Last
November, reporting on the 2015 Global Terrorism Index, issued by Sydney-based
think tank, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation website headlined the news
“Globally, terrorism is on the rise-but little of it occurs in Western
countries.”
Strangely
enough, though the Paris attack had taken place, leading to the deaths of 130
persons, it did not figure in the report on abc.net.au. What the report did
reveal, however, was that the terrorist threat was at the highest level it had
ever been, and was rising at an “unprecedented pace.” It showed that a total of
32,658 people were killed by terrorists around the world in 2014, an 80 per
cent increase over 2013.
No doubt
the figures for 2015 will be higher, and for 2016, which has just experienced
the horrific Brussels attack, the recent attacks in Turkey and Pakistan, even
higher. While the terrorist high tide that had ravaged Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Syria, Nigeria and Iraq, is showing no signs of receding, it seems to be
spreading to other areas like Indonesia and Turkey.
Deaths
from terrorism have increased dramatically since the US invasion of Iraq,
peaking first in 2007 with the US troop surge in the country and subsequently
going virtually off the chart with the onset of the Syrian civil war and the
Iraqi meltdown.
While in
absolute terms, the deaths in Paris or Brussels are not as deadly as the
happenings in Syria, Iraq or Nigeria, the impact has been much more severe
because they were unexpected and took place in two advanced and secular
societies where there is no ostensible social or political tension.
A
portrait of major attacks in the first 15 days of 2016 reveals the spread and
virulence of global terrorism. In Afghanistan, on January 1 a suicide bomber
detonated himself at a French restaurant in Kabul killing two persons and
wounding 15. On January 2, four terrorists attacked the Indian military base at
Pathankot killing 7 security personnel and 1 civilian. On the same day in
Mogadishu, 3 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a
popular restaurant near the National Theatre. On January 3, two bombers
detonated their vehicle-borne explosive at the gate of a former US base in Iraq
killing 15 members of the security forces.
On
January 7 a suicide truck bomb killed 60 people and injured 200 at a police
training camp near the town of Zliten in Libya. On January 11, at least 12
persons were killed in an attack on a shopping mall in Baghdad, on the same
day, a double blast in the northern part of the city led to the deaths of 20
persons. On January 12, a suicide bomber killed 11 persons in a suicide bombing
in Istanbul, targeting tourists. 7 people died in a suicide bombing attack in
Jalalabad near the Indian consulate which was accompanied by an attack by
gunmen on the Pakistani consulate.
On the
13th of January 15 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up
near a police vehicle in Quetta. Twelve people died when a suicide bomber
struck at a mosque at Kouyape, close to the Nigerian border in Cameroon, in an
attack attributed to the Boko Haram. January 14 saw suicide bombings and a
shootout in Jakarta, resulting in 4 deaths as well as that of the 4 terrorists
who claimed allegiance to the IS. On January 15, 63 people died in El Adde
Somalia following a siege at an African Union base. On the same day terrorist
stormed a hotel taking hostages and killing some 30 people in Ougadougou,
Burkina Faso.
India was
one of the first countries to suffer from terrorist strikes, mainly
masterminded by actors supported by Pakistan. However, Pakistan-backed
militancy and terrorism has declined since the Mumbai attacks of 2008. India
has successfully coped with the worst and developed protocols and procedures to
minimise terrorist violence. But many other countries in Africa and the
Middle-East are simply going under the onslaught of mass casualty attacks.
According
to the 2015 GTI, most of the attacks in the West between 2006-2014 were lone
wolf attacks. But clearly even that is now set to change. What happened in
Paris and Brussels was the handiwork of networks of Islamists who were embedded
in their societies. They may have been radicalised by the Islamic State
propaganda, but they were very much the products of the dysfunctions of modern
Europe.
There is
every indication that the huge surge of refugees into Europe has enabled many
European Muslims who had travelled to the Islamic State to return fully
radicalised to their societies. It also reveals that they have now acquired
high levels of training and capabilities, such as the ability to make large
quantities of the very dangerous explosive TATP which can be made from commonly
available chemicals. Europe’s nightmare may just be beginning.
Mid Day
March 29, 2016
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