For the world's only superpower, that setback and tomorrow came this week on
Black Tuesday. The war against terrorism has finally been joined, rather
belatedly and somewhat typically of the US, after another Pearl Harbor. If the
death toll reaches 20,000 as is estimated, it might become history's biggest
conventional kill on a single day.
Addressing a conference in Delhi last year on Islamic fundamentalism, former
CNN correspondent and specialist on Islamic terrorism Stephen Emerson noted that
the US recognises terrorism only when it is carried out against the US, its
citizens and national interests. He added that Western liberal democracies do
not see the danger in realtime and unless they recognise the threat, the disease
will spread. It is for that reason that Islamic fundamentalism has developed
into terrorism and graduated into jehad.
It is believed the UK is the biggest centre of Islamic militant leaders
followed by the US, Italy, France and Germany. India has gone hoarse telling the
US about the new epicentre of terrorism having shifted from West Asia to
Afghanistan and Pakistan but Washington has not taken Delhi seriously till the
Manhattan skyline was brutally obliterated.
Osama bin Laden regarded as the patron saint of international terrorism is
the creation of the CIA. After his Hiroshima on America, are his days numbered?
He is already 'wanted' in the US for his role in the East African embassy
bombings. Powell cited UN sanctions against the Taleban for allowing terrorist
camps to operate on Afghanistan territory and for harbouring Laden.
Last year there were reports from the UK-based Jane's Information Group that
a joint US-Russian operation was likely to hunt down bin Laden. That did not
happen. Earlier attempts to take out bin Laden failed as he has at least a dozen
hideouts in the Hindu Kush mountains. The only practical route to nabbing bin
Laden alive, not dead, is by the employment of US Special Forces with the help
of Russia and any of the Central Asian Republics bordering Afghanistan like
Tajikistan or Uzbekistan.
Pakistan, America's traditional friend and ally, would have been ideal in
tracking down bin Laden who is the personal guest of Mullah Omar, the supreme
leader of the Taleban. But Islamabad will be reluctant to cooperate owing to any
possible backlash from its own jehadis. Pakistan is the only country
which has an embassy in Afghanistan and is the creator of the Taleban. Most of
its funding and operational planning is done by the Pakistan military and the
ISI.
However, Pakistan is under great pressure after the attacks on America.
Pervez Musharraf is finally on test to prove his country's bonafides on
terrorism. He has said it will provide unstinted support to the US in rooting
out terrorism. Pakistan a known champion of jehad will have to do a
tightrope act, meeting US demands compatible with domestic sentiments. It seems
Musharraf has decided to act in the national interest even if it means going
against the Taleban and indigenous fundamentalist groups inside Pakistan. He
knows the US knows the limits to which he can act without putting his own job at
risk.
If Pakistan is unable to provide total support against any future operations
against Afghanistan, the choice for logistics and operational support may well
fall on Russia whose agents and operators are very familiar with the terrain and
local guides. India had pledged its full support to the US but will be limited
by its lack of contiguity with Afghanistan.
The excitement of a surgical operation a la Sylvester Stallone, to
abduct bin Laden, would be avoided if the Taleban simply decide to hand him over
or he pops a cyanide capsule like Prabhakaran's Tigers, which would be a
terrible anticlimax. On the other hand, bin Laden has an extensive web of
operational and support networks, ranging from his own al-Quaida to Islamic
Jehad to Hezbollah to other groups outside Afghanistan to do the vanishing trick
as he is reported to have done.
Bin Laden has given up the use of satellite phones for networking his cadres
and supporters. Instead, they use the Internet to bury messages in pornography,
music and even blank verse, the modern day Enigma for secure communications. Bin
Laden has a personal fortune worth $ 250 million and runs a business empire
estimated around a billion dollars.
No one in the US administration has named bin Laden directly as one behind
the attacks. President Bush has described the attacks as the first war of the
21st century. In fact, the US is itself to blame for the laxity on monitoring
terrorism on its soil and for the laws of the land that encourage terrorism.
Preaching violence is not a violation of law till it leads to actual acts of
violence. The car bomb attacks against the World Trade Center in 1993 involved
five different Islamic militant groups. Islamic movements thrive in the US and
are liberally funded by Saudi Arabia. In the past, at least after 1995, when
Islamists gained legitimacy in the US, even the president and White House are
known to have engaged different Islamic groups. Emerson said there were reports
that American Muslims contributed up to $ 50,000 for Hillary Clinton's election
campaign last year. There are at least 10,000 known Hamas supporters in Chicago
while several hundred backers of the Kashmir Front are gaining strength.
What the US has lacked so far is the political will to act decisively against
the very roots of terrorism. They have decided to do so now after being
grievously wounded and humiliated by the likes of bin Laden.
US leaders have declared that their response to the kamikaze attacks will not
be unifocal but multidimensional: political, diplomatic and military. It will
not be a single counter-attack but a comprehensive and considered riposte at the
heart of the evil. Already forged is the unique solidarity among NATO members.
Secretary General George Robertson has said that Article 5 of the NATO Charter
and the Washington Treaty have been invoked for the first time among the 19
member states to join the fight against terrorism.
This is a blessing in disguise for the world's most powerful military
coalition that has been searching for an enemy ever since the dissolution of the
USSR. This new enemy will be as elusive as the one NATO has been chasing for the
last decade and more. After Kosovo, will Afghanistan be next?
The war against terrorism is going global. Critical to its success are a
military strategy for counter-terrorism, choking of financial pipelines (funds
for suicide bombers) and controlling zakat (donations). The media will
also have to chip in as a force multiplier. The most decisive weapon against
terrorism is intelligence -- human intelligence. Without it money flow can
neither be monitored nor terrorism tracked to its source.
The US has to first set its own house in order before attempting to do so
elsewhere. US federal laws need to be tightened to roll back legitimacy of
militant groups.
India, which faces both an internal and external threat from Islam, is the
world's number one victim of Islamic terrorism. It may finally have found a
strategic partner in the US against this evil, either by an accident of history
or an act of Allah as bin Laden has called it. Pakistan has waged a proxy war
against India which is pure and abysmal terrorism which it has the effrontery to
call jehad, that the US has condoned so far and shied from calling it
terrorism. Instead it is referred as cross-border violence. Hopefully that will
change now. A spade will be called a spade.
Pakistan's day of reckoning has arrived. It has to draw a new Durand Line
against further Talebanisation. The emerging coalition against terrorism has to
address and attack the very concept of religious fundamentalism and
jehad. It is also high time the world community came on grid
implementing the various UN conventions against trafficking and financing of
terrorism.
Major General
Ashok K Mehta (retd)