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It is 14 years since 9\/11, when the twin towers crumbled in the US, and four since 5\/2, when the global face of terror was buried deep in the Arabian Sea. After the shocking first event, which killed 3,000 people, the West launched a coordinated and aggressive war on terror. After the outrageous 5\/2, when Al Qaeda\u2019s (AQ) Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad (Pakistan), the West claimed that the event marked the beginning of the end of terror.<\/p>\n
The truth, as usual, comes in different shades and hues. AQ still exists, and is active in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria. In 2014, Pakistan\u2019s General Mirza Aslam Beg wrote that contrary to America\u2019s claim that it had destroyed the AQ network, \u201cAl Qaeda is alive, splintered and spreading over several countries and more destructive than ever.\u201d Another writer, Malik Siraj Akbar, said that the West\u2019s blinkered focus on AQ between 9\/11 and 5\/2 \u201cprovided an extraordinary opportunity to other global Jihadist groups to consistently regroup and prepare for future battles\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, the biggest surprise for the Western world was the startling, incredible and quick rise of the Islamic State (IS), also known as ISI (Islamic State of Iraq), ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Shams) and ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and Levant). In less than a decade, it emerged as the naked face of terror, whose violence in Iraq and Syria traumatised virulent militant groups across the world. Even the nations that had supported AQ in the past were stunned by IS\u2019 activities.<\/p>\n
The rise and rise of IS has troubled and intrigued counter-terrorist planners, academicians, intelligence agencies and terrorist outfits. It raised valid questions: Is IS just another step in the evolution of modern terrorism, or is it different from AQ? Has global terror morphed into a more dangerous avatar or is it a mere extension of the events that escalated since the 1980s? An insightful analysis shows that while there are similarities between the IS and AQ, there are several differences too. IS cannot be seen through the same lens as AQ.<\/p>\n
A recent US Congressional Report said that terrorist groups in Pakistan can be broadly divided into four categories \u2014 globally-oriented outfits, regional-oriented militants, sectarian factions and domestic-oriented agencies. The report subdivided the regional groups into those that were focussed on Afghanistan, and those that were obsessed with India and Kashmir. Obviously, this was a loose definition as several organisations cut across categories. A few can be both global and regional, regional and sectarian, and regional and domestic.<\/span><\/p>\n What is interesting is that the global terror groups largely exhibit the above traits, or their combinations. Most importantly, some of them actually mutate from one to another. It is as if there is an invisible Darwinian force that drives them to metamorphose into another identity over a period of time. For example, an outfit that operates locally, like within a state, can spread its wings into neighbouring countries, and acquire a global presence.<\/p>\n This is true of both the AQ and IS. As bin Laden admitted in 2001, his group was started in the late 1980s to create a military base \u201cto train the young men to fight against the vicious, arrogant, brutal, terrorising Soviet empire\u2026. So this place was called \u2018The Base\u2019, or Al-Qa\u2019idah\u2019, as in a training base\u2026.\u201d Therefore, the original objective was to fight a regional war against the non-believers after the then Soviet Union attacked and occupied Afghanistan. It had a localised purpose.<\/p>\n Over the years, AQ acquired a global character and transformed into a multinational terror outfit. Aptly dubbed as Terror Inc. by the West after 9\/11, the group became an international umbrella organisation that lent strategic, financial and operational support to dozens of Islamic militants in different geographies. It did run its own operations, but its overriding aim was to pursue the philosophy of \u201ccentralisation of decision and decentralisation of execution.\u201d<\/p>\n After 9\/11, and specifically after bin Laden\u2019s death, AQ became \u2018Lobal\u2019 (locally-global) rather than \u2018Glocal\u2019 (Globally-local). As terrorism experts described it, the organisation became \u201cgeographically isolated\u201d, which led to the emergence of several regional groups with \u201cdecentralised leadership\u201d that freely used the AQ brand name. AQ became a state of mind, or in the words of the London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, \u201ca way of working\u201d. Another writer said that AQ has \u201cevolved partly an ideological and partly a politico-cultural force.\u201d<\/p>\n Experts agree that the genesis of IS lay in the 2003 Iraq War, when the US-led forces invaded Iraq to topple the Saddam Hussein\u2019s regime. Several Iraqi militant groups sprouted locally to fight the so-called occupation forces. One of them was Jamaat al Tawhid wa al-Jihad, which declared its allegiance to bin Laden and AQ in 2004. Later, wrote Asif Haroon Raja, it changed its name to Tanzim-e-Qiadat al-Jihad fi Bilal al-Rafidayn. In 2006, it became the ISI.<\/p>\n When the US turned its heat on the IS in 2010-11, the militants shifted to Jordan, where they received training and arms, and proceeded to Syria to participate in the nation\u2019s civil war. It then turned its attention back to Iraq, and envisaged a Pan-Islamic nation that comprised Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Kuwait, Cyprus and South Turkey.<\/p>\n What was crucial was that the ISI, which subsequently changed its name to ISIL and ISIS before settling down to IS, claimed that the Jewish Israel also formed a part of this composite Muslim caliphate. But the important point is that the IS began as a national force, spread its tentacles into neighbouring nations and, today, talks of a global expansion.<\/p>\n Religion of terror<\/strong><\/p>\n Both IS and AQ are sectarian groups. Both are Sunni Muslim organisations, which target the Shia Muslims. Historically, the Sunnis and Shias have been at loggerheads with each other ever since Prophet Mohammad died in the seventh century. The Sunnis are in a distinct majority in Asia, Africa and the Arab world. The Shias constitute a sizeable, and even majority, population only in a few countries such as Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan and Bahrain.<\/p>\n However, the reasons why the IS and AQ became sectarian were not the same. IS\u2019 roots lay in the political-religious-military events in Iraq. The US-led war was primarily seen by the local Sunni population as a war against it. It felt that the occupation forces befriended the Shias and Kurds in Iraq and installed a Shia regime in the country. This was the reason why Sunni groups raised their heads in revolt. IS was one of them and became a powerful militant outfit in the region.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After the successful Jihad against the Soviets, AQ\u2019s battled the Christian-Jewish hegemony, which was epitomised by the US. During the run-up to 9\/11, AQ targeted Americans. This is evident from the 1992 bombings in Yemen, 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, 1998 attacks on the US embassies in East Africa, and the 2000 suicide attack on the US missile destroyer, USS Cole.<\/p>\n Only after the West tracked and destroyed AQ and its global cells that bin Laden consciously waged a war against all infidels, who either supported America or were dubbed non-Muslim. The latter included liberal Muslims, Shias, Sufis and other \u2018heretical\u2019 sects. This led to the 2004 Ashura massacre, 2006 Sadr city bombing, and 2007 Yazidi Communities bombings. The three violent attacks targeted the Shia and Kurd communities in Iraq.<\/p>\n Culture of terror<\/strong><\/p>\n In a recent piece, Alexander A Bauer, a New York-based anthropology academician, said that the stated goal of the destruction of archaeological sites and monuments by terror groups \u201cis to eradicate idolatry seen as blasphemous to a particular religious perspective.\u201d He referred to the \u201chorrific destruction of the archaeological site of Palmyra\u201d by the IS and the outfit\u2019s earlier \u201cransacking of the Mosul monument and the sites of Nineveh.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Bauer, the religiosity behind monuments\u2019 destruction was historical and \u201chave occurred since antiquity\u201d. The logic of the aggressors is that such destruction attacked the \u201cvery identity of a group that might see such monuments and works as constitutive of its culture.\u201d A mirror logic determines the politics of building monuments \u2013 the aggressor wishes to leave behind physical icons to remind the local population of its legacy.<\/p>\n AQ has used, and continues to employ, the culture of terror to woo new followers, and retain the existing ones. However, bin Laden\u2019s idea of cultural icons were those that defined the western society. His idea of targets were the global financial centres, like the twin towers in New York, international political epicentres, like the Pentagon in Washington, and diplomatic focal points, like the US embassies. For the former head of global terror, the destruction of physical identities that epitomised western capitalism and imperialism were important.<\/p>\n Leadership of terror<\/strong><\/p>\n Both bin Laden and IS\u2019 current chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, look at themselves as the global leaders of Sunni Muslims. According to recent profile in Newsweek, the followers of al-Baghdadi call him \u2018Commander of the Believers\u2019, which was a \u201ctitle reserved for caliphs, the supreme spiritual and temporal rulers of the vast Muslim empire of the middle ages.\u201d In fact, his supporters look up to him as the modern-era Caliph. At this peak, bin Laden was referred as the Emir, or the spiritual leader and king of the Muslim world, albeit only by the Sunnis.<\/p>\n The duo\u2019s childhood was similar. Newsweek\u2019s article said that al-Baghdadi, who hailed from a lower middle class Iraqi family, was nicknamed \u2018the Believer\u2019 in school. \u201cWhen he wasn\u2019t in school, he spent much of his time at the local mosque, immersed in his religious studies; and when he came home\u2026 he was quick to admonish anyone who strayed from the strictures of Islamic law.\u201d A few family members were \u201cadherents of an extreme, puritanical form of Sunni Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n bin Laden\u2019s father was a billionaire, who was close to Saudi Arabia\u2019s royal family. For a brief period, he was the country\u2019s minister of public works. He was a devoted Muslim, who insisted that his children followed a strict religious code. According a bin Laden profile (www.pbs.org), bin Laden\u2019s father \u201ctook the task of rebuilding the Al-Aqsa mosque\u2026. Interestingly, the bin Laden family say that they have the credit of building all the three mosques\u201d, including the ones at Mecca and Medina.<\/p>\n However, both bin Laden and al-Baghdadi became Jihadists because of different reasons. Within two weeks of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, bin Laden went to Pakistan and met militant leaders. By 1982, he was inside Afghanistan, armed with money and construction machinery, to help the Afghani Mujahedeen in their Jihad against the Soviets. In 1986, he set up his own camps in Afghanistan, and formed AQ within a couple of years.<\/p>\n Like bin Laden, al-Baghdadi had close links with the Muslim Brotherhood, a largely peaceful transnational organisation that inadvertently gave birth to dozens of radical outfits. But he drifted towards the extremist elements within the Brotherhood. He was ready for Jihad in 2000, but the extreme radicalisation happened when he was arrested by the Americans in 2004. Although his prison files classified him as a \u2018civilian detainee\u2019, he became a true Jihadi there.<\/p>\n Inmates at Camp Bucca, the US detention facility in South Iraq, where al-Baghdadi spent months, claimed that the place became a Jihadist factory. According to an article in the Guardian, there would have been no IS without the prison, which \u201cbuilt\u201d the Jihadist ideology. When al-Baghdadi was released in December 2004, \u201che had a virtual Rolodex for reconnecting with his co-conspirators,\u201d who had written \u201ceach other\u2019s numbers in the elastic of their underwear.\u201d<\/p>\n Clearly, while bin Laden and al-Baghdadi spawned from the similar modern seeds, which took roots in the Middle East decades ago, they received different water and fertiliser. Hence, they grew differently, and their ideologies diverged. However, it should not surprise experts and observers if, in the near future, the duo\u2019s thinking and organisational philosophies converge. And al-Baghdadi emerges as the new bin Laden in a different body.<\/p>\n![\"-osama-bin-laden\"](\"http:\/\/www.tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/osama-bin-laden.jpg\")
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