While the issue of five educated youth from Maharashtra joining the ISIS in Iraq-Syria, including one getting killed was doing the rounds, conflicting reports of some 25 Muslim youth of Mizoram having been recruited by the ISI of Pakistan had also emerged.
Even at that time it was obvious that the news about the youth from Maharashtra was perhaps about those that were travelling on valid visas but considering the spate of illegal travel particularly by boat and dhows to and from the Gulf, it was obvious the number would be more.
So the National Investigation Agency (NIA) dossier alleging that more than 300 Indian youth have been recruited by Pakistan-based Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) which has joined hands with ISIS is not a shocker in that sense. The report says that the youth are being recruited from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka, and that they are being trained in Pakistan, Iraq and Syria to be Fidayeen. Jmaat-e-Ahrar is the latest breakaway group from the TTP that has openly proclaimed allegiance to the ISIS.
Not that any formal proclamation was needed when some 5000 Pakistan Taliban had been fighting alongside in Syria and Iraq past several months, as revealed by the Syrian Ambassador to India. There had also been earlier reports about Maldivian youth joining the ISIS and two of them having been killed as well. As per Patrick Cockburn, the ISIS Caliphate already has area larger than Britain, housing six million people – a population larger than Denmark, Finland and Ireland.
Some articles have appeared in our media including by a veteran diplomat suggesting that the ISIS threat to India is rather remote. The factual situation may be quite to the contrary. The NIA report about ISIS recruitment of over 300 Indian youth itself suggests that these youth may carry out massive attacks across the country. In recent times, some Muslim youth in Tamil Nadu were taken into custody for supporting ISIS shirts and an Imam too was questioned in the same context. But more significant is the news that in a bid to extend its influence in the South Asian region, the ISIS has distributed pamphlets in Peshawar and border provinces of Afghanistan, some copies also sent to Afghan journalists working in Peshawar. The pamphlet in Pashto and Dari languages carries the logo comprising the seal of Prophet Muhammad and a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
Some articles have appeared in our media including by a veteran diplomat suggesting that the ISIS threat to India is rather remote. The factual situation may be quite to the contrary. The NIA report about ISIS recruitment of over 300 Indian youth itself suggests that these youth may carry out massive attacks across the country. In recent times, some Muslim youth in Tamil Nadu were taken into custody for supporting ISIS shirts and an Imam too was questioned in the same context. But more significant is the news that in a bid to extend its influence in the South Asian region, the ISIS has distributed pamphlets in Peshawar and border provinces of Afghanistan, some copies also sent to Afghan journalists working in Peshawar. The pamphlet in Pashto and Dari languages carries the logo comprising the seal of Prophet Muhammad and a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
It is not known where these pamphlets have been printed but similar documents have been published in the past by other terrorist groups in the region including the Haqqani network. Now where would Haqqanis get such material printed if not in Pakistan or the backwaters of Peshawar with a section of the ISI, Pakistani military and even Pakistan government linked with them, and when attempts by many journalists to expose such nexus have cost them their lives. The ISIS pamphlet appeals to the local population for supporting its struggle for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate.
A number of hardliner Wahabi-Salafi groups operating in AfPak region backed by Saudi Arabia, including in Nuristan and Kunar Provinces of Afghanistan, have already pledged support for ISIS. Then you also have groups like the Ahrarul Islam (another splinter group of TTP) and the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) also working on the lines of the ISIS; discount national boundaries and want a global Islamic World.
Recruitment by ISIS is not difficult considering that the internet facilitates communications and has facilitated radicalization by all terrorist organizations. Added advantage in Pakistan is institutionalized radicalization from the time of Zia-ul-Haq not only in rural areas but very much through schools in urban areas. Then comes the youth bulge in South Asia coupled with poverty and unemployment.
Recruitment by ISIS is not difficult considering that the internet facilitates communications and has facilitated radicalization by all terrorist organizations. Added advantage in Pakistan is institutionalized radicalization from the time of Zia-ul-Haq not only in rural areas but very much through schools in urban areas. Then comes the youth bulge in South Asia coupled with poverty and unemployment.
India also has suffered an overlay of Pakistani Muslim terrorist fabric right from early 1992-93 when Pakistani armed modules were inducted pan India; in the states of J&K, Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Kota/Ajmer region of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and that SIMI had already started deputing ‘volunteers’ to Pakistan for training along with the mujahedeen, Taliban and Al Qaeda cadres, as penned by a former joint director of Intelligence Bureau in 2005. So those who hide behind the facade that Indian Muslims will not get lured by ISIS are adopting the ostrich approach.
It is a process that has been orchestrated over decades. We have the largest youth bulge in the world but we also have the largest number of illegal weapons circulating in the country and being central to the Golden Triangle and the Golden Crescent are slush with narcotics.
We cannot discount global linkages of international terrorist organizations and the focus to destabilize India by forces that will remain inimical to us always. The IM are the creation of the ISI of Pakistan and the LeT has been attending meetings of Indian Maoists. Training of a core group of Maoists in mines, IEDs and explosives was done by the LTTE under aegis of the ISI of Pakistan. Al Qaeda and LeT footprints in Kerala appeared a decade back that resulted in creation of the Popular Front of India (PFI). The PFI is armed and trained though dormant but capability exists though central governments would not acknowledge this due to vote-bank politics. Maldives is fast radicalizing and has LeT and Al Qaeda infiltration.
We cannot discount global linkages of international terrorist organizations and the focus to destabilize India by forces that will remain inimical to us always. The IM are the creation of the ISI of Pakistan and the LeT has been attending meetings of Indian Maoists. Training of a core group of Maoists in mines, IEDs and explosives was done by the LTTE under aegis of the ISI of Pakistan. Al Qaeda and LeT footprints in Kerala appeared a decade back that resulted in creation of the Popular Front of India (PFI). The PFI is armed and trained though dormant but capability exists though central governments would not acknowledge this due to vote-bank politics. Maldives is fast radicalizing and has LeT and Al Qaeda infiltration.
The danger to South India should also be viewed with ISI plans to undertake terrorist attacks against India using Sri Lanka’s north coast right from the time when veteran Colonel Basir Wal, former Director Pakistani Intelligence Bureau and active member of Tabligi Jamaat was posted as Pakistan’s High Commissioner at Colombo. Then we have China sheltering Paresh Barua and the ULFA hierarchy on Chinese soil, aside from pumping arms covertly to the northeast insurgents and Maoists. China’s arming the United State wa Army (USWA) of Myanmar in our neighbourhood does not bode well also, no matter the attempts to push through the National Ceasefire Accord in Myanmar.
To top this all we have an imploding Pakistan where the military’s stranglehold on the country refuses to budge from a state policy of terrorism. And lo and behold, with its nose rubbed into the gutter by the ISIS, Ayaman al-zawahiri and his bunch called Al Qaeda now want to attack India in a bid to retrieve some vestige of their lost standing.
We also must take into account that the ISIS being the most barbaric would gleefully indulge in chemical, biological, radiological attacks and already have access to old Iraqi chemical weapons, some half filled with Sarin. Such attacks don’t need numbers. While we go full hog against Maoists, prudence demands exercising extreme caution on all fronts and putting requisite measures in place – not complacency on grounds of distances.
By Prakash Katoch
sourche: The Centre For Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) (http://www.claws.in)
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου