Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2017 Part 19-138-Caliphate-The State of al-Qaida-57-Comeback-26b

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Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2017 Part 19-138-Caliphate-The State of al-Qaida-57-Comeback-26b

Why is There No Storm in Your Ocean1?'Shariah or Democracy’

Mar 2016, “Why is it that the Muslims of India are totally absent from the fields of jihad?” it asked. “How can you remain in your slumber when the Muslims of the world are

awakening?”

“Despite its best efforts … the Islamic State controls little territory in south Asia, [has] conducted only a handful of attacks, failed to secure the support of most locals, and struggled with poor leadership,” wrote Seth Jones, a former adviser to US forces in Afghanistan

After the 9/11 attacks, the global consensus to fight the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and all allied groups was formed by the UNSC resolution on terrorism (UNSCR 1373) in 2001.

“Al Qaeda’s core leadership has been decimated,” President Obama roundly declared at his foreign policy debate with then-Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012. “The US government and the military has downplayed al Qaeda’s presence for more than six years, despite evidence that al Qaeda has remained entrenched in Afghanistan some 15 years after the 9/11 attacks,” The Long War Journal

15 years after 9/11, al-Qaeda is back, more powerful than ever.Most important, the General Guidelines called for collaboration with sister groups. Al-Qaeda’s front in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, has even renamed itself the Jabhat Fath al-Sham, allowing it to collaborate with West-backed groups uncomfortable with the al-Qaeda label.

Al-Zawahiri’s popular front strategy has shown its most significant success in Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda has succeeded in building deep ties with Taliban units on the ground, notwithstanding the bitterness left behind by 9/11. The relationship is key: Afghanistan provides al-Qaeda with safe havens for training and transnational operations,

1 http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/India/document/papers/Wts.pdf The general mandate of authority..“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war

first and then seek to win”― Sun Tzu, The Art of WarCdW Intelligence to Rent Page 1 of 13 01/05/2023

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and a base for expansion into South and East Asia. In December, the Intelligence Bureau uncovered evidence that AQIS had set up networks within India, arresting Sambhal resident Mohammad Asif and Cuttack-based cleric Abdul Rehman on charges of recruiting cadre for the group.

The network, investigators told The Indian Express, had strict instructions not to attempt acts of violence, unlike nascent Islamic State cells that have betrayed themselves by attempting amateur strikes. “The orders were to recruit, and await opportunities for training,” said an intelligence officer.

2017, UK's Minister of State for Security started the year apprising people about various threats such as chemical attacks by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the rise of Al-Qaeda.

Ben Wallace, the Conservative MP for Wyre and Preston North, said that ISIS has no moral objection to using chemical weapons against populations and would do so if they could. He also added that Al-Qaeda is rising back to power and is becoming a credible threat. The UK's biggest threat in the coming years is cyber attacks, he added.

"There are traitors. The insider threat, as we would call it, is real and can be exploited and there are people trying to do that as we speak. If it's hard to get in the front door, then what you try and do is get someone on the inside," Wallace said.

July 2016, Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) has released a message exhorting Kashmiri Muslims to follow Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani’s footsteps and carry out attacks using petrol bombs or “a dagger or knife to slit the throats of forces of Kufr”.

. In October 2014, the first issue of the AQIS magazine, Resurgence, called Myanmar a “21st century concentration camp”. Stating that “the jihad of Mujahid Burhan and his companions is the only true path”, it said the response of the “Kashmiri Muslim nation” must not remain confined to agitations of a few days. It also gave tips on how to plan attacks.

What Does It Mean to Be At War with “Radical Islam”? On the Attractions and Dangers of a Vague TermBy Daniel Byman Tuesday, January 3, 2017, Who is the enemy in American counterterrorism? Is it the Islamic State, the broader jihadist movement, or a set of ideas about the role of religious and politics, often labeled “radical Islam?”

The new President- and some of his senior advisors have stressed the need to focus on radical Islam and criticized President Obama for avoiding that specific label. “I think Islam hates us,” warned Trump on the campaign trail. When pressed about who, specifically, was the enemy, he contended that a narrow label risked missing part of the danger: "It's very hard to define. It's very hard to separate. Because you don't know who's who."

Michael Flynn, Trump’s National Security Advisor, similarly warned, “We're in a world war against a messianic mass movement of evil people, most of them inspired by a totalitarian ideology: Radical Islam." Steve Bannon, one of the President-elect’s principle advisors, compared the situation today to when Christendom held the forces of Islam at bay in the battles of Vienna and Tours. Perhaps even worse than the threat of terrorism, some Trump advisors warn that Muslims are secretly planning to implement Islamic religious law in the United States and the West in general.Such a perspective is a dramatic switch from the policies of Presidents Obama and Bush.

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

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In an excellent article in The Atlantic, Uri Friedman contrasts the Trump team’s views with that of preceding administrations. Fighting terrorism, for the new regime, is about fighting a broad ideology, not a particular set of violent individuals who join the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, or another group.It is tempting to dismiss the newcomers’ views as naïve and bigoted, but thinking about “radical Islam” has serious intellectual pedigree. The historian Bernard Lewis penned a famous piece back in 1990 for The Atlantic, warning of a civilizational clash with: “a rejection of Western civilization as such, not only what it does but what it is, and the principles and values that it practices and professes.” And the label has at least some conceptual merit. The Islamic State, of course, is the latest focus of U.S. counterterrorism, succeeding Al Qaeda as America’s top priority after the U.S. started bombing the group in the summer of 2014 and its subsequent campaign of terrorist attacks—a few directed, more inspired—in Europe and the United States. Indeed, the Islamic State’s rise and Al Qaeda’s decline are related and make sense in the context of a focus on the broader movement rather than a particular group: as one faction declines, others rise, and the movement as a whole remains robust.

Indeed, the Islamic State and Al Qaeda are only two jihadist groups among many. Al Qaeda has affiliates throughout the Middle East that work with the mother movement, at least fitfully. Similarly, the Islamic State claims “provinces” in other countries, with some, such as the one in Libya, having close ties to the Syria-Iraq core while others, like that in Nigeria, are far more removed. In addition, there are unaffiliated groups like Ansar-e Sharia in Libya or Ahrar al-Sham in Syria, which may not be subordinate to either the Islamic State or Al Qaeda but are still violent and anti-American. Individuals from one group often flow to another depending on opportunity, circumstances, and relative prestige.The label “Radical Islam” also brings in a range of individuals and actors that do not neatly fit one group or another and may even move back and forth among the bodies in the broader jihadist universe. In particular, this might include “lone wolves”—individuals who are not under the direct control of a terrorist group but are inspired to act by its message. Omar Mateen, the Orlando shooter, was not really a member of Al Qaeda or the Islamic State, yet he was a jihadist terrorist. For the United States in particular, these lone wolves have proven the biggest terrorism danger to the U.S. homeland in recent years.

The problem, of course, is that the label “Radical Islam” is so big as to be confusing, meaningless, or even contradictory. Much of the issue concerns what “radical” means. Let’s take three possibilities:First, radical means just what a dictionary would say: “advocating or based on thorough or

complete political or social reform.” As this language suggests, here we would include countries and movements that are political but peaceful. So this might include allied governments like Saudi Arabia, which embrace the role of Islam at all levels of society and often promulgate attitudes toward non-Muslims and women, among other teachings, that Western audiences would find offensive, as well as missionary groups like the Tablighi Jamaat, which claim to be apolitical but some of whose teachings on social behavior are extreme and overlap with some of those of clear terrorist groups like the Islamic State. It also might include the Muslim Brotherhood, which has many variations in the many different countries where it has a presence but in most calls on Muslims to use peaceful politics to increase the role of Islam in government and society.





Second, radical simply means violent. For most Americans, the terrorism problem is about killing, not ideas they don’t like. But many violent Islamists are not inherently violent toward the United States. They might oppose the government of Egypt, India, Russia, Tunisia, or other countries instead and not see the U.S. as an enemy. And even if they applaud when Americans are killed, they may not prioritize their enmity, focusing their aims elsewhere.

Third, radical could be used to mean violent and anti-U.S. But here the label starts to overlap with those of existing groups and individuals who are already on U.S. terrorism and targeting lists. Using the radical Islam label doesn’t really change policy as a result.

As Friedman points out:Obama has launched information campaigns to discredit ISIS and enlisted Middle Eastern countries in the battle against jihadism. He has encouraged Muslims to condemn the extremists in their midst and subjected Syrian refugees to what Trump might call “extreme vetting.” He has relied on government surveillance to fight terrorism, neutralized the most alarming aspect of the threat posed by Iran, and built a reputation as a formidable terrorist hunter by using military force against jihadist leaders and operatives in a number of countries.

At home, it might mean more vigorous screening for Muslim immigrants to ensure they don’t embrace supposedly radical ideas, even if they reject violence—a difficult challenge, to say the least, as well as one of dubious constitutionality. My Brookings colleague Will McCants makes a compelling comparison of proposals to ban those who favor Islamic law to how Europe treated Jews until the modern era, seeing them as a people apart whose religious teachings were inherently subversive. Many Americans might disagree with the teachings such groups espouse, but their teachings fit under American notions of free speech and freedom of religion—the Klan, PETA, and other organizations are also zealous believers in ideas many Americans oppose, but the law still protects these groups.

The risks for counterterrorism are considerable. A broader war means more enemies, more military deployments, and more relations with troubling and troubled allies. Fighting a radical message is even harder, entailing not just a far more expansive military and intelligence campaign but also an array of policies to suppress or counter Islamism, including some measures in the United States such as silencing certain preachers and censoring propaganda that would go directly against free speech and the free practice of religion. The U.S. track record with such programs under both Bush and Obama is poor, suggesting that any future successes are likely to be modest at best.

Using the label also risks missing opportunities or adding unnecessary burdens, as many of these groups fight one another more than each other. Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are deadly rivals. And both hate the Shiite power Iran, which also embraces a violent form of political Islam. Relatively few Islamist groups are currently prioritizing attacks on the U.S. homeland, and there is little to be gained by taking them on directly—when in doubt, the United States should be bolstering the efforts of local allies.

The biggest danger is that targeting non-violent religious Muslims and using expansive rhetoric to demonize an entire faith risks driving some Muslims into the ranks of more violent groups and, given the unpopularity of the United States, making the radical cause more credible. Even some who still oppose violence would be less inclined to work with local police and federal officials, fearing that these institutions would target





them.The nice thing about a vague label like “Radical Islam” is that even

if the new administration feels compelled to keep it for political reasons, it can be interpreted narrowly in practice. Indeed, the ideal would be to encourage individuals who might otherwise use violence to see peaceful politics as their friend. They would then join the long list of zealots conquered by the moderation U.S. politics and society have historically encouraged.

Sat, 27 Aug 2016-Al Qaeda goes local, uses Tamil and Malayalam for recruitment in South

IndiaEarlier the Global Islamic Media Front, an international proscribed affiliate of the terror group al Qaeda that creates and disseminates jihadi media, formed a new branch -- GIMF Sub-continent to publish and translate the group's messages, videos and magazines in Hindi, Bengali, Urdu and Tamil. Other AQ-related media and its supporters too have begun a big propaganda drive particularly targeting Tamil and Malayalam speakers to reach out to the Muslim youth for recruitment in South India.

This is the first time that AQ has gone local by translating its propaganda in Tamil and Malayalam spoken widely in the southern regions of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and also Sri Lanka in its bid to spread its ideology towards Islam, Sharia law, the armed conflict in Syria and Afghanistan and to motivate youth to join jihad.Post-Dhaka attack in Bangladesh, both terror groups – the Islamic State and AQ – have upped their recruitment drive in the Indian sub-continent, with the former clearly winning more supporters online as it publishes its official information in Bengali language in addition to English, Arabic, French etc.

To counter the IS propaganda, AQ too has started disseminating messages, videos and jihadi literature in Tamil and Malayalam language. And it is heavily using the social media platform of Facebook for propaganda and communication. Groups like Tamil Ansar and Olivin Charathu (under the shade of Olive tree), Syria through Indian Eyes regularly update information on AQ and its activities in Syria in Tamil and Malayalam. Some of the AQIS pages on FB also invite users for group chats by posting links Telegram on fixed days and timings, which is an encrypted platform assuring secrecy in communication.

Counter-jihad experts and hackers operating online are seeing a rise in AQIS and GIMF activity. In recent weeks, more than a dozen such accounts and pages have been reported and blocked, many more are active on social media. Experts see this as an outreach effort by AQ to increase the volley of its online supporters and ultimately its recruits in the region. "Tamil and Malayalam speakers don't read or understand Urdu, Hindi or Arabic. It is possible they have started this propaganda to reach and target non English speaking youth from this region,'' an intelligence officer based in Hyderabad said.Of the number of Indian youth who left for Syria, experts point out, a majority have joined AQ and not IS as they oppose it for being an un-Islamic barbaric terror group. From the documented cases of Indian fighters in Syria, many come from the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala who are likely to be helping in translating the material in Tamil and Malayalam languages.





Reports also indicate that Tamil Nadu based al Ummah – an anti Hindu, Islamic extremist organization--group has regrouped to become a new entity called Base movement. Since last year it has claimed responsibility for three low-intensity blasts in the court premises of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala by dispatching a letter to the authorities bearing a map of India and a photo of slain AQ leader Osama bin Laden. A similar letter was sent ahead of French President Francois Hollande's visit to Bangalore.Nagapattinam native Abu Bakr Siddique, 51, one of the master-minds in the blast at the BJP office in Bangalorein 2013 is believed to be the leader behind Base movement. Siddique is fluent in Tamil, Malayalam and English and is influential among the young generation.

Although still at large, police officials from Chennai following the al Ummah group suspect Siddique as he is an expert in IED assembling and the bombs in all three cases bear a similar resemblance made out of gun powder and digital timers. ``The Base movement appears a local group as the blasts and the pattern of claiming the attack is not sophisticated like AQ. By using Laden's photo they want to tell the security agencies that such a group exists and is active,'' an investigating officer said. Although Tamil Nadu police doubts al Ummah or the Base movement to have contacted AQ, they are also not ruling out the possibility of any linkages between the two. Before the Bangalore blast, Siddique was absconding between 1999 and 2011 and police is investigating if he like some of the al Ummah members left to join the jihad in Afghanistan.

August 9, 2016 A mysterious group using the name “Base Movement’’, which is the subject of an investigation into three blasts at court complexes in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka since April, has sent at least three mails to authorities since early last year, including one to the French consulate in Bengaluru, to announce its existence and warn of attacks.

The first communication was in the form of a letter sent by post to the office of the then Additional Chief Secretary to Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, in January 2015, stating that the group would be beginning its activities that year.Security sources said the two-line letter contained a map of India, a picture of slain Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the words “Al Qaeda” at the bottom. The sender’s address was given as “Base Moment” (sic) from Kovai (Coimbatore) in Tamil Nadu.Investigations by agencies in Karnataka revealed that the mail had originated in a town called Singanallur in Coimbatore and the pincode mentioned by the sender did not exist.

A second letter with the same features — a picture of bin Laden, the Al Qaeda sign-off, a map of India and the title “Base Movement” — was sent to the French consulate in Bengaluru in January 2016, ahead of the visit of French President Francois Hollande. Sources said the letter was written in incoherent English, and appeared to warn against Hollande’s visit.“One admonish to the Indian government… As destructing and killing of my bloods… France president Francois Holland… To stop his advent… Otherwise return to France with his death…,” stated the letter received on January 14. Investigations led police to Velachery in Chennai before the trail went cold, sources said.

The third letter from the group was received at the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes in Andhra’s Chittoor shortly after a blast occurred in the district court complex on April 7. The letter claimed that the blast had been carried out by the “Base Movement” — as retaliation for the killing of five Muslim youths linked to the proscribed SIMI in a police encounter in Warangal region on April 7, 2015.





The letter appeared to refer to the killing of Vikaruddin Ahmed, Suleman, Zakir, Azad and Asif, who were undergoing trial in terrorism cases, while they were being transported to a court hearing. Police had claimed that the men had tried to escape but the families of the dead youths had alleged that it was a “staged encounter”. The fact that the “Base Movement” claimed credit for the Chittoor court blast has led investigators to probe the role of this group in the blasts in the court complexes of Kollam (Kerala) on June 15, and Mysuru on August 1.Sources said recent investigations by Bengaluru police into activities of the proscribed Tamil Nadu terror outfit Al Ummah, which also has operations in Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, have revealed that the group had aligned under the banner of “Base Movement” after swearing allegiance to Al Qaeda and joining hands with elements from outfits in south India.The phrase “Base Movement’’ mentioned in the three letters is suspected to be a reference to Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), formed in August 2014 with the official name of “Jamaat Qaidat al-jihad fi’shibhi al-qarrat al-Hindiya’’ or “Organisation of the Base of Jihad in the Indian Subcontinent’’.In a video posted online on September 3, 2014, Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri had announced the launch of AQIS and claimed to have gathered several groups in the subcontinent under its umbrella. Asim Umar, a Pakistan resident originally from Uttar Pradesh, was anointed as the leader of AQIS.

In December 2015, Delhi Police’s Special Cell arrested several key members of AQIS linked to Asim Umar, including its alleged India head Mohammed Asif, 41, a resident of Deepa Sarai in UP from where the AQIS chief hails.

In fact: To India’s east, an emerging sanctuary for al-QaedaJan 2017, Myanmar’s brutal crackdown on the Rohingya is fanning an Islamist insurgency that could become a national security nightmare for India and region. In the last months of his life, as he was hunted by the US drones that would ultimately find him early in 2015, Ahmad Farooq, deputy emir of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), prepared a speech that did not at the time reach its intended audience. “They were given permission to go to war, those who are battling the disbelievers,” said Farooq from his sparse, mud-walled fortress in South Waziristan’s Wacha Dara, “because they are innocent, and without doubt, Allah will help them with all his power, for they were expelled from their homes only for saying: he is our master”. That day, Farooq’s mind was focussed far from the grim war raging around him — on the other side of the subcontinent, on a region he called “Assam-Burma”. There, he said, thousands of Muslims were being driven from their homes because of a historic betrayal by the very Pakistan Army that was now fighting al-Qaeda in the borderlands with Afghanistan.

The Muslims of Bangladesh who sided with Pakistan had been driven into exile in Assam-Burma in 1971, Farooq claimed, demonstrating a stronger grasp of propaganda than history. Now, they were being killed in the lands where they had sought asylum, he said, while the Pakistan Army fought the jihadists who hoped to help them.His speech should have been taken more seriously. As Myanmar’s armed forces have escalated a murderous programme of ethnic cleansing against the country’s Rohingya minority in Rakhine province, al-Qaeda has placed itself on the vanguard of resistance. For India, and for the wider region, this could have enormous consequences: al-Qaeda could gain long-term sanctuary in thinly-governed territories, just as several Northeast insurgent groups have. And India could find itself with a little Afghanistan, so to speak, on its eastern border.





*****In October, hundreds of men armed with knives and rifles stormed Myanmar border police posts outside Maungdaw and Rathedaung, near the northwestern border with Bangladesh. They overran the police headquarters at Kyee Kan Pyin, and looted, according to officials, 62 weapons and over 10,000 rounds of ammunition. Border police outposts at Nga Khu Ya in north Maungdaw and Koe Dan Kau were also targetted. The attacks appeared to have been carefully planned — improvised explosive devices were used to prevent reinforcements from moving in. To military experts, the evidence suggested that the clash leaders, at least, had relatively sophisticated training. Myanmar’s army responded by burning down entire villages, satellite imagery gathered by human rights groups show — it was a crude effort to impose collective punishment, and to deprive the insurgents of support bases. Local militias were armed; rape, looting and torture were unleashed; humanitarian supplies to the area were barred.But the fighting has continued. At Gwa Son village, after hundreds of people reportedly attacked troops and killed a Lieutenant-Colonel, 2 helicopters machine-gunned civilians including women and children, videos appear to show.*****Like so many of the subcontinent’s Islamist insurgencies, this too treads a complex road, linking local communal frictions with seminaries in Karachi, and jihadist training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s northwest.Following the October attacks, online jihadist networks released videos announcing the birth of Harakah al-Yaqin — Organisation for Faith. In a report last month, the nonprofit International Crisis Group provided new biographical information on the so-far pseudonymous leader of the group — Abu Ammar ‘Junooni’, also known as Hafiz Tohar. Abu Ammar, it said, was born to parents who had migrated to Karachi, and then on to Saudi Arabia — a not-uncommon trajectory for migrant workers from the region. He disappeared from Saudi Arabia in 2012.Both Indian and Bangladeshi Intelligence believe Abu Ammar contacted al-Qaeda linked officials through the networks of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen in Karachi — the parent organisation of both Ahmad Farooq and his to-be regional chief, Indian-born jihadist Sahaul Haq, also known by the pseudonym Asim Umar. The contact may have been made through clerics at Karachi’s Jamia Uloom-e-Islamia, a seminary that has produced several jihadist leaders, and has long received Rohingya students.*****From 2014, both Rohingya and Bangladeshi jihadists linked to them were known to have been training at AQIS camps in Afghanistan — notably at a sprawling facility in Kandahar, which was detected in October 2015, as well as in South Waziristan.

Bangladeshi al-Qaeda networks found no shortage of recruits in Rohingya refugee camps in that country; one of the men in the Harakah al-Yaqin video was reported to have been registered at the Nayapara camp in the far south, close to the River Naf that serves as the border with Myanmar. In October 2014, the first issue of the AQIS magazine, Resurgence, called Myanmar a “21st century concentration camp”. It demonstrated granular knowledge of local conditions: “In Du Chee Yar Tan village in the Maungdaw township of Arakan, Buddhist Rakhine villagers killed eight Muslims who were being smuggled through the area, which is close to the Bangladeshi border. When the Muslims retaliated the next day by capturing a police officer involved in the killings and executing him, the police ganged up with the local Buddhist population and killed more than 50 Muslim men, women and children.”





There are at least some indications that ethnic Bangladeshi networks in the UK, key to financing jihadist operations in their country of origin, might have some role in Myanmar, too. In December, two AQIS-linked message boards reposted messages “from a brother”, saying he was “personally travelling on the 20th of December to Burma with a few brothers to help” displaced Rohingya. “For further information and inquires or to donate”, the message gave a UK number.Linked to the message was a video, which bore the logo of Deen Team, a UK charity with the same phone number. In 2014, the UK’s independent charities regulator found it operating in high-risk areas, including Syria, and asked for the filing of documents, which it did not receive. In July 2016, the Charities Commission opened a formal investigation, noting that “the charity does not appear to have had a bank account since February 2015”.

New Delhi has, so far, maintained a stoic silence on the Rohingya issue — fearful of alienating an ally whose help it needs to combat Northeast insurgents, and of ceding ground to China. It’s important, though, that it counsels Myanmar’s military of the perils of the path it is following. The crude means employed to contain the insurgency cannot, and will not, succeed — lack of political inclusion of the Rohingya will, moreover, engender a durable alienation and rage. For India, Bangladesh and the region, the consequences could be unaffordable.

On December 30, China’s decision to veto India’s proposal to ban Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar at the UN capped a terrible year in bilateral ties. China’s economic corridor through Pakistan, India’s invitations to Uighur, Falun Gong and Tibetan activists, the expulsion of Chinese journalists from Mumbai, the Chinese block on Nuclear Suppliers Group membership for India, and the rumblings over the South China Sea all added to tensions between the two countries; the Chinese decision to put a permanent block on the Azhar proposal aggravated them further.

An open-and-shut caseChina’s decision, to put it bluntly, was outrageous and ill-advised. In the past, Beijing blocked India’s proposals at the UN to designate Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin and Abdul Rehman Makki and Azam Cheema of the Lashkar-e-Taiba as terrorists, and blocked questions on how designated terrorists Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi accessed funds in Pakistan despite UN sanctions. But Azhar’s case is different from all of these, for reasons that should be obvious.Which other terrorist, for example, has actually been seen live across televisions worldwide, as Azhar was on December 31, 1999, being exchanged for hostages on the Kandahar tarmac after the hijack of IC-814? Which other terrorist has recorded in his own book (From Imprisonment to Freedom) details of the terror plot to hijack the plane, and of links to the Taliban officials who pushed Indian negotiators on the ground (including current National Security Adviser Ajit Doval) into effecting his release? And which other terrorist openly spoke of meeting Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, travelling to Somalia to help recruit for al-Qaeda, and his loyalty to Taliban chief Mullah Omar, whom he described as his “beloved Amir-ul-Momineen”?

Despite all that evidence, it took two years and the 9/11 attacks for the JeM to be designated as a terror group by UNSC 1267 sanctions committee in 2001. It seems unbelievable that 15 years later, despite his complicity in everything from the Parliament attack to the Pathankot attack and everything in between, Azhar hasn’t yet been added to that list, largely due to China’s ignominious role.





It would be a mistake, however, if New Delhi sees China’s move purely in bilateral terms, and ignores the larger trend it represents: of a fragmenting global consensus on terrorism. The impact of this fragmentation can be seen at several levels now: at the UN, in the tussle between the U.S. and Russia, and for India, in regional ties.

Changing narrativeAfter the 9/11 attacks, the global consensus to fight the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and all allied groups was formed by the UNSC resolution on terrorism (UNSCR 1373) in 2001. Already, in 1999, the UN had set up an al-Qaeda/Taliban sanctions committee (UNSCR 1267) to impose strictures on anyone dealing with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. While the implementation of these resolutions has been questionable, there was little doubt that all member states essentially believed that the Taliban, al-Qaeda and their allies formed a common global enemy.That narrative has since changed. In January 2010, at an international conference hosted by the U.K., the UN and the U.S. openly backed efforts to talk peace with the Taliban. In 2011, the UNSC made it simply the al-Qaeda sanctions committee, separating the Taliban committee so as to facilitate talks by delisting Taliban leaders being engaged. In December 2015, the UNSC made a further shift by renaming it “ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee” (UNSCR/2253). This renaming prompted Pakistan to ask recently, albeit mistakenly, how the banning of Azhar was even connected to the committee’s work.

Impact of U.S.-Russia tiesApart from the UN, shifting U.S.-Russia ties have also made a great impact on the global terror consensus. In 2001, Russian President Vladimir Putin was one of the first foreign leaders to speak to President George W. Bush, expressing full support for the U.S. fight against al-Qaeda, which would in turn help Russia with its Islamist threat as well. Not only that, Mr. Putin reversed Russian policy of decades, allowing the U.S. to set up bases across Central Asia and virtually take over Afghanistan’s security command.

That relationship no longer exists, and Russia is questioning the U.S. presence in its backyard again. “Russia won’t tolerate this,” Mr. Putin’s Special Envoy to Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov said in an interview this week, referring to the U.S.’s bases in Afghanistan as akin to having Russian bases in Mexico.

Russia’s other moves — a new closeness with China, and growing ties with Pakistan — are a third factor impacting global consensus. A trilateral meeting of the three countries last month in Moscow called for a “flexible approach” to remove some Taliban figures from the UN sanctions list as part of efforts to “foster a peaceful dialogue between Kabul and the Taliban movement”. No doubt, the recent Taliban statement that it won’t target infrastructure projects in Afghanistan is significant, given China’s high-stakes ‘One Belt, One Road’ plan that runs through the region.On the other side, the U.S. has been pushing for the removal of other groups in Afghanistan from sanctions, like the Hizb-e-Islami’s Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (a former Central Intelligence Agency-funded fighter), a move that Russia blocked at the UN.

Clearly, the global leaders are picking their teams. Ironically, neither side has yet pushed for the banning of the new Taliban chief, Haibatullah Akhundzada, a reminder of how far away we have come on that global consensus. Also lying in the dust is India’s decades-old proposal for a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.Russia’s Pakistan engagement cannot be disconnected from India’s concerns either. It is





significant that among the P5, the U.S., U.K. and France co-sponsored India’s resolution against Azhar, China vetoed it, but Russia, India’s traditional backer, did nothing at all. At the BRICS summit in October and the Heart of Asia conference in December, it was the Russia-China combine that kept India’s desire for tough statements on “cross-border terrorism” from Pakistan at bay, and it was the Russian envoy who told India not to use “multilateral forums for bilateral issues”.Azhar’s ban is only a piece in a much larger jigsaw puzzle. The world is increasingly divided and the consensus on terror, that once helped India apply pressure on Pakistan, is now dividing along these fault lines. If India is to stick to its course, of securing its citizens and borders, the answer may lie in bridging ties with all nations involved, including some that now lie across this divide. -- [email protected]

Given his limited choices in stabilising Afghanistan, which include supporting a national election, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will find India to be a reliable and trusted partner in this processOn January 20, Donald Trump will take over as the 45th President of the United

States of America, at a time when the U.S. remains engaged in the longest war in its history — the war in Afghanistan. He will be the third President to deal with the war launched in 2001 by U.S. President George Bush and sought to be brought to a conclusion by his successor U.S. President Barack Obama.

Even though ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ ended on December 28, 2014 implying an end to formal combat operations by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) forces, the U.S. still maintains approximately 9,800 troops as part of the international troop presence numbering over 12,000 under ‘Operation Resolute Support’. Primary responsibility for fighting the insurgency was transferred to the Afghan National Security Forces (consisting of the military and the police) two years ago but U.S. presence is essential to provide critical domain awareness, intelligence and surveillance support, air power and special forces.

For Mr. Bush, the war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan was an integral part of his “war on terror”, launched on September 20, 2001. The U.S.-led effort enjoyed broad international support which continued even after Mr. Bush’s ill-conceived invasion in Iraq in 2003 in search of the non-existent weapons of mass destruction. The Iraq invasion however diluted Washington’s focus on the challenges it faced in Afghanistan.

In 2009, Mr. Obama drew a clear distinction between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, describing the latter as “a war of necessity”, a “war that we (USA) have to win”. He ordered a troop surge in 2009 while simultaneously announcing the date for withdrawal of the U.S. from combat operations. This flawed decision may have been the result of domestic compulsions but it breathed fresh life into the insurgency.

Gains and lossesMuch blood and treasure has been expended in Afghanistan. The U.S. alone has spent more than $800 billion in Afghanistan, of which $115 billion has been spent on reconstruction; more than the inflation adjusted expenditure under the Marshall Plan for rebuilding Europe after World War II at $105 billion! The ISAF (consisting of over 40 countries) suffered 3,500 fatal casualties during the last 15 years, with the U.S. bearing the






largest loss at 2,400 lives. At the NATO summit in Warsaw earlier this year, (2016) it was agreed to maintain the current international troop presence till 2020 while providing annual financial support of $4.5 billion for the Afghan security forces.It is clear that this is unlikely to bring about a material change in the situation in Afghanistan. In fact, casualties among the Afghan forces and civilians have risen rapidly in recent years. The total civilian casualties are estimated at 31,000; this year witnessed a spike. The Afghan security forces have suffered significant casualties, rising from 21,000 in 2014 to about 30,000 today.Out of 408 districts, the government writ holds in 258 while 33 have come under the control of the insurgents, largely in the south. The remaining 116 districts are contested zones.It is true that some progress has been registered. Life expectancy has gone up from 40 years in 2002 to 62 years today. From 9,00,000 boys in school then, the number of children in school is now more than 8 million, more than a third are girls. Literacy figures have gone up from 12 per cent to 34 per cent in 15 years. Today, with a median age of 18 years, Afghanistan has one of the youngest populations with 60 per cent of the population below 21 years of age. This progress can be sustained only if peace can be restored.Different political approachesFormer Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai realised early on that the key to restoring peace and stability in Afghanistan lay in Pakistan. He described the Taliban as “Pashtun brothers” and tried to improve relations with Pakistan. In many of his speeches, Mr. Karzai referred to India “as an old friend” and Pakistan as “a brother and conjoined twin”. The metaphor may not be apt — because half the conjoined twins are stillborn and an additional one-third die within 24 hours — but it does capture Pakistan’s critical role. Eventually, he became exasperated with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s rebuffs and tried, unsuccessfully, to open up his own channels for dialogue with the Quetta Shura, first with Mullah Obaidullah and then with Mullah Baradar, only to have them successively neutralised by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).Mr. Ghani went a step further. Having witnessed Mr. Karzai’s doomed efforts and conscious of the political fragility of his National Unity Government, he swallowed his pride and even called on the Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, at the GHQ, in Rawalpindi in 2014, a departure from protocol that raised many eyebrows. He tacitly accepted Pakistan’s demand that Afghanistan diminish the salience of its relationship with India, in the expectation that Pakistan would play a positive role to ensure political reconciliation. A new track was opened with the Quadrilateral Coordination Group consisting of Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the U.S. However, Mr. Ghani too felt betrayed when he learnt that the myth of Mullah Omar had been sustained for at least two years and despite his pleading, the ISI went ahead with the anointment of Mullah Mansour as the new Taliban leader. As insurgency grew, he publicly blamed Pakistan of sending “a message of war” when he had held out a hand of peace.

In their own fashion, both Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama saw the Pakistan problem but were content to manage the situation rather than push for a solution. Mr. Bush ensured the first round of peaceful elections in Afghanistan by laying down clear redlines for Gen. Musharraf but during his second term, he was preoccupied with Iraq. Mr. Obama tried diplomacy by appointing the high profile U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke as Special Representative for AfPak but eventually decided that the best way for the U.S. to address the issue was to reduce its role and presence in Afghanistan. The Kerry-Lugar assistance





package for Pakistan turned out to be more carrot than stick.Pakistan’s overreachGiven a porous border with Afghanistan with tribal linkages cutting across

the Durand Line, Pakistan’s legitimate interests can be understood as also the fact that it is critical to any political reconciliation in Afghanistan. However, what Pakistan has been seeking is to exercise a veto over Kabul’s relations with Delhi which the Afghans are unwilling to concede.

Pakistan’s policies towards both India and Afghanistan are determined primarily by the Army which sees India as an existential threat. Looking at its relations with Afghanistan through the India prism makes it inevitable that Pakistan can only have a relationship with Afghanistan that is mired in mistrust, suspicion and hostility. Since relations with India are unlikely to normalise in the foreseeable future, the only way out for Pakistan to play a constructive role in Afghanistan is to accept the idea of Afghan sovereignty and autonomy and refrain from making it a zone of India-Pakistan rivalry.Unless Pakistan changes its attitude, political reconciliation in Afghanistan will remain unlikely. The Taliban today is a fractured lot, neither a Vietcong nor even a Hezbollah. Its fragmentation does not affect its ability to launch terrorist attacks in Afghanistan but certainly makes it more difficult to get it to the negotiating table.Meanwhile, the National Unity Government in Kabul is not a strong and united entity thereby reducing its negotiating space. All this diminishes Pakistan’s ability to deliver the Taliban too; it can ensure presence for a one-off meeting but lacks the political capital needed to underwrite the reconciliation process. The challenge for Kabul is that it has to engage in multiple reconciliation processes — with the Taliban and with the Pakistani army. The hardline Taliban represented by the Haqqani network is determined to continue the fight militarily. However, even the more moderate who are willing to talk demand the exit of all foreign forces from Afghanistan. Not only could this bring about a collapse of the fragile coalition in Kabul but it would also reduce the international financial support which is critical to keep the government machinery working. Power sharing can be worked out, as demonstrated recently in the accord with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, but no government in Kabul can accept this Taliban redline.

The India factor[ India has had the most effective economic cooperation programme, having spent more than $2 billion and committed another billion dollars earlier this year. Indians have also lost lives in deliberate attacks linked to the Haqqani group and the Lashkar-e-Taiba but this has not diminished the Indian role. It has only cemented Afghan-Indian relations which are now developing a military dimension. Never again will India be forced to close down its embassy in Kabul as it happened during the Taliban regime. When President-elect Donald Trump takes charge, he will find that he has little choice in the matter. A complete withdrawal is out of question. His challenge will be to change the calculus of the Pakistani establishment, increase capabilities of the Afghan security forces to inflict attrition on the insurgents, and, in 2019, support an election in Afghanistan that brings about a more cohesive government. In all this, he will find the Narendra Modi government to be a reliable and trusted partner. --- Rakesh Sood is a former Ambassador to Afghanistan and currently Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation




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