Ghastly Sri Lanka Tragedy And Strategic Interests Of
Big Powers
Saeed Naqvi
Not far back
in time, Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 hijackers, Wahabis, Salafis, Jabhat al Nusra
and their numerous variants, were all traced to Saudi Arabia. Today all of that
has been placed in the margin of amnesia. Instead, the US, Israel and some
Europeans are inviting all and sundry to go hammer and tongs at Iran.
In a world
order so topsy-turvy, where does one turn for help to gauge sources of global
terror like the one which struck Colombo? Which Intelligence Agency does one
put ones money on?
The ground for
current terrorism was laid in the 80s when Mujahideen were manufactured in the
Salafi mould with Saudi money, American training and equipment and hundreds of
Pakistan built Madrasas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border primarily to
expel the Soviets from Afghanistan. Once this mission was accomplished in 1989,
Americans returned home leaving high voltage Islam to find work. And work, it
did find with a vengeance, in Kashmir, Egypt and Algeria.
Ingredients
for extremism were thus available when the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
inspired the US to put its imprimatur on the great victory. Operation Desert
Storm was launched in February 1992 to teach Saddam Hussain a lesson for his
transgression into Kuwait. Desert Storm is a landmark: it was to cover this
event that the global media was born. For the first time in history, a war was
brought live into people’s homes. For the West it was a celebration of triumph
over another system. For Iraq and the Muslim world it was yet another defeat,
humiliation, helplessness. Coverage of one event on global television had
divided the world into two hostile camps – a triumphant West and a defeated, demoralized
Muslim world.
This chasm
widened a hundred fold with the two Intefadas, the four year long Bosnian war,
9/11, air strikes and occupation of Afghanistan, the bogus search for weapons
of mass destruction leading to the occupation of Iraq, destruction of
Mesopotamia and so on.
As a reaction,
Jehadi terror began to evolve as a target against which nations could forge
coalitions. Then, as an afterthought, terror groups also began to be seen as
assets to be let loose on enemies. This latter game became transparent during the
Syrian conflict. Countries like Saudi Arabia began to play a lead role in
inducting, breeding, arming Jehadis of the most ferocious variety against
President Bashar al Assad, casting him as a “brutal Shia” (therefore heathen)
who had to be replaced. US, Israel, Qatar, Turkey, all joined the expedition.
The US, began to train and equip militant groups. President Obama’s Defence
Secretary Ashton Carter was virtually in tears at being grilled by the Congress
as well as the media. In one instance atleast (there were others) he had to
wind up a $500 million project on live TV because the Jehadists trained by the
Americans had walked away, with the heavy equipment and presumably joined some
other group.
The sudden
establishment of the Islamic State in Mosul remains an uninvestigated mystery. When
the IS charged towards Baghdad wielding the latest arms mounted on Humvees
straight from the showroom, my sources in Najaf were convinced of their
American sponsorship. Every Arab Ambassador in New Delhi at least (except the
GCC) was quite candid: this is an American project. They seemed to make sense
because candidate Trump himself told Jake Tapper of the CNN that the
Obama-Hillary Clinton team had “spent millions in creating terror groups in
Syria.” In an interview with the New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman in
August 2015, Obama admitted to the uses of the ISIS. Asked why he did not bomb
the IS when it first reared its head, Obama said: “We did not just start taking
a bunch of airstrikes all across Iraq because that would have taken the
pressure off Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al Maliki.” In other words, ISIS was
an American asset at that juncture. Maliki, an aggressive Shia, had refused to
sign the Status of Forces agreement with the US preparatory to their departure
from Iraq. The pressure worked. Maliki was replaced.
Later,
Friedman advises President Trump in one of his columns not to waste his time
fighting the IS. He wants “Trump to be Trump – utterly cynical and
unpredictable.”
Friedman adds:
“Trump should let ISIS be Assad’s, Iran’s, Hezbullah’s and Russia’s headache.”
At the opposite ideological end of the spectrum is that great chronicler of
West Asia, Robert Fisk. In a different context, he writes, Trump does not
realize that “Israel bombs only the Syrian army, the Shia Hezbullah in Syria
but has never ever the IS. In fact the Israelis have given medical aid to
fighters from Jabhat al Nusra which is part of Al Qaeda which attacked the US
on 9/11.” By Fisk’s testimony, IS is an Israeli asset too.
At a
conference on regional issues in New Delhi, Morgulov Igor Vladimirovich,
Russia’s Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, startled the gathering. Since the
war in Syria has wound down, the Islamic State is as spare today as the Afghan
Mujahideen were in 1989. Vladimirovich’s allegation caused raised eyebrows.
“ISIS fighters
are being flown to Northern Afghanistan.”
“Since the
Afghan air space is under the control of the US and the Afghan government, who
is responsible for this transfer of the IS?” he asked. An allegation of much
greater global resonance was by Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei. In
the course of his Friday address on January 30, 2018, he said: “The US transfer
of terrorists to Afghanistan is aimed at creating a justification for its
continuing stay in the region.”
Xinxiang, the
Caucasus are all vulnerable to IS blackmail, as are other, smaller countries. But
remember, IS is also seen by some powers as an asset. A ghastly tragedy can
shake a nation. That is precisely when powerful Intelligence Agencies move in
with help, advice which, over a period of time, becomes the kind of deep
penetration which begins to navigate policy.
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