Hostage To Denial

As the third year since the catastrophic attacks of September 11, 2001, in USA approaches completion, withmuch of the world sliding, once again, slowly but steadily into a torpor of denial, terrorism has once againissued multiple reminders over the past weeks that liberal democracies everywhere are under siege.

The worst of shocks were reserved for Russia, where Chechen terrorists, apparently aided by a number of Arabnationals, took over 1,200 persons hostage -- a majority of them children -- in a school in Beslan. The bloodydénouement of this operation left 338 dead, including at least 155 children. But this was only the worst ofwhat Russia had already been subjected to in the preceding week: two Russian passenger planes were blown up,apparently by Chechen women suicide bombers, killing 89 persons on August 24. Then, on August 31, anothersuspected woman suicide bomber blew herself up, along with 10 commuters, at a Moscow subway.

In Iraq, on August 31, terrorists of the Ansar-al-Sunna slaughtered 12 Nepali hostages in cold blood, becausethey were "working for Jews and the Christians". A number of other hostages of various nationalitiescontinue to be under threat in the custody of a variety of Iraqi groups, including two French journalists, whothey have threatened to execute if the French government fails to lift its ban on headscarves for Muslimschoolgirls.

And so it has been over the past three years, with some tactical and operational variations. Americans,Spaniards, the French, Italians, Russians, Indians, Iraqis, Philippinos, Afghans, even Pakistanis and Saudis --the terrorists' now-ambivalent allies and supporters --  along with others of various nationalities, haverepeatedly been targeted over the past three years by Islamist extremists hell-bent on imposing theirfantastical vision of a 'cleansed' and 'Islamised' world order.

The liberal democratic response, however, has been, at best, tentative and inconsistent. Indeed, the patternof Islamist terrorist attacks is itself at least partially responsible for this. While targets have beenattacked across the world, there has been no attempt to engineer simultaneous attacks in a wide range ofcountries.

While part of the reason for this would be purely operational, it is also the case that this has resultedin a substantial fragmentation of responses. There is clearly a deliberate, calibrated terrorist strategy,relying on a systematic exploitation of the ideological divisions, the historical faultlines and thegeopolitical tensions in the free world -- everything, in fact, that creates obstacles to the emergence of aconcerted and coordinated global counter-terrorism response. These multiple tensions within the loose globalcounter-terrorism coalition remain visible even at moments of the greatest crisis and tragedy.

In the aftermath of the terrible catastrophe at Beslan, at least some expressions of shock and condolence --most notably, those emanating from Europe -- were qualified by entirely inappropriate riders seeking'explanations' from the Russian government about how such a tragedy 'was allowed to happen'. Some commentatorsdwelt on the 'root causes' and 'legitimate grievances' of the Chechens at a time when all such politicalissues should have been clearly and unambiguously subordinated to the unqualified condemnation of the enormityand inhumanity that had far transgressed any conceivable borders of explicable violence.

It is useful, in this context, to recall that Chechen separatism and terror continues to receive'diplomatic support' and 'moral sympathy' at a number of international, particularly including European, fora,as well as a substantial measure of material support from sympathetic state sources that largely remainoutside the ambit of the international condemnation of the 'sponsorship of terrorism'.

Within this context, it is useful to note that no single country in the world has, in fact, any concrete idea,policy or strategy on how it would deal with the kind of mass hostage situations -- particularly thosetargeting 'sensitive' segments of the population, such as children, women, or very important personalities --on the pattern of the Beslan Operation.

For those who believe that it is too soon after Beslan to expect state institutions to have devised anoperational policy of response, it is useful to recall that this is far from the first hostage crisis at thisscale, and Russia itself has witnessed several in the past. Among the more prominent of these, on October 25,2002, Chechen rebels took 800 people hostage in a Moscow theatre, demanding the withdrawal of Russian troopsfrom Chechnya. All 41 attackers were shot dead, and 129 hostages also died as a result of the anaesthetic usedto immobilize the terrorists.

Earlier, on January 9, 1996, militants seized as many as 3,000 hostages in Kizlyar. They were eventuallyattacked by Russian troops, and at least 78 persons were killed. On June 14, 1995, rebels took 2,000 hostagesin Budyonnovsk. In this case, Russia eventually negotiated the release of hostages in exchange for the rebels'escape, but more than 100 persons were killed during the crisis.

Most governments across the world would respond to comparable crises with hysteria, despair and confusion,adding to the natural risks attending such calamities. It is, consequently, imperative that hard answers nowbe defined for the many questions of morality, policy and tactics raised by such horrific possible scenarios.A clear, detailed, unequivocal and unremitting policy for dealing with hostage situations needs to be definedat the earliest, and this must secure the sanction, if not of the entire 'international community', at leastof those within it who are committed to the 'war against terrorism'. Regrettably, the struggle againstterrorism needs an ideological commitment far beyond the opportunism and political expediency that currentlydominates the policies of most countries.

It is imperative, moreover, to revaluate our understanding of the 'war on terror'. This struggle cannot simplybe conceptualised as a military operation, and has far deeper and more complex dimensions, which requireinputs across a wide range of non-military parameters. Unfortunately, the world has substantially failed torecognize these parameters, and existing institutional responses, sanctions and penalties are simply notenough.

The reasons for this failure are not, by any means, rooted in the impossibility of the task. Indeed, responsesare not all that difficult to work out. The tragedy is, most of the 'experts' currently working in this fieldare mere academics, desk officers, policy makers and politicians, most of whom have little real experience ofthe field, and who jealously guard their 'turf' against hard practitioners of counter-terrorism strategy andtactics.

The examples of the miscalculations and misadventures of these doctrinaire 'experts' are too numerous to belisted and can, indeed, be multiplied ad infinitum. What is needed, however, is to evolve systemswithin and between countries that will optimize coordinated responses on a day-to-day operational basis.

It is critical to realize, today, that we are in fact confronted with the challenge of policing a menacethat is dispersed across the globe, and the formalism of international treaties, bilateral agreements, and thejoint working group mechanisms that have been hammered out between some countries, remain mired in legal anddiplomatic formalism, and are simply not working.

Unless we develop instrumentalities beyond these paper exercises, we will only see horrifying events like9/11 and the Beslan tragedy multiply in ever-widening areas of the world. Any country that believes that it issafe, or that it can exempt itself through policies designed to appease or conciliate the terrorists is simplydeluding itself.

K.P.S. Gill is Publisher, SAIR; President, Institute for Conflict Management. Courtesy, the South AsiaIntelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal