Tag Archives: terrorism

Perfilyev’s Way*

10 Wednesday May 2017

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The abduction and murder of Indian Army Lieutenant Ummer Fayaz marks a dark evolution in the history of Kashmiri terrorism. Fayaz had been commissioned barely five months earlier to the Rajputana Rifles in the Akhnoor sector. On furlough to attend a cousin’s wedding, the 22-year-old officer was kidnapped from his relative’s house by five or six terrorists on the evening of May 9 and his bullet-riddled body was found the next morning. It is alleged that the incident was an implicit message to Muslims not to join or cooperate with the Indian state.

While there have been the usual canned expressions of sympathy and anguish from the government for the soldier’s family, it is difficult to ignore the fact that Narendra Modi’s government has continued its predecessor’s policy of vacillation punctuated by occasional action – in Kashmir; Delhi is still scared to take military off the leash. It is not uncommon for security forces to be killed in skirmishes with terrorists or India’s neighbours. This latest incident, however, is different in that Fayaz was abducted from his home while on leave and murdered. Were Indian politicians capable of drawing red lines, one would have been crossed in spades.

It is said that if brute force is not working, you are just not using enough. There is a somewhat apocryphal story about how the Soviet Union responded to four of its diplomats being kidnapped by a terrorist outfit in Lebanon known as the Islamic Liberation Organisation in 1985. Initially, they opened negotiating channels but then one of the diplomats was found shot dead in a Beirut parking lot. In retaliation, the KGB is said to have kidnapped a relative of one of the terrorists and castrated him, cut him to pieces, and sent to the hostage takers. The remaining three Russians were shortly released near the Russian embassy as a gesture of “good will” and no Soviet/Russian diplomats were harmed for the next 20 years.

Not every incident can have the same satisfactory ending as Israeli operations have shown. Despite a fearsome reputation for exacting vengeance, the Jewish state remains the victim of dozens of terrorist attacks every year. In fact, the Israeli Defence Forces have made peace with the situation and settled into a war of attrition that is far more costly for their enemies. Delhi, however, has so far not even bared its fangs to its enemies.

Responding to an earlier provocation of Pakistani soldiers beheading two Indian border security patrol guards, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh forcefully stated that it was about time that the Indian military stopped being a gentleman’s army and joined in the same rough-and-tumble everyone else was in. To be fair to the military, it is evident that there are occasional unofficial retaliatory raids across India’s western border – morale demands it. Away from the front, though, the political will to deal with the unrest in Kashmir has repeatedly been found wanting.

In a different context, Rajesh Rajagopalan writes that India’s deterrence against Pakistan has weakened because of Delhi’s consistent and palpable fear of escalating a conflict on the border. This has emboldened Islamabad to be more reckless in its gambles against India. The same reasoning holds true in Kashmir – terrorists are getting bolder because the Indian military can be relied upon not to retaliate too harshly. This comes, again, from a political leadership that is too apprehensive about international public opinion and pressure from non-governmental organisations.

Critics of a more severe policy in Kashmir have bemoaned the lack of political solution and warned that military force will not be sufficient to sustain the peace in the state. They are not entirely wrong: the government must first have a clear vision of what its ideal, ultimate objectives are with Kashmir. Terrorists – those who are willing, at least – must be swayed by the possibility of a real political solution to their grievances. At the very least, this may prevent further radicalisation born out of a lack of alternatives.

To make the political solution more persuasive, it is imperative that the government adopt a substantially more aggressive military posture. While attacks on military targets may be the unfortunate cost of doing business, strikes against civilians or military personnel out of uniform must be retaliated against punitively. Peace was not brought to Northern Ireland or Sri Lanka by the respective authorities abjuring from the use of force. While negotiations paved the way for a longer lasting peace in the former case, Colombo thought it unavoidable that one of the factions arrayed against it be rooted out completely and exterminated. India has a similar decision before it – sift between those who are willing to negotiate and those who are not, and then eliminate the latter.

What merits such a decisive response to the slaying of Fayaz is that his murder was not the simple targeting of an enemy combatant but a threat to the people of Kashmir: do not cooperate with the Indian state or your families are not safe. Delhi cannot afford for citizens to turn away from it in fear of an authority whose force can be felt more truly than that of Raisina. A reminder – and reassurance – is needed in Kashmir as to who holds the upper escalatory hand and psychological dominance must be reasserted.

To the disappointment of many of their supporters, the present government has appeared marginally better than its predecessor in matters of internal and external security. The murder of Ummer Fayaz is not just another mark in a tally of casualties in Kashmir but fundamentally different in its political essence. The prime minister must authorise, if only quietly, ruthless retribution. He cannot allow it to be subsumed in the enormity of the larger question.

*: Yuri Perfilyev was the KGB station chief in Lebanon in 1985. In parallel to the operations against the kidnappers, it is alleged that he threatened Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Fadlallah, the spiritual leader of the Lebanese Shiites, with “accidental” missile strikes against Tehran, Qom, and elsewhere.

An Islamic Reformation?

06 Saturday May 2017

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Salafi-JihadismMaher, Shiraz. Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2016. 292 pp.

The most pressing problem occupying world leaders today is the threat of Islamic terrorism and domestic radicalisation. The realm of analyses, however, has become a toxic and vitriolic cacophony of voices that say more about the source than the subject. Amidst the deluge of Islamophobic drivel, politically correct inanities, and unconscionable apologiae for regressive, barbaric acts, Shiraz Maher’s Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea comes as a breath of fresh air. Rather than attempt to explain the entire panoply of beliefs and customs under Islam, Maher restricts his analysis to the singular idea that has caused the most disruption in the international community – Salafi-Jihadism.

Maher’s work is the result of his research at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, King’s College, London, and it certainly benefits from his rare qualification – among researchers – of having been a member of a pan-Islamic organisation, Hizb ut-Tahrir, that supports the strict implementation of sharia law and the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. His familiarity with the sources, debates, rhetoric, and volksgeist is, therefore, as an analyst as well as a former practitioner.

Islamic schools of thought are described with a delicacy that has not been a common feature of public discussions. The author, for example, separates Salafis from the larger body of Muslims and proceeds to distinguish between a quietist strand and a violent faction. Salafi, by the way, is derived from the Arabic salaf, which means ancestor and refers to the first three generations of Muslims; Salafism wishes to recreate society in the image of those early days of Islam. In essence, while all Muslims are not necessarily terrorists, all Salafis are, by definition, regressive. Regardless, it is possible to be a Salafist and non-violent as much of the Saudi Arabian clergy has been, particularly the Al–Sahwa al-Islamiyya Movement. This group advocates for the implementation of its world view through engagement with state institutions and, sometimes, even democratic practices.

It is the violent Salafists that have held the world’s attention and are the subjects of Maher’s study. Five key concepts define salafi-jihadists from other Muslims: jihad, takfir, al-wala’ wa-l-bara’, tawhid and hakimiyya. Some of these, like tawhid (unity of God) are common across Islam but Salafist interpretation ties it to manhaj (method by which Truth is reached). According to one of the icons of Salafism, the 13th century Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyya, the first obligation of a Muslim, after iman, is the repulsion of the enemy aggressor. Thus, jihad becomes an inseparable companion to tawhid.

Maher demolishes the argument that jihad only means an inner struggle by demonstrating the externally aggressive interpretations of the term throughout history, starting from Mohammad himself. The breadth of his arguments also put to rest any attempts to dissociate Islam from the actions of those who commit terrorism in its name. The justification for the acts of terrorism are repeatedly given with the support of scripture and Islamic jurisprudence. As a result, it becomes that much more difficult for apologists to cling to the view that the violent chaos in the Middle East and Central Asia has nothing to do with Islam. Wisely, the author does not wrangle with whether a certain view is “correct” – he leaves that to the theologians and philosophers, instead sticking simply to precedent and historical, juridical, ideological, and political connections between tawhid and jihad.

The violence of jihadists against fellow Muslims is explained by takfir, the process by which a fellow Muslim is declared outside the fold of Islam. For Salafi-Jihadists, enormous sections of civilian society are takfiris – secularists, democrats, nationalists, Ba’athists, and communists. The Shia especially are eternal enemies of Islam who are linked via the Safavids to Ali. Takfir, as Maher observes,  homogenises the faith by shutting down all debate.

Yet what makes some of the Salafist-Jihadists so exceptionally brutal? Why did they, for example, burn a Jordanian pilot when the Qur’an is clear that the use of fire for punishment should only be left to God? Maher states that the answer can be found in the Salafist interpretation of qisas, the law of equal retaliation. He explains how the West, in toto, is seen as the enemy for their role in supporting tyrannical or insufficiently Islamic governments in power over Muslims. Additionally, since Western governments are democracies, their policies imply the consent of their people and thus, their civilians are also legitimate targets in the struggle for an Islamic world order.

In conjunction with al-wala’ wa-l-bara’, Salafi-Jihadists become a sect incapable of compromise. The Arabic term, loyalty and disavowal, allows for a clear separation between Muslims and the ‘Other.’ Since any understanding or coexistence with the ‘Other’ opens one up to accusations of takfiri, Salafi-Jihadists are able to maintain the purity of their faith.

Finally, hakimiyya demands the securing of political sovereignty for God. Effectively, this pits Salafi-Jihadists forever in battle against the kuffar for it is inconceivable to universalist faiths that there be a limit to the domain of their deen – religion – and coexistence with others, even if they are only ahl al-kitab – people of the book, namely Christians and Jews. It is no coincidence that the negative experiences of colonialism, an imposition of modernity, and Cold War alliances fuelled resentment against the West.

The real test of theory is when it meets reality, and Maher is the first to admit that many of the Salafist doctrines are evolving due to changing conditions on the battlefield. There appears to be a divide, however, more between theorists and practitioners rather than between the various terrorist factions. The irony of this situation is, as the author points out, that bida’, or innovation, is anathema to religious purists.

Reading Salafi-Jihadism, it is difficult not to get the deeply uneasy feeling that Salafi-Jihadism is perhaps what an Islamic Reformation may look like. The furious debate between the Islamic scholars that Maher extensively cites are reminiscent of John Calvin’s Geneva, and one remembers only too vividly what followed over the next hundred years. This is a sad note for those who hope to see liberalising reforms come from within the Islamic fold.

Perhaps one aspect that might have preemptively answered a question readers are bound to wonder upon reading this book is the point at which quietism transitions into violent jihad. Furthermore, what are the implications – in terms of stability and security – to the international community of living with a radicalised yet quietist Salafist state? A clash between the universalist and interventionist impulses of the Left and such a state seems inevitable, especially given the recent fads in international relations such as the Right to Protect (R2P) .

Salafi-Jihadism balances scholarship with an ease of access that will endear it to both, the lay reader as well as specialists. The author’s harsh yet honest appraisal of the role of Islam, albeit one specific strand, in inspiring the unending brutality and violence is a must-read for anyone seeking to be better informed about the crisis of our times.

Humanitarian Farce

29 Saturday Apr 2017

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Perilous InterventionsPuri, Hardeep Singh. Perilous Interventions: The Security Council and the Politics of Chaos. Noida: HarperCollins Publishers, 2016. 280 pp.

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” Marcellus tells Horatio in the opening act of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Former diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri probably could not have put it better about the United Nations Security Council and the existing global order. Through his book, Perilous Interventions: The Security Council and the Politics of Chaos, a devastating indictment of Western hypocrisy in international governance, India’s former permanent representative to the United Nations gives readers a ringside seat to some of the discussions that went on in the Security Council during some of the major crises of the past decade. Puri lambasts the existing system and warns that without reforms, faith in multilateralism will soon fade.

Disregarding the advice of German chancellor Otto von Bismarck about the making of sausages and laws, Puri details the discussions within the Security Council on the question of whether the international community should intervene in Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction in 2003. Yet long before then, Iraq had attracted the attention of certain American strategists such as Paul Wolfowitz. They had argued as early as the early 1970s, Puri reminds us, that the removal of Saddam Hussein from power could potentially result in a domino effect of democratisation in the region and with it better partners for the United States. Two other candidates for regime change to accelerate this region-wide democratic revolution were Iran and Iran. Revolution in the former in 1979 and the subsequent Iran-Iraq war extinguished all such thoughts from the White House.

However, they were not forgotten. In Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of the US Congress in 2002, the former and future Israeli prime minister reiterated this same idea. American fears about Iraqi ABCs – atomic, biological, and chemical weapons – rang his message sweeter to Washington. Looking to their own careers, CIA officials funnelled intelligence reports they knew would be prefered by the High Command rather than those undermining the public narrative of state sponsorship of terrorism and WMDs. The United States went to war in Iraq soon afterwards and the Middle East began to unravel – not in a manner either Wolfowitz, Netanyahu, or anyone else had envisioned.

Narrow national interests coloured the deliberations of the Security Council over Libya as well. Puri recounts how Britain, Germany, and especially France, more than the United States, were interested in deposing strongman Muammar Gaddafi from the beginning. Libya’s relations with Western governments had been slowly improving since 2003 when Tripoli reached out through the United Nations to make amends for its role in several acts of terrorism in the late 1980s. That, however, was not the public face of relations between Libya and the Western bloc. The Arab Spring protests gave the West, probably hoping for a quick success, the opportunity required to oust Gaddafi.

Under the guise of humanitarian intervention and R2P – the Right to Protect – Western nations placed onerous conditions upon Tripoli. Puri narrates the arguments over the language of Resolution 1970 and how, through wording that was loose at best and deceptive at worst, the Western powers tried to gain international sanction to bring Gaddafi to heel using “all necessary means to protect civilians and make available humanitarian assistance.” As Libyan government forces started to turn the tide against the rebels in the civil war that had devolved out of earlier protests, France, buoyed by an Arab League resolution calling upon the United Nations to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, pushed through Resolution 1973 that was sufficiently lax in its formulation to allow military action. NATO, led by France and supported by the United States went to war in Libya. Puri strenuously makes the point that this was in complete violation of the spirit of the discussions in the Security Council but the West did not wait until even the inl was dry before invding Libya.

Everything has conequences, and the Western sleight of hand over Libya had got Russia’s back up over Syria. As a result, when the Security Council started deliberating on Bashar al-Assad’s civil war, Moscow was implacable in their opposition to any sort of intervention. It is also possible, Puri admits, that this was due to greater Russian interest in Syria – a naval and ar force base – or because there had been a change in power in Moscow from Dmitry Medvedev to Vladimir Putin. It is also possible that there was no appetite for yet another war in the Middle East in Washington during an election year. Yet the pattern of Western behaviour was similar: hollow humanitarian claims supported by regional powers with vested interests against the incumbent authority. Predictably, the results were also similar: chaos, instability, wanton destruction of life and infrastructure, the rise of private militias, and terrorism – all at the cost of the region. Any chance for an early peace was stymied by unrealistic preconditions such as the abdication of Assad. Furthermore, Washington’s too clever by half notion of ‘good terrorist’ and ‘bad terrorist’ helped spawn its own nemesis – something American politicians, despite several repetitions, are yet to learn from.

Perilous Interventions also describes the paralysis of the Security Council owing to its veto provisions over the crisis in Ukraine caused by the secession of Crimea and its return to Russia. The author stops short of excusing Russian behaviour as he lambasts European and American ambition in seeking to pry Ukraine out of the Russian sphere of influence. From the beginning, military force was out of the question in Ukraine for two reasons: Russia maintained a veto in the Security Council, and it was a major nuclear power that could not be trifled with as the likes of Iraq or Libya. The Western strategy, then, was to try and isolate Russia through economic sanctions. These may have worked partially but were doomed to fail eventually without the support of Moscow’s BRICS partners.

Yemen saw similar inaction from the Security Council. The country, already a regular on the UN body’s agenda even before civil war broke out, has experienced more death and destruction in five months than even Syria after four long years of fighting. Impoverished Yemen has for long been Saudi Arabia’s bete noire: fearful of foreign intervention – Egypt in the 1960s and Iran since the 1980s – in a country bordering its own restive Shia population, Riyadh has been quick and ruthless in its involvement in Yemen. The Saudi campaign, Puri reminds us, has received complete support from the United States and other Western powers despite the horrendous loss of civilian life due to the callousness of Riyadh’s military tactics that ranged from the use of missiles to indiscriminate bombing, which in one case even destroyed a Medecins sans Frontieres hospital.

Puri is not unfair in targetting only Western nations. He has a few choice words for the Indian debacle in Sri Lanka in the late 1980s too. However, the reader may surmise from the tone that the author is more understanding of Delhi’s compulsions than he is with Washington, London, or Paris. Furthermore, India’s reasons for getting involved in its southern neighbour’s affairs are a far more convoluted cocktail of domestic political considerations rather than the relatively straight-forward rapacious realpolitik of the West. The narrative also feels more restrained about the human cost of the tragedy in Sri Lanka compared to Iraq, Libya, Syria, or Yemen – but that may also be because the South Asian island has suffered far less despite a longer lasting conflict.

In each of the chapters is detailed a series of operational blunders that fed on each other and led to the present quagmire. From the insane notion of good and bad terrorism to the arming of certain rebel factions, from an utter disregard of historical follies to an almost stubborn refusal to accept intelligence from the ground, from giving ground to less informed commentators over professionals to cherry-picking intelligence, Puri’s rap sheet of Western political myopia and ideological blindness makes for a discomforting read – each of these mistakes, as we disapssionately read them, cost tens of thousands of lives.

Although Perilous Interventions is an excellent exposition of Great Power hypocrisy and the weakness of the United Nations in both, curbing the predatory instincts of some of its members and the oppressive nature of other members, it does not offer more insight on the crises of the past decade and half than a discerning reader could have gleaned from the regular perusal of the daily newspaper over the years. Why would a seasoned and distinguished diplomat be surprised by an unremarkable display of matsya nyaya?

The real punch of Perilous Interventions comes from its author’s assertion that this behaviour of the Western powers was given intellectual cover by their think tanks and media. In fact, Puri explicitly states that the push towards intervention in Libya came from the Western media over the inclination of a hesitant diplomatic corps. Gaddafi was portrayed negatively, incompletely, and even falsely – he had not, for example, threatened civilians with retaliation – in the tabloids to the extent that it was difficult for him to even get hotel rooms in New York during a 2012 visit. These observations by Puri only cement the cautious view of Western organisations in the rest of the world. They can no longer be seen as sources of intellectually rigorous, methodologically sound, and unbiased information. In fact, reading Puri between the lines, think tanks and media have become a new front for the West to propagate their hegemony through ‘mindfare’ – the war for opinions and minds throughout the world – true hegemony as described by Antonio Gramsci.

Perhaps the only criticism of Perilous Interventions is the author’s discordantly Pollyanna-ish view that India played a positive role during the deliberations over these crises. The Indian stance has always been distant, unhelpful, and predictable – urge a cessation of hostilities, encourage negotiations, and plead for an arms embargo on the region. Although these are perfectly rational recommendations, it is similarly irrational to expect that the agitated actors in a conflict that has already spilled over to violence wish to listen to sense. Consider, for example, the Indian response to international calls for restraint during its wars with Pakistan.

Furthermore, Puri’s suggestion that the permanent members of the Security Council volunatrily give up their veto powers – de facto if not de jure – is laughable. Such largesse may be expected only from foreign policy neophytes of the kind India has been blessed with but not anywhere else. Yet even if the Permanent Five were to surrender their veto powers, the question then arises as to who will bell the cat. Is the international community truly willing or capable of conducting a military intervention in China, for example, for any reason?

Perilous Interventions will certainly feed those who are already deeply sceptical of the West and subliminally hostile to it. However, rather than adding ghee to the fire of conspiracy theories, Puri records in detail, with evidence, genuine cases of opportunism and hypocrisy. His call for reforms in the United Nations is likely to go unheeded for the same reasons he gives for the crises of the past decade and half – machtpolitik and opportunism. As a result, Puri’s admonition that the Security Council and multilateralism will lose credibility may indeed come true.