Counter-terrorism agencies are facing a new strategic threat to which they donot have a response and they are unlikely to have a satisfactory response in theshort and medium terms. This threat is likely to continue till the US-ledcoalition succeeds in pacifying Iraq and Afghanistan and restores normalcythere.
This threat arises from individual Muslims--mostly the youth--angered overthe stories of the sufferings of their co-religionists--whether it be inPalestine or Iraq or Afghanistan--taking to suicide terrorism in order to givevent to their anger. They were not members of any identified jihadi terroristorganisation. They were not motivated into resorting to suicide terrorism by anyorganisation or madrasa or religious cleric or state-sponsor of terrorism.
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They were self-motivated. The decision to kill and destroy was their own,though they might have sought the assistance of well-known organisations such asAl Qaeda or madrasas or cleric or a State-sponsor after they had taken thedecision in order to enable them to have it executed.
The four British youth, three of them British citizens of Pakistani origin,who carried out the London explosions of July 7, 2005, seem, in retrospect, tobe such self-motivated youth who, after deciding to commit an act of suicideterrorism, sought help from elements close to the International Islamic Front (IIF)in Pakistan for executing their decision.
Despite many detentions of suspects belonging to the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET)and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Bangalore Police seem to be stillgroping in the dark in their efforts to identify the person who opened fireindiscriminately at a conference of scientists in January this year andestablish his motivation. One should not be surprised if this also turns out tobe a case of an individual, not belonging to any organisation, resorting toterrorism in order to give vent to his anger.
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I had drawn attention to this new threat from, what I characterised as,"free-lance jihadis" in a paper titled 'From Internet To Islamnet---Net-CentricCounter-terrorism" presented by me at a conference jointly organised by theState Islamic University (UIN) of Jakarta and the Institute for Defence Analyses(IDA) of Washington DC at Bali, Indonesia, from October 19 to 21, 2005. A copyof this paper is available here.
I had stated in that paper as follows:
""The military operations by the US-led coalition in Afghanistanafter 9/11 not only deprived the Al Qaeda and other jihadi organisationsassociated with it of their training infrastructure, but it also damaged theability of their leadership to personally interact with their cadres andmotivate them. The scattered remnants of the Al Qaeda and other jihadiorganisations found themselves forced to split into small groups and takeshelter in different places in Pakistan as well as in other countries such asIran, Bangladesh, Yemen etc. The post-9/11 security measures made travel toother countries difficult, thereby drastically reducing the possibility ofpersonal meetings. This period also saw the emergence of the phenomenon offree-lance jihadis--individual Muslims angered by the actions of the US andother Western countries in Afghanistan and Iraq waging an individual jihad,either alone or in association with like-minded co-religionists, withoutnecessarily belonging to the Al Qaeda and other member-organisations of the IIF.The free-lance jihadis also made their presence felt in the WWW."
The gravity of the threat posed by the free-lance jihadis arises from thefact that very often they come to the attention of the intelligence agenciesonly after they had committed an act of suicide terrorism, though in the case ofthe London explosions the persons of Pakistani origin would appear to have cometo the adverse notice of the British intelligence even before they committedtheir act of suicide terrorism, but it did not take seriously the possibility ofany threat from them.
Intelligence agencies already face considerable difficulty in penetratingterrorist organisations and collecting preventive intelligence. Many, if notmost, of their successes are based on technical intelligence (TECHINT). It wouldbe a very uphill task for them to identify individuals or small groups ofindividuals, not belonging to any organisation, who decide to resort to an actof suicide terrorism to give vent to their anger and to prevent them before theysucceed.
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The dilemma posed by these free-lance jihadis has been highlighted in theannual "Country Reports on Terrorism" for 2005 submitted by the USState Department to the US Congress in the last week of April, 2006. It refersto them as the new phenomenon of "Micro-Actors" and says as follows:" Increasingly, small autonomous cells and individuals drew on advancedtechnologies and the tools of globalisation such as the Internet, satellitecommunications and international commerce. When combined with the motivation tocommit a terrorist act, these technologically empowered small groups representedmicro-actors, who were extremely difficult to detect or counter."
It draws attention to the emergence of a "more diffuse world-widemovement of like-minded individuals and small groups, sharing grievances andobjectives, but not necessarily organised formally. While Al Qaeda linkedtrainers or facilitators often acted as catalysts for terrorist activity, thiswas no longer strictly necessary in functional terms and self-sufficient cellshave begun to emerge.
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"This new generation of extremists, some of whom are self-selected andself-radicalised, is not easy to categorise. Some cells are composed ofindividuals from the same ethnic group, often an insular band of brothers thatis difficult to identify or penetrate. Others become radicalised virtually,meeting in cyberspace and gaining their training and expertise in part from whatthey glean from the Internet. Just as some groups in the flattened globalterrorist movement are ethnically defined, other cells are mixtures, such as theJuly 7 London bombers, who included a convert along with second generationBritish citizens of South Asian descent."
It concludes: "This trend means there could be a larger number ofsmaller attacks, less meticulously planned and local rather than transnationalin scope. An increasing number of these attacks could fail through lack of skillor equipment, in the same way that the July 21 London attack did."
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While the emergence of this new threat from micro non-State actors has beenidentified and described, the State Department's report is silent on how to dealwith it. The scope for HUMINT and TECHINT in respect of the micro non-Stateactors is even more limited than in the case of formally structured non-Stateactors. The only way of picking up indicators of the emergence of such informalcells, not associated with any terrorist organisation, is through intensepolice-community relations.
As the threat from Al Qaeda, the IIF and other jihadi terrorist organisationsdramatically increased since 1998, the military approach to counter-terrorismhas acquired greater importance than the police approach. The same importancehas not been paid to strengthening the counter-terrorism capabilities of thePolice force as has been paid to those of the armed forces. Police-communityrelations no longer receive the attention they deserve and which they used toreceive in the past.
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This state of affairs has to be corrected and the important role of thepolice in counter-terrorism has to be restored. Fortunately, in India, thePolice still enjoys an important role and is viewed as the weapon of firstresort in counter-terrorism. But it is not so in many other countries.
The downgrading of the role of the police by successive military regimes inPakistan is an important cause of Pakistan's degeneration into the world's mostworrisome epicentre of terrorism of different hues.
B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Governmentof India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,Chennai.
