Col R Hariharan|DailyO|January 4,
2015
They can
spread panic among people in a matter of hours and tie down local and national
security apparatus for days.
There is no doubt the Coast Guard and the intelligence and
security agencies, involved in the sinking of a suspected Pakistani fishing
boat carrying possibly four terrorists and explosives off Porbandar coast on
the intervening night of December 31, 2014, and January 1, deserve a pat on the
back.
The media went into high decibel, quoting invisible
"sources," calling it a Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists’ attempt to
re-enact the 26/11 Mumbai attack in Gujarat. However, the MoD came out with a
timely statement to put the incident in perspective and counselled patience
while evidence was being collected and intercepts were analysed to draw firm
conclusions.
Of course, the inevitable post mortem of the incident is
being carried out in the media. I also find a few blank spaces in the operation
as it unfolded. This is inevitable in any such action full of high drama and
great, though grainy visuals. By the time the full picture emerges there may
not be many takers for it. So it might be consigned to the pages of Wikipedia
to be dusted up when the next incident of this kind takes place.
But such incidents have to be studied in the light of
developing trends in jihadi terrorism. A major trend is new players like Boko
Haram and ISIS, with ideological kinship (however garbled) to the Al Qaeda and
the Taliban, stealing the "show," by carrying out spectacular
acts of terrorism of unmatched brutality and barbarism targeting the innocent
and helpless people.
Despite this, the Nizam-e-Shahi seems to be intact because
conservative Islamic clergy has not unanimously condemned their actions carried
out in the name of Islam. Translated to Indo-Pak setting, we can expect
Pakistan based and supported terrorist to carry out attacks, not necessarily
like the 26/11 attack because our security systems are improving day by day.
They could choose soft and vulnerable targets which will get the terrorist the
maximum exposure. There are too many such potential targets for the state to
give full protection. And this vulnerability gives the terrorists the advantage
of surprise, so essential for success in increasingly hostile and well-knitted
security environments.
Another emerging trend in jihadi terror is carrying out acts
of terrorism in small doses. They are carried out by stand-alone tech savvy
individuals, brainwashed by high profile jihadi propaganda in the social media.
The propaganda provides not only a veneer religious justification but also the
know-how for carrying out such acts.
This method is particularly useful in high security environment.
In one of the most successful acts of this kind, an experienced American army
psychiatrist Major Nidal Hassan, who was brainwashed by jihadi terrorism, went
on a shooting spree killing 13 people and injuring scores of others in Fort
Hood, Texas in November 2009. Since then, this trend is increasingly being
noticed the world over. This method is particularly useful in high security
environment. In one of the most successful acts of this kind, an experienced
American army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hassan, who was brainwashed by jihadi
terrorism, went on a shooting spree killing 13 people and injuring scores of
others in Fort Hood, Texas in November 2009. Since then, this trend is
increasingly being noticed the world over particularly in the US, UK, Xinjiang
(China), Germany and France and inevitably in India too, though we do not seem
to be taking it seriously.
Spectacular terrorist acts like the 9/11 and 26/11 attacks
require months, at times even years, of careful planning. They often need
international sources of information and complicated logistics. Meticulous
execution by a motivated team with special skills is a must for success. Also
needed are special equipment and tools which would ensure that no telltale
tracks are left behind for intelligence agencies to pick up. They also have
built in vulnerabilities that expose them to hostile infiltration into their
ranks.
But a small act of terrorism needs none of this. All it
requires is a single motivated individual with the knowledge to make an improvised
bomb from materials we use every day in our homes (method available on the
internet). And his action could throw the administration in a tizzy and give
the ministers apoplexy.
One home grown example is the December 30, 2014
blast of an improvised explosive device (IED) in a Bengaluru street that killed
a woman nearby. A single motivated terrorist who had made the device at home
could have done the job. Though it was not a spectacular terrorist attack it
had a nationwide fall out. It kept the police busy not only in Bengaluru or
Karnataka but also in Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh because the IED – a pipe
bomb – was similar to the one used in the Chennai train blast on May 1, 2014.
Five SIMI fugitives of Faisal gang who had escaped from Khandwa prison in Madhya
Pradesh are suspected to have triggered the Chennai blast.
Small terrorist acts need not even involve IEDs
and may not even be legally classified as an act of terror. But the impact is
almost the same. They can spread panic among people in a matter of hours and
tie down local and national security apparatus for days. Remember, the incident
last year when an inflammatory jihadi message asking for revenge against people
of the Northeast for killing of Rohingiya Muslims in Myanmar that spread
through social media in Bengaluru? The state government was paralysed into
inaction because strictly speaking it was not an act of terror. But it drove hundreds
of fear stricken migrant labourers from the Northeast to flee the city to go
back to their home states.
In a diverse nation like India, a combination of
such small acts carried out in tandem with big ticket terrorist operation would
probably be the next trend in jihadi terrorism.
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