By Col R Hariharan (Retd.)
Al Qaeda in Yemen has asked
Muslims to step up their protests and kill more U.S. diplomats after the U.S.
ambassador to Libya was killed when violent anti-U.S. protestors attacked the
U.S. embassy in Benghazi. In a significant statement, the Libyan Prime Minister
has said the attack on the U.S. embassy was a preplanned one. Libya was one of
the many countries across the world where anti-U.S. protests were triggered
when a U.S. made film depicting Prophet Mohammed in a highly objectionable way
was put on YouTube.
Islamic fundamentalist entities
were in the forefront of the “Arab Spring” struggle; this has gained them
political legitimacy and popularity in many of these countries. Their support
has become a key political element for the survival of shaky elected
governments. This has increased their sustaining power as more and more youth
inspired by Islamic activism are attracted to their ranks. Logically, the
strengthening of Islamic fundamentalism, which provides the ideological veneer
for Jihadi terrorism should help them gain substantive ground lost in the
American-led global war on terrorism launched in the wake of 9/11 Al Qaeda
terror attacks in the U.S.
The Yemeni Al Qaeda’s statement
indicates that Al Qaeda would probably use popular protests generated by
religious passions in the Muslim world to its advantage to continue its war by
other means against the U.S. After suffering heavy losses in its ranks during
the last decade or so, this would be a cost effective option for the Islamist
terrorism to reassert itself.
This is not the first time such
worldwide protests have been triggered by offensive writings or cartoons and
other visuals disrespectful to the Prophet or acts of desecration of the Quran.
However, the use of such protests by Islamist terror comes at a crucial stage
when the American military disengagement in Afghanistan has started.
Anti-U.S. protests against the
You Tube film have been staged in many cities in India also. So far they have
been kept within manageable proportions because states were probably better
prepared after the shock effect of a similar protest over reported killing of
Muslims in Assam and Myanmar in August degenerated into violence. These
protests triggered by reported killing of large number of Muslims in clashes in
Kokrajhar in Assam between illegal Bangladesh Muslim migrants and Bodo tribals.
Reports of violent attacks by locals on Rohingiya Muslims in Rakhine state in
Myanmar around the same period apparently also came in handy as an added
provocation for the protests. A protest meeting convened by Muslim civil
society bodies in Mumbai was used by Jihadi extremists to seamlessly launch
well organised, pre planned attack on the police practically immobilising them
into inaction. The extremist elements targeted public property for destruction
without sparing even the memorial to martyred soldiers.
Investigations have revealed that
Jihadi elements extensively used the web and social media i.e. Facebook and SMS
messaging to spread provocative messages by morphing visuals of gory scenes of
large number of people killed in natural calamity in Myanmar to pass them of as
those of Muslims killed in Assam and Myanmar. The Home Secretary has pointed a
finger at Pakistan as the source of these mischievous reports aided and abetted
by Indian counterparts of Hizbul Mujahideen. The news hungry media quickly
picked up the reports and beamed them, adding to their credibility.
Spread of SMS messages
threatening retribution against the people from Northeast for the killing of
Muslims of Kokrjhar created panic among them particularly in Bengaluru, Hyderabad
and Chennai after reports of escalated violence in Mumbai hit the South. People
from Northeast numbering thousands, particularly the poorer classes working as
daily wage earners fled home as they were not confident of government
assurances of providing them security. The whole episode caused
widespread damage to social harmony and credibility of the government.
Normally states allow such
protests as long as they are peaceful and do not degenerate into violence. Most
of the democratic regimes despite strong anti-terrorist laws have limited
options to use them as long as protestors do not indulge in acts of violence
against the state. Fringe elements of Islamist activism have always exploited
these ‘democratic’ political constraints to their advantage.
The extensive use of social media
to propagate misleading and provocative messages and visuals to further
terrorist cause is the common thread running in the two series of protests
discussed. Though Government of India slapped a 15-day ban limiting the number
of SMS messaging, prolonging it was not practicable. Similarly the government
has persuaded Google to block the offensive You Tube film in India.
Government is planning to set up
a dedicated cyber surveillance agency to monitor public domain with an eye to
take preventive action against spread of misinformation in the web and social
media. However, with 700 million mobile phone users and 100 million internet
users in the country it is doubtful that such a mammoth task could be performed
effectively by a single agency. Even if it is able to do so, the global
connectivity of the web and telephone systems would provide immense
opportunities for a determined intruder to neutralise the monitoring agency’s
effort.
Preventing terrorists’ easy
access to the social media requires holistic approach both at the local and
global level. It should involve not only the government, but civil society also
to spread awareness and enlisting the support of all others using the web and
social media, particularly the techies weeding out sympathisers and fellow
travellers of terrorists.
Courtesy: Centre for Land and Air
Warfare
http://www.claws.in/index.php?action=master&task=1217&u_id=189
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