History behind the Ukraine Russia Conflict 2022

 To understand the complexity of the Ukraine–Russia conflict, analysts have to go back into the past to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and its after–effects. The 1990s was a time of immense confusion, insecurity and suffering for the people of the new nations that were formed after the collapse of the USSR. A few years prior to the impending collapse, the Soviet insiders ensured the continued influence of Soviet era officials by transferring State assets to off–shore companies and relocating its wealth.

Those who were factory directors or government ministers’ were made owners due to privatization. This was not due to government policy, but through simple theft, by seizing what was already in existence. The new Russian oligarchs [in Russia, oligarchs are powerful politicians who also control vast business interests] did not build anything. They simply took ownership of infrastructure and facilities that previously belonged to the state and claimed ownership. And, it was not only the oligarchs who took advantage of the fall of USSR to become rich. Many government officials did just as well. There were also a number of those who focused on enhancing their institutions more than themselves, and by extension the scope of Russia’s national influence. Their actions were focused on the promotion of Russia’s political and strategic interests even at the risk of negative economic and financial consequences.

One of the outcomes of this was the formation of the Financial Management Company Ltd (FIMACO) which was registered in the island of Jersey, which is notable for being one of the world’s largest off-shore financial centers. On August 23, 1990, a secret memorandum from Vladimir A. Ivashko, who was Gorbachev's deputy general secretary, outlined strategies to hide the Communist Party's assets through Russian and international joint ventures. The memorandum was to organize the transfer of CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) funds, CPSU financing and support of its operations through associations, ventures, foundations, etc. which are to act as invisible economics. In November 1990, FIMACO was formed by documents signed by Yury Ponomaryov under the direction of V. Gerashchenko of the Russian Central Bank, formerly known as Gosbank, to hide these funds.

FIMACO's existence was disclosed by Russia's chief prosecutor Yuri Skuratov in February 1999 when Skuratov stated that about $50 billion was transferred from the Central Bank to FIMACO and then out of Russia including IMF funds between 1993 and 1998 and that he had given to Carla del Ponte, the Prosecutor General of Switzerland, a list of about twenty names which had received a total of $40 billion of the IMF money in accounts at Swiss banks. An early beneficiary of this arrangement was Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who had started his career as a minor Soviet official and whose Yukos oil conglomerate was tied to FIMACO.

In late 1991, the then Russian President Boris Yeltsin announced plans to privatize Russia’s national assets. Western business networks saw this as a unique opportunity to acquire Russian industries. The US Government under President Clinton proposed to redesign the economic policies of the newly formed Russian Federation using the strategy of privatization, deregulation, austerity, and the opening up of Russia’s companies to purchase by ultra-wealthy American corporations. During this early period of privatization, an exclusive society of seven Russian oligarchs was formed, called the ‘Semibankirschina’, which included Boris Berezovsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven, Vladimir Gusinsky, Vladimir Potanin, and Alexander Smolensky;   and which had almost full control over the administration of Yeltsin. This society was allegedly funded by Jacob Rothschild, the Chairman of RIT Capital Partners of London, who with his private fortune of over $500 Billion is considered to be one of the richest persons in the world.

In late 1999, Vladimir Putin; who was the former director of the Russian FSB, federal security service, became the President of Russia. A new group of Putin insiders, the ‘Siloviki’, made up of Russian nationalists from the security and business world, replaced the previous access that the Semibankirschina had to the president. With this, the oligarchs with business ties to London lost their powers of influence over Russia’s policies.

In a parallel strategy of the West, the United States wanted to bring Russia into the dollar world; and quietly influenced a series of confrontations on Russia’s borders to serve their goal. It started with the Chechen wars of 1994 and 1999-2000; which Putin ended quickly and ruthlessly. The 2003 American invasion of Iraq, under the pretext of then President Saddam Hussein being in possession of weapons of mass destruction, WMDs, was their first major step to gain control of the global oil resources. Russian investments in Iraq were lost when USA occupied Iraq. Prior to this, their invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had allowed the USA to spread its military presence in Central Asia; leading to heightened tensions with Russia and China. During all of this, USA could not admit openly that since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, its strategic goal had been to reconstruct Russia into its own financial colony, thereby gaining effective control over its huge oil and gas reserves. A new war had been initiated by the USA under its ‘War against Terror’ strategy, but the goals were simple; control all significant oil and gas reserves in the world and its transport, influence the emerging Eurasian economies of Russia and China (and later India), and ensure that America retains its hegemony as the sole superpower, with the US dollar as the supreme global currency. The goals would be achieved by any means necessary. The NATO encirclement of Russia, sponsored political revolutions across Eurasia and the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and the instability in North Africa were all part of the same strategy to ensure America’s grip on global power.

What the Americans had not fully considered was that Vladimir Putin was a ruthless nationalist and cunning strategist. Just as America was consolidating its hold in Iraq in 2003, Putin had Russia’s billionaire oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky arrested on charges of tax evasion. Putin then bought Khodorkovsky owned Yukos Oil group under Russian state control and froze its shares in the market. Khodorkovsky was targeted for three reasons. The first was that he had broken his commitment to Putin to stay out of Russian politics and to repatriate the money he had stolen from the Russian treasury, the second was that Khodorkovsky was busy buying support of members of the Duma, the Russian parliament in a plan to run against Putin in the 2004 elections, and third; and most importantly, he was in negotiations with the Western oil companies Exxon and Chevron to sell 40% of Yukos oil ownership, thereby putting Russia’s financial and economic independence at risk. The 40% shareholding in Yukos would have given the Americans a de-facto veto power over Russia’s future oil and gas trade and the pipelines that carry these to Europe and Asia. At the time of Khodorkovsky’s arrest, Yukos had just begun steps to acquire Sibneft, another large Russian oil company. The combined Yukos–Sibneft enterprise, with 20 billion barrels of oil and gas, would then have owned the second-largest oil and gas reserves in the world – in private hands, and not state-owned. The Exxon buy-up of Yukos–Sibneft would have been a literal energy coup-d’état for the West. The Americans and the Western oil companies knew this, as well as Khodorkovsky himself.  Above all, Vladimir Putin knew it and moved decisively to block it.

These events in Russia were soon followed by a counter-attack by the U.S. and its allies; the covert destabilizations of governments in Eurasia, which were on Russia’s periphery.  After occupying Iraq 2003 onwards, the U.S. made it a priority to attain control over Russian oil, gas and pipelines. They sponsored coups in Georgia and Ukraine, in an attempt to install pro-U.S. regimes in both countries; with the hope that this would compromise the military security of Russia, and also severely hamper Russia’s ability to control the export of its oil and gas to the EU.

In 2004, the Americans succeeded in putting their candidate Mikheil Saakashvili in power as the President of Georgia. With Tbilisi firmly in their control, the Anglo-American oil consortium moved swiftly to complete the 1,800 km pipeline from Baku via Tbilisi to Ceyhan on Turkey’s Mediterranean shore, at a cost of some $3.6 billion. It was assumed that this would play a major part in the weakening of Russia’s oil and energy independence.  This was followed by the coup in Ukraine in November 2004, dubbed the Orange Revolution that put Viktor Yushchenko into power. Ukraine is of greater strategic importance than Georgia, for Russia; since several oil and gas pipelines transit Ukraine to the EU countries. With Poland already a part of NATO, membership of NATO to Ukraine and Georgia would have encircled Russia with Western backed hostile neighbors, creating an existential threat to Russia. This was an undeclared economic war of high stakes between the West and Russia, and the U.S. was doing everything short of open war against a nuclear opponent to push its agenda of dominance.

By 2005; the Anglo–American oil consortium of BP, Shell, Total, Exxon and Chevron had gained control over most of the oil of the Caspian Sea. The control of energy supplies, globally; was the cornerstone of the U.S. policy of world domination. The U.S. was clear that in order to control those global oil and gas flows; it needed to project its military power aggressively, to achieve total military supremacy, which is part of its ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’ strategy. The strategists of Full Spectrum dominance envisioned control of pretty much the entire universe, including outer and inner-space, global politics, universal world order, influencing opinions and thoughts; and ensuring Western dominance over the world.

At the height of the Cold War, St. Petersburg was about 1,600kms from NATO forces, and Moscow about 2,100kms. Today, St. Petersburg is about 150kms away and Moscow about 800kms. For Putin, the primary threat to Russia is from the west. The emerging dynamic Russia with growing economic ties to China and to key nations in Europe, threatens American dominance across Eurasia.

At the 2007 annual Munich Security Conference, just after the George W. Bush administration had announced plans to install U.S. missile defense systems in Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic, Russia’s Putin delivered a scathing critique of the U.S. lies and violation of their 1990 assurances on NATO. By this time 10 former communist Eastern states had been admitted to NATO despite the 1990 US promises. Putin spoke in Munich in general terms about Washington’s vision of a “unipolar” world, with one center of authority, one center of force, one center of decision making, calling it a “world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within the system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.”

Russia lost no time in reacting to the announcement of U.S. plans for its ballistic missile defense systems in Eastern Europe. The commander of Russia’s strategic bomber force said on March 5, 2007, that his forces could easily disrupt or destroy any missile defense infrastructures in Poland and the Czech Republic – precisely where the U.S. was preparing to install them. In clear words, Putin was responding to the escalating Washington provocations by declaring openly that a New Cold War was on. What was not said by the U.S. was that its missile defense in Eastern Europe was not defensive in nature, but actually offensive. If the U.S. was able to shield itself effectively from a potential Russian retaliation for a U.S. nuclear First Strike, then it would be able to dictate its terms to the entire world, not just to Russia.

The formation of the CSTO, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, is an inter-government military alliance in Eurasia and comprising of six post–Soviet states of Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to counter NATO. Similar to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Article 4 of the Collective Security Treaty (CST) establishes that an aggression against one signatory would be perceived as an aggression against all. The current strategic cold war between Western allies and Russia is ongoing and unfinished, with the world as a potential battle-field.

Underlying all of these tensions is NATO’s expansion through Eastern Europe to the Russian border, in violation of commitments Western officials made at the end of the Cold War. The U.S. and NATO’s refusal to acknowledge that they have violated those commitments or to negotiate a diplomatic resolution with the Russians is a central factor in the breakdown of U.S.-Russian relations.  

Both Ukraine and Russia are former states of the Soviet Union and are intertwined economically, socially and culturally, so that it is difficult to distinguish one from the other. Most of Russia’s natural gas pipelines from West Siberia cross through Ukraine to reach Germany, France and other EU states. The genesis of the current conflict is that Ukraine as a NATO member would pose a near fatal security blow to Russia. Currently, Russia is the only country with strategic nuclear deterrence potential as well as sufficient energy reserves, to make it a credible rival to global U.S. military and political nuclear predominance.

Further a Eurasian combination of China and Russia, plus allied Eurasian states, mainly Central Asian, present an even greater counter force to unilateral U.S. dominance. Following the 1998 Asian financial crises, Beijing and Moscow formed a mutual security agreement with surrounding states, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. In June 2001, Uzbekistan joined, and the group renamed itself the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or the SCO.

Ukraine, like few other Eurasian countries, is a product of its special geography, as it uniquely straddles east and west. It is what, in the study of the relations of political power to geography, is called a “pivot” state. Ukraine has the unique ability to transform the geopolitical position of Russia, for better or worse. The country Ukraine itself is an historical anomaly. Almost 1000 years ago, Kievan Rus under Vladimir the Great had been the empire of the East Slavic peoples of today’s Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. For more than 350 years, Kievan Rus, which is east of the Dnieper River, had been a part of the Russian Czarist Empire. After 1795, Ukraine was divided as a result of wars of partitioning Poland, between the Orthodox Tsardom of Russia and Roman Catholic Habsburg Austria.  The western part of Ukraine is largely agricultural and is known as the ‘bread basket of Europe’. The Eastern parts of Europe; Donbass, Donetsk, Crimea; are the center of industry, from military manufacturing to steel, coal, oil and gas.

The U.S. and NATO’s interest in Ukraine is not really about resolving its regional differences, but about something else altogether. The U.S. sponsored coup of 2013 was calculated to put Russia in an impossible position. If Russia did nothing, a post-coup Ukraine would sooner or later join NATO, as NATO members had already agreed to in principle in 2008. NATO forces would advance right up to Russia’s border, and Russia’s important naval base at Sevastopol in the Crimea would fall under NATO control. On the other hand, if Russia had responded to the coup by invading Ukraine, there would have been no turning back from a disastrous new war with the West. The United States has given Ukraine $2.7 billion in military aid since 2014, including $650 million since President Biden took office, along with deployments of U.S. and NATO military trainers. 

By late 2021, military buildup had taken place in Eastern Ukraine. The aim was to capture the Donbass region and its citizens. The Russian military was undergoing exercises on its borders with Ukraine during the last quarter of 2021, and it moved its equipment and troops to its western front. Starting February 17th, the Ukrainian military began an almost non-stop shelling of Donbass. The tipping point was when confirmation came that the U.S. was preparing to install nuclear-tipped missiles which would take 5 minutes from launch to target; meaning not enough time for the Russian military to detect, confirm, and launch counter measures, were poised to strike Moscow from either Poland or Western Ukraine.

On February 19, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy made a threat to deploy nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory. He expressed this as his unilateral revocation of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, although Ukraine was not a signatory of the agreement. Two days later on the evening of February 21, Putin made his speech recognizing the sovereign independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and the start of the military campaign in the Ukraine.

As of today, Ukraine which is heavily funded by the USA is fighting the Russian forces across multiple battle- sites. While the Western media is shrilly announcing the various victories of Ukraine, the Russian media is more subtle, relaying on that news that the Russians consider as important. Clearly, at this point there are no winners in this war, but the prospects of it going out-of-control when Russia encircles the U.S. mainland with its nuclear armaments is a rude reality.

If the United States and NATO are not prepared to negotiate new disarmament treaties, remove U.S. missiles from countries bordering Russia, and reduce NATO expansion, Russian officials say they will have no option but to respond with “appropriate military-technical reciprocal measures.” This expression may not refer to a complete invasion of Ukraine, but to a broader strategy that could include actions that hit much closer to home for Western leaders. For example, Russia could place short-range nuclear missiles in Kaliningrad (between Lithuania and Poland), within range of European capitals; it could establish military bases in Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and other countries; and it could deploy submarines armed with hypersonic nuclear missiles to the Western Atlantic. Hypersonic nuclear missiles off the U.S. East Coast would put the United States in a similar position to that in which NATO has placed the Russians. Thus, it is very much possible that the cold war could turn into a hot one where the U.S. would find itself encircled and just as endangered as Russia today. 

 

 

Neither Ukraine, Nor Taiwan matter to Indians...

There is one war going on for over six months between Ukraine and Russia, and another brewing between China and Taiwan. Analysts from USA are doing their best to goad India into supporting Ukraine against Russia in that conflict; and supporting Taiwan against China in the simmering tensions of the South China sea.  

 

What the Americans and their choir-boys fail to understand that India is a vibrant democracy where the political power structure is determined by the voters; at State and National levels. Being a multi-party democracy, no political party, however strong or invincible, it might consider itself; is willing to go against the interests of the people, especially the voters. 

 

The maximum number of voters in India are from the hard-working, daily toiling lower and middle-classes. Their lives revolve around their own local environment; the neighborhood where they live, their children's schools, the local medical facilities; and for entertainment, sports played their own localities, and of-course the multi-channel TV that offers a variety of instant entertainment for relaxation. Their interest in news is mostly restricted to local events, and any news beyond their town or city, or even beyond their district boundaries is immaterial for daily consumption.  

 

The majority of Indians do not know the locations of either Ukraine or Taiwan on the world map, and they really don’t care on the events in those countries. The average Indian cares about, and carefully monitors events that impact local lifestyles; especially fuel prices. Even the slightest hike in fuel prices provokes protests against the government and its representatives. This means the Government is under constant pressure to find the cheapest energy resources across the globe, and has to disregard the fake animosities of Western influences. Survival of our politicians is dependent on keeping the voters constantly happy, even if it means isolating India from the world. This is highly relevant to the import of crude oil and LNG at the cheapest possible prices; and when Russia offers our energy needs at highly discounted prices, we are going to buy in large quantities; the West (and Ukraine) be damned.    

 

Recently, Dmytro Kuleba the foreign minister of Ukraine made a melodramatic and rather silly statement that, ‘crude oil from Russia (imported by India) is tainted by Ukrainian blood’; to which an average Indian will respond with, ‘who cares?’ Indians; who are mostly full of empathy and also sympathy for the hardships of others, cannot be empathetic with a country they don’t know or can identify with, and this applies equally to Russia.   

 

With respect to Taiwan, Indian international politics works on a different equation as compared to Ukraine. India lost a war against China in 1962, an abject lesson in defeat that has not been forgotten, and is constantly in a state of conflict on the India–China border, with an unwanted and tragic body-count on both sides on a regular basis. If China is broken and weakened in its fight over Taiwan, it's good news for India. But this does not affect the average Indian directly. Indians are more concerned over how much cheaper can they acquire Chinese consumer goods, especially mobile phones and laptops; rather than the safety and security of Taiwan. Indians are aware that many electronic devices in their homes are powered by chips and other components made in Taiwan, but the risk of Indians losing access to these is not a priority thought process, by any means.  

 

In conclusion, western political commentators who are criticizing India for its neutral stance in both the Ukraine conflict and potential Taiwan conflict must understand that the politics of India is driven by its voters and not by think-tanks and political analysts.   

 

 

 

 

Monster among us - Daesh [ISIS] in our India

June 2022.

On 28 June, 2022; citizens of India witnessed first-hand the effects of the teachings of ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria], known as ‘Daesh’ in the Gulf countries; when Riyaz Akhtar and Ghos Mohammed attacked and beheaded a Hindu citizen, Kanhaiya Lal (a tailor by profession) for supporting the speech of former spokesperson of BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) about Prophet Mohammed. This attack on the average citizen of our Nation is an exact ISIS strategy.

 It is important to understand that the news agencies of India and the world are calling this a Taliban attack. That is incorrect and misleading. This attack is as per the online teachings and action plan that is widely published by Daesh. While Taliban is a terrorist organization, their political goal has always been to rule Afghanistan, which they are currently doing. Their territory expansion is restricted to border clashes with Pakistan for disputed territory along the Afghan–Pakistan border, and they have no ambitions for global dominance.

Daesh, on the other hand, is focused on global dominance through violent jihad. Their foundational aspect is basically ‘to rule as per the words of Allah’ and establish Islamic Rule over the entire world. The Daesh philosophy of Jihad is based on “brutality, terror, massacre and displacement”, and that “shedding the blood of the unbelievers is a prime duty”; following the path of Salafi jihad, and ruling the world in accordance with Allah’s word. Towards that goal, Daesh builds the legitimacy of its actions upon its own interpretation of Shariah (Islamic divine law), which according to it is the same as “figh” (the Islamic doctrine). They even added a third Tawheed [unity of God] to the original two, Unity of Godhood (uluhiyaa) and the Unity of Sovereignty (hakimiyya).

Daesh teaches its followers that countries in which the ‘Constitutional rule of law prevails’ are lands of infidelity, where Islam is subjugated, and therefore there should be “wars of apostasy” just like in the early history of Islam, and that bloody jihad becomes a pillar of Islam. The second part of that concept outlines a course of action that must be taken by the “true jihadi believers”, which is to disobey infidel rulers [and their government] and to fight them regardless of whether or not the jihadis have the power to do so. The third part says that the commands of all those infidel rules must be cast aside as null and void in the eyes of Shariah, and that includes contemporary laws, treaties, and political systems. The last part is the rule of Islam, the implementation of Islamic Sharia, and the declaration of a caliph. 

The killers of the tailor of Udaipur fulfilled the first three requirements of Daesh’s version of Islamic jihad; ignoring the rule of Constitutional law and breaking the law and spreading terror through the brutal massacre of an unarmed ‘unbeliever’. The act of beheading was meant to shock and horrify the people, while sending a signal of ‘victory’ to members and supporters of Daesh. It is also meant to be a grim warning to those who are challenging the power and reach of Daesh.

This killing, which was video recorded by the killers themselves, will be use by the Daesh social media to encourage others who are identifying with its philosophy to commit random acts of cruel violence against the civilian populations. The message will be spread globally, and there will be more such incidents taking place over the near future.

The Indian government needs to act at hyper-speed to contain this form of radical Islamic jihad. The first will be to fast-track the criminal trials of Riyaz Akhtar and Ghos Mohammed and ensure that the courts enforce the death penalty. Delay in the trial for years (as in the case of the Mumbai terror attacker Ajmal Kasab, which took over four years from prosecution to execution) enforces the idea that India is a soft state, in the minds of the Daesh terrorists.

The second mindset of the Government is to overcomes its fear of backlash from the Muslim community for punishing such criminals. The majority of the Indian Muslim community is equally horrified as the others, and at least four Muslim maulvis have publicly condemned this act of brutality. Even then, the pacifist ideology of our court system, that the death penalty can only be handed to the criminals in the ‘rarest of rare’ cases, has to be replaced by ‘harshest impositions of death penalty for jihadi activities’ and thirdly, the Government must use radical psychology to overcome the effects of Daesh online teachings.

This radical psychology requires only that the Government carry out the final rites of terrorists openly and as per Hindu–Sanatani traditions, i.e. by cremation. Islamic jihadis believe in their minds and souls that they are the warriors of Allah, and that physical death is nothing more than a deep sleep till the day of Qayamat (resurrection) when they will meet Allah or His angels, and be rewarded for their jihad. For this, their body has to be intact. Destroy the physical body and their “rooh” (spirit) will not be recognized by Allah’s angels and they will never be rewarded for their jihad, and their spirit will wander for eternity.

Jihadis don’t negotiate. But, take away their concept of eternal reward and that destroys their willingness to wage jihad.

 

 

 

 

Shadow of Islamic Terrorism in India – 2022

 In current times, Daesh is not the only Islamic terrorist organization that has to be fought and defeated. The older partners in the business of Islamic terrorist activities are Al-Qaeda and the Taliban; and while Al-Qaeda is out of the spot-light after the death of its founder Osama Bin Laden, it is now slowly resurging in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al-Qaeda is working on long term strategies and building alliances. It’s keeping its activities under-the-radar and its intensions secret, making it difficult to track down its operatives and assess the threat that it poses. Al-Qaeda may have decided in this present time to focus on regional issues inside Afghanistan and help the Taliban on the ground; but that does not mean that they can be discounted as a threat for any future attacks they might be plotting abroad; especially against the Western countries.

 Afghan observers say al-Qaeda activity in that country has decreased after years of drone strikes. That matches with a general analysis that described an exodus of “key al-Qaeda personnel” from Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Middle East. While the group would probably remain active in Afghanistan, the report predicted, “the future strategic direction of core Al Qaeda will likely align more closely with dynamics in the Levant,” a reference to a stronghold al-Qaeda has carved out amid the chaos of the Syrian civil war.  But al-Qaeda will never disappear from Afghanistan and will keep reappearing in different forms.

That, say some experts, who study al-Qaeda; is exactly what the group is doing in Afghanistan, switching its focus from a small group of foreign operatives secretly planning global attacks to a larger, newer regional subgroup, called al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. Founded in 2014, the Indian Subcontinent subgroup has sometimes been dismissed as “not real al-Qaeda,” in part because it is composed mostly of locals, not the Arabs who fill many of al-Qaeda’s top positions. While most senior al-Qaeda personnel are trying to hide from the US surveillance, the subgroup members are “more active” and are focused on training new Taliban recruits. Divining the true intentions and capabilities of a particular branch of a covert group like al-Qaeda has always been difficult and “subjective” and always will be, until the day they execute an attack in the world.

 In contrast to the laid-back approach of these Jihadi organizations; the Taliban has seized Afghanistan from the USA and is now fully in control of the entire country. Today, the Taliban govern the lives of tens of millions of Afghans living under their rule. Taliban governance is more coherent than ever before; where high-level commissions govern sectors such as finance, health, education, justice and taxation, with clear chains of command and policies from the leadership down to villages in Afghanistan. 

 Its rival, Daesh has established a local affiliate, the Islamic State of Khorasan Province, which is challenging the Taliban government for territory and influence. In Pakistan, the group has showcased its presence and influence by conducting deadly attacks on soft targets. Recently, On 18 June 2022 Islamic State terrorists attacked the Gurudwara Karte Parwan in Kabul, Afghanistan with explosives and gun-fire. One Sikh devotee was killed and two are badly injured. The two IS attackers were killed by the Taliban.    

 Daesh survived the loss of its territory in Iraq / Syria by converting its physical caliphate to virtual one, with the message to followers – “stay in your society and we will help you / instruct you to create havoc in your own localities”, which is the first challenge of the future. It must be remembered that the “original message” to followers was that the caliphate is a perfect place to live with the laws being clear and indisputable, since they were supposedly framed by Prophet Mohammed on the instructions of Allah.

 The challenge is: how do democratic governments prevent someone from being radicalized online and more importantly, how do you find out who is being radicalized online?

The primary causes of any extremism are; 

• Fear of being persecuted or wronged, 
• loss of identity,
• economic hardship, 
• deep sympathy with religious causes, and 
• a set of perceived grievances.

The Origins of Al-Qaeda and Daesh 

The origins of Al-Qaeda are a result of ‘Operation Cyclone’; a program carried out by the American clandestine agency, the CIA; that armed and funded the ‘Mujahedin’ in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The origins of Daesh, and more importantly its growth; are the direct result of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the fall of the Saddam regime. Originally founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as the Group for Monotheism and Jihad, Daesh became known as al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2004 and later the Islamic State, after the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Daesh was disowned by al-Qaeda in April 2013 for excess brutality toward civilians and the murder of al-Qaeda representatives and commanders. On June 30, 2014 they declared themselves a ‘Sunni caliphate’ with al-Bagdadi as the “Commander of the Faithful,” a term essentially declaring him leader of all Muslims. He was later killed in a U.S. drone attack, as was his successor.

 To understand the origins, impact and the future of Daesh, the focus of research and analysis should be on multiple levels. The beginning should be with the Ideology of Daesh and its intellectual origins, and connections to al- Qaeda, Salafis, and Salafi-Jihadi groups. The complexity of Daesh needs to be understood through the factors that created it; its dependency on the religious texts through which it projects its unique identity, its barbaric and ruthless approach to jihad, and its rigid and seemingly unwavering ideological interpretations of Sharia; its psychological approach of sectarian dominance, and its extreme brutality towards all those it considers as its rivals or the infidels and apostates.

The Role of Pakistan as a Terrorist Sponsor

 The United States and allies have long been frustrated with Pakistan’s persistent acquiescence to safe havens for the Afghan Taliban and its vicious Haqqani branch in Pakistan. Worse yet, Pakistan has provided direct military and intelligence aid to both groups, resulting in the deaths of Western soldiers, Afghan security personnel, and civilians, plus significant destabilization of Afghanistan. Pakistan has long been a difficult and disruptive neighbor to Afghanistan, hoping to limit India’s influence there, and cultivating radical groups within Afghanistan as proxies. The main reason is that Pakistan depends on the theory, that the Taliban will maintain its government in Afghanistan; and does not want to alienate it. After all, the Taliban is Pakistan’s only ally among Afghanistan’s political actors, however reluctant and unhappy the relationship maybe. The ongoing battles between the Taliban and the Pakistani forces reflects the friction between these two with the Pakistani military wanting to control Taliban and through it the Afghanistan government itself, and the Taliban government trying to disassociate itself from its former masters and sponsors.

 Pakistan further fears that its long refusal to fully sever support for these groups will high-light its lack of full control over the militant groups that it has sponsored, even though the Pakistani military will never admit it. Such a disclosure of weakness would be costly: reducing the omnipotent image of Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus with respect to varied domestic audiences, including opposition politicians, and further encouraging misbehavior of militant groups. And while such a disclosure may somewhat reduce international pressure on Pakistan, it would also weaken Pakistan’s hand in international bargaining. Pakistan is also afraid of a strong Taliban government with informal trade-ties with India, potentially helping to encircle Pakistan. The paranoia cannot end unless the military-intelligence apparatus loses its predominant power in the Pakistani government and becomes subordinated to an enlightened, capable, and accountable civilian leadership.

 Battleground Bangladesh

 Bangladesh is another prime breeding ground for Daesh. It has the fourth largest Muslim population that very poor and Daesh has shown a keen interest in securing a presence there, due to its potential pool of recruits in large numbers and a porous border with India. Interestingly, the first Bangladeshi Islamist militant factions emerged long ago in 1989, when a network of 30 different factions was established and expanded in the following years. The main goal of most Islamist groups in Bangladesh is to create a separate Islamic state, or to govern Bangladesh according to Sharia law. Bangladesh has experienced significant terrorism conducted by a number of radical local Islamist organizations.  Islamic extremist militant organizations have risen to prominence through assassinations, hostage takings and bomb attacks. Both Daesh and Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent have claimed to be active in the country, although the Bangladeshi government believes that they mainly operate through local affiliates.

 

When compared to his peers in the terrorism community, Akayed Ullah was most certainly a loser. The amateur jihadist attempted to blow himself up at the New York City port authority bus terminal by strapping a pipe bomb to his body. But the bomb, made with firecracker powder and lit with a Christmas candle was so low intensity that, far from creating widespread terror, he didn’t even end up killing himself. In the weeks that have followed since, the 27-year-old Bangladeshi migrant has received more ridicule than fear or praise. Ullah’s attempt gained widespread media attention in the West because of its location: New York City. But a look at the trend of Islamist terrorism in Bangladesh will show that he isn’t the only one who’s tried the fedayeen format in recent times. He’s in fact part of a growing tribe of martyrdom seekers that has been emerging since 2016.

 

Until 2016, all of the violence had been restricted to their home ground; nothing was attempted overseas. Even large Islamist terror groups of the previous decades, the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh for example, had been homegrown outfits. They shared training links with Pakistan-based Kashmir-centric outfits like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, and they received funding from overseas. But both their membership and their political goals remained focused on Bangladesh. But this reality changed in 2016.

 

For the new generation, the injustices of Iraq and the dream of building a Caliphate in Syria were what inflamed their passions. The Islamic State replaced al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) as the brand to which they now swore their loyalty. This organizational change coincided with an attitude shift toward fighting. Where Islamists of previous decades had been content with killing in the name of religion, the millennial militant wants to die for it. Unlike fanatics of past decades, the new attackers aren’t schooled in madrasas imparting religious education. Instead, similar to iconic Islamic State militants like Muhammad Jassim Abdulkarim Olayan al-Dhafiri (aka Jihadi John) and or Siddhartha Dhar (aka Abu Rumaysah al-Britani), these young Bangladeshi men hail from well-to-do families and have had access to expensive English language higher education much of their lives. Most have lived overseas for extended periods of time and have had direct exposure to Western culture and liberal values. Following his arrest, Ullah said he was inspired by the Islamic State and was seeking revenge for U.S. air raids on Mosul. From investigations thus far, it is clear that he did not hold any formal membership or post with the Iraqi-Syrian outfit. In fact, he doesn’t even appear to have been in touch with Bangladeshi terror groups. The only known operative of the Islamic State in Bangladesh who actually traveled to Syria was the so-called emir of Bengal, Tamim Chowdhury.

 

Due to their proximity to the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment, the older South Asian jihadist outfits, mostly Kashmir-centric groups like Lashkar-e Taiba and Jaish-e Muhammad followed military-like command chains with handlers, trainers, and operatives.

 

The new groups of younger jihadis spread out across the Asian continent; are far more decentralized, non-hierarchical, and rely on the internet for everything associated with jihad. This decentralization makes the Islamic State in South Asia operationally much cheaper than traditional outfits and allows the flexibility to quickly adapt to changing pressures from government forces. The reliance on the internet and messaging apps makes tracing and tracking much more difficult. Providing propaganda, inspiration, and tutorials through shareable videos, audio sermons, e-magazines, and other digital content is the main trade of the Islamic State in South Asia. There is next to no coercion or monetary compensation. Individuals go from being the boy/girl next door to a terrorist almost entirely on their own effort. All the Islamic State does is provide a template to which vulnerable individuals mold themselves and content which inspires and educates. This has become a pattern of sorts in Bangladesh.

 

Two groups, Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh and Ansarul Islam, dominate Bangladesh’s jihadist landscape today, with a faction of the former appears to have consolidated links to the Islamic State (ISIS); while the latter is affiliated with al-Qaeda’s South Asian branch. The influx of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August-December 2017 also raises security concerns for Bangladesh. Jihadist groups, including ISIS and Pakistani militants have referenced the Rohingya’s plight in efforts to mobilize support. For now, though, little suggests that the refugees are particularly susceptible to jihadist recruitment.

 

Kashmir – The Next Battleground?

 

In early February 2016, the Islamic State announced its intention to expand into Kashmir as part of its broader Khorasan branch. One of the causes of concern associated with the spread of the Islamic State affiliate in Jammu and Kashmir (ISJK) is the existing instability within the region due to the presence of three prominent militant groups; the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) which historically have been linked to elements of the Pakistani state and largely favor Pakistan. Historically, such groups have tended to pursue either a separatist, or a pro-Pakistan agenda, and it is only more recently that trans-national terrorist outfits such as the Islamic State have attempted to infuse the Kashmiri jihad with pan-Islamist ideology.

 

The presence of Islamic State in J&K progressed gradually during 2017, starting with reports of Islamic State flags being waved during rallies and protests around the valley. While this claim is still pending official verification, Islamic State’s Amaq news agency claimed responsibility for an attack in Srinagar on November 17, 2017, which killed an Indian policeman. The militant killed in the attack, Mugees Ahmed Mir, is suspected to have been inspired by the Islamic State’s online propaganda and was found wearing an Islamic State T-shirt at the time of the attack. For the most part, though, signs of ISJK’s existence have largely been observed in the online realm alone. Since late 2017, the pro-Islamic State J&K-focused media group Al-Qaraar has engaged in a social media campaign, directing messages tailored to inspire a Kashmiri audience. Although videos and pictures are a part of ISJK’s online effort, more substantive materials have also been produced. The more detailed writings distributed by Al-Qaraar entitled “Realities of Jihad in Kashmir and Role of Pakistani Agencies” and “Apostasy of Syed Ali Shah Gheelani and others” provide deeper insights into the nature of the jihad that the Islamic State seeks to promote amongst Kashmiri followers. The first article argues that the struggle in Kashmir has not been guided by Islam, but rather by Pakistan and its agents. In contrast to the first piece that focuses on the general insincerity of Pakistan, the other document names and shames specific leaders such as Sayeed Ali Shah Geelani of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC). According to the Al-Qaraar article, Geelani is a kafir since he believes in democracy, seeks the judgment of the United Nations, a “false god,” and considers Shia community to be Muslims. Similarly, the document criticizes Yasin Malik, the chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).

 

Given the present limitations on data regarding actual ISJK followers, evaluating ISJK’s online propaganda against the current ground realities in J&K suggests that the group’s goals are ambitious at the very least. Yet, it would be unwise to completely dismiss the threat associated with the potential popularity of ISJK’s ideology. ISJK’s social media campaign indicates that its goal is not to win the hearts and minds of Kashmir’s hardened militants. Rather, its pan-Islamist message and extensive use of social media suggests that ISJK seeks to inspire the new generation of tech-savvy Kashmiris who may be dissatisfied with the status quo but have yet to engage in militancy. While existing J&K militant groups do recruit locally, they also include a large proportion of fighters from Pakistani provinces outside of Kashmir. For example, a study of 1,625 biographies of slain Lashkar-e-Taiba [LeT] and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen [HM] militants found that 89 percent of LeT militants and 33 percent of HM militants were of Pakistani, non-Kashmiri origin. Thus, it would make sense for ISJK to aim to recruit the younger generation of Kashmiris to inspire a new movement that is more indigenous, more pan-Islamist, and less pro-Pakistan. Indeed, there may be opportunities for this; reports show that increasing numbers of young Kashmiri fighters are joining armed separatists, which may effectively change the overall ratio of local Kashmiri jihadis; to jihadis from outside of Kashmir. Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, who was killed in July 2016, gained massive popularity through his extensive use of social media, which helped increase the group’s numbers. His successor, Zakir Musa, however, left the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda’s affiliate in J&K, making clear his intention to fight for Islam rather than for the independence of Kashmir or mergence with Pakistan. His message ran parallel to that of ISJK and unfortunately this suggests that there may be a fresh pool of recruits for ISJK to tap into to trigger a more indigenous movement, especially given the young demographic makeup of the Kashmir valley and high unemployment rates. The real threat lies in ISJK effectively radicalizing Kashmiri youth via its social media campaign and coordinating activity through digital networks, which can give way to heightened terrorism, extreme tactics, and sectarian attacks.

 

On 11 July 2021, the Indian intelligence agencies arrested Umar Nisar Bhat and two of his associates who were residents of Anantnag district of J&K, for conspiring to radicalize and recruit youth from India into #Daesh, to wage jihad against India. Umar Nisar, aka Qasim Khorasani is one of the founding members of the ISJK. The NIA (National Investigations Agency) have been able to connect these arrests to #Daesh in Afghanistan. There is a growing concern that Islamic State terrorists are operating from various conflict zones with its cadres that include Indians, and this can create a network that can be used to radicalize and recruit new members.

 

In early May, the NIA has claimed that the Pakistani ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence of the Pakistan Army) had called a meeting of terrorist group commanders from Hizbul, Lashkar and others; to create a ‘coordination group’ so that these terrorist groups could coordinate with each other and carry out targeted attacks, primarily against India. The commanders were specifically advised to reconnect with ex-militants and Over-Ground-Veterans in the Kashmir valley, to ensure easy transport of funds, weapons and ideology, and to recruit local Kashmiri youth to undertake attacks in the valley. ISJK and Ansar Gazwat-ul-Hind were recruited for this effort. New terrorists’ groups like The Resistance Front, Muslim Janbaz Force, and the Kashmir Janbaz Force were created in an attempt to prove that the terrorism was home-grown in Kashmir and had no connections to Pakistan. Investigation has further revealed that since its existence, The Resistance Front (TRF) executed various terrorist attacks in the Valley by using small weapons in order to carry out targeted killings and escape easily depicting the cadres as ‘faceless force’,” the NIA said.

 

The NIA further claimed that the ISI had put pressure on the commanders of terrorist organizations to ensure the spread of terrorism in Kashmir and to show-case it to the world as a ‘home-grown resistance’ against the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir. Every terrorist activity in Kashmir over the last year can be traced to this ‘coordination group’ and the Pakistani ISI.

 

By: Sardar Sanjay Matkar

June 2022.