The Terrorist Trap
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Dansville, CA
The ten attackers went about their business methodically, knowing that their exploits would fill TV screens the world over for days to come. Armed simply with assault rifles and grenades, the young men unleashed a bigger punch than a lone attacker with a large bomb could have pulled off.
There was something unusually primeval in being hunted down and shot to death by unknown assailants, some of whom sported smiles and wore Versace T-shirts and blue jeans. The slow-motion killing spree in the midst of opulence and luxury stripped hundreds of affluent hotel guests of their exclusive sense of security. As the hours rolled on, the killers outdid the carnage one finds in a Bond film.
It is too early to say who carried out the slaughter of innocents in Mumbai in those harrowing 60 hours in late November. Finger pointing will simply whip up slogan-chanting mobs into a frenzy.
But it is not too early to surmise why the terrorists went about their savage business with ruthless determination and why they chose to carry out their mission within a few weeks of the American presidential election. Four explanations suggest themselves.
First, the attackers wanted to derail the new found peace process between India and Pakistan. After many false starts during the Musharraf interregnum, it seemed to have gotten a full head of steam in 2008.
Second, they wanted to undercut the credibility of the newly elected democratic government in Islamabad. It had made far too many friendly overtures to India. President Zardari’s offer to make South Asia a nuclear free zone and to extend a “no first strike” policy to India seems to have upset them to no end.
Third, they wanted to hurt the chances of the dovish and secular Congress Party in next year’s elections in India . While it is difficult to see how the BJP and its fundamentalist Hindu allies would benefit the Muslims of India, it is easy to see that the terrorists thrive on confrontation between the two countries.
And fourth, they wanted to send a clear and strong signal to the incoming Obama administration in Washington that Kashmir was a live issue that needed to be put on the front burner, ahead of Afghanistan and ahead of Iraq.
Perhaps all four theories are valid. They are certainly not mutually exclusive. Indeed, they may well be the four pieces of a political jigsaw puzzle.
In all probability, the terror mongers dispatched the terrorists so as to lure India and Pakistan into a trap. They have succeeded in part. The blame game that has already begun between the official and unofficial elites of the two countries is just as alarming as it is childish.
It must be stopped before it escalates into a much more dangerous game involving the movement of large scale infantry and armored formations toward the border and eventually the arming of ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.
Both countries need to learn from the mistakes of 2002, which involved the infamous deployment of a million troops along the border, not provide an encore performance. The situation has heated up to the point that outgoing US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cancelled several other activities and flew to cool the nationalistic fires that were beginning to rage in the hallways of New Delhi and Islamabad.
To defuse the situation, action by governmental and non-governmental organizations is called for at three levels. First and foremost, a collaborative effort must be undertaken by the governments of both countries to find the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks and to bring him (and his collaborators) to justice.
This will take months of patient detective work. The temptation to carry out “surgical strikes” must be resisted at all costs. Military “shock and awe” will achieve nothing productive and indeed risks germinating more terrorists.
Second, and this will sound so implausible that some will reject it out of hand, the intelligence agencies of both countries should pool their resources and databases about terrorist groups. By now, it is clear as daylight that the state of Pakistan has nothing to gain by carrying out a proxy war in Kashmir (or anywhere else).
The president and prime minister have both publicly denounced terrorism and the president still bears the personal scars of the attack that killed his wife.
Yes, cooperation between the ISI and the RAW is a radical suggestion. But the quagmire into Pakistan has fallen is so deep that nothing short of radical change will pull the country out of it.
Third, to take away all legitimacy from terror, much of which is being waged in the name of Islam, the religious leaders of the Muslim communities in Pakistan (and throughout the world) should condemn terrorism in all its manifestations in no uncertain terms.
If those who desert Islam can be branded as apostates by the ulema, then the terrorists who so brazenly act against Islamic principles by taking the lives of innocents should be declared apostates and given the capital punishment. It is now clear beyond the shadow of a doubt that their violent and senseless actions only succeed in inviting even more violent and senseless retaliation against other Muslims.
When it comes to re-indoctrinating the jihadis, Pakistan , with close cultural, political and religious ties to the Saudis, may wish to take a leaf out of Riyadh ’s book. The Saudis have set up schools to retrain the large numbers of jihadis who have been netted during various anti-terrorism raids. These schools are intended to bring these misguided people most of whom are in their twenties back into the fold of civil society.
The Saudis have found that the jihadis are often lacking in basic religious knowledge, are social dropouts, and have fallen prey to selfish demagogues. Once the jihadis are given sound religious training, provided financial means for re-entering civil society and provided avenues for getting married, most of them forsake terrorist behaviour.
Pakistan’s religious establishment should explore this option seriously. It may be the only way for putting the scourge of terrorism to bed.
The terrorists win if India and Pakistan go to war in the wake of the Mumbai attacks. They lose if the two countries join hands. The march of folly has gone on much too long. It must end now.
Faruqui@pacbell.net
