By
Abdul Basit , Sara Mahmood, Iftekharul Bashar , Mohammed Sinan Siyech and
Teertha Samal of RSIS
Counter
Terrorist Trends and Analyses
Volume
10, Issue 1 | January 2018
Introduction
South
Asia, along with the Middle East and Africa, were among the most affected
regions by terrorism in 2017. The worst hit were Afghanistan and Pakistan. In
the face of the rapidly changing situation in the Middle East, particularly the
defeat of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, the South Asian threat
landscape has evolved continuously. In addition to the lingering conflicts in
Kashmir and Afghanistan, the reemergence of the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar‘s
Rakhine state, has left South Asia vulnerable to jihadist exploitations. Both
Al-Qaeda and IS issued statements in favour of Rohingya Muslims in a bid to
exploit another conflict involving Muslim grievances in the region. At the same time, the on-going religious
revivalist movements involving perceived insecurities of the majority faiths in
India and Pakistan can create more openings for jihadists, if the trend is not
checked in earnest.
South Asian jihadism is both complex and
varied with overlapping ideological narratives and political agendas of varying
scopes and orientations. The region is home to the largest number of jihadist
groups of various hues in the world. The most lethal jihadist groups such as
Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Khorasan (ISK), the Afghan and Pakistani
Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-eMuhammad (JeM), and the Islamic Movement
of Uzbekistan (IMU), among others, continue to operate from the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. This overwhelming presence of jihadist
groups constitutes three models of jihadism in South Asia: Al-Qaida‘s readjusted version of Gloacalised
jihad, IS‘ caliphate narrative and the Taliban‘s emirate model along with
narrower sectarian versions of Sunni and Shia jihadism as well as groups
focusing on Kashmir.
Notwithstanding
IS defeat in the Middle East, the ISK in Afghanistan has significantly upgraded
its capabilities to inspire and lead attacks not just in the region but in the
West as well. In the last two years, two foiled attack plots in the US were traced
back to ISK, one of which involved a complex network of IS operatives in
Pakistan, Canada and the Philippines. In mid-December 2017, the involvement of
a US citizen of Bangladeshi origin, Akayed Ullah, in the failed pipe bomb
attack in Manhattan‘s Port Authority Bus Terminal, is the precursor of likely
things to come. The defeat of IS can make Afghanistan, once again, the most
favoured destination for jihadists resulting in increasing levels of threat to
regional and global peace. This year, ISK has succeeded in spreading its
tentacles in Afghanistan to the northern Jawzjan province where it is training
over 300 Afghan youth under the age of 20 for future attacks. Alarmingly, some
French, Moroccan, Algerian, Tajik and Chechen foreign fighters who returned
from Syria were spotted in Jawzjan‘s Darzab district.
A new
dimension of the South Asian jihadist landscape in 2017 was the focus on
recruiting and utilising female jihadists in primary and secondary roles as
supporters and combatants. The Pakistani
Taliban published two issues of its new English language magazine
Sunnat-e-Khaula highlighting the importance of females with an aim to attract
recruitment. Similarly, in Bangladesh, the IS-affiliated jihadist group,
Neo-JMB has employed females in combat roles. Usually, females have been forced
by their male family members to join the jihad. A linked but separate trend in
2017 was the growing involvement of South Asian educated youth from urban
middle and upper middle-class backgrounds into militant activism. The
university and college educated youth have not only been joining the jihadist
groups more frequently from South Asia at individual level but they have formed
lone-wolf cells to carry out the so called jihad by using the ideological
umbrella of either Al-Qaeda or IS. The emergence of Al-Qaeda linked Jamaat
Ansar Al-Sharia in Pakistan, comprising university-students and faculty
members, and Ansar Ghazwat-ulHind in Kashmir under the disaffected
Hizbul-Mujiadeen commander Zakir Musa, are worrying trends. It underscores the
fact that educated youth of urban locales have become particularly vulnerable
to slick propaganda operations of jihadist groups through social media.
Given
the above, the jihadist threat will persist in South Asia with its epicentre in
AfPak region for five particular reasons. First, porous borders coupled with
pockets of conflict spread throughout the region provide jihadist groups with
suitable conditions and openings to operate with impunity. Second, the
US-Russia geopolitical fault line developing in Afghanistan, manifested by
Moscow‘s assertive role in its backyard and Washington‘s new Afghan policy of
stepping up the war effort in Afghanistan, will keep the jihadist threat alive.
Russia, Iran and Pakistan have developed nexuses with the Afghan Taliban to
counter ISK‘s security threat and US presence in Afghanistan, which they deem
as threats to their regional interests and national securities.
Under
President Donald Trump‘s new Afghan policy, the US military is also reviving
the anti-Taliban tribal militias (known as local/tribal peace councils) at the
village levels to counter Taliban‘s growing influence. However, backing such
jihadist and anti jihadist militias in Afghanistan is a recipe for more
violence and instability. The Trump administration is also expanding the
CIA-led drone programme to eliminate Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan, which
will fuel jihadist recruitment and increase anti Americanism. Both narratives
will feed into the jihadist propaganda. Third, the geo-sectarian fault-line
emerging between Iran and Saudi Arabia with a renewed competition for dominance
and influence in the Middle East will keep South Asia‘s Muslim majority nations
vulnerable to the pull and push factors of this sectarian struggle. Fourth, the
regional proxy-battles between India and Pakistan involving aiding and funding
jihadist groups against each other in the region will keep the jihadists in
business in South Asia.
Finally,
the absence of regional counterterrorism frameworks under the South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) umbrella not only keeps the
counter-terrorism potential of the region under-utilised but provides jihadists
a permissible environment to operate. This is unlike Southeast Asia where
various initiatives under the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
framework have been instrumental in enhancing the regional cooperation against
the twin threats of extremism and terrorism. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh
have advanced militaries, intelligence apparatuses and lawenforcement
structures and each country has done well, operationally, against the domestic
terrorist threat. Moreover, the bilateral cooperation between India and
Bangladesh in counter-terrorism and border management has been effective but it
needs to be expanded at the SAARC level.
Pakistan,
Indian and Bangladesh have also formulated their PVE and CVE strategies
focusing on social media narratives, local grievances that drive jihadist
recruitment, creating counter narratives against violent ideologies, targeting
avenues that can possibly be exploited by jihadists to further their agendas
such as madrassas, revision of religious curriculum and monitoring of
vulnerable individuals. Along with enhancing the scope of existing PVE and CVE
policies in South Asia, the region needs to move towards preventive approaches
to complement the existing initiatives to fight extremism.
Afghanistan
In 2017, the security situation in Afghanistan
remained turbulent as Afghanistan ranked the second most volatile country in
the world after Syria, according to the Global Peace Index 2017.1 While the
Afghan Taliban further expanded their territorial control, the failure of
Afghanistan‘s National Unity Government (NUG) to govern and provide security to
the masses has added to public anger and frustration.2 The overall deadlock of
the Afghan conflict continued, despite US President Donald Trump‘s Afghanistan
Policy of staying the course that has preserved the existing status quo. The
stalled Afghan peace process was reinitiated in October under the Quadrilateral
Coordination Group (QCG), comprising Afghanistan, United States, Pakistan and
China, but it did not make much headway.3 Parallel to the QCG process, Russia
launched its own Afghan peace initiative and held three meetings between late
2016 and early 2017.4 This has not only complicated the on-off Afghan peace
process but also ended the regional and international consensus of reaching a
joint settlement to end the war.
Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan
According
to Daniel Byman and Bruce Hoffman et al., insurgent movements require expertise
in guerrilla warfare, control of territory, external support (sanctuaries,
supply of weapons and finances) and a popular narrative that resonates with the
local population to succeed.5 The Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan have an
advantage over the NUG in all four respects.
Insurgency is a political competition to gain credibility where the
insurgents target the governments in an attempt to supplant them by creating
parallel governance structures (state-within-a-state, Taliban fiefdoms). The
Taliban have a well-entrenched shadow governance system in Afghanistan with
their governors and ministers.6 On the contrary, the NUG has failed to deliver
on its promises of economic development, curbing corruption and improving
governance and security, which has further strengthened the Taliban‘s
position.
The
insurgency in Afghanistan remains resilient and undefeated and is expanding its
territorial control. According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan
Reconstruction (SIGAR), the Taliban control 11 of Afghanistan‘s 400 districts
and influence another 34, while 100 districts remain contested between the
Taliban and NUG. At the same time, the Taliban have secured external support in
the form of safe havens, financial assistance and weapon supplies from various
neighbouring countries by exploiting the existing global and regional fault
lines.
In the
context of an armed conflict, terrorist attacks work as communication and
political strategies, which serve multiple purposes. According to Andrew H.
Kydd and Barbara F. Walter, five main strategic logics underpin terrorism
campaigns: attrition, intimidation, provocation, spoiling and outbidding. For
instance, attacks against government and security institutions aim to
discourage people from joining government organisations, lower the morale of
security personnel, and shake population‘s confidence in the government. On the
contrary, attacks targeting the civilians are meant to create an impression
that the government is incapable of providing security to the masses. The
Taliban are attacking both the government and civilians in Afghanistan to
further discredit NUG and shrink its already narrow political base.
In
2017, the Taliban changed their operational strategies from solely relying on
terrorism to more ―traditional conflict tactics‖ against the NUG and the Afghan
national police and army. This year, the civilian casualties witnessed a slight
decrease in Afghanistan due to the Taliban's strategy of conventional military
methods to target the NUG and Afghan forces. Compared to 2016, there was an
overall decrease of six percent in civilian casualties. Additionally, knowing the local terrain, the
Taliban have honed the art of guerrilla war, reflecting a superior will and a
patient approach of waiting out on the US-led military mission in Afghanistan
(you have the watch; we have the time). Most significantly, the Taliban‘s
narrative of ending the US occupation in Afghanistan resonates with the masses
even if they disagree with the ideological outlook and extremist worldview of
the former.
Insurgency
Deadlock
Notwithstanding Taliban‘s impressive
battlefield victories, the insurgency in Afghanistan is stalemated. Neither
side is in a position to impose a military solution over the other, nor are
they willing to moderate their stated positions to reach a political
compromise. The Taliban lack the manpower, expertise and firepower to transform
tactical gains into permanent strategic advantages. Similarly, with the
international community‘s assistance, the NUG has managed to survive, albeit on
a narrow political base, by retaining control of key urban centres, denying
Taliban a complete takeover.
The
deadlock is further perpetuated by the efforts from both sides to gain an
advantageous position to influence future negotiations. The Taliban have been
expanding their territorial control to gain a better bargaining position, if
and when, peace negotiations resume. Likewise, the NUG and the US have
intensified their military operations and airstrikes against the Taliban to
compel them to rethink their militaristic approach and reconcile with the
government.
The
deadlock has allowed the peace spoilers to exploit the existing fault lines.
For instance, various factions of the Pakistani Taliban, which were uprooted
from Pakistan‘s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) during the military
operations, have found sanctuaries in Afghanistan‘s border areas. They continue
to launch attacks inside Pakistan from their Afghan bases forcing the Pakistani
authorities to fence the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, which has been a source
of constant friction between the two neighbours. The hideouts of Pakistani
Taliban in Afghanistan and the Afghan Taliban in Pakistan have generated
recriminations and blame games. Similarly, the unrest in Afghanistan has
allowed the Islamic State of Khorasan (ISK), the regional affiliate of IS, to
create footholds in the eastern Nangarhar and northern Jawzjan provinces.
Islamic State of Khorasan (ISK)
Since
its creation in 2015, the group has upgraded its operational capabilities from
an opportunistic entity to a well-entrenched terrorist group, possessing the
capability to carry out attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as
the ideological allure to attract vulnerable individuals from India and
Pakistan to its training centres in eastern and northern Afghanistan.18
Presently, ISK has its presence in Afghanistan‘s Nangarhar, Ghor, Jawzjan,
Uruzgan, Logar, and Kunar provinces.
The
defeat of IS in the Middle East has not affected the operational strength of
ISK in Afghanistan, per se. Following territorial losses, IS has moved most of
its external operations outside of Iraq and Syria. In early 2016, a cell comprising
IS operatives in Pakistan, Canada and the Philippines plotted a high profile
attack, involving suicide vests and firearms, in New York‘s Time Square. The
explosive used in suicide vests was signature IS-explosive TATP. Moreover, the
authorisation of the attack came from IS‘ ―Wilayat Khorasan‖ in Afghanistan.
The cell was neutralised in late 2016. Another USbased IS lone wolf terrorist
Mahin Khan was arrested from Arizona in July 2016 for contacting ISK leaders in
Afghanistan in a bid to seek help to carry out an attack on behalf of the group
This points to ISK‘s growing capabilities of inspiring and directing attacks in
the US and the West from Afghanistan. Evidently, the aspiring jihadists of
South Asian origins in the US and the West are taking directions from ISK
leadership for carrying out lone-wolf attacks. Given this, it is quite likely
that in future pro-IS jihadists may travel to Afghanistan for training. The
group has spread its tentacles to northern Afghanistan as well. In February,
Abdul Malik, the son of IMU‘s founder Tahir Yuldashev, moved to northern
Afghanistan‘s Jawzjan province along with fighters and families of pro-IS
Pakistani Taliban factions by defeating the Afghan Taliban. As of November,
they have achieved full freedom of operations along with getting reinforcements
from southern Afghanistan.
Despite
losing three of its top leaders (Hafiz Saeed Khan Orakzai, Mullah Abdul Rauf
Khadim and Abdul Haseeb Loghari), ISK has consistently carried out attacks
underscoring its organisational strength and resilience. Other than attacking
security and government officials in Afghanistan, ISK terrorists have also
targeted the Shia community in an effort to exploit the SunniShia sectarian
fault-line. In 2016, ISK carried out as many as 51 attacks, leaving over 500
people dead as opposed to 120 killings in 2015. This upward trend is likely to
continue in the future as well because some of the IS-affiliated foreign
fighters, uprooted from Iraq and Syria, will relocate to the Khorasan chapter,
augmenting the operational and organisational strength of ISK. Alarmingly, some French, Moroccan, Algerian,
Tajik and Chechen foreign fighters who returned from Syria were spotted in
Jawzjan‘s Darzab district.
The
presence of ISK has generated fierce inter-group competition with the Taliban
leaving very little space for the latter to engage in the peace process with
the NUG. The more ambitious and
ideologically devout elements of the Afghan Taliban have the alternative option
of joining the ISK if the pronegotiation section of the insurgent movement
joins the political negotiations.
Peace
Process
This year, the peace process resumed under the
QCG framework but it failed to make any progress. Until late 2016, despite its
inability to produce any positive outcomes, the regional and international
consensus of achieving a unified political settlement of the conflict in
Afghanistan remained intact. In 2017, the largest setback to peace process was
the breakdown of regional and international consensus. While the QCG process
was shelved in April 2016 with the killing of Taliban‘s supreme leader Akhtar
Muhammad Mansoor in a drone attack in Balochistan, Russia launched its own
diplomatic initiative on Afghanistan with the backing of Pakistan, China and
Iran. Three meetings were held under the Russian initiative without much avail.
This
has created two rival blocs on the Afghan peace process led by the US and
Russia, respectively. The US camp has India, Afghanistan and the West aiming to
find a solution within Afghan democratic and constitutional framework. The
Russian camp has Pakistan, China, Iran and some Central Asian states advocating
powersharing agreement between the Taliban and NUG, while demanding a credible timeline
from the US to exit from Afghanistan.
Impact of Trump’s Afghanistan-South Asia Policy
Like
his predecessors George W. Bush and Barack Obama, US President Donald Trump‘s
Afghanistan policy, announced in August 2017, was no different. Trump adopted a
condition-based approach instead of a timeline-driven agenda, moved from
counter-insurgency to counter-terrorism, increased US military deployment by
4,000 soldiers and adopted a tough-line against Pakistan. Moreover, the Trump
administration gave the US military a greater role in handling matters in
Afghanistan.
However,
despite making the right political noises the gap between policy and
implementation is gigantic. For instance, the condition-based approach that
ensures the long-term US commitment to Afghanistan has stabilised the NUG but
the addition of 4,000 troops is insufficient to break the deadlock of
insurgency.32 Simply put, 15,000 troops cannot achieve what 150,000 US and NATO
troops could not do. Furthermore, conflict militarisation in Afghanistan will
prolong the war fuelling geopolitical competition and regional proxy-wars. Similarly, pressurising Pakistan to use its
influence on the Taliban to give up violence and negotiate with the NUG is
appropriate but playing off India to force the former to comply with US demands
is counterproductive. This strategy will further strengthen Pakistan‘s support
of the Taliban and embrace of China because the policy rhetoric of giving India
a larger role in Afghanistan adds to Pakistan‘s strategic anxiety of
encirclement by India between its eastern and western fronts.
The
paradox emanating from the continued US presence in Afghanistan has
simultaneously generated both stability and instability, hopes and fears, peace
and conflict in the war-torn country. No external power other than the US
wields enough diplomatic influence, military prowess and financial strength to
support the government in Afghanistan.
At the same time, the continued US stay in Afghanistan has generated a
hedging attitude in regional powers, which have cultivated their own proxy
groups in Afghanistan to secure their regional interests.
[
Taliban’s Diversified Regional Relations
Since 2015, the Afghan Taliban have
diversified their ties with Iran, Pakistan, Russia and China, minimising their
sole reliance on one particular country. This has increased their leverage and
enhanced their options for safe havens, weapons and funding. More importantly,
the diplomatic support of these regional countries has given them more space to
operate with greater freedom. The common threads in these nexuses are their
reservations and antipathy towards the US and to neutralise the ISK
threat.
Pakistan-Taliban Nexus
Pakistan hosts Taliban‘s top three Shuras
(religious and political councils), the Quetta Shura, the Haqqani Shura in the
Kurram tribal region and the Peshawar Shura. Cultivating the Afghan Taliban is
Pakistan‘s most cost-effective leverage to influence future developments in
Afghanistan and minimise the Indian influence. Islamabad has always advocated
finding a peaceful settlement of war in Afghanistan by engaging the Taliban
politically. In fact, Siraj Haqqani is
considered the defacto leader of the Taliban movement for managing the group‘s
successful military campaign and helping the Quetta Shura in overcoming the
internal divisions within the movement.
The inconsistent US policies in Afghanistan
has strengthened the impression in Islamabad that the US will, like in the late
1980s, abandon Afghanistan leaving Pakistan alone to face the blowback of
Afghan civil war. To minimise the expected blow back, maintaining ties with the
Taliban, arguably the most powerful non-state actor in Afghanistan, is
necessary as its influence will increase even more in case of a civil war in
Afghanistan.38
Moreover,
the US tendency of scapegoating Pakistan for its policy failures in Afghanistan
and ignoring Pakistan‘s genuine security concerns via a vis Afghanistan is
another reason why Pakistan supports the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan alleges that
India is aiding, arming and financing various Pakistani Taliban groups and the
Baloch separatists to destabilise Pakistan from Afghanistan. However, the US
has ignored the Pakistani complaints forcing it to rely on the Afghan Taliban
as its proxy. The rise of ISK, which primarily comprises former Pakistani
Taliban commanders and fighters has added another convergence of interest
between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban to cooperate.
Iran-Taliban
Nexus
Historically, the ties between the Taliban, a
Sunni extremist group, and Iran, a Shia majority country, remained tense. In
fact, the two came close to a war in 1998 following the killing of 14 Iranian
diplomats in Afghanistan‘s western Herat province. Moreover, Iran provided key
intelligence to the US after 9/11 to topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
However, since 2015, Iran‘s relationship with Taliban has evolved. Tehran is
supporting the Taliban to create a buffer between its 91kilometre long border
with Afghanistan and the US military bases in the country, and to eliminate
ISK, which has targeted the ethnic Hazara Shias in Afghanistan.41 It is
important to point out that Iran has recruited Shias from Afghanistan to fight
its proxy war in Syria making the Afghan Shias a potential target of ISK.
The
closeness of Iran-Taliban ties can be measured from the fact that the former
Taliban chief Akhtar Mansoor had his businesses in Iran. He was killed while
returning from Iran. The Taliban have opened an office in Iran‘s city of
Mashhad known as the ‗Mashhad Shura‘.
Families of various high-ranking Taliban leaders live in the Iranian
cities of Yazd, Kerman and Mashhad. Tehran also has a covert open Following the
killing of Akhtar Mansoor in 2016, Pakistan further increased and consolidated
its control over the Taliban movement by elevating the head of the Haqqani
Network Siraj-ud-Din Haqqani as one of the two deputies of the Taliban supremo
Maulvi Haibatullah Akhundzada border
agreement with the Taliban providing them medical facilities, finances, weapons
and shelter.
Russia-Taliban Nexus
The geopolitical developments in Afghanistan
have compelled Russia, who fought jihadists in the 1980s, to align with them.
Moscow has cultivated close ties with the Afghan Taliban to use them as a proxy
against US military presence in Afghanistan. Russia views the US long-term
presence in Afghanistan through a broad geo-political perspective instead of
taking a narrow view of defeating the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
The
Russian President‘s Special Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kablouv has termed the
long-term US presence in Afghanistan as a threat to Russian security and
regional interests. In a statement, he mentioned that the level and magnitude
of US presence in Afghanistan allows it to mobilise against Iran, China or
Russia in two weeks. Moreover, Afghanistan gives America a strategic toehold at
the confluence of South and Central Asia to contain the globally rising China,
diplomatically and militarily assertive Russia and the defiant Iran and
Pakistan.
Moreover, Russia‘s proactive military role in
defeating the IS in Syria and keeping the Assad regime in power with the
Iranian has made it IS‘ main enemy. After Arabic, Russian was the second
largest language spoken in the IS-held territories in Iraq and Syria.
Approximately 5,000 to 7,000 militants of Russian, north Caucus and Central
Asian origins moved to Iraq and Syria to join IS.47 Now that IS has lost more
than 80% of its territory in the Middle East, Moscow fears the return of these
fighters will create serious security issues for it. Hence, it has fostered
closer ties with the Afghan Taliban to deny ISK any substantial presence in
Afghanistan.
Policy
Recommendations
The
American interventions in Vietnam (1955-1975) and Afghanistan (2001-present)
and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan (1979-1988) have three common features.
First is the failure of Russia and the US to sell the war to the locals: the
foreign occupation remained highly unpopular in all three cases. Second, they
failed to stop the predatory behaviours and interventions of neighbouring
states into Vietnam and Afghanistan. Lastly, they failed to find credible and
capable local partners to strengthen democracy, improve governance and build up
the economy. As a result, they preferred personalisation of politics as opposed
to its institutionalisation and not allowing the system to evolve and take
roots.
Three
major fault lines, Russia-America geopolitical competition, India-Pakistan
proxybattles and the Saudi-Iran geo-sectarian rivalry, have prevented the
development of a genuine Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process. To give
peace a real chance in Afghanistan, these fault lines will have to be
neutralised. Unfortunately, Afghanistan‘s heavy reliance on foreign aid as well
as dependence on neighbouring countries, being a landlocked country, for its
trade has kept it vulnerable to external manipulations.
At the
local level, the greatest challenge for Washington and Kabul is to extend an
olive branch to the Afghan Taliban and convince them to shun violence and
engage in meaningful peace talks without compromising Afghan constitutional
framework and democratic order. While Pakistan can be compelled or persuaded to
use its influence on the Afghan Taliban to pursue peace talks, if various power
centres within the Afghan government do not speak with one voice, progress in
the peace process is unlikely. In the past, the divisions within the NUG
undercut the peace process.
At the
regional level, to break the current gridlock, it is instructive to
re-examine Afghanistan‘s pre-Cold War
position of neutrality. A neutral Afghan government at the regional and global
level can pave the way for a regional agreement of noninterference to create a
suitable environment for the peace process. Afghanistan should disengage from
security-based regional partnerships in favour of cooperation agreement signed
by all its neighbours. As long as Afghanistan takes sides in regional and
global geopolitical competition, it will force certain states to respond in
kind by cultivating proxy groups.
At the
global level, if Russia and the US continue along the same trajectory of
outbidding each other in Afghanistan with the help of pliant neighbouring
states then the country might turn into another Syria where the jihadist groups
will be the ultimate beneficiaries. The Af-Pak region has the highest
concentration of terrorist groups in the world. Of the 98 US-designated
terrorist groups, 20 operate in the AfghanistanPakistan tribal region,
including Al-Qaeda, the Haqqani Network, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP),
Jandullah, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), Lahkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and
Al-Qaeda in the Indian Sub-continent (AQIS). Any further destabilisation of
Afghanistan will negatively affect South and Central Asian regions with
reverberations felt as far as Russia and China. The defeat of the IS in the
Middle East can once again transform Afghanistan into the most favoured
destination of jihadists around the world.
Outlook
The status quo is likely to prevail in
Afghanistan and further intensify the regional and global geopolitical
competition. Afghanistan will continue to be the epicentre of jihadism in South
Asia, providing various jihadist groups enough space to survive and expand.
Moreover, the presence of ISK will attract sympathisers of the Caliphate
narrative from South Asian states to undertake the so-called hijrah
(emigration) to ISK-held territories in Afghanistan. This is both a challenge
and opportunity for South Asian countries to work together in regional settings to overcome the common threat of
violent-extremism and terrorism.
Pakistan
Pakistan
faces security challenges from a plethora of terrorist groups, including the
Pakistani Taliban, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), Islamic
State of Khorasan (ISK) and Al-Qaeda linked networks that are either working in
tandem or at odds with each other. The overlapping ideological narratives of
these jihadist organisations espouse sectarian agendas (anti-Shia/Ahmadi
inclinations), the creation of an Islamic caliphate, Kashmir jihad and
Ghazwa-e-Hind ambitions.
Beyond
the threat of jihadist movements, the mainstreaming of extremist values that
legitimises intolerance, sectarian polarisation and radicalism has been
troublesome. This is best illustrated by the glorification of a convicted
terrorist (Mumtaz Qadri) by religious-political parties and approval for Hafiz
Saeed, a UN-designated terrorist leader, to contest the 2018 general election. Both
IS and Al-Qaeda have gained more clout in Pakistan‘s jihadist landscape and strengthened
their recruitment campaigns, specifically targeting the disenfranchised youth
including women. The traction of extremist narratives among educated young men
and women signals the deepening political crisis, characterised by growing
alienation from mainstream politics and worsening sectarian, ethnic and
religious polarisation. These threats will mostly likely spill-over into 2018
with local and transnational groups perpetrating attacks at soft targets in
urban centres. The state‘s militarised counter-terrorism policies are
fragmented at best, and marked by the neglect of soft policy approaches to
counter and prevent extremism and radicalisation.
Mainstreaming the Far-Right and Traction of Extremist
Narratives
The
mainstream political participation of radicalised entities and the state‘s
subsequent lack of response highlight a growing space for intolerance and
extremism. This trend is best illustrated by the rise of the Milli Muslim
League (MML), the newly-formed political front of the proscribed Jamaat-ud-Dawa
(JuD), bagging as many as 5,822 votes, and the Tehreek-iLabaik Ya Rasool Allah
(TLY), a Barelvi extremist organisation garnering 7,130 votes, in a national
assembly by-election which was won by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz‘s
(PML-N) with 61,254 votes.
Traditionally, religious parties have not
performed well in Pakistan‘s electoral politics and have never been in power at
national level. They have largely been reduced to being a part of coalitions
and harnessing their street power to advocate religious interests. The
by-election and the recent sit-in by TLY in Islamabad resulting in the
resignation of the law minister indicate growing political clout and influence
for the new religious-political groups. These groups are transforming
Pakistan‘s Islamist politics from pan-Islamism to narrower sectarianism. The
shift in voting patterns in favour of
MML and TLY can be attributed to the political evolution of the PML-N
from being a centreright to a centre-left party in Pakistan.
TLY‘s
case in particular threatens to polarise the society along sectarian lines
because it is glorifying the former Punjab governor‘s selfrighteous assassin
Mumtaz Qadri as a hero. TLY, initially named the Movement to Free Mumtaz Qadri,
adopts a strict anti-Ahmadi and anti-Deobandi stance, and had sieged Islamabad
for three weeks. More than 3,000 TLY supporters blocked the bridge connecting
the garrison city of Rawalpindi, home of Pakistan military‘s General
Headquarters (GHQ), with Islamabad. The 21-day sit-in symbolises the rise of
the farright and their street power in Pakistan. The protests ended with an
agreement between the civilian government and TLY, whose demands included easy
registration of blasphemy-related cases, and direct oversight of the education
board and related textbook changes.
Beyond
an extremist party embroiling itself in national politics, the leader of the
internationally designated terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba‘s (LeT) (now JuD),
Hafiz Saeed, announced that he will contest the general election in 2018 under
the MML. Saeed and his organisation has adopted an anti-India stance on Kashmir
and was placed under house-detention for terrorism-related charges that were
withdrawn in October 2017. Saeed was released in November and was greeted by
hundreds of his supporters, who identify with his brand of ‗Kashmir jihad‘ and
anti-India positioning. This development signified that a section of Pakistan‘s
security establishment still views Saeed and his party as an asset and a useful
proxy against India, as their support base furthers Pakistan‘s confrontational
outlook towards the country. Overall,
the electoral performance of both parties will not result in a political
upheaval with them winning a majority of the vote during the 2018 elections.
However, allowing TLY, an organisation defending a convicted terrorist and the
MML, the political wing of a terrorist organisation, to gain electoral strength
signifies that radical and militant Islamism will gain a deeper foothold within
the country. In the context of efforts to fight terrorism, this is a serious if
not ominous development. As such, Pakistan‘s accommodation of extremists in
hopes of moderating them is a flawed approach as moderation should be a
prerequisite to political inclusion and mainstreaming.
Al-Qaeda’s Resurgence and Islamic State’s (IS)
Operational Presence
The
emergence of a pro Al-Qaeda group, Jamaat Ansar al-Sharia Pakistan (ASP), comprising
jihadist returnees from the Middle East, in June 2017 signalled the revival of
AlQaeda in the country. ASP has conducted multiple attacks in Karachi and is
headed by a relatively less well known jihadist named Ahmad Farooq.54 The
group‘s ascendance indicates an acceptance of those returning from Libya, Iraq
and Syria and an operational resurgence of Al-Qaeda to compete with IS Khorasan
(ISK) in Afghanistan. ASP has been making efforts to establish itself as a
highly active and trained organisation, in comparison to Al-Qaeda in the Indian
Subcontinent (AQIS) that was unable to elicit significant recruits or
perpetrate major attacks since its formation in 2014.55 However, ASP was
neutralised in October 2017 after its members and leader were killed in
security forces operations in various parts of Karachi.
Broadly,
Al-Qaeda‘s resurgence is likely to have two major implications for the local
militancy landscape. First, IS‘ territorial losses in Iraq and Syria will grant
credence to AQ‘s claims as the leader of the global jihadist movement among
local militant outfits. As such, returning fighters and those attracted by IS
ideology could turn towards Al-Qaeda to wage jihad in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Second, Al-Qaeda‘s credibility and legitimacy will be strengthened further with
growing linkages with local militant groups.
However,
throughout 2017, IS in Pakistan has managed to remain operationally strong and
visible, through its local affiliated groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al-Alami
(LeJ-A) and Jamat-ul-Ahrar (JuA).56 Both groups perpetrated mass-casualty and
high-profile attacks targeting Sufi shrines and in urban centres such as
Lahore. Both organisations have targeted religious minorities, such as Shia and
the Barelvi sect, with ISK claiming responsibility. A report by the Royal Unit
Services Institute in January 2016, estimated that IS had at least 2,000 to
3,000 members in Pakistan.57 Alternately, intelligence representatives
confirmed that more than 650 Pakistanis are fighting abroad in different
conflict zones, including Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan and 100 of them
are fighting for IS.58 It is evident that Pakistan faces a more significant
threat from local IS-inspired fighters than those who have travelled abroad and
might return after territorial losses.
However,
the likelihood of IS and its fighters moving towards Afghanistan after facing
losses in Iraq and Syria cannot be denied. Afghanistan‘s current situation,
including the active insurgency and general lawlessness, confirms this. Any
influx of IS fighters in Afghanistan is bound to further increase already high
levels of radicalisation and extremism in Pakistan, as the group seeks to
expand and attract more recruits. The threat from Al-Qaeda and IS-linked groups
will possibly accumulate and inspire attacks in urban centres with religious
sects being targeted as both groups continue vying for power and recruits.
Urban Educated Jihadists as a Growing Support Base
The
recruitment of urban and educated jihadists from universities in Peshawar,
Karachi, Lahore, Hyderabad and Multan continued to negate the
madrassa-terrorism nexus in 2017. The move towards violent extremism within
these self-radicalised and lone-wolf jihadists is primarily related to desires
to create a global Sunni caliphate.59 This recruitment is also triggered by the
use of social media and its related manipulation by local and transnational
jihadist organisations, and the political disenfranchisement of the youth. The
authorities are aware of the threat, with the head of the Counter Terrorism
Department (CTD) Sindh, Additional Inspector General stating, ―Radicalisation
is growing at academic institutes with the CTD assessing that the next
generation of militants is more likely to have university education rather than
a madrassah background‖.
Moreover,
reports of recruitment of the students and faculty members from Institute of
Business Administration (IBA), Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences,
Karachi University and International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI),
University of Peshawar (UoP) represent a potent challenge for the state. The
urban and educated jihadists are being recruited from networks outside their
universities, but then seek to establish cells and networks within their
institutes. These cells then come together to form small militant organisations
that conduct attacks targeting soft targets which is evident in the case of
ASP, identified above. Effectively this phenomenon represents a
‗decentralisation of jihad‘ where smaller terrorist cells can operate without
oversight from larger organisations, making it easier to perpetrate small-scale
attacks without being detected by the authorities.
Female Radicalisation and Recruitment
Pakistan
witnessed an uptick in female radicalisation and recruitment by IS and the
Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The recruitment drives by IS and the TTP
underscore a growing realisation of the benefits a female membership can offer.
First, incorporation of women highlights the long-term approach for traditional
Islamist societies where mothers indoctrinate their children as future members
of the group. Second, women provide a critical support base as financiers,
propagandists and recruiters to strengthen the organisation further. Lastly,
women are elicited as fighters and suicide bombers as they can penetrate
targets more easily than men and attacks by women provide higher shock value.
Specifically, in April 2017, Noreen Leghari, a student from Liaquat Medical
University, was supposed to conduct a suicide attack targeting a church before
she was arrested by the authorities.61 Reports revealed she was being deployed
as a suicide bomber because of the lack of physical checks at security check-points
due to the presence of male staff that subsequently increases the chances of
striking the location for maximum casualties.
In
2017, TTP released two issues of the Sunnat-e-Khaula magazine, named after a
historical Muslim female fighter, urging women to wage ‗jihad‘. TTP‘s female
recruitment drive is likely linked to its weakened position in Pakistan that
has been triggered due to the recruitment drive by IS. Despite suffering losses
in Iraq and Syria, signs of IS‘ recruitment efforts within Pakistan pose a
threat to TTP‘s already diminished status. The drive to recruit women coincides
with TTP‘s ongoing battlefield losses due to intensified military operations
and drone strikes in its tribal strongholds.
Pakistan’s Regional Policy Conundrum
In
August 2017, the United States (US) announced its Afghan policy, which
indicated that the country is reinforcing and asserting its presence in
Afghanistan as the country faces violence with an active Afghan Taliban,
Haqqani Network and ISK. First, the US has threatened to decrease its military
aid to Pakistan, if the former did not dismantle sanctuaries of the Afghan
Taliban (based in Quetta) and Haqqani Network (based in Kurram Agency) from its
soil. The US specifically stated that at least USD527 million will be released
in aid to Pakistan, if the country takes strict action against
Afghanistan-focused terrorist groups on its soil. The adoption of a threatening
stance towards Pakistan is unlikely to change Pakistan‘s policies and could
alienate it further. Second, the US open
invitation to India to cooperate in Afghanistan is not well received by
Pakistan. As such, propping up India in Afghanistan means that the country is
effectively circled in the east and the west. This relates to the concept of
strategic depth that focused on supporting the Afghan Taliban against the
India-backed Northern Alliance (NA) in the 1990s, which is not an ideal stance
to adopt today as instability in Afghanistan is correlated with instability in
Pakistan partly due to the presence of crossborder terrorism.
In
November 2017, US Defense Secretary James Mattis urged Pakistan to take action
against cross-border movement of terrorists. In response, Pakistan affirmed its
resolve in fighting terrorism, highlighting the efforts made specifically
through military operations. However, 2018 remains a critical year with
reference to counter-terrorism efforts, and letting go of the notorious ‗Good
Taliban‘ and ‗Bad Taliban‘ distinction which has been doing the country more
harm than good. Overall, cross-border ties between the good and the bad
terrorists make it harder to defeat and eliminate them, which could further
instability between US-Pakistan relations and block the release of military aid
to the country.
Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) Revival and
Military Operations
A fresh wave of terrorist attacks unleashed by
the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) from its bases in Afghanistan highlights
three security implications for Pakistan. First, TTP has continued targeting
educational institutes as part of its reprisal attacks against the Pakistani
state and security forces. In December 2014, TTP targeted the Army Public
School in Peshawar and earlier in January 2016, the Bacha Khan University in
Charsadda was attacked. Specifically targeting educational institutes signifies
efforts to eliminate the ‗future generation‘ that does not subscribe to the
group‘s vision of a state imbibing Sharia law. Second, this attack marks TTP‘s
continued revival after being targeted and operationally weakened through drone
strikes and ground operations since 2014. As such, TTP is likely to become more
active in 2018, as it was previously overshadowed by JuA and LJA which claimed
a majority of the attacks over the past two years. Lastly, this attack points
towards the inability of military operations to fully ‗eliminate‘ or ‗defeat‘
the organisation that killed more than 140 people in the Army Public School in
2014.
As of
26 November 2017, South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) database points to a
decrease in terrorism-related casualties in Pakistan from 612 to 489 in 119
terrorist attacks.65 In addition, a US State Department report looking at
global terrorism and its impact in 2016 stated that Pakistan experienced
decreasing casualties in terrorism in the past two years. The National Counter
Terrorism Authority of Pakistan (NACTA) also affirmed that terrorist incidents
had decreased by 31 percent in Pakistan with 426 incidents till September 2016.
This decrease in attacks and casualties can consistently be explained by the
various operations (Zarb-e-Azb, Rad-ulFassad and Khyber-II) targeting
terrorists in the restive tribal areas. They have contributed to the elimination
of multiple highprofile terrorist commanders and their cadres/support base. A
temporary lull in violence was seen since these operations began, but a revival
is now evident as the militant group recover from the loss of fighters, leaders
and operational bases. This revival is likely to continue as terrorists move
from rural to urban areas and form smaller isolated cells to perpetrate attacks
in the mainland (specifically urban cities in Punjab).
State Responses: The Neglected National Action Plan
(NAP)
Pakistan‘s counter-terrorism policies continue to be
dictated by an over-militarised approach, where counter-ideology, countering
violent extremism (CVE) and peace-building measures are neglected. Any cohesive
and holistic policy to fight terrorism in Pakistan must pair kinetic measures
with CVE measures. In this regard, the engagement of the religious clergy and
educational institutes in promoting narratives of tolerance, and negating
extremist interpretations of Islam are limited at best. The National Action
Plan (NAP), a 20-point instrument geared towards fighting sectarianism,
intolerance and extremism within Pakistan, has been in force since 2014.
However, the lack of initiative to act upon the plan shows that Pakistan has
become adept in killing terrorists, but not in negating the ideology that fuels
them. In addition, considering the mainstreaming of religious intolerance and
sectarianism, it would be advantageous to implement preventing violent
extremism (PVE) narratives. Overall, a holistic response that extends beyond
short-term kinetic policies would include promoting peace and coexistence
through the education system, and increased oversight on madrassas and
educational institutes advocating sectarianism and intolerance. Here, the
growing radicalisation of educated urban youth, including young women,
highlights the urgent need to address their grievances, integrate them
politically and provide alternatives for taking up arms against the state.
Bangladesh
In
2017, Bangladesh witnessed a significant decline in terrorist attacks across
the country as compared to 2015 and 2016. This can be attributed to the
successful counter-terrorism operations launched by the Bangladeshi
authorities. However, there are new
challenges. The persecution of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar‘s Rakhine state
has resulted in an influx of over 600,000 refugees into Bangladesh. The
resultant humanitarian crisis has opened up the space for jihadist groups like
Al-Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic State (IS) to exploit the Rohingya issue for
recruitment and propaganda. Bangladeshi militant groups have also been changing
their operational tactics to adapt to the rapidly evolving security
environment. The plight of the Rohingya Muslims has given them an opportunity
to propagate their jihadist narrative to win over vulnerable Bangladeshi
youth.
Islamic State (IS) Threat
Notwithstanding IS defeat in the Middle East,
the group remains a long-term internal security challenge for Bangladesh. On this
issue, counterterrorist operations have achieved a measure of success as they
have weakened the Neo-JMB, a local IS affiliate group. Bangladeshi authorities
have carried out nearly a dozen counterterrorism operations across the country
to contain IS, forcing IS operatives to maintain a low profile. IS/Neo-JMB‘s
organisational structure in Bangladesh has been damaged, and most of its top
leaders have been arrested or killed since the Dhaka Café attack in July
2016.Instead of carrying out attacks, Neo-JMB is now focused on recruiting new
members, mostly online, particularly from the urban areas and scaling up its
explosive-making capabilities. According to Bangladeshi lawenforcement
agencies, every month at least two or three youth go missing and some of the
cases go unreported. For now, the group has decentralised to avoid further
disruption to its network and penetration in social media.
IS currently has highly mobile teams which
move from district to district, and small preattack dens in all the country‘s
six divisions, highlighting IS‘ nationwide outreach and penetration. The group
is stockpiling arms and explosives, like Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP) [used by
terrorists in the Paris, Brussels and London attacks]. The militants have
possibly learnt to stabilise TATP. Moreover, there has been a sharp increase in
the recovery of suicide belts in Bangladesh. According to explosive experts,
these surgical belts are difficult to detect, and an upgraded version of
suicide vests compared to the ones recovered earlier.
The rebuttals by IS propagandists of the
counter-narratives given by the local Muslim scholars against extremist
ideologies, is another noteworthy trend in 2017. This means that IS ideology
will have long-term implications for Bangladesh‘s internal security. It
underscores the need for a more pro-active counter-ideology strategy and
investment in building social awareness against violent-extremism.
Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) Threat
In 2017, Al-Qaeda‘s (AQ) Bangladeshi affiliate
Ansar Al-Islam did not carry out any attack in Bangladesh; the group was mostly
active in the propaganda domain using social media platforms. AQ in the Indian
Subcontinent (AQIS) regularly published its Bengali language magazine Al Balagh
(The Conveyed), which covered various issues for the Bengali-speaking audience.
Before 2017, the group had carried out eleven targeted assassinations of
writers and secular bloggers, social media activists and one publisher.
AQIS
tried to exploit the Rohingya issue and frame it as part of its jihadist
narrative. In June 2017, the group released a publication titled ―Code of
Conduct‖ which defined the parameters for its members, supporters and
sympathisers. The publication was a public relations effort by the group to
appear more acceptable to the larger community of extremists who are somewhat
uneasy with the brutality and excessively violent methods of IS. AQIS‘ attempt
to appear ‗more legitimate‘ and ‗rational‘ than IS through the ―Code of
Conduct‖, shows the group‘s desire to reclaim its place in the jihadist domain,
which it lost to IS in the last few years.
Additionally,
AQIS is being advised by other AQ affiliates to target Myanmar. For instance,
in a video message released in September, a senior leader of AQ‘s Yemeni branch
Khaled Batarfi called on Muslims in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Malaysia
to support their Rohingya Muslim brethren against the ―enemies of Allah Although
more propaganda and less attack appears to be a core strategy for AQIS, the law
enforcement agencies in Bangladesh believe that AQIS will possibly try to
re-emerge and rebrand itself by capitalising on the Rohingya issue. The
persecution of the Rohingya resonates with the Bangladeshi public at an emotive
level, giving AQIS an opportunity to recruit some vulnerable youth.
Female Jihadists
Radicalisation
and recruitment of females by the jihadist group Neo-JMB is concerning for
Bangladesh‘s internal security and it underscores a need for more
gender-specific policing as well as gender-targeted counternarrative. Women‘s
involvement in jihadist groups is a relatively new trend in Bangladesh which
has been partly influenced by IS‘ strategy of integrating women in the group‘s
activities in order to boost manpower of the group and to operate below the
radar of the law enforcement agencies as women are not the usual suspects. In the Bangladeshi context, women are
radicalised, recruited and often forced to join the militant groups by their
male family-members. Interrogation of some of the female terrorist detainees
show that they accompanied their husbands as they were worried about how the
society would treat them if their husbands' involvement in militant activities
came to light.
Several
counterterrorism operations conducted in 2017 shows that some women are also
highly trained. During counterterrorism raids, some female militants also
committed suicide with their husbands and children to avoid arrests. Bangladesh
police however has no information so far about women joining the terrorist
outfits willingly but possibilities of a greater involvement of women in the
future cannot be ruled out.
India-Bangladesh Border
The
situation at the India-Bangladesh border posed a major challenge to
counter-terrorism efforts in Bangladesh. Various Bangladeshi militant groups,
particularly Neo-JMB, have found safe havens in Indian West Bengal where most
of the high-profile terrorists are hiding. Some of the militants released on
bail from Bangladeshi prisons have also managed to cross the border to hide in
and operate from India. For instance, in September 2017, Samiun Rahman alias
Ibne Hadan, a 31-year-old British citizen of Bangladesh origin, was arrested in
New Delhi by Indian law enforcement authorities for trying to set up bases in
Delhi, Mizoram and Manipur to radicalise and recruit young Muslims to attack
India and Myanmar.Samiun was detained in Dhaka in 2014 but was released on bail
by the High Court in April 2017.
During his interrogation, Samiun revealed to
Delhi police that his task was to raise funds and incite youths to fight
against the Myanmar military and to facilitate their entry into Myanmar from
northeastern states.80 Being bound by India on three sides and sharing a border
with Myanmar‘s conflict zone, such cross-border linkages are highly problematic
for Bangladesh‘s counter terrorism campaign. In addition to being a sanctuary
for Bangladeshi militants, India‘s black-market for weapons is a key source of
explosives and small weapons for Bangladeshi jihadists.81 Several border
districts of the Indian state of West Bengal have pockets of support for
Bangladeshi militant groups. Moreover, the BangladeshIndia border is a major
conduit of illicit flows, which creates a permeable environment for the
militants to operate there.
State
Responses
To effectively combat terrorism at the
operational level, the Bangladesh government has created the Dhaka Metropolitan
Police (DMP) Anti-Terrorism Unit (ATU) in 2017. With a nation-wide mandate,
this unit will focus solely on counter-terrorism in Bangladesh. An additional
Inspector General of Police (IGP) will head the new anti-terrorism unit, which
will have around 600 officials, including a Deputy Inspector General (DIG) and
two additional DIGs. The new unit will have 41 vehicles, including ambulances
and armored personnel carriers. Bangladesh currently has a Counter Terrorism
and Transnational Crime Unit (CTTC), under the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP),
which has been carrying out operations outside the capital Dhaka under special
arrangement, but the new ATU will have a country-wide jurisdiction.
CVE Initiatives in Bangladesh
Bangladesh‘s
renewed CVE initiatives are in response to the IS-led attack on the Holey
Artisan Café in Dhaka. A 17-member National Committee on Militancy, Resistance
and Prevention is overseeing the ongoing CVE measures in the country. The CVE policy in Bangladesh focuses on
creating better awareness of religious teachings and building social
resilience. Moreover, Bangladesh‘s CVE programme partners with religious
leaders who play an important role as community leaders. Religious leaders are
co-opted to educate the Muslim community about violent extremism. For instance, Bangladesh Islamic Foundation (BIF), an autonomous body
under the Ministry of Religious Affairs, is working with Imams (prayer leaders)
from a network of 70,000 mosques to ensure that the BIF-prepared pre-sermon
speeches are delivered during Friday prayers.
Bangladesh‘s
ministries of Information and Culture use newspapers, radio, and televisions
for CVE messaging. Presently, the government is producing documentaries,
short-films, and advertisements with a focused CVE messages to confront the
extremist narratives. The core message of CVE in Bangladesh is that Islam
stands for peace, tolerance and peaceful coexistence and that Islam does not
approve of militancy.Similarly, the ministries of Education and Home
Affairs are engaging
with the educational institutions
to create awareness about extremism and
terrorism among teachers, students, and parents. The educational institutions have
also instructed the teachers, parents, and students to remain vigilant and
report to the police if any student is involved in extremist activity or goes
missing for ten days.
Likewise,
the Ministry of Youth is preparing a Youth Database to develop new programmes.
Through its countrywide network, it is organising various sporting events
across the country to channel the energy of Bangladeshi youth into creative and
constructive activities. Some madrassas
have been known to preach religious intolerance and extremism. Consequently,
madrassa textbooks have been revised and the government has directed the
Ministry of Education to continue its scrutiny of the madrassa curriculum. Additionally, the government has co-opted
the Qawmi Madrassa, which is one of the two major madrassas in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh
has also taken steps to monitor social media platforms, such as Facebook and
Twitter. Efforts are underway to develop the technological capacity of the
National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre (NTMC) to enhance the detection of
extremist websites. The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission
(BTRC) is also working in this regard with Muslim clerics in Bangladesh.
Outlook
By
preventing further terrorist attacks following the Holey Artisan Bakery siege,
Bangladesh has certainly made progress in counterterrorism. The authorities
have also prevented the speed of IS expansion in Bangladesh by disrupting IS
leadership through operations. Due to the absence of charismatic and capable
leaders, the supporters are unable to mount large-scale attacks.
In 2018, the key challenge for Bangladesh will
be to tackle the residual strength of militants and checking new recruitment in
the face of the worsening Rohingya crisis in Myanmar. The law enforcement
agencies will also have to grapple with the changing tactics of the groups. In
this respect, Bangladesh will need to enhance the capabilities of its
counterterrorism agencies and at the same time broaden its CVE campaign to
negate terrorist propaganda and appeals.
India
In
2017, the twin threats of online Islamist radicalisation and militancy in
Kashmir, where a Pan-Islamist sentiment is slowly burgeoning, expanded in India.
As a result, India witnessed an increase in violence, casualties, militant
recruitment and crossborder infiltration from Pakistan and Bangladesh. At the
same time, Hindu extremism has also added a new dimension to violence in India.
This year witnessed a significant increase in the number of beefrelated
lynching and minority persecutions.
The Quiet Islamic State (IS)
IS has struggled to establish a foothold in
India since its formation. India‘s security forces have neutralised six to
eight ISaffiliated cells and lone-wolf individuals, which were mainly
concentrated across Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and
Telangana. Although many Indians who travelled to Afghanistan to fight for IS
were killed in a US offensive in April 2017, the war-torn nation may remain a
prospective site for Indians joining IS in the region. This is because of the
growing IS footprint in Afghanistan‘s ungoverned spaces, and IS moving its
battles to other parts of the world such as South Asia (Khorasan) and South-East
Asia (Marawi) following the loss of territory in Iraq and Syria.
Demographically,
90% of the 100 individuals who travelled to join IS from India are between 18
and 33 years, with 70% having educational qualifications. These figures suggest
that the IS threat in India has largely been an urban phenomenon. Multiple
intelligence reports across the country have pinpointed the role of the
Internet as a facilitator of violent radicalisation. Social media propaganda
has spread across the country and encrypted private messaging applications such
as WhatsApp and Telegram have enabled prospective members to chat with
ideologues without fear of detection or restriction.
Security
agencies, investigating online radicalisation, have discovered Shafi Armar and
Karen Aisha Hamidon as the two main ideologues subverting India from abroad.
Armar, also the emir of the Indian IS branch, is a well-known figure who was
reported to be in contact with almost 700 youth across the country through
closed Facebook groups. Aisha Hamidon, a female propagandist, is said to have
recruited over 20 Indians through private messaging applications; she was
arrested in October in Manila, the Philippines Dormant Threat of Al-Qaeda in
the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS)
In
2017, Al-Qaeda‘s South Asian affiliate, AlQaeda in the Indian Subcontinent
(AQIS), continued to maintain a nominal presence in India without carrying out
any terrorist attack. The operational preparedness and effective
counter-terrorism intelligence of the Indian security forces have been
instrumental in keeping the AQIS threat in check. Despite the group‘s
propaganda claims of spreading its tentacles to India, most of its operations
have been restricted to recruitment and preaching.
It is
important to point out that AQIS‘ low profile in India is consistent with
Al-Qaeda‘s overall policy of embedding its jihadist agendas within like-minded
local groups. This potentially makes AQIS more dangerous and a long-term
security threat despite its low-profile posture in India. Moreover, its ability
to stay off the radar of Indian security forces allows it time and space to
revive and regroup.
To
gain a foothold and expand its presence in India, AQIS tried to exploit the
fault-lines of the Kashmir conflict. In July 2017, Al-Qaeda managed to secure
the allegiance of Zakir Musa, a disaffected leader of the Kashmiri militant
group Hizbul Mujahideen (HM). Musa defected to Al-Qaeda and created his own
jihadist faction, Ansar Ghazwat-Ul-Hind, prioritising Sharia over a political
struggle for freedom. Musa, already an influential techsavvy figure among
Kashmiri youth due to his star persona online, rose to prominence in mid-2017
when he criticised the HM leadership for being complacent, and promoted
jihadist aspirations in Kashmir While his calls for jihad were initially
rejected, a response to his pro-Sharia calls evinced a response in November
2017 when a number of Kashmiris who attended the funeral of a Tehreek-ul
Mujahideen militant shouted slogans in his favor. These developments are
concerning and will bear close watching in 2018.
Kashmir
According to the Indian Ministry of Home
Affairs, Kashmir witnessed a rise in violence with close to 200 incidents in
2017 and the recruitment of 90 individuals into terrorist groups. India
however, claims to have curbed the violence, citing a 90% drop in stone pelting
(a general indicator of violence in the region), and restored normalcy. The authorities have attributed this
reduction in violence to improved coordination between various security
institutions, reduction in lethal weapons used by security forces and better
counselling services provided to youth (endeavors that prevented 60 people from
joining militant groups). Additionally, HM struggled to recuperate from its
loss of fighters following encounters with Indian security forces. The split
with Musa and the declaration of HM as a Globally Designated Terrorist group
have undermined the group even further.100 But HM‘s decline has created space
for IS to gain a foothold in Kashmir where it claimed its first attack in
Kashmir in November.101 While unverified, this also accompanies reports of
residents draping slain militants with IS black flags.
Coupled with the rise of Zakir Musa, this
represents a slight but significant shift from a nationalist to perhaps a
pan-Islamist struggle in Kashmir, a development that will not bode well for
security and stability in Kashmir.
Government
Response
The Indian responses to terrorism have
increasingly incorporated soft measures in 2017. This is reflected in its
opening of a new government division to counter radicalisation. This is in line
with its programmes in states such as Kerala (in June 2017) and Maharashtra
(operational since 2015), where the respective police departments declared
successful deradicalisation drives involving close to 500 people. Reportedly,
these individuals were radicalised over propaganda present on Facebook and were
identified by the cyber security division. Subsequently, police forces worked
with the families of the vulnerable individuals to counsel them. To boost the
religious credibility of this counselling, the police also brought in local
imams who supported the initiative. Similarly, in Kashmir, the Centre pardoned
‗first-time offenders‘ arrested for pelting stones against the military, a move
that affected 4,500 such individuals.
Adopting
a whole-of-society approach, the main features of India‘s de-radicalisation
efforts include avoiding wrongful arrests, prevention of social stigma and
alienation associated with arrests, providing local helplines and winning the
confidence of the minority community at a larger level. Furthermore, the
country‘s major Islamic institutions have openly condemned violent ideologies
propagated by the terrorist groups such as IS. These Islamic institutions and
their public stand against terrorism serve as strong bulwarks against the
radicalisation of Muslim youth in the country; they also probably explain the
relatively low presence of IS and Al-Qaeda in India. India has coupled its soft‘ approach with
hardline measures against militants perpetrating violence. This was seen in
Kashmir, where it resorted to curfews and detention as well as lethal tactics in attempts to disperse
crowds that occasionally resulted in casualties.
Outlook
Violent incidents are likely to continue in
2018. The rightist bent of the central government as well as tough
counterterrorism responses will cause a pushback from disenfranchised
individuals across the country as witnessed in the state of Kashmir. However,
this will be mitigated to some extent by de-radicalisation and rehabilitation
initiatives across different states, with police agencies collaborating
alongside community leaders, mosques and family members of vulnerable members.
Such an approach will prove to be more effective in quelling Islamist extremism
and terror across the nation. It is not clear how the two global groups AQ and
IS will seek to grow given their poor performance over the past years. At the
same time, the government will need to monitor closely and check rising Hindu
extremism (manifested by beef-related attacks and provocative statements) and
work on addressing socio-economic and political issues that render some
susceptible to extremist appeals and propaganda
About the author
Abdul Basit is an
Associate Research Fellow with the International Centre for Political Violence
and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies (RSIS), NTU. Basit contributed on Afghanistan.
Sara Mahmood is a
Senior Analyst with the International Centre for Political Violence and
Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies (RSIS), NTU. Sara contributed on Pakistan.
Iftekharul Bashar
is an Associate Research Fellow with the International Centre for Political
Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at the S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies (RSIS), NTU. Iftekharul contributed on Bangladesh.
Mohammed
Sinan Siyech, Research Analyst, and Teertha
Samal, Intern, work with the International Centre for Political Violence
and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies RSIS), NTU. They contributed on India
