Al Qaeda has infiltrated Harkat, Lashkar & Jaish, they want to increase heat in Valley’
Excerpts from an Interview with Rohan Gunaratna with Sonia Trikha Shukla
Rohan Gunaratna has written six books on armed conflicts in the world. His expertise on terrorism has always found respect among students of the subject, but it is his body of knowledge on the first multinational terrorist group, the Al Qaeda, that has seen him address worried world leaders at the United Nations, the US Congress, the Australian Parliament and other parts of the globe. Gunaratna, a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, was in New Delhi for the launch of his book, Inside Al Qaeda.
When did we first have evidence of Al Qaeda operations in India?
Originally, the plan was to attack the US embassy in India to coincide with the US diplomatic targets in Tanzania and Kenya. The operation was disrupted due to the arrest of a number of Al Qaeda operatives, especially the Sudanese member who was arrested in New Delhi. Now, the Al Qaeda has infiltrated three Pakistani and Kashmiri groups: Harkat, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Toiba. They shared operational training and infrastructure with the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan before 9/11.
How does the Al Qaeda influence their operations?
Their ideologies are influenced by Osama’s organisation in three ways. They conduct suicide bombings, which are the hallmark of Al Qaeda. And they all attack the heart of the government, that is New Delhi. Finally, they have all attacked and killed foreigners. The Harkat did it in Kashmir, the Jaish recently killed Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. Their influence comes through infiltration. Al Qaeda is under pressure from the international coalition, so it is now operating through other groups by funding their operations. Evidence of this can be found in the recent attacks in Pakistan on diplomatic targets and churches. This is the Al Qaeda operating through front and sympathetic organisations like Jaish and others.
How is Al Qaeda different from other terrorist organisations in the world?
The Al Qaeda is unique among terrorist outfits. Its ideology is to create universal jehad. The Kashmiri groups want jehad only in Kashmir, the Hamas only in Palestine, the Islamic Jehad only in Egypt, but the Al Qaeda wants to bring jehad to the whole world.
Their strategy is: first, launch attacks themselves like the one on the World Trade Center. That is the sort of thing that inspires, instigates other Islamic groups. The other thing is: provide support to these groups.
Also, the Al Qaeda’s targetting and tactics are different. It does not want to take out 20 targets in a year. It wants to take out two but they must always be high profile and high prestige targets like the US embassies, USS Cole and the World Trade Center. Because through these, it wants to inspire other movements who in turn launch their own small attacks. In March 1988, Al Qaeda’s launch document called it the ‘‘spearhead of Islam’’ .
So how does one respond?
They are very secretive and clandestine. So the way we respond needs to be carefully thought out. We need to invest more time and energy and more resources into infiltrating the Al Qaeda. Or we can’t protect ourselves. It has global reach. Their membership comes from more than 40 nationalities and it operates in 94 countries. You need a multinational approach and high-grade intelligence. You need human intelligence by infiltrating them, not just intelligence through intercepted communications.
Even Israel’s Mossad that infiltrated state sponsors of terrorism like Syria has not been able to infiltrate the terrorist networks.
Absolutely. The thing is, we need to penetrate terrorist organisations, not the state sponsors. This is the New Game. These are more difficult because they are ideologically driven but it is not impossible. You need to be persistent and patient. The US took five years to penetrate the Hizbollah after they killed 241 US Marines in Beirut in 1983. That is the sort of time you need. But that is also the time period when the world is most vulnerable to attacks.
Do you think by destroying the Terror Inc network through the post-9/11 effort and forcing decentralisation on Al Qaeda, the world has only multiplied the threat from Al Qaeda?
That's true. The Al Qaeda cells are smaller now, they’re self-contained and clandestine and harder to infiltrate. The strategic threat to the world is graver now. The leadership is intact, its ideology is intact. For every 3-5 members who are killed they have 5-10 more recruits.
Nearly a year after 9/11 how do you assess the US-led effort to neutralise the Al Qaeda?
I think it has been a failure. Their biggest failure was their inability to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, Al Zawahiri, Mullah Omar. Unless these three are killed or caught the US cannot say they have been successful. The Al Qaeda can replenish its human losses and material wastage as long as these leaders are alive. What the US has done is only destroy their training camps. As a result, the Al Qaeda has decentralised operations into regional theatres like Somalia, Indonesia, Yemen, Chechnya, the Pankshi Valley in Georgia and others. This means that the Al Qaeda will survive for a longer period.
So what is their strategy?
There is no evidence that they are deserting Afghanistan. On the contrary, Al Qaeda and renegade Taliban elements are mobilising on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to wage a sustained campaign. They want to repeat the Soviet experience and for this, they need Pakistan as a rear base. To this end they want to kill Musharraf and establish a friendly, neutral government there. They want to increase the temperature in Kashmir through their front groups so that Pakistani forces from the Afghan border will be redeployed on the Indian border. The Al Qaeda can then reestablish lines of communications and recruits into Afghanistan.
The Indian Express
30 August 2002
Rohan Gunaratna has written six books on armed conflicts in the world. His expertise on terrorism has always found respect among students of the subject, but it is his body of knowledge on the first multinational terrorist group, the Al Qaeda, that has seen him address worried world leaders at the United Nations, the US Congress, the Australian Parliament and other parts of the globe. Gunaratna, a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, was in New Delhi for the launch of his book, Inside Al Qaeda.
When did we first have evidence of Al Qaeda operations in India?
Originally, the plan was to attack the US embassy in India to coincide with the US diplomatic targets in Tanzania and Kenya. The operation was disrupted due to the arrest of a number of Al Qaeda operatives, especially the Sudanese member who was arrested in New Delhi. Now, the Al Qaeda has infiltrated three Pakistani and Kashmiri groups: Harkat, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Toiba. They shared operational training and infrastructure with the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan before 9/11.
How does the Al Qaeda influence their operations?
Their ideologies are influenced by Osama’s organisation in three ways. They conduct suicide bombings, which are the hallmark of Al Qaeda. And they all attack the heart of the government, that is New Delhi. Finally, they have all attacked and killed foreigners. The Harkat did it in Kashmir, the Jaish recently killed Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. Their influence comes through infiltration. Al Qaeda is under pressure from the international coalition, so it is now operating through other groups by funding their operations. Evidence of this can be found in the recent attacks in Pakistan on diplomatic targets and churches. This is the Al Qaeda operating through front and sympathetic organisations like Jaish and others.
How is Al Qaeda different from other terrorist organisations in the world?
The Al Qaeda is unique among terrorist outfits. Its ideology is to create universal jehad. The Kashmiri groups want jehad only in Kashmir, the Hamas only in Palestine, the Islamic Jehad only in Egypt, but the Al Qaeda wants to bring jehad to the whole world.
Their strategy is: first, launch attacks themselves like the one on the World Trade Center. That is the sort of thing that inspires, instigates other Islamic groups. The other thing is: provide support to these groups.
Also, the Al Qaeda’s targetting and tactics are different. It does not want to take out 20 targets in a year. It wants to take out two but they must always be high profile and high prestige targets like the US embassies, USS Cole and the World Trade Center. Because through these, it wants to inspire other movements who in turn launch their own small attacks. In March 1988, Al Qaeda’s launch document called it the ‘‘spearhead of Islam’’ .
So how does one respond?
They are very secretive and clandestine. So the way we respond needs to be carefully thought out. We need to invest more time and energy and more resources into infiltrating the Al Qaeda. Or we can’t protect ourselves. It has global reach. Their membership comes from more than 40 nationalities and it operates in 94 countries. You need a multinational approach and high-grade intelligence. You need human intelligence by infiltrating them, not just intelligence through intercepted communications.
Even Israel’s Mossad that infiltrated state sponsors of terrorism like Syria has not been able to infiltrate the terrorist networks.
Absolutely. The thing is, we need to penetrate terrorist organisations, not the state sponsors. This is the New Game. These are more difficult because they are ideologically driven but it is not impossible. You need to be persistent and patient. The US took five years to penetrate the Hizbollah after they killed 241 US Marines in Beirut in 1983. That is the sort of time you need. But that is also the time period when the world is most vulnerable to attacks.
Do you think by destroying the Terror Inc network through the post-9/11 effort and forcing decentralisation on Al Qaeda, the world has only multiplied the threat from Al Qaeda?
That's true. The Al Qaeda cells are smaller now, they’re self-contained and clandestine and harder to infiltrate. The strategic threat to the world is graver now. The leadership is intact, its ideology is intact. For every 3-5 members who are killed they have 5-10 more recruits.
Nearly a year after 9/11 how do you assess the US-led effort to neutralise the Al Qaeda?
I think it has been a failure. Their biggest failure was their inability to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, Al Zawahiri, Mullah Omar. Unless these three are killed or caught the US cannot say they have been successful. The Al Qaeda can replenish its human losses and material wastage as long as these leaders are alive. What the US has done is only destroy their training camps. As a result, the Al Qaeda has decentralised operations into regional theatres like Somalia, Indonesia, Yemen, Chechnya, the Pankshi Valley in Georgia and others. This means that the Al Qaeda will survive for a longer period.
So what is their strategy?
There is no evidence that they are deserting Afghanistan. On the contrary, Al Qaeda and renegade Taliban elements are mobilising on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to wage a sustained campaign. They want to repeat the Soviet experience and for this, they need Pakistan as a rear base. To this end they want to kill Musharraf and establish a friendly, neutral government there. They want to increase the temperature in Kashmir through their front groups so that Pakistani forces from the Afghan border will be redeployed on the Indian border. The Al Qaeda can then reestablish lines of communications and recruits into Afghanistan.
The Indian Express
30 August 2002
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