Regional Trends In Terrorism
Comprehensive response and national security
SOUTH Asia is known to constitute one of the "critical regions" or "security complexes" in the world. The current situation of security in the region is marked by diversity of conflict, with a sharp rise in terrorism and political violence often resulting in significant destabilizing effect on the regional states and their economies. Rapidly evolving regional trends of terrorism underscores Bangladesh's necessity to consider a comprehensive response strategy for national security. Though Bangladesh has achieved much in several areas of counterterrorism, the evolving trends should be taken into consideration to make counterterrorism more dynamic and proactive. Some of the terror groups in South Asia are clearly homegrown and indigenous but the contiguous geography, extraterritorial allegiance of some non-state actors, global rise of extremist ideology, technological innovations, transnational crime, faulty statecraft, weakness of regional institutions, and mismanagement of inter-state relations make it evident that the line between indigenous terrorism and transnational terrorism is thin. This makes a case where terrorism in South Asia needs to be studied both at indigenous and transnational dimensions. Therefore, counterterrorism strategy of all the regional states in South Asia needs to be refocused on the developments in the region. Many threat groups in the region are not necessarily top-down outfits but rather decentralized and informal organizations that function under a cell structure emphasizing autonomy while still taking major directives from the top. Such structure is often a disadvantage for counterterrorism because even if the leadership is eliminated the cells develop new leadership. Small and less known groups also have the capability to carry out large operations. The latest trends in South Asia makes it evident that the terror groups have attained capability to carry out complex, large scale and technologically sophisticated terror attacks. The recent attacks clearly indicate that some South Asian terrorist groups have cross border linkages and mobility and they have developed an independent capacity to plan and prosecute transnational operations. Hostage taking in large numbers and dramatic engagement with the security forces is a comparatively new trend. The recent developments in Pakistan indicate that the militants have already gained bargaining power. The Government of Pakistan had to negotiate for a peace deal with the Taliban in Swat and had to make painful concessions. As a result, the government is foregoing some of its legitimate power in favour of the Taliban. This is in fact going to be one of the most significant strategic advances for the Taliban in that region. It will not be a surprise if this move inspires other militant groups in the region who support, sympathise with, or share the same ideology. If we consider the recent attacks, almost all were carried out without any warning. Therefore, the security agencies largely depended on reactive response. However, in many South Asian cases intelligence failure was prevalent. It is often argued that due to more emphasis on reactive response, the prospect of proactive response remains underestimated and inadequately explored. More emphasis should be given on proactive response so that the incidents can be intercepted, and more lives can be saved. The pattern of recent attacks in the region indicates that most of the attacks were well planned, well coordinated, and they were well equipped. Multiple group operation is a new phenomenon. These operations give terrorist groups strategic benefits; it minimises cost and maximises catastrophe. Overlapping terrorist activities with transnational crime, using the same supply, transport, and money-moving networks is a dangerous trend. It poses a very real threat by making counter terrorism more difficult without a specific framework for regional responses in combating transnational crime. Several research reports show that threat groups are becoming more innovative in terms of managing their finance. Terrorist financing continues despite the fact that the legal safeguards have been much improved since 9/11. Rather than depending on external resources they are concentrating on domestic resources. Terrorism in South Asia has some regional characteristics. For example, incidents of suicide attacks were low in comparison to the Middle East. But in recent times the number of such incidents is growing in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The threat groups in Bangladesh do not seem to prefer suicide attacks as a tactic. In many cases they carried out low intensity attacks and depended on hand-made bombs. In recent years, however, Arges grenades have become a new and more dependable option for the terrorists. This weapon, if it explodes three feet above the ground, sprays shrapnel up to a kill-distance of 25 feet in which at least forty per cent of the area is bound to be penetrated unless stopped by an obstruction. It could be, blatantly or stealthily, planted or lobbed amidst a gathering of people with time delays of up to seven seconds, and create mayhem. City centers are increasingly becoming the most preferred targets of South Asian terrorist groups. This gives them an opportunity to dramatize the incidents and to get good media coverage. The incidents in India and Pakistan show that international hotels have become a prime target. Westerners are often the prime targets of the South Asian terror groups. In South Asia, militant groups have managed to survive through the strategy of adapting and adjusting with the changes in the security environment, while simultaneously searching to identify new targets and vulnerabilities. Emergence of micro-actors seems to be the new challenge to the security agencies in South Asia. Where large groups are easier to track and monitor, smaller groups are very difficult to handle. With motivation, equipment and know-how two to three persons can carry out deadly attacks. The ideological, motivational and propaganda ability of South Asian threat groups are increasing. As we focus exclusively on the surface of terrorism, the roots remain undisturbed and are spreading at a dangerous pace. It has been found that most of the terrorists were enshrined into radical ideology at some point of time. Radical ideologies set the political goals, justify the means to attain them, define the 'enemy' to fight with, and mobilize popular support to survive and sustain. All these inputs cumulatively influence the acts of terror. Self-radicalisation is a real challenge to the counter terrorism experts. Self-radicalisation is believed largely to be a post-9/11 phenomenon. These groups get inspiration from the media and the internet. Self-radicalised terrorists are hard to track since most of them have no previous records of crime whatsoever. Quite often self-radicalisation remains unnoticed until the person carries out an attack. This is precisely a reason why counter terrorism strategy should include counter radicalisation. Terrorist groups 'traditionally' use border areas and remote areas for hideouts. But there are new evidences showing that currently some of the terrorist groups prefer the urban residential areas, equipped with all available communication technology. The trends discussed above show that terrorism is not static. To ensure security the responses would have to be dynamic. The incidents in Pakistan show that counterterrorism cannot be successful if it is left to military solutions alone. There is an urgent need to combine the hard power responses with that of soft power. We can call it 'comprehensive response.' An effective multi-pronged, multi-agency approach is needed for Bangladesh to combat terrorism. Technically, counterterrorism can be divided into two approaches, operational and strategic. With operational counterterrorism we are reducing the immediate threat by targeting the terrorist cells and disrupting their attack plans. Now it is time when we should also aim at changing the mindset and create a hostile environment for the terrorists through strategic counter terrorism. With this, we have to aim at changing the hearts and minds of the terrorists. Comprehensive response is a decentralized approach to counter terrorism. Counter terrorism is too complex an issue to be left to the state alone. Comprehensive Counter terrorism is more inclusive in a sense that various segments of the society are involved to get a synergic result. For countries like Bangladesh, comprehensive response is very appropriate as it includes image building programmes while concentrating on intelligence response, law enforcement response, legislative response, financial response, educational response, media response, developmental response, and de-radicalization. It provides pragmatic and broad-spectrum solutions covering almost all the areas of response. The primary objectives of Bangladesh's counterterrorism should be to ensure the security of lives and livelihoods of its citizens from terrorist attacks and "defeat the forces of terrorism that challenge the authority of the state and legitimacy of its constitution." To achieve these two objectives, and to ensure a durable solution, the government should think out of the box and invest in pragmatic counter terrorism and emphasize on comprehensive response. The author is a Research Associate at Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs (BILIA).
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