COLOMBO (AFP) – A US official wounded in Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday suicide bombings has died in hospital, raising the total number killed to 258, including 45 foreigners, officials said on Wednesday (May 8).
“We pay tribute to Chelsea – and all those lost and injured – by partnering with Sri Lanka and nations worldwide to bring unity in the face of terrorism,” Ms Teplitz said.
Ms Decaminada, a graduate of Duke University, worked for the US Commerce Department and was on assignment in Sri Lanka when she was caught in the bombings, claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group and attributed to a local radical cell called National Thowheeth Jama’ath.
The bombers targeted three luxury hotels and three Christian churches. Nearly 500 people were wounded in the attacks, the worst single-day bombing against civilians in the Indian Ocean island.
Officials said Ms Decaminada was airlifted to Singapore for treatment, but she died from her injuries over the weekend.
“As we mourn her loss, we must continue to fight terrorism around the world,” US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.Related Story
The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry had previously said 44 foreign nationals died in the attacks, while another 10 are still unaccounted for.
Sri Lankan authorities say they have arrested or killed all the Islamists responsible for the April 21 suicide bombings, but the island still faces the threat of “global terrorism”, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Tuesday.
BY:Robin Wright Courtesy United States Institute of Peace
Defeating the Islamic State means determining the future for tens of thousands of ex-fighters and their families.
After losing its last territory in Syria on March 23, 2019, the Islamic State quickly reclaimed global attention with the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka on April 21 and a video tape of its reclusive leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, on April 29. The jihadi movement is now shifting focus to its ISIS branches, or provinces,” in Africa, Asia and Europe. Baghdadi signaled ISIS’s expansion by formally embracing two Sunni extremist groups in Mali and Burkina Faso. But the Islamic State’s human core—more than 100,000 fighters and their families, including children—remains clustered in the rubble of its former caliphate” in both Syria and Iraq. In Syria, they are detained in makeshift prisons, a hospital and refugee-style camps in the desert of northeastern Syria. USIP Senior Fellow Robin Wright made a rare tour of northeastern Syria to interview men and women who were part of the ISIS caliphate and to assess the risks posed by the post-caliphate crisis.
As the Islamic State caliphate” collapsed in March, women and children of ISIS fighters’ families were gathered at a rudimentary detention camp in al-Hol. The camp now holds more than 70,000. (Photo credit: Robin Wright/USIP)
What’s the big picture in the former ISIS caliphate?
The world faces the most complex post-war challenge in decades in dealing with the dregs of the Islamic State—physically, politically and psychologically. No one had correctly estimated the tens of thousands who eventually surrendered or were captured as the caliphate collapsed. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the U.S.-backed militia that fought ISIS, took some 9,000 prisoners. Around 2,000 are foreign fighters from dozens of countries, ranging from the United States to Russia, Tunisia to China and Morocco to the Maldives.
The Syrian Democratic Forces had to create pop-up prisons”— converting an unused school, an oil storage facility and other small compounds—to hold all the fighters. The prison I visited at Dashisha was crude and understaffed. It was filled with 1,500 fighters in four days. Each cell contained more than two dozen men crushed together and sitting on the floor. I visited a local hospital at al-Shaddadi [south of al-Hasakah] that had to take in hundreds of badly injured ISIS fighters. The Syrian and Iraqi fighters were six to a room; the foreign fighters were crammed into the basement. The main basement room had close to 70 men lying on mats; the stench from infections was overwhelming. The Syrian Democratic Forces were paying for their food and care by reducing the pay of their own soldiers. For the SDF, neither the prisons nor the hospital are sustainable without more international help and collaboration in figuring out the future of these men.
One issue now is what to do with the prisoners. The SDF is a militia, not a state. It does not have the expertise, facilities, resources or staff to cope with so many men indefinitely. Many governments do not want to take back their citizens for several reasons: There is scant evidence of what crimes each fighter committed as the basis for charging or trying them. Some countries are even wary of jailing the ISIS fighters for fear they might infect the prison population with their ideology. Iraq has pledged to take back its 31,000 citizens—fighters and families—but it is already struggling to cope with more than 20,000 members of ISIS in Iraq.
What about the rest of the ISIS population?
After the fall of the Islamic State’s capital in Raqqa, in October 2017, ISIS fighters and their families fled down the Euphrates River—from town to town—until they reached Baghouz on the border with Iraq. The final battle for Baghouz began in early 2019. But neither the U.S.-led coalition nor the SDF grasped the numbers of civilians who had ended up in the farming hamlet. Besides the fighters, another 74,000 family members, mainly women and children, surrendered and were transferred to a detainee camp in al-Hol. Of those, 65 percent were under the age of 18; 23 percent were under the age of five. Some of the wives of fighters boasted that they are breeding the next generation of ISIS militants for the next caliphate.
The problem of what to do with ISIS families is also daunting. Many governments do not want them to return home since they would be free unless charged with crimes. Others come from countries, such as Libya and Yemen, that are basically failed states and have few mechanisms to cope with them. Some families do not want to return to their countries of origin—notably the Uighurs of China and the Chechens of Russia–because they are members of persecuted minorities. The secondary issue is how to deradicalize them after up to five years of living under the Islamic State and embracing its beliefs and practices. A few countries—Kazakhstan, Morocco and Oman—have taken a few of their citizens, but most Western governments, including many that were members of the U.S.-led coalition of more than 70 countries, have been reluctant to absorb either fighters or their families. The aftermath of the Islamic State caliphate has produced a humanitarian catastrophe that could linger for years—even decades—without greater international attention and resources. U.S. officials claim there has not been a post-war problem so politically fraught since the end of World War II.
An American ISIS member who surrendered to the Syrian Democratic Forces waits to be interviewed at a makeshift prison at Dashisha, Syria. (Photo credit: Robin Wright/USIP)
You went to the al-Hol camp for ISIS families. What is brewing there?
The U.S.-led coalition, the SDF and international health and aid groups were all ill-prepared to cope with the numbers. When I visited al-Hol, women and children, most covered in filth and with few material possessions, were still being trucked in. They were divided by nationality: Iraqi and Syrian families on one side; foreign families from other countries in a separate area. There were initially not enough tents to hold them all; one Uighur woman from China, who had two small children, told me that they had slept out in the cold at night and were in desperate need of blankets. Again, the stench was overwhelming. The most hard-core women were also trying to re-create the caliphate inside the camp by enforcing ISIS rules or reprimanding women who talked to men or foreign reporters.
Al-Hol represents a humanitarian disaster with long-term consequences. The dilemma now is what to do with 74,000 people living in unsustainable conditions with limited international interest in supporting ISIS families? Is there any way to de-radicalize these women or prevent the radicalization of the children? Given the demographics – that the majority are children – this is the place that may well generate the next generation of ISIS. These people could be in this camp or others like it for decades. I’ve covered the Middle East since the 1973 war; I’ve seen the dreariest Palestinian refugee camps, the chaos of Beirut during Lebanon’s civil war, and I’ve never felt the depth of despair that I felt in al-Hol.
Can the former ISIS fighters be rehabilitated?
The most innovative project I saw was a home-grown rehabilitation program—with no significant resources—conducted by tribes for their members in ISIS. The SDF made a deal with the Arab tribes: In exchange for the tribes’ support in the fight against ISIS, the SDF would hand over tribal members for rehabilitation as long as the men were not implicated in major crimes.
I visited a pilot program in al-Karamah, a town of about 40,000 on the outskirts of Raqqa. It’s a conservative area where Salafism thrives; many of the men I saw wore the short thobes emulating the early Islamic era of the Prophet Mohammed. Rehabilitation was run by tribal sheikhs who preached rebuilding the community rather than destroying it. I interviewed two graduates” of the program—one released a few days earlier and one freed in September 2018—and both claimed they would not go back to ISIS. But neither had a job or a means of supporting their families. So rehabilitation is possible, but it will work only with significant international support for the physical rebuilding of eastern Syria—and the same will be true for Iraq.
Physically, what do you see in northeastern Syria?
Life is beginning to return in shattered towns along the Euphrates River Valley. Schools are reopening. I saw little girls with pony tails carrying pastel backpacks en route to class. Women have shed the black niqab (which covers even the face) required by ISIS; they have reemerged from their homes. I saw women, without male escorts, headed to reopened markets or sitting with husbands having morning tea in the spring sun. This is a conservative, tribal part of Syria, so many women still wear headscarves, or hijab, but I saw women wearing bright red, purple and blue scarves and patterned dresses. Life is no longer literally black.
There also signs of reconstruction, often with very limited resources and even in devastated cities such as Raqqa. I was struck by one common sight: Massive tumbleweeds of rusted steel scavenged from the rubble of destroyed buildings. At several outdoor workshops, men were hammering the rods to straighten them for use as reinforcement rods—or rebars—to rebuild. I saw trucks ferrying them to sites for the foundations of new buildings. The destruction, much of it by airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition that targeted ISIS facilities, is horrendous. But the destruction in Raqqa was actually not as pervasive as in Iraq’s West Mosul, which was the largest city under ISIS control. It is going to take many years, potentially decades, to rebuild the areas devastated by the war against the Islamic State.
Colombo, May 8: Islamic radicalization has been on the upsurge for a considerable period of time now, mainly because of the unceasing atrocities committed by the US-led Western alliance in several Islamic countries including Libya, Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Afghanistan.
However, like militaristic Western hegemony, Islamic radicalization has also become a major problem for the world. Several countries, both within and outside the Muslim world, have been subjected to its depredations. Like the non-Muslim countries, Muslim countries too have devised methods to tackle the scourge.
Saudi Arabia
Like many other countries, Saudi Arabia too has been a victim of terrorism. Islamic radicals have been indulging in terror regularly since 1962, trying to overthrow the ruling Saud dynasty. Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have been in the forefront of this violent movement.
To counter these forces, the Saudi government has adopted a two pronged approach says Dr.Abdullah Ansary in a paper published by the Middle East Policy Council.
The first prong is ruthless action against those who commit terrorist acts (on April 23, 2019, 37 terrorists were executed). The second prong is re-education and re-indoctrination of detainees, the pool of supporters and fellow travellers.
The goal of the latter is to encourage prisoners to renounce their radical ideology by providing them with psychological and sociological counseling and by engaging them in intensive religious dialogue. It is estimated that only 10% of terror-related prisoners are hardcore with entrenched deviant beliefs. The rest are followers and sympathizers, who can be remoolded.
The committee which is entrusted with such rehabilitation has four sub-committees: religious, psychosocial, security and media.Members of these subcommittees are stationed throughout various districts in the Kingdom.
The Psychological and Social Subcommittee includes more than 30 psychiatrists and psychologists. They also continue to monitor the detainee and evaluate his progress during his interview with the Religious Subcommittee members, and help him understand himself and the restiveness in his personality in order to facilitate his return to appropriate thinking and behavior,” Ansary says.
They also assess the detainee’s financial and psychological needs in order to alleviate psychological pressure, gain the confidence of his family, and provide decent care for him and his family after his release, he adds.
After release, the subcommittee assists them further with healthcare needs and employment. The subcommittee also provides them the opportunity to finish their education while incarcerated, Dr.Ansary says.
The Religious Subcommittee is composed of more than 160 Muslim clerics, scholars and university professors. The counselors engage the prisoners in conversations about their views on several subjects, such as assisting and aiding non-Muslims, the takfir doctrine, judgment according to man-made laws (as opposed to divine law), jihad in Iraq, suicide operations and martyrs, the excommunication of governments and societies (and its gravity), and expelling the polytheists from the Arabian Peninsula,” the author adds.
The goal is to correct prisoners’ flawed understanding of these concepts based on Shariah texts from the Quran and Sunnah and from the work of religious scholars, in order to enhance their understanding of these sensitive topics, Dr.Ansary explains.
On the role of the Security Subcommittee he says it undertakes risk assessments, makes release recommendations and monitors arrangements after the release. The Media Subcommittee supports the Religious Subcommittee with the educational materials used in their program.
In June 2004, the Saudi Council issued a fatwa condemning acts of terrorism, stating that these acts disrupt the security of the country, shed innocent blood, terrorize peaceful people and destroy property. The fatwa called upon citizens and residents to provide authorities with information regarding those who plan or prepare to carry out terrorist acts.”
In addition, during its sixteenth session, held January 5-10, 2002, the Islamic Fiqh Council of the Muslim World League in Mecca stressed the fact that extremism, violence and terrorism have no connection whatsoever with Islam. Furthermore, in a direct warning against fighting abroad in the name of jihad, the Saudi mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz Aal Al-Sheikh, issued a fatwa on October 1, 2007, prohibiting Saudi youth from traveling abroad to engage in jihad,” Dr.Ansary points out.
The Ministry of Education has conducted an audit of school textbooks and curricula to ensure that teachers do not espouse intolerance and extremism. The government has a program in place to continue to remove any element that is radical and inconsistent with traditional Islam.
Saudi Public TV and other sponsored channels broadcast a five-part series titled Jihad Experiences, the Deceit,” which featured terrorists’ confessions and repentant terrorists’ testimonies of how al-Qaeda organized, trained and recruited.
Controlling Internet
Saudi cyber-crime law imposes a maximum of ten years imprisonment and/or a fine of a maximum of 5 million Saudi riyals ($1.3 million) for anyone who creates a website for a terrorist organization over the Internet or on any computer device, propagates it to facilitate communication with the leaders of these organizations, promotes the organizations’ radical views, or propagates information on how to make explosives.
To ensure that charitable donations are actually used for the purposes designated and not for radical and extremist activities, it has issued numerous decrees and created new institutions designed to tighten the noose” on Islamic charities and control their work, Dr.Ansary said.
Maldives
Maldives was accused of encouraging Islamic radicalism when Abdullah Yameen was President. But the then police spokesperson Ahmad Shifan told this writer that all mosques in Maldives were moderated by the Maldivian government, and that each and every public preaching by mosques were carried out under the government’s direct supervision.
However we believe in rehabilitation and re-integration rather than punishment and isolation. We work on Syria returnees and other terror suspects to convert them to the moderate Maldivian form of Islam.And this has yielded results,” he said, pointing out that after 2012, there had been no Islamic terror attacks.
Pakistan
Pakistan has so far lost 70,000 civilians in terror attacks. Its Prime Minister Imran Khan last week laid the foundation stone of a Sufi university. The al-Qadir University will combine Sufist Islam and spiritualism with science, and re-instill creativity among Muslims now stifled by dogma. The Imran government is trying to modernize the courses taught in the 32,000 Madrassahs with 2.5 million students, by introducing science.
Turkey
In Turkey the Imam Hatip”schools are part of the State’s social engineering.” They are designed to produce ‘enlightened’ religious functionaries and foster an understanding of Islam that is compatible with the needs of a modern State.
Diyanet” is the State religious organization which controls the country’s mosques. The Diyanet also dictates what is preached in the mosques. Turkish President Erdogan is a supporter of Turkey’s brand of secularism called laiklik. Religious thinkers, ulema and Sufi Shaikhs have not been empowered. The Shariah is not a source of legislation. Religious thought has no significant influence in politics. Government retains its monopoly over religious education and outreach. Religious congregations called Cemaats are tightly controlled.
But taking into account the fact that the Turkish people are innately conservative, Erdogan’s s government endorses conservative values, such as teetotalism and female veiling.
Indonesia
Indonesia, another Muslim-majority country, also has State control of religion. But whether the direction is towards liberalism or conservatism has been dependent on the nature of the regime.
President Suharto began as a secular ruler but when he became politically weak he resorted to using conservative Islam to retain control over the population. Later during weak regimes, conservatism came to the fore and intolerance became the order of the day.
The government-controlled religious body, the Indonesian Council of Islamic Scholars (MUI), has taken the conservative side of the spectrum and adopted a militant attitude towards heterodoxy. Mystical sects, the Ahmadiya minority and the Shi`as were reviled. It is against liberal interpretations of Islam, secularism, and the very idea of religious pluralism.
Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka, Islamic terrorism raised its head with the April 21, 2019 Easter Sunday bombings in which 253 persons died. It is now discovered that radicalization had taken place in the small all-Muslim town of Katthankudy in its Madrassahs, as well as homes of the highly educated and wealthy elite in cosmopolitan Colombo.
Need For Cyber Law
Dr.Rohan Gunaratna, a pre-eminent Sri Lankan expert on West Asian terrorism, has called upon the Lankan government to enact a Cyber Law which will criminalize both posting and keeping extremist content on-line. A co-author of The Three Pillars of Radicalization” published the Oxford University Press in 2019, Dr.Gunaratna urges government to make criminally liable, both the person who posts extremist material and the service provider who keeps the content.
Author of the international best seller Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (University of Columbia Press), who is currently Professor of Security Studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Dr.Gunaratna says that the government should also set up, in the Security Forces, a Cyber Force to counter on-line extremist content and create an internet referral unit where the public can report extremist content.”
Writing in a local daily, Dishan Joseph informs that a survey by the International Journal on Cyber Warfare found that there were 50 million tweets globally by eight million users with the keywords, ISIS and ISIL. There are 46,000 suspected Twitter accounts (from Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia) that post tweets supporting the Islamic State (IS).
He also calls for a Harmony Act” on the lines of the one in Singapore, which will criminalize hate speech, especially incitement to violence. Given the fact some Sri Lankans had gone overseas as students only to get radicalized, Gunaratna says that Sri Lankans should not be permitted to study in certain schools and universities in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen which produce radical preachers.
He urges the government to draw up a Black List of radical preachers and ban their entry into Sri Lanka. At the same time, government should criminalize the sale and distribution of radical books and publications.
Foreign religious preachers should be given a visa only after getting clearance from the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Intelligence agencies, he adds. Further, anyone allowed to preach in Sri Lanka should have a two-year (but renewable) permit.
On 28 June 1914, a 19-year old Bosnian-Serb, Gavrilo Princip, shot and killed the heir apparent to the Austrian throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, unaware that the act would push the world into a five year long World War killing 16 million people and ending with the most unequal Treaty of Versailles.
Given that humiliating closure for the vanquished powers, experts describe the Second World War as nothing but a continuation of the First World War.
World War II ended with two atomic bombs being dropped on Japan thus unleashing the nuclear age and also the Cold War era where scenarios of ‘nuclear armageddon ‘and ‘nuclear winter’ were to raise specters of human extinction.
It took more than a decade, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, for the proponents of the post-1945 Cold War to even recognize this phenomenon and ascribe it a name. Their deterrence theologies meanwhile fine-tuned ‘mutual assured destruction’ and ‘city busting’ doctrines. These, it is said, have assured that there would be no Third World War.
In terms of the their pervasiveness and destructive power the two World Wars involved a few European powers along with some of their colonies, and China and Japan. Sabre-rattling about nuclear brinkmanship involved only two superpowers and their military alliances, leaving the bulk of the world nonaligned.
Terrorism, A Totally New Challenge
But terrorism is a different kettle of fish altogether. It is truly global and all embracing. The existential challenge from terrorism today is completely different. Bigger and wider than all manifestations of violence so far, terrorism presents the most pervasive global killing machine without chances of redress or respite.
Terrorism has been there since ancient times. But today it has developed an unprecedented system-shaking power undermining state structures. Today, terrorism is incrementally destroying the human race; in tiny and not-so-tiny packages, on a daily basis. Its world wide web saw growth after the collapse of the Soviet Union that ended the rigid bipolar system. 9/11 has since seen the world wake up to the power and potential of outfits like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and several of their franchisees like Al Shabab, Abu Sayaf, Boko Haram, Haqqani Network, Hezbollah, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed etc eroding centuries old state-centric peace-preserving customs, conventions and capacities.
Like mosquitoes biting a tiger, these radicalized invisible fighters with no legal or moral compunctions, are often able to choose their time and place of attack while State agencies remain rule bound, highly visible and therefore vulnerable.
States often respond by increasing the dose of the same old prescription, namely, expanding the apparatus of security and surveillance, with little time and capacity to revisit their diagnoses.
This results in the State being accused of attacking civil liberties and human rights. By sleepwalking in their denial mode, they fall victim to the global chessboard of terrorists dictating attacks at easier yet visible targets like what one saw in Sri Lanka this April.
Those with leverage, are cutting secret deals with terrorists. The dialogue with a ‘moderate’ Taliban is aimed at ensuring that terrorists do not harm their citizens, interests and investments. No doubt, one country’s freedom fighter continues to be another’s terrorist.
Apart from this unending physical death and destruction, the real sting of terrorism lies is germinating similar impulses in other people’s minds; sowing divisive tendencies amongst and within communities and nations.
For example, soon after the Easter Sunday terrorist attack on Christian churches in Sri Lanka, last weekend saw Jews being stunned by sounds of gunfire in their place of worship in Poway ,a suburb of city of San Diego in the United States. A 19-year old with an AR-15 walked into the Chabad last Saturday afternoon shouting anti-Semitic slurs. He managed to kill only one and injure three thanks to weapon’s malfunction. But a myopic and whimsical President Trump continues to treat repeated attacks by White supremacists as the handiwork of a few misguided people.”
Bloody April
A cursory glance at Wikipedia shows that not a single day of April passed without terrorist incidents. To recount some major ones, the month began with 62 people being killed in Burkina Faso. On 3rd April the Taliban in Afghanistan killed 30 soldiers in Bala Murghab. On 12 April a suicide attack in Quetta (Pakistan) killed 20 people. Taliban killed seven Afghan soldiers in Ghor. On 15th April Boko Haram killed seven soldiers in Chad but forces retaliation killed 63 terrorists. On 18 th. Baloch separatists in Pakistan killed fourteen people and the ISIS killed ten Syrian soldiers. On 21st April, when the world woke up to suicide attacks in Sri Lanka, Al Qaeda killed sixteen soldiers in Mali.
Eleven Syrian soldiers were killed on 24th April. A police raid in Kalmunai in Sri Lanka led to the death of sixteen on 26th April. Last Saturday saw Al Qaeda killing 22 Syrian soldiers in Aleppo.
The 9/11 attack in New York killed 2,977 people from 58 nations. It was followed by the March 2004 Madrid attacks killing 193. In September 2004 there was a siege of a school in Beslan in North Ossetia in which 334 were killed. In August 2007 a car bomb attack on Yazidis near Mosul in Iran killed about 500. In December 2007, attacks in Congo killed 620. In the May 2014 Boko Haram attacks in Gamboru and Ngala in Nigeria over 300 were killed.
In July 2014 Boko Haram attacks on the Iraqi air force cadets’ Camp Speicher in Tikrit in Iraq killed 1500. In July 2017 Mogadishu (Somalia) was attacked killing 600. In November 2017 attacks on a mosque in Bir al-Abed in Egypt killed 200. In July 2018 attacks in Sweida in Syria killed over 200 people.
According to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report, on average, there were 715 terrorist attacks, causing 1,563 deaths, injuring 1,623 people, and involving 745 hostages or kidnap victims per month worldwide in 2017.
By all accounts this seems like an unending nightmare.
The ISIS today represents the most visible and brutal face of global terrorism. Following the retreat of its battle-hardened core fighters from Iraq and Syria, its strength lies in its silent sympathizers and its pool of online radicalized youth. The strength of ISIS is believed to be its financial muscle with millions of dollars laundered through banks and invested in legitimate businesses earning revenues for providing radicalized youth with weapons and incentives. It has been successful in recruiting suicide bombers in multiple nations, providing them training in bomb-making far way from the Caliphate.
So, even as the Caliphate is territorially weakened, its communications network is still alive and kicking. This calls for a foolproof, globally calibrated information and intelligence-led ‘pre-empting the predator’ strategy.
With such a monster knocking at the door, contrarian analyses sometimes make a moral appeal putting death and destruction in perspective. Analysts of this genre cite Oxfam data for 2017 showing how 80 lakh children under 5 years of age die due to multiple causes including malnutrition, while terrorism and armed conflicts together kill no more than 77, 000.
The Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation data for 2017 shows cardiovascular diseases being the cause for nearly 32 per cent deaths around the world compared to terrorism which accounts for just 0.06 per cent.
While all other challenges remain important, none of these other causes of death and destruction — natural disasters included — threaten our ‘way of life’ and that’s what makes threats from terrorism so different.
Therefore, this calls for urgent and extraordinary global initiatives to redress or rein in the emerging global monster of terrorism.
Assessments like the Global Terrorism Index 2018 complied by the Institute for Economics and Peace show how, having peaked in 2014, terrorism-related deaths and destruction have declined for the last three years. But this should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Of all security challenges, terrorism has been least amenable to predictions and projections of any kind. Its past is not a reliable frame for predicting its future strategies.
(Dr.Swaran Singh Author is Professor of Diplomacy and Disarmament at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)
Colombo, May 4: The sharp rise of Jehadi terrorism in response to the Western nations’ continued atrocities against Islamic countries in the Middle East and Afghanistan, has created, in many countries, a need to curb extremist propaganda.
Some of the countries threatened by Islamic radicalism are Muslim-majority.
However, attitudes to extremism and the methods used for curbing extremism vary, depending on the objective conditions.
The immediate demand in a country subjected to a Jehadi attack is for control over the curricula of the Madrassahs or Islamic religious schools.
Since the emergence of oil-rich Saudi Arabia and the Middle East as financial giants, Madrassahs in many countries, which get workers’ remittances from West Asia, have been coming under the influence of Wahabi or Salafist versions of Islam, which have replaced the traditional, locally-rooted, and softer versions of Islam geared to the needs of a multi-religious society.
Cyber Platform
In the current cyber age, Jehadi extremism has found a better and more powerful platform, the internet. Propaganda and recruitment is now being done on-line. The recruitment pool for Jehadi terrorism is no longer confined to the traditional village Madrassah but includes homes and offices of the highly educated and wealthy elite.
This has enabled the radicalization of the educated and well-heeled elite. And the leadership of the elite enjoys legitimacy in the eyes of the hoi polloi who serve as the foot soldiers of extremist Islam.
With the internet becoming a major tool, networking, recruitment and execution of plans have become international and targets of attack have also become international. Terror strikes can take place anywhere on earth to destabilize the existing order and demoralize the existing religious and political orders..
Need For Cyber Law
Dr.Rohan Gunaratna, a pre-eminent Sri Lankan expert on West Asian terrorism, calls upon Sri Lanka to enact a Cyber Law which will criminalize both posting and keeping extremist content on-line. A co-author of The Three Pillars of Radicalization” published the Oxford University Press in 2019, Dr.Gunaratna urges government to make criminally liable, both the person who posts extremist material and the service provider who keeps the content.
Author of the international best seller Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (University of Columbia Press), who is currently Professor of Security Studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Dr.Gunaratna says that the government should also set up in the Security Forces, a Cyber Force to counter on-line extremist content and create an internet referral unit where the public can report extremist content.”
Writing in a local daily, Dishan Joseph informs that a survey by the International Journal on Cyber Warfare found that there were 50 million tweets globally by eight million users with the keywords, ISIS and ISIL. There are 46,000 suspected Twitter accounts (from Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia) that post tweets supporting the ISIS. Many tweets also originate from the Al-Khansaa Brigade, ISIS’s an all-women police force, Joseph points out.
According to him, a captured jihadist in India had confessed that he was first asked to download a ‘chat secure’ mobile app and then use Pidgin – an encrypted tool, to avoid detection as he chatted with his handler..
To counter extremist content, the FBI in the US uses the Carnivore system to read e-mails and online communication. Dr.Gunaratna urges the Lankan government engage with the US because its technology is 20 years ahead of China’s.”
He also calls for a Harmony Act” on the lines of the one in Singapore, which will criminalize hate speech, especially incitement to violence. Given the fact some Sri Lankans had gone overseas as students only to get radicalized, Gunaratna says that Sri Lankans should not be permitted to study in certain schools and universities in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen which produce radical preachers.
He urged the government to draw up a Black List of radical preachers and ban their entry into Sri Lanka. At the same time, government should criminalize the sale and distribution of radical books and publications.
Foreign religious preachers should be given a visa only after getting clearance from the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Intelligence agencies, he adds. Further, anyone allowed to preach in Sri Lanka should have a two-year (but renewable) permit.
Control in Muslim-majority countries
Religion has been a problem even in Muslim majority countries. Some of these countries have devised ways to control Islamic thought to suit the State’s ideology and interests.
In Pakistan, Prime Minister Imran Khan last week laid the foundation stone of a Sufi university. The al-Qadir University will combine Sufist Islam and spiritualism with science, and re-instill creativity among Muslims now stifled by dogma. The Imran Khan government is trying to control the courses taught in the madrassahs also.
In Turkey the Imam Hatip”schools are part of the State’s social engineering.” They are designed to produce ‘enlightened’ religious functionaries and foster an understanding of Islam that is compatible with the needs of a modern State.
Diyanet” is the State religious organization which controls the country’s mosques. The Diyanet also dictates what is preached in the mosques.
But the downside is that the Diyanet” has become a front of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Indonesia, another Muslim-majority country, also has State control of religion. Under President Suharto, Indonesia was a secular country. But when he became weak with the US abandoning him, he opted to exploit the fundamentalist Islamic sentiments among his people to retain control.
The transition to democracy from autocratic rule in Indonesia which began in 1998, ushered in a period of unstable governments. This again led governments to use conservative Islam to stay in power. The government controlled religious body, the Indonesian Council of Islamic Scholars (MUI), took the conservative side of the spectrum and adopted a militant attitude towards heterodoxy.Mystical sects, the Ahmadiya minority and the Shi`as were reviled. It is against liberal interpretations of Islam, secularism, and the very idea of religious pluralism.
The lesson appears to be that when a government is strong, institutions meant to control religious thought and practice, side with liberal forces. But when it is weak, fundamentalists gain the upper hand. A weak regime actually promotes fundamentalism in the hope that the conservative majority will be appeased and will support it.
In Turkey, after the 1980 coup, the military-backed government sought to promote a conservative religious-nationalistic doctrine, the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis”. The aim was to fight communism as well as political Islam.
The religious council or bureaucracy Diyanet” was given an important role. The number of mosques and imams under its control rapidly expanded. Imam Hatip(partly secular and partly religious) schools became popular. Many graduates of Imam Hatip schools sought to continue their education in various professional or academic institutions and then join government service.
The AKP led by Erdogan, was to a large extent, an emancipation movement of the conservative Muslim segments of the population that had been marginalized under Kemalism (the ideology of Mustafa Kemal, founder of modern Turkey).
TheImam Hatip schools played a part in the emancipation of the conservatives. But the old secularist elite has been replaced now by the counter-elite of Erdoğan in alliance with an assortment of pragmatic allies.
Internationally, Erdogan is with the Muslim Brotherhood. But in domestic politics he has largely abjured Islamization. He is a supporter of Turkey’s brand of secularism called laiklik. Religious thinkers, ulema and Sufi shaikhs have not been empowered. The Shariah is not a source of legislation. Religious thought has no significant influence in politics. Government retains its monopoly over religious education and outreach. Religious congregations called Cemaats are tightly controlled.
All of this is quite unlike the situation in Indonesia.
But at the same, taking into account the fact that the Turkish people are innately conservative, Erdogan’s s government endorses conservative values, such as teetotalism and female veiling.
Colombo, May 6 (Daily Mirror): The Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, said on Monday that some trouble makers are using the Easter Sunday suicide attacks to foment Christian-Muslim clashes and pave the way for foreign intervention.
Meanwhile, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has appealed to the media not to cover searches going on in relation to the Easter Sunday blasts as these premature reports are endangering innocent people.
Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said that cash amounting LKR 140 million and assets worth LKR 7 billion have been discovered in raids on the premises of terror suspects.
The CID has already suspended these bank accounts, the police spokesperson said
During a raid at a house in Thalapitiya, Galle police have arrested a person along with over 1000 clothes similar to uniforms of the tri-forces and the Sri Lanka Civil Security Force.
Gunasekara said 54 suspects including 7 women arrested in connection with the attacks are currently in custody of the CID, while 19 suspects are held by the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID).
Cardinal’s Appeal
Referring to the communal clashes in Negombo last Sunday, the Cardinal said that they were the work of several outsiders who had entered Negombo to create unrest between the Sinhalese and the Muslims.
Cardinal Ranjith told a press conference that the said outsiders inebriated the residents in the area and provoked them into violence.
I request the government to close all liquor shops in vulnerable areas. These forces are trying to create unrest in Sri Lanka to pave the way for external interference. Some forces are trying to provoke people and create religious unrest. The clash in Negombo is a perfect example for this. Those who are behind it are outsiders. They are attempting to create unrest among the Sinhalese and the Muslims. I ask all Catholics not to raise their hands against Muslims as they are not behind these destructive efforts. It had been done by a group of individuals who had gone astray. They are backed by some international forces. We don’t have to harm innocent Muslims because of this group,” he said.
Cardinal Ranjith said no one should jump into conclusions without knowing the real facts. He said some were using social media to mislead people.
People supported the police and the security forces to carry out search operations since the Easter Sunday tragedy. We appreciate the patience of the people,” Cardinal Ranjith said while appealing to the Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus not to get agitated but to help maintain peace in the country.
I appeal to people to continue to support the security forces. I request the Catholics to live according to the teachings of Jesus and pray for the country.
Maithripala Sirisena
President’s Request To Media
A request not to telecast search operations at houses and public places through media has been made to President Maithripala Sirisena by several persons.
Clear instructions have been given to the security forces to not allow the participation of civilians when conducting search operations and that they have to be conducted exclusively by the members of the security forces.
At the present, a special security program has been implemented across the country, as per instructed by the President and under the guidance and supervision of the Ministry of Defense, following the unexpected and regrettable incidents of violence on the Easter Sunday.
Under this process, investigations are carried out continuously and houses, public places, and vehicles are inspected.
As a result of unwarranted media publicity for these investigations, various communities in the society are facing difficulties and persons who are not involved in terrorist activities in any way face great inconveniences as the society has deemed them as terrorists.
Various sections of the society, including religious leaders, have made requests to the President with regard to this several times. Considering those requests, in order to prevent any further inconveniences to any community in the society, the Government has requested all the media institutions not to conduct media coverage on these search operation
Colombo, April 30 (newsin.asia): The Sri Lankan government’s handling of the situation in the country after the April 21 serial bombings, has drawn heavy flak from various quarters in the country including the head of the Catholic church, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith.
Cardinal Ranjith had earlier been extremely sympathetic to the beleaguered government of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe following the blasts which occurred in three churches and three posh hotels among other places killing 253 people.
He had immediately appealed to his flock not to take the law into their own hands, be calm and cooperate with the government.
But disappointed with the way the situation was developing in the past week, he told the media on Monday: I cannot see any measures being taken to find solutions to the issue of national security by those entrusted with the task. These politicians are once again playing their favorite blame game. As a result, the country and the people are continuing to suffer.”
Apprehensive that the blame game is related to the forthcoming elections, the Cardinal said: At this juncture, we do not need polls.”
Presidential and nine Provincial elections are due by the end of the year and Parliamentary elections are due in the first half of 2020. In that situation, politicians are criticizing each other, accusing others of negligence and even complicity in the planning and execution of the suicide bombings carried out by the National Taweheed Jamaat (MTJ) and the Jamathei Millathu Ibraheemi (JMI) at the behest of the Islamic State.
Call For All Party Government
The Cardinal went on to say: In this context, I call upon all political parties in this country to form an All Party Government to resolve this issue if the need is for that.”
I also urge the President and Prime Minister to set aside their differences and to map out policy towards ensuring that national security is not compromised in this country at any stage in the future.”
The people are yet to be convinced that the country’ political leaders are attempting to resolve this issue by working together. They are only interested in scoring points, both personally, and for their respective political parties. We cannot see any coordination of the security measures.”
He pointed out that police are raiding places only on the basis of tip-offs by locals and not on their own intelligence. He urged a house to house search.
If illegal weapons were found, the occupants of the houses must be taken into custody and thoroughly grilled. Some of those involved in the blasts could have fled from the country,” he added.
About the Presidential Commission appointed to probe blasts on April 22, Cardinal Ranjith said that he is still in the dark as to whether those in the commission have even begun their deliberations, or any evidence has been sought from witnesses.”
He feared that this commission might go the way of previous Presidential Commissions which contributed little to the improvements in the country.
Opposing the appointment of retired officials to the Presidential Commission on the blasts, the Cardinal said that a body of religious leaders should be set up to oversee the work of the commission.
Warning Of Religious Leaders’-Led Agitation
In a grim warning to the government, Cardinal Ranjith said: I make it bold to say that if there is no formidable security network it will be impossible to contain the masses from rising against the government. That is because we cannot be trotting out lies to the people day in and day out and attempt to tell them to remain calm and collected.”
If an MP or cabinet minister is behind these attacks please apprehend them and grill them. The Buddhist monks, the Maulavis and Hindu priests are all standing together to make these requests. If these requests are not fulfilled, we will be forced to step into the streets. To oppose the actions of the government we (the religious leaders) will be marching right in the front.”
We finally request the government to implement the law without fear or favor without leaving room for us to take the law into out our own hands,” the Cardinal added.
Endorsing Cardinal Ranjith’s statement, the Chief Prelate of the Kotte Sri Kalyani Samagri Dharma Maha Sangha Sabha, Venerable Ittapane Dhammalankara Thero said: We cannot see those in the topmost positions of the government taking decisions jointly as they are divided to the core politically.”
Flawed Counter Terrorism Bill
Meanwhile, the chair of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) Prof. G.L.Peiris told the media that the present Emergency Powers and the existing Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) are enough to fight terrorism and there is no need for a new Counter-Terrorism Bill (CTA). After all, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were defeated with such powers, Peiris recalled. He feared that the CTA would be used only against trade unions and the democratic opposition.
Udaya Gammanpila of the Pivithuru Jatika Hela Urumaya said that the Counter-Terrorism Bill, if passed, will let foreign terrorists off the hook as Sri Lanka will not be able to prosecute them without the consent of their national governments. Furthermore, the death penalty, which is there in the existing PTA, will be replaced by life imprisonment and bail will be given on payment of LKR one million.
Council of Ex-Muslims of Sri Lanka (CEMSL)
The CEMSL has also opposed the on-going raids. In a press release, the ex-Muslims said: Considering the prevailing situation in the country, the Council of Ex-Muslims of Sri Lanka considers that it would be an appropriate and wise step for media and security forces to avoid giving unnecessary publicity to the finding of swords, hatchets, knives and shotguns from Masjids and individual homes.
Giving unnecessary publicity to the findings which are not related to ISIS terrorists would create more and more hatred towards innocent Muslims among other communities as well as delay the return of normal life in the country.”
This would also divert the attention of the security forces and the public to a different direction from which terrorists could benefit.”
In most cases, the swords, knives, hatchets, and shotguns found in Masjids and some houses are not related to ISIS terrorists.”
Although we have no doubt that such acts are illegal, we request those concerned to be mindful of the following facts.”
Background To Possession Of Some Weapons
The CEMSL further said that following the riots of Mawanella, Beruwela, Aluthgama, and Kandy, out of fear of the possibility of being attacked by racists, Muslims could have kept swords for defensive purposes.
Also, some individuals could have kept swords to protect themselves from thieves, other intruders and for settling personal disputes. Shotguns are often used for illegal hunting. Underworld gangs also keep their weapons in hidings.
Masjids store knives and hatchets for Kurbani (Annual animal sacrifice during Hajj period) purposes.
Though we have left Islam, we are able to understand the above as we are also from the Muslim community. Considering the present situation of the country, we request that unnecessary media publicity should not be given to findings for above-mentioned items which are not related to ISIS related activities, unless it’s clearly mentioned,” the CEMSL said.
(The featured image at the top is that of Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith)
President Maithripala Sirisena stated that Batticaloa University will be assigned under the Ministry of Higher Education.
He mentioned this speaking to Northern Province state officials and Muslim youths in the area during an observational visit to the Sainthamarudu in Kalmunai.
The President said that a clear decision will also be taken regarding the syllabus taught at the university.
Suicide bomber Mohammad Hasthoon’s wife, Pulasthini Mahendran (some reports mention it as Pulasthini Rajendran) aka Sara who is believed to be an active participant in the recent bombings, was born in a devout Hindu lower middle class family and was converted to Islam and radicalised, a report by popular Tamil channel IBC Tamizh has revealed.
As per the report, Pulasthini was born in a middle-class Hindu family in Thettativu, situated in Batticaloa district in Eastern Province in Sri Lanka and was allegedly abducted, converted to Islam and radicalised by Islamists groups.
IBC Tamizh’s interview with her mother, Kavitha Mahendran reveals that Pulasthini was a good student who was pursuing medical studies. She used to pursue traditional Tamil and Hindu religious studies in school. However, one Abdul Razik abducted Pulasthini when she was a student.
Kavitha claims that she tried to bring her daughter back, but Razik insisted that Pulasthini was ‘happy’ and that she had made an ‘informed adult decision’. A few months later, Razik called Kavitha to inform her that her daughter had ‘embraced’ Islam and was married off to a man. Her husband is believed to the Mohammad Hasthoon, who was caught on camera at the St Sebastian Church bombing on Easter Sunday.
A devasted Kavitha cut off all ties with her daughter. A month after this, Kavitha claims she got a call from her distraught daughter who said she was unhappy in her life and she was on the verge of a complete breakdown. However, after this phone call, there was no contact from Pulasthini.
Around two weeks before the Easter Sunday attacks, Kavitha claims an unknown man, who identified himself as Sri Lankan intelligence officer had come looking for Pulasthini but didn’t divulge any information.
IBC report reveals that Abul Razik is actually a leader of the radical Islamic organisation, Sri Lankan Thowheed Jamaath (SLTJ) which has close ideological ties with the Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamaath.
ISIS had claimed responsibility for the serial blasts that shook Sri Lanka last month claiming lives of over 200 people. The sons of one of the richest and politically well-connected man were found to be two of the suicide bombers. The family is under interrogation after the wife of one of the bombers triggered another suicide blast to kill policemen in their Colombo dwelling.
The Maligawatte police have found 56 swords in a well in the Maligawatte area in Colombo, today (08).
https://youtu.be/i-bt-Ozbeh8
Reportedly, 44 Chinese manufactured swords, 12 old swords, 49 knives, 26 CDs with covers with Arabic writing letters on them, a firearm, and a narcotic drug called ‘Ice’ have been found inside a 20-feet deep well near a mosque in Maligawatte.
However, the Ada Derana correspondent, who had gone to report search operation conducted by Navy divers, had been obstructed by a certain group who had been at the scene.
Meanwhile, 16 knives had been found when inspecting a suspicious parcel abandoned at the Arnold Ratnayake Road in Maradana. The parcel was found by the CMC employees at the Sudewella worksite.
Furthermore, a stock of sharp weapons including swords was found hidden among clothes inside the cupboard of a house in Kumbukkandura area. Theldeniya police stated two persons were arrested with this regard.
Eleven knives including Italian-manufactured knives have been found near the Richmond Hill by the Special Crimes Division of the Galle Police.
The person, at whose house the knives were found, has also been arrested by the Police.
Several suspicious items were recovered from sugarcane cultivation belonging to Pelwatte sugar factory.
Accordingly, 5 walkie-talkies, uniforms worn by security details of VIPs and some other items were found during a search which was carried out based on the information received from the driver of sugar factory’s chief operations officer.
The Chief Operations Officer Surath Amadeen yesterday (07) held a secretive discussion with 13 of fellow Muslim employees at the factory and had hindered other employees from entering the room where the discussion took place.
Owing to this incident, unrest emerged at the factory and the officers of Buttala Police and Police Special Task Force had arrived at the site to curtail the tense situation.
The Buttala police officers interrogated the chief operations officer, while the Police STF had searched his house.
Amadeen’s driver was taken into the custody of CID yesterday.
A stock of items including swords, knives, drugs, a firearm and bullets have been recovered from the bottom of a public well located in close proximity to a mosque near the R. Premadasa stadium in Maligawatta, Colombo.
Ada Derana reporter said that the discovery was made during a search operation carried out by security forces personnel in the Maligawatta area today (8).
He said that a total of 58 swords, including 46 new swords (with red logo) and 12 old swords, 4 knives, 26 CDs, a small pistol, several bullets and a packet of crystal meth also known as ‘ice’ were found at the location.
The items were recovered with the assistance of police divers.
No arrests have been made over the finding while Maligawatta Police is conducting further investigations.
Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa today urged Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to appoint a Parliamentary Select Committee to examine the proposed Counter-Terrorism Act.
Issuing a statement, he says that opposition has been mounting against the proposed act from every part of society and that several major political parties represented in parliament have already voiced strong objections to it.
Considering this situation, the Opposition Leader makes a special request to the Prime Minister to appoint a Parliamentary Select Committee to carry out a broad study and review of the proposed act.
The Police Special Investigation Unit (SIU) has commenced an investigation to determine as to whether any errors had been committed by the police in granting bail to 9 suspects arrested at the Wellampitiya copper factory, which is believed to be linked to the Easter Sunday terror attacks.
Mohamed Ibrahim Insaf Ahmed, the suicide bomber responsible for the blast at the Cinnamon Grand in Colombo on April 21, is the owner of the copper factory at Wellampitiya.
On April 22, nine employees of the factory were arrested by Wellampitiya Police and remanded until May 06 after being produced at the Colombo Magistrate’s Court.
When the case was taken up on May 06, the court released the nine suspects on bail while it had been widely reported that the suspects were granted bail due to an error or oversight on the part of the officers of the Wellampitiya Police Station.
Police Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekara said that the Police Headquarters’ SIU has launched an investigation into this.
Speaking at a press conference in Colombo today (8), he said that if it is confirmed through the investigation that an error or oversight by a Wellampitiya police officer had led to this, strict action will be taken against the said officer.
While highlighting the importance of a united leadership in Sri Lanka, former US Ambassador Robert O Blake Jr yesterday said the incumbent government should establish a high-level group of technocrats similar to the one existed when Gotabaya Rajapaksa was the Defence Secretary, to prevent terror attacks in the country.
The former ambassador, who is now Senior Director (India and South Asia) of McLarty Associates, said this while delivering a presentation titled US Foreign Policy towards China and South Asia and what it means for Sri Lanka at the BMICH in Colombo.
The event was organised by the Pathfinder Foundation in partnership with the Joint Apparel Association Forum Sri Lanka (JAAFSL)
Mr Blake said having a high-level group of technocrats in Sri Lanka could definitely benefit the country and that Sri Lanka could learn from the mistakes the US have done before and after the 9/11 attacks.
In fact, Sri Lanka did have such a group during the war when Gotabaya Rajapaksa was Defence Secretary and he personally shared that and made sure that all different branches of the Intelligence of which there are many in this country, share information and then sharing that information up to the senior levels making sure that such attacks don’t take place.
So I think that’s a very important thing that the government should think about in establishing a group like that,” he said. (
Since that Easter
Sunday, I have been wanting to pen a few words expressing my feelings towards
all, who suffered. Lives of nearly three hundred worshipers, their
children and scores of foreign tourists were snuffed out amidst waves of flying
shrapnel and fumes of sulphur.
And each time I
tried, my thoughts always lost its way, blinded by the fiery spectacle of
agony, carnage and death that must have reigned at those locations, following
the blasts.
Then something snapped in me as I kept reading and listening to what some of our Diyawanna oya nincompoops and their supposedly duty-bound appointees had to say about the mayhem.
I do not want to
elaborate on what some of them said, for they have been on all forms of media,
for almost two weeks now.
What actually infuriated me is the fact that how inconsiderate and insensitive have become the mindsets of our politicians towards people, who have put them wherever they are now.
In spite of three
warnings from our big neighbour, no one seemed to have given two hoots about a
possible impending disaster with people caught right in the middle of it. Some
were forewarned even a week before, some were stopped from going to church by
way of paternal advise, some thought that it was going to be not big enough to
make a noise about and so on and so forth. Sadly, all that however, did not
reach the public, the relevant religious personalities and others concerned,
for which the hapless and the innocent ended up paying the ultimate price.
Aren’t all these
acts of covering up and subterfuge acts of sacrilege on what one promised and
his unbound duty to people, when one was elected or duly appointed by those
people’s representatives?
And did we have any security-council meetings? Yes we apparently did, though without an IGP and a PM. And their excuse is that they were not invited. Isn’t it inconceivable that none of them bothered to find out why? Or that it didn’t occur to them that the safety and the security of the country and its people matter first, sits at the top, even if it means to force your way into the sessions and demand why? No. Sadly some spines are made of bone, just bare, brittle bone and nothing else.
And to see some of
them chuckle, while calmly sitting on those comfy chairs holding media
briefings is mind-boggling and downright ugly, few even seemingly savouring the
fact that they somehow survived, so that they can continue to tell people their
fairy tales, actually made me almost throw up in disgust. Or is this apparent
nonchalance and pretentious (obviously) stand of showing up nerve,
a facade to hide their fear and failure?
Dante in his ‘La
Commedia (Divine Comedy)’ writes about hell, purgatory and heaven. The bombers
were probably dreaming about the last as they blew themselves up.
And as for our own,
who knew about it in advance and still did nothing about it, I am not sure how
Dante would have judged them.
Government invoked emergency with two intentions.One is to
carry out raids and inspections , not only to arrest culprits but to arrest the
situation of excallating violence.Secondly to keep public indoor so that
skirmishes in the streets are minimised.
What happened in Negombo is a clear example, where people
were trying to lake the law into their hands.
Yesterday parents decided not to comply wither government
ruling that children should attend schools.Percentage of children attending
schools was abmisible.
It was not a strike per say but ignoring requests by the
government.
As per the laws in Sri Lanka it is a must that children
artend to schools.
This may be just a start of Noncompliance with the rules
and regulations because people may not be trusting what government tells.
Next action may be that people will refuse to obey rules
related to day to day to life.
People may dump garbage every where.People May drive without
complying traffic rules.People may not obey judiciary and law and
order.People may stop paying-taxes
Government should establish trust among people..So far
government has failed.
Hats off to armed forces for controlling the situation.
Yesterday we saw how His Emminence Cardinal visiting Negombo
and passifying aggrieved People.
Main-idea is that People should at least listen to religious
leaders rather than rulers.
But none of the politicians like crying MPs in the area
dared to go to the location!
If and When there are skirmishes in the areas of
predominantly Buddhist ,have you ever seen any Chief Sanganayake visiting the
areas and talk to both parties to avoid excallations.
Catholics may not be trusting government but they trust
religious leaders.
Cardinal just preached what Jesus Christ advocated.
As a Buddhist I am ashamed to note that most of our Buddhist
Leading Monks never go to people.
They want people to come to them.
Whenever they give TV interviews ,they talk aggressively
leading to more and more discontent.
It is high time for the Government to impose Emergency Law
in full force and gag the press so that they do not aggravate the Non
Compliance with rules and regulations.
All the prelates leading Malwatu,Asgiri ,Rammana ,Siam
Nikaya’s etc should visit the areas in turns and preach non violence.
No politicians should accompany them.
I am sure that people will abide by the rules after such
action.
If an attack happened in a Buddhist Area in Sri Lanka there
would have been a Killing Field” like in Cambodia.
Various interviews shown in TV and radio and published
newspapers should be stopped with social media gagging.
Army with the help of clergy should visit people should take
the lead and let politicians sleep for few weeks”
‘The residual historical hostility against India was certainly a factor,’ says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters
The Indian election campaign of 2019 will go down as the most negative ever in our electoral history.
Both sides have harped more on the negatives of the other side than their own positives.
These elections have seen political parties running to the Election Commission of India virtually every other day with complaints against each other.
It reminds me of the bad old days of Indian cricket when the team, in doldrums, was fond of appealing frequently to the umpires!
Political parties have cynically vitiated the process in such a way that the Election Commission’s credibility has been eroded. This will have long-term repercussions for Indian democracy that has always prided itself on a free and fair electoral process.More from around the web
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Be that as it may, one very tragic consequence of this gamesmanship has been the recent terror attack in Sri Lanka.
As a frequent visitor to and long time student of Sri Lanka’s internal dynamics, one is well aware of the undercurrent of ‘anti-Indianism’ in the Sri Lankan polity.
The roots of this go back to the first millennium CE. Emperor Rajendra Chola created a vast empire in South East Asia and invaded Sri Lanka 17 times. During these invasions he destroyed the Buddhist shrines of Anuradhapura and built a Shiva temple at the site.
Sri Lankans have never forgotten this history and were and are suspicious of Indian motives. At the peak of the Indian Peace Keeping Force operations in 1987-1988, then Sri Lankan prime minister Ranasinghe Premadasa even supplied arms and ammunition to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to fight the Indian Army.
There was widespread belief in Sri Lanka that India would never withdraw from Sri Lanka.
The anti-Indian feeling has abated somewhat since then as India kept its pledge and withdrew its forces in 1990. It is another matter that the same Premadasa was a victim of the LTTE.
After the LTTE’s defeat 10 years ago, Sri Lanka has seen much desired peace. The terror bombing on Easter Sunday, April 21, shattered this decade of peace. The ease with which the terror attacks were carried out revealed that Sri Lanka had let its guard down.
What is shocking is that almost a month before the gruesome attacks, Indian intelligence had given a detailed warning that included the likely targets and dates. Not just that, India also provided Sri Lanka with detailed addresses and telephone numbers of the would-be suicide bombers.
This was no vague ‘alert’, but a detailed plot of the terror attacks. Sri Lankan officials completely ignored the warnings and took no action. As a result, close to 250 people lost their lives.
Why did the Sri Lankans disregard the timely warning? The residual historical hostility against India was certainly a factor.
Another equally important factor was the disarray in the Sri Lankan government apparatus due to the ongoing ‘cold war’ between the president and prime minister.
It is also a matter of record that the Sri Lankan establishment has long been hobnobbing with Pakistan and all manner of jihadi outfits to ‘balance’ the Indian influence on Sri Lanka.
Despite all that, it still begs the question as to why the Sri Lankans ignored the inputs of Indian intelligence.
The answer lies in the constant barrage of propaganda in the section of the Indian media that depicts the current Indian government as anti-Muslim.
Lending its ears to the anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists of the Indian media, the Sri Lankans assumed the warnings of impending terror attacks were part of a diabolic plan by Indian Rightists.
From this ‘conviction’ to ignoring timely inputs about the terror attack was a logical step as far as Sri Lanka was concerned.
The damage these attacks have caused to the Lankan economy is tremendous. Tourism, the mainstay of the Lankan economy, has taken a hit and it will take great efforts to recreate confidence in minds of potential tourists.
The Sri Lankan terrorists’s links to India have become visible. India can no longer view its southern parts as immune to the virus of ISIS ideology.
ISIS’s statement that the Sri Lankan attacks were revenge for what happened in Syria to ISIS is laughable to any sane individual. But to its ideologically motivated fanatic followers it makes perfect sense.
Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) has been a Sri Lanka watcher since 1989.
Janey Lowes, 30, from Barnard Castle, moved to Sri Lanka to help sick animals
Admits she used to be ‘self obsessed’ and loved partying and shopping
Young vet set up veterinary charity in the country for abandoned street hounds
Worries she won’t find love because she’s dedicated to the centre 24/7
Janey was hailed as a ‘fantastic role model’ to young girls by presenter Fogle
A young vet who swapped a life of clubbing and partying in the UK to set up a charity to help dying street dogs in Sri Lanka says she’s worried she’ll never find love.
Janey Lowes, 30, originally from Barnard Castle, County Durham, visited the country while on holiday aged 26 and was shocked by how many hounds were abandoned on the island.
The vet, who is dubbed the embodiment of ‘Dr. Dolittle’ in tonight’s Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild, decided to leave her life in Britain behind and move to Sri Lanka.
But despite seemingly living in paradise and running a successful charity, Janey says she feels ‘isolated’ in the country.
Janey, 30, from County Durham, appears on tonight’s episode of Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild. The presenter dubs the girl a modern day ‘Doctor Dolittle’
The former party girl has transformed her life by moving to Sri Lanka and setting up her own veterinary charity to treat some of the country’s millions of stray dogs
The stunning woman admits she’s single and doesn’t think anyone ‘could hack’ being in a relationship with her.ADVERTISING
She says: ‘Everyone loves the idea of an independent girl going off and doing her own thing. Guys say they find it attractive, but actually the reality of it sucks.’
She adds: ‘I don’t wanna be a crazy dog lady left on the shelf. It’s definitely a specific taste people are going to have to have.’
Janey had dreamed of being a vet from a young age, and after graduating from university, she worked for two-and-a-half years but found she didn’t feel she was doing enough to help animals.
The stunning 30-year-old admits she’s single, as she spends almost all of her time at work, and says that she doesn’t feel men ‘can hack’ her lifestyle
Janey set up the charity, which now has 17 staff, in Sri Lanka, after visiting while backpacking around the world
She admits in the programme, which airs tonight on Channel 5 at 9pm, that she used to be quite ‘self-obsessed’ and buy a new outfit to go out on the town every weekend.
While travelling for a year, she fell in love with Sri Lanka and their millions of street dogs.
Janey moved to the country and set up a charity, WECare Worldwide, buying a building on the outskirts of the town Talalla and converting it into a veterinary practice.
She admits the country has a chronic problem with their stray dogs, with an estimated one to three million animals roaming the streets
She admits that the country has a chronic problem with their stray dogs, with an estimated one to three million animals roaming the streets.
Janey revealed that street dogs often have a food source, but aren’t necessarily owned by anyone.
She is so dedicated to the work that she’s available pretty much 24/7 to the centre, admitting: ‘It’s just that here there’s not really another option. We have to be available all the time.’
The 30-year-old admitted she has loved animals from a young age, and had always dreamed of becoming a vet
Janey grew up in County Durham, but moved to Sri Lanka two years after graduating from university to set up her charity
Her charity now has 17 members of staff, including five vets, three nurses and several trainees.
While on the job she allows herself to be bitten by terrified dogs and has even contracted mange from the stray dogs she treats.
Ben is stunned by the infrastructure she has in place, given how remote Sri Lanka can feel.
He tells the camera: ‘What’s amazing is she was willing to give up everything in the UK to set this up from scratch. She’s clearly very ambitious.’
Ben is shocked by the diverse range of injuries that Janey treats, including this puppy who had been bitten by a snake
Janey moved to Sri Lanka and brought this property on the outskirts of the coastal town Talalla, in the south of the country. She converted it into a veterinary practice
The presenter joins Janey at work and is shocked by several of the cases she encounters, which he deems worse than anything he’s ever seen in the UK – including one where Janey removes more than 100 maggots from a dog’s ear.
In one scene, a puppy is brought into the veterinary clinic after being bitten by a snake.
Luckily Janey is able to identify what breed the reptile was – a hump-nosed pit viper, whose venom could be fatal to the young pup.
Janey is able to save the tiny puppy from the snake bite, and it’s not long before it’s looking more lively again
Ben is stunned by the young woman’s attitude to the animals, and dubs her a modern day ‘Dr. Dolittle’
The wounded dog requires several injections of pain relief as well as a course of antibiotics.
Janey admits she also finds the financial aspect of the business ‘a massive headache’.
Keen for the centre to live up to the rigorous standards of the UK, she reveals: ‘We haemorrhage money. It’s tough at times.
The vet also called the financial aspect of her business ‘a massive headache’ and said they can ‘haemorrhage’ money at times
Janey says she’s keen to expand her charity across other countries in Asia in an effort to help more animals
‘It’s really expensive to do things not only properly, but in a country where everyone assumes things are cheap when they’re not.’
She continues by saying she’s keen to expand her charity into other countries to help more animals across Asia.
And despite her worries, she describes the country as ‘home’, admitting: ‘I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.’
COLOMBO, May 7 (Xinhua) — Sri Lankan security forces have arrested all those directly linked to the Easter terror explosions on April 21, Acting Police Chief Chandana Wickramaratne said in a special statement here on Tuesday.
Wickramaratne said the police had identified all those involved in the terror attacks and many of them had committed suicide when security forces had attempted to arrest them.
He said the two bomb experts involved in the terrorist attacks had also been killed and forces had seized all the explosives and bombs which had been stored for future attacks.
“We request the public to resume their daily activities without fear. Search operations will continue throughout the island, but all those directly involved in the attacks have been arrested or are dead. The security forces will continue to provide security to all its citizens,” the police chief said.
He said that tight security would remain in places of worship and security forces were also conducting a program to create awareness about safety and security in all schools.
More than 250 people were killed and over 500 injured in the Easter Sunday explosions which targeted three churches and three luxury hotels.
KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka — The ringleader of terrorist attacks that killed 257 people on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka was a cruel and stubborn man who does not represent National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ), said his former friend and now leader of the outlawed Islamist group.
[Mohammed Zahran Hashim] has two behavioral personalities,” Mohamed Yusef Thaufeek, NTJ’s leader, told VICE News. One is stubbornness. And he has a tendency to lie. He has both behaviors. No matter what you tell, he never listens, and never accepts it. He has that type of behavior.”ADVERTISEMENT
Until Easter Sunday, NTJ was just one of many peripheral hard-line religious groups in the Buddhist-majority nation. Following a strict Wahabist interpretation of Islam, members were on the police radar due to skirmishes between other religious groups and acts of vandalism against Buddhist statues, but the group itself was not a major security concern to lawmakers and would have been unknown to most Sri Lankans.
Now, it’s been outlawed by the government and is at the center of a sprawling investigation into one of the deadliest terrorist attacks since 9/11. It can thank its founder, Mohammed Zahran Hashim, who allegedly planned the Easter attack on several churches and hotels with help from ISIS.
In claiming responsibility for the attacks, ISIS released a video in which Zahran is seen alongside eight other people pledging allegiance to the terror group. Later, authorities confirmed that Zahran was one of the suicide bombers who targeted upmarket hotels in the island nation’s capital, Colombo.
Thaufeek does not deny that the attacks were committed by the founder and former members of NTJ (Hashim established the group in 2012), or that a further suicide bomb that killed 15 people was committed by Zahran’s brothers.
He does, however, reject the idea that those attacks are representative of the group he now leads.
This is not a terrorist movement. It is an organization under Sri Lankan sovereignty. National Thowheed Jamath does religious and social services,” said Thaufeek. He pointed to a letter written in Tamil dated Dec. 24, 2017, which he claims is evidence that Zaharan was dismissed from NTJ.ADVERTISEMENT
He said it was the events leading up to Zahran’s dismissal from the group that appear to signal the beginning of his journey into violent extremism. Earlier that year, following violent riots against Sufi worshippers in Kattankudy in which several people were arrested, Zahran became a target of the police. He soon fled Kattankudy but then began releasing Facebook videos.
A few months went by, and after that, his talking style begins to change,” said Thoufeek. He starts talking against the Sri Lankan government. He said the Sri Lankan government’s parliamentary system is useless, that the court system is no longer useful. People couldn’t believe that he used to be part of their movement and is now saying all these things. There seems to be such a drastic change. So what we did was right away we joined forces and decided to officially dismiss him from the organization.”
Zahran’s Facebook rants concerned others in Colombo. Hilmy Ahmed, vice president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, said he had alerted the authorities to Zahran’s violent rhetoric.
Referring to one video, Hilmy said, He is basically calling for the killing of all people who do not believe in Islam. It’s hate speech. They would have charged him if they’d found him. They couldn’t find him.”
Missed or ignored warnings by the government have been the focus of intense debate and scrutiny since the deadly attacks on Easter Sunday. In January, a warning came that radical Islamists were stockpiling weapons and detonators, then three more warnings from Indian Intelligence came in April alone. The first on April 4, followed by another on April 11, then again just hours before the bombings on the 20th. Each with more details of targets, names and even the suspects’ movements.
Was the attack on Sri Lanka an example of the Islamic State’s opportunism?
Why did the Islamic State terror group choose Sri Lanka, and a persecuted minority in it, as the target for one of its deadliest attacks ever? This question puzzles many, given that this tiny island nation has largely been non-aligned in its foreign policy and is nowhere on the global radar of the fight against terror. What’s more, Christians here have had cordial relations with the local Muslim community, which, along with the Christian minority, has been under attack by fringe Buddhist extremist groups.
This question, being raised by security analysts and experts, is perhaps presumptuous, and therefore not particularly helpful in making sense of what really happened. We should perhaps first ask, did the Islamic State, or ISIS, really look at the world map and say we need to attack Sri Lanka?”
The Sri Lankan government has blamed the attacks on a local radicalized group, called National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ), a splintered faction of the hard-line Islamist organisation Sri Lanka Thowheed Jamath. On April 21, NTJ’s nine suicide bombers, including a woman, struck two Catholic churches in and around Colombo and an evangelical church in the eastern city of Batticaloa as well as three Colombo hotels frequented by Western tourists, killing at least 257 people, mostly Christian worshipers, and injuring around 500 more.Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.
Of course, the sophistication involved in the attacks points to external involvement, and the government has said that the NTJ had ties with ISIS, whose leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has also claimed in a video message that the attacks were to avenge the recent defeat of his fighters in the eastern city of Baghouz in Syria, the outfit’s last known hideout in the Levant region.
At least one of the bombers, identified as Jameel Mohammed Abdul Latheef, went to ISIS recruiters in Syria in 2014, according to the Wall Street Journal. Perhaps Latheef reached out to the group not too long after it proclaimed itself to be a worldwide caliphate with al-Baghdadi as the caliph. At the time, its commanders and fighters were releasing videos of hostages in orange jumpsuits being beheaded. The messaging through such images was meant to attract Muslim youth for recruitment and training. ISIS reportedly trained hundreds of foreigners in Iraq and Syria when they still had a territory to rule.
However, having been driven out of Iraq and Syria four years later, thanks to a military intervention by a U.S.-led international coalition, ISIS lost its ability to carry out direct attacks. So it began using home-grown killers to carry out not-so-sophisticated attacks, such as in Europe. It also continued using encrypted messaging platforms and other online communication methods, including social media, to promote its anti-West/anti-Christian narrative and to urge its supporters around the world to launch attacks on suggested targets, irrespective of local communal dynamics in the attacker’s home country.
Therefore, a better question to ask at this stage is, why were some Sri Lankan Muslims attracted to ISIS?
This would lead us to the NTJ’s formation in 2016, when the planning for the attacks and the establishment of sleeper cells and other preparations must have begun. The bombers reportedly used a 43,500-square-foot walled terror training camp in the eastern town of Kattankudy, near the home of the prime suspect, identified as Zahran Hashim.
The terms Thowheed” and Kattankudy” should ring a bell with any Sri Lanka watcher.
In the 1980s, Salafist Islam, a version of which many believe supports violent extremism, began to spread in Sri Lanka in Kattankudy. An ultra-orthodox Salafi group is often referred to as a Thowheed,” meaning monotheism and also written as Tawhid.” Its followers in Sri Lanka initially had intra-faith tensions, including with Sufis, whom they called apostates. The worst episode of persecution of Sufis came when the property of their organization, Thareekathul Mufliheen, was vandalized and houses of more than 100 Sufis were burned down in December 2006. Possessing arms was easier during the time due to the then-ongoing civil war in the east and the north.
Preoccupied with the threat from the separatist Tamil Tigers, who had officially pulled out of peace talks indefinitely a few months earlier, Mahinda Rajapaksa, then the president of Sri Lanka, apparently saw the growth of Salafism as an unimportant matter.
Rajapaksa’s government also overlooked the potential long-term threat from an existing sense of alienation among Muslims, who had been under attack in the east and the north by the Tamil Tigers. Whether the tensions between Muslims and the Tamil Tigers were organic or organized by some previous governments remains debatable.
The International Crisis Group noted in a report in May 2017 that [s]ecurity forces were implicated in several violent confrontations between Muslims and Tamils. One of the worst was an attack on the (Tamil) village of Karaitivu in April 1985, when Muslim youths, apparently with the support of the security forces, went on a rampage, killing several people and burning hundreds of houses. Thereafter, violent incidents became relatively common between Tamil militants and Muslims. Some Muslims were armed by the government for their own protection but they were also involved in vigilante action against neighboring Tamils, provoking more reprisals.”
After the Sri Lankan government defeated the Tamil Tigers militarily in 2009, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives, according to human rights groups, tensions between Muslims and sections of Buddhists emerged.
In 2012, a Buddhist extremist group, Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force or BBS), was created allegedly with the support of some influential politicians, apparently to promote Buddhist nationalism among the majority Singhalese community. It could be seen as an attempt to portray the government’s victory over the largely Hindu Tamil Tigers as a reason for national pride and thereby absolve those responsible for the killing of civilians. Several attacks against mosques and anti-Muslim campaigns as well as attacks on churches and Christians have been attributed to the BBS since then. At least in the initial years after the end of the war, Sri Lanka looked like an ethnocracy” with the dominion of Sinhalese Buddhists, which further deepened the sense of alienation among Muslims.
While ISIS claimed responsibility for the Easter bombings – as the bombers on their own declared allegiance to the embattled terror group – Sri Lanka’s targeting” was most likely accidental or opportunistic from the point of view of ISIS, as parts of the island nation had become a fertile ground for indoctrination. And that gives a stronger reason for the world to condemn the successive governments of Sri Lanka for allowing that to happen – and not just for ignoring warnings about the suicide bombings issued by foreign intelligence agencies prior to Easter Sunday.
Syed Ata Hasnain a retired lieutenant-general, is a former commander of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps.
Most important, India’s Muslims need leaders of substance who can guide, lead and advise.
Many think that India has escaped the wrath of ISIS due to the inherent strength of our plurality. (Photo: AP
The suicide terror bombings in Sri Lanka took that country and the entire world by utter surprise. The Islamic State (ISIS) took its time claiming responsibility, but once it did the puzzle started to fall into place. These attacks came at a time when ISIS was considered defeated in the field and vanquished as an entity; from Fallujah to Mosul and then Idlib in Syria, it lost ground but retained its networked state and ability to direct a rump campaign outside the physical precincts of its presumed caliphate”. The expected surge in Somalia and Nigeria, where the surrogate Al Shabab and Boko Haram exist, did not emerge. Neither did the efforts to find space in the Philippines in conjunction with the Abu Sayaf group. The Taliban’s hold over Afghanistan’s ungoverned parts is too strong for the ISIS to make successful incursions, as is the hold of disparate radical groups in Pakistan who don’t wish to act as surrogates. Mindful of all this, it is likely that ISIS is looking to break fresh ground in order to remain relevant. Its network-based presence remains sufficiently threatening to the world, where the vulnerability of minds continues to exist. ISIS therefore is in search of areas where unexpected emergence may help through a sufficiently clandestine setup and where the intelligence networks may yet be weak. Many believe that India has little potential for an ISIS emergence because even in its heyday four years ago, a very small ratio of India’s 180 million Muslims got radicalised enough to take the plunge to travel to the caliphate” territory. The presence of experienced Indian intelligence agencies whose track record, especially after 26/11, has largely been without blemish may also be an input into such an assumption. However, the ISIS wishlist may include a region or nation with democratic and secular principles of existence with a base of Muslim presence. That immediately enhances India’s vulnerability. The starting point from Sri Lanka, where a small minority of Muslims exists, could be commencement from the fringe. The level of penetration into India has somehow always been questioned. That may no longer be entirely valid.
While the Tamil Nadu-based Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamath (TNTJ) may be in strict denial of any linkage to the National Thowheed Jamath, that was allegedly responsible for the Sri Lanka carnage, there can be no denial about the fact that extremist radical ideology of the ISIS type has been spreading around the world through the Internet and by word of mouth influence of unmonitored returnees, not necessarily only from the ISIS badlands. Investigations in Sri Lanka are throwing up undiscovered networks involved with word of mouth influence, although admittedly the ISIS linkage has not fully been established despite the claims made. If ISIS has been scouting for other potential locations to showcase its relevance, there can be enough locations all over India as the spread of Muslims is not restricted to any one state. Merely the presence of Muslims is not an invitation for terrorism to establish root; such belief is just as bad as labelling all Muslims as potential terrorists. Vilifying any one segment of Muslims too is counter-productive. Radicals are those who believe in the right of existence of only their ideology and sanction the use of violence to convert all others to their belief.
This is best illustrated by a captured Pakistani suicide bomber, interviewed on Geo TV, who was questioned on why he believed he was doing something for Islam when all the people killed by his potential act were also fellow Muslims. His answer sums it in the best way. He stated that none of the people who would be killed were actually Muslims because true Muslims were only those who thought and followed the faith the way he and his colleagues did. That is an actual hardcore radical of the ISIS variety which the world is battling. There are enough Muslims who are battling them too, but there are also enough confused Muslims around the world who incorrectly think that the ISIS caliphate” is a true caliphate, and that they are duty-bound to support it and fight for it.
Many think that India has escaped the wrath of ISIS due to the inherent strength of our plurality. While the safeguards due to plurality are in place and Indian intelligence agencies have largely marginalised radical groups set up by transnational crime syndicates and many by Pakistan, India is not out of the woods. Nothing signifies that more than the events in Sri Lanka. Indian Muslims are actually different. They are among the few who have had an opportunity to rub shoulders and share lunches with people of every faith. They participate in different religious festivals. There are cities where Hindus and Muslims sit together to decide the routes and timings of processions on days when their festivals clash; such inter-faith bonhomie can rarely be seen anywhere in the world.
Yet with all that, there are maverick elements on both sides who cannot rest in peace or promote the obvious strength of their nation. An organisation such as ISIS thrives on the divisiveness created by both these segments by promoting mutual fears. The politics of divisiveness will always exist in the strongest of societies, especially in open democracies. Morals can never be dictated, they have to be perceived and to expect a hundred per cent of that is utopian. There will always be a threshold dictated by international trends. Strong societies overcome that with hiccups, just as India is currently experiencing. On one hand Pakistan’s strategy works towards promoting that divisiveness in India and then there is the phenomenon of an organisation such as ISIS. Their interests are quite different, but the methodology may actually be the same.
We cannot claim India has firewalled itself against these efforts. There will be elements within who will be influenced by extraneous propaganda, made so much easier today by the existence of the social media. Fake messages and hate messages will continue to rule the ether waves and somewhere they will impact, just as it has happened in Sri Lanka. We have many more returnees from the Gulf than Sri Lanka has. Each one of them cannot be monitored effectively. Thus, sleeper cells do exist to rear their ugly head at opportune moments. We have seen it happen in Bangladesh, and we have now experienced it in Sri Lanka.
What is required is not clichéd advice but effective monitoring. The intelligence agencies have their job cut out for them. The poll rhetoric has created divisiveness and votebanks are obvious, but this cannot be allowed to convert into threats against India’s internal security. The clergy bears a greater responsibility towards the correct interpretation of the faith and there are enough sane members of it and institutions in India who can play a positive role to offset the mischief that both Pakistan and organisations such as ISIS have in mind.
Most important, India’s Muslims need leaders of substance who can guide, lead and advise. The levels of ignorance within the community are extremely high, making it vulnerable to propaganda. Considering the fact that educationally well-qualified people too are seen to be vulnerable, it will need correction from within the community. That can happen only if the absolutely uncalled-for vilification of the community on the basis of unnecessary labelling is also effectively curtailed.
Syed Ata Hasnain, a retired lieutenant-general, is a former commander of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps. He is also associated with the Vivekananda International Foundation and the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies.
