The threat of religious extremism in Asia
The Asian region has been disturbed by traditional and non-traditional threats. The dramatic successes of the Salafi-Jihadist terrorist movement, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its creation, the Islamic State (IS) in the far western part of Asia known as the Middle East (or Southwest Asia) stunned the world in mid-2014.
Asian governments have been concerned by the potential threat posed by the Islamic State. Governments uncovered recruitment drives for the so-called jihad in Syria and Iraq, and arrested dozens of people either hoping to go on the jihad, engaging in facilitating recruitment, exhorting donations, or conspiring to blow up infrastructure in support of the jihad.
The brutality of ISIS, evident in its mass murder of Syrian and Iraqi soldiers, Muslim civilians, minorities, and beheadings of innocent Western journalists, has been widely condemned by most Muslims, including leaders in Southwest Asia. Terrorism comes with a heavy financial cost. The global economic impact of terrorism was US$ 26.4 billion in 2019.
Is Asia facing the spectre of renewed terrorism inspired by transnational terrorist groups operating from elsewhere? This is a question that many in the various sub-regions of the continent are asking themselves.
Militant groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and Abu Sayyaf (AS) in Southeast Asia sought to mimic Al Qaeda (AQ) by launching daring and bloody attacks within their own territories. Jemaah Islamiyah, which set up cells throughout Southeast Asia, had a short 12-year career, but it manifested violence.
Some opine as the level of terrorist activity continues to fall in the Middle East and South Asia, new terrorist threats are beginning to emerge. The most prominent of these is the spread of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) affiliate groups in sub-Saharan Africa, and the emergence of far-right terrorism in Western Europe and North America.
Among developing nations, terrorism is associated with religious or ethnic ruptures and corruption. The four terrorist groups responsible for the most deaths in 2019 were the Taliban, Boko Haram, ISIL and Al-Shabaab.
The Al-Shabaab group is a Salafist militant group active in East Africa, first emerged in a battle over Somalia’s capital in the summer of 2006. Al-Shabaab was estimated to have between 7,000 and 9,000 fighters in 2019. Al-Shabaab has consistently utilised bombings, armed assaults and assassinations as its main modes of attack.
Over the course of a decade, the JI conducted five major terrorist assaults, beginning with the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed more than 200 people of whom 88 were Australian tourists. This was followed by well-executed attacks orchestrated against Western hotels and embassies between 2003 and 2005.
There was a gap in attacks until 2009, when assaults on two U.S. hotel chains in Jakarta showed that the JI still had its violent agenda. The JI was also infamous for its attacks on churches and Christian priests and its participation in intercommunal strife between Muslims and Christians in Sulawesi.
Many observers began to refer to Southeast Asia as the “second front” — after the Greater Middle East in the global war against terror.
By the mid-2000s, the militants had over-reached themselves: plots were uncovered and thwarted, terrorist leaders were killed or apprehended and put on trial, security and intelligence services got better and bilateral and multilateral cooperation between states improved.
In 2014, a new terrorist scourge in the shape of ISIS seems to be having an impact in Asia in general, and once again, Southeast Asian countries have been thoroughly disconcerted by the presence of relatively significant numbers of their citizens in the ranks of ISIS and other Islamic jihadist groups.
South Asia — the focus here is on Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan — is estimated to be home to half a billion Muslims. Some analysts and government observers are concerned that ISIS/IS will make silent but dangerous inroads into South Asia.
Afghanistan has suffered from rampant violence for over three decades. The Taliban emerged in Afghanistan in 1994 as a reactionary group that combined the Mujahideen that had previously fought against the 1979 Soviet invasion. The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 1996. The group declared the country an Islamic emirate.
In 2019, the Taliban’s main targets were police and military personnel, which accounted for over half of attacks and deaths. The group’s focus on state forces has been a feature of their insurgency campaign as a means to undermine state stability.
The Afghan people especially children suffered immensely from the long fighting. Its future following the withdrawal of foreign military forces helping the Kabul Government fighting the resilient Taliban insurgents remains tenuous at best.
The largest fall in the impact of terrorism occurred in Afghanistan, which recorded 1,654 fewer deaths from terrorism in 2018, a 22.4 percent decrease from the prior year. Afghanistan remains the country most impacted by terrorism, after overtaking Iraq in 2018.
The TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban) derives its legitimacy from its long association with the Afghan–Taliban and common ideological backgrounds. Should the TTP break with AQ and the Afghan Taliban — which is associated with AQ — it would transform itself into an outsider and possibly become the focus of other extremist groups’ wrath.
Both India and Bangladesh have been spared to some extent from terrorist violence of the scale that afflicts the other two South Asian countries. However, both AQ and IS have begun to recognise the alleged potential that lies in India’s large Sunni Muslim population.
The IS has also moved to reach out to Indian Muslims; it makes use of local languages such as Hindi, Punjabi and Bengali to attract recruits, sympathisers and people with needed skills to stealthily propagate its radicalised extremism.
The number of ISIL provinces outside of Iraq and Syria continues to rise, as does the number of affiliate groups that have pledged allegiance or support to the core group. In 2019, ISIL-related attacks occurred in 27 countries, excluding Iraq and Syria, resulting in 1,784 fatalities.
The group’s influence has continued to push into South Asia via the Khorasan Chapter of the Islamic State. Over half of the attacks perpetrated by the ISIL were bombings or explosions.
The Khorasan Chapter of the Islamic State is no longer one of the deadliest terror groups in Pakistan, recording nine deaths and seven attacks in 2019. The Khorasan Chapter of the Islamic State first emerged in Pakistan in 2014 and has been responsible for 696 deaths since.
There were 558 terrorist attacks and 277 deaths from terrorism recorded in India in 2019. This marks a fall in both deaths and attacks of over 20 percent since 2018.
Compared to other countries amongst the 10 most impacted, India faces a wider range of terrorist groups, with Islamist, Communist, and separatist groups active across the country. Jammu and Kashmir remained the region most impacted by terrorism in 2019, with 165 attacks, resulting in 103 deaths, most of which were perpetrated by Islamist groups.
The three most active groups were Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Both JeM and LeT have also been active in Pakistan and Afghanistan, though most of their attacks are carried out in India.
India continues to deal with terrorist activity on a number of different fronts. These threats include terrorism related to the ongoing territorial disputes in Kashmir, a Sikh separatist movement in the northern state of Punjab, and a secessionist movement in the north-eastern state of Assam.
In the Philippines, the ISIL conducts terrorist operations both on its own and through its affiliates: Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement (BIFM), the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and the Maute group. These groups have all pledged allegiance to the ISIL since 2014.
Groups affiliated with the ISIL in the Philippines continued to recruit and train fighters in 2019. The Philippines remained a destination for foreign terrorist fighters from Indonesia, Malaysia, and countries in Europe. Since their emergence in the Philippines in 2016, the ISIL and affiliated groups in the Philippines have waged four suicide bombings resulting in 44 deaths.
The Covid-19 pandemic, especially within the Asian region could present opportunities for terrorist organisations to consolidate and expand their operations and territory, as governments turn their focus from counter-terrorism operations to addressing the public health crisis.
Where a state’s presence is already weak, or contested, there could be an opportunity for terrorist organisations to become alternate service providers, gaining favour with local populations through the delivery of essential services.
The ISIL has urged its followers to actively continue to wage global jihad, and to take advantage of strained security and government forces to launch attacks. Asia needs to be vigilant.
Source: Daily News
