INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO.747
B.RAMAN
(Written at the request of the “Hindustan Times”. An
edited version of this was carried by it on May 2,2012 at http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/Chunk-HT-UI-ViewsSectionPage-TopStories/Down-but-not-out/Article1-849128.aspx
)
A year after the death of Osama bin Laden at the
hands of the US Navy Seals at Abbottabad in Pakistan on May 2 last year, the
central command and control of Al Qaeda based in Pakistan continues to be in a
state of disarray.
It has not been able to recover from the severe
leadership losses inflicted on it by the US Drone (pilotless plane)
strikes after the death of OBL. The
lack-lustre leadership of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the new Amir of Al Qaeda, who is
also believed to be operating from hide-outs in Pakistan, has not been able to
restore the elan and the motivation of its central command and control.
The disruption of its central command and control
appears to have affected its ability to plan and launch catastrophic terrorist
strikes in far way places like the US Homeland. However, its affiliates like
the Talibans of Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Haqqani Network of Afghanistan,
the Lashkar-e-Toiba ( LET) and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) of Pakistan, al
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), based in Yemen; al Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb, based in Algeria and Mali; al Shabaab of Somalia; and Boko Haram, of
Nigeria have maintained their capability for sporadic acts of terrorism
involving mass fatalities in their respective areas of operation.
While the global reach of Al Qaeda has been
affected due to the inability of its present leadership to plan and carry out
terrorist strikes on a global scale, its regional command and control, regional
cadres and regional ability to carry out strikes remain unimpaired.
The affiliates of Al Qaeda continue to use the
multi-modus operandi and multi-target operations that they had learnt from Al
Qaeda. This was evident from the recent commando style attacks on different
targets in Afghanistan by the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network. Mass casualty
terrorist attacks carried out during the last one year by affiliates of Al Qaeda
in Yemen and Nigeria highlight their continuing motivation and ability to
strike when an opportunity presents itself.
The death of OBL has not only weakened the
lethality of the central command and
control, but it has also blunted its Net-based PSYWAR campaign on which Al
Qaeda was dependent for winning new recruits and for imparting online training
and for disseminating online instructions. As a result, there has been a
decline in the flow of Arab recruits with a capability for global attacks and
in attacks launched by Net-motivated “lone wolf” jihadis.
There are also indications that after the death
of OBL, who was a Saudi of Yemeni origin
with influential family connections n Saudi Arabia, there has been a decline in
the flow of funds to Al Qaeda from so-called charity organisations and affluent
Saudi families. The shortages caused by this decline have not been made good by
the money earned from narcotics smuggling.
The weakening of Al Qaeda as a global terrorist organization
should not be taken to mean that dangers of a catastrophic or mass casualty act
of terrorism of the kind practised by Al Qaeda before the death of OBL are less
likely now. The dangers will remain high so long as the intelligence agencies
of the world are not able to identify and neutralize the operatives of Al Qaeda
trained and placed in sleeper cells in different parts of the world by OBL when
he was alive.
The central command and control of Al Qaeda has
been disrupted, but not its global network of sleeper cells. If a new leader
emerges who is able to rally them around and motivate them to act, we may still
face new acts of mass casualty terrorism.
So long as Al Qaeda’s global network of sleeper
cells is not disrupted, dangers of maritime terrorism, acts involving weapons
of mass destruction material and mass disruption of the internet have to be
guarded against through international co-operation in intelligence collection
and sharing and physical security.
The 9/11 strikes by Al Qaeda in the US Homeland led
to a decade of close international co-operation against global terrorism. We
cannot afford to let this co-operation weaken till Al Qaeda is decimated beyond
recovery. Al Qaeda has presently been weakened, but not decimated.
India has to maintain a high state of vigilance and
preparedness against commando-style,
complex terrorist strikes of the kind launched by the LET in Mumbai on 26/11
and by the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan recently. The LET has not repeated its 26/11 style
terrorist strikes in Indian territory after 2008. But, its training camps in
Pakistani territory have been as active as ever and the anti-India
radicalization of its leadership shows no signs of abating.
There are no indications of any change in the use
of terrorism as a strategic weapon
against India by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
If the US and other NATO forces carry out their
plans to thin out their presence in Afghanistan in the coming months, the US is
expected to transfer its holdings of arms and ammunition to the Afghan Security
Forces. There will be dangers of the leakage of some of them into the hands of
the jihadi terrorist groups in the Af-Pak region.
With the thinning down of the NATO presence, the
jihadi terrorist organisations now operating in Afghanistan will find at their
disposal surplus jihadis well-trained and motivated. India has to be prepared
to the possibility of some of these cadres and weapons being diverted to
Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) to re-kindle terrorism and the
Pakistan-sponsored proxy war in Jammu & Kashmir.
At a time when there is an urgent need for
revamping our intelligence collection , follow-up action and physical security
capabilities through close co-operation between the central agencies and the
State Police and through fresh instruments such as the proposed National
Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC), it is
worrying that the differences
between the Centre and the States on the NCTC are threatening to come in the
way of the exercise to strengthen our counter-terrorism capability.
Stability in the Af-Pak region is years away. Till
a modicum of stability is established, the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas
(FATA) of Pakistan will continue to be the epi-centre of the attempts to revive
global terrorism and to keep India bleeding. The international community---and
particularly India and the US, which face the maximum threats from the
terrorists based in the Af-Pak region---cannot afford to slacken their
vigilance.
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd),
Research & Analysis Wing.He was the head of its Counter-terrorism Division
for six years)
