Long-term threat

How sophisticated are the attack capabilities of the so-called Islamic State (IS)? Security analysts worldwide ponder over this question. According to available data, the answer could be: medium-level.

The Paris attack suggests superficially that complex and simultaneous 26/11-style rampages can occur anywhere in Europe, where intensive surveillance of terror suspects is balanced by a libertarian desire to respect individual rights, limiting the extent of government repression. Even without a terror-exporting state like Pakistan next door, Europeans can see jihadists storming multiple sites, randomly shooting bystanders and seizing hostages not for negotiation, but for execution.

A closer look at the logistics of the assault in Paris suggests that the real threat is not operational but ideological. The Paris attack was not as complicated as 26/11, because key perpetrators were already Francophone citizens of the European Union. They could travel freely within the borderless Schengen zone and blend into local communities while stockpiling hardware needed for the assault.

They could reconnoiter prospective targets personally or through proxies befriended during years of bonding in local jihadist circles. They could purchase weapons from traffickers based in Belgium, a hub of the global arms trade. The same advantages did not apply to the 10 Pakistanis who savaged Mumbai in 2008. They detoured for several days via the Arabian Sea to avoid overland interception by border patrols.

They needed to be tutored to speak like locals. They could only locate their assigned targets due to GPS coordinates collected by a ‘clean-skin’ itinerant agent (the notorious David Headley). Their weapons were supplied by Pakistani intelligence. Their target lists were compiled Indian ‘spotters’ who were not trusted with information regarding the actual attack. Importantly, 26/11 also featured tactical innovativeness in the liberal use of hand grenades and timed improvised explosive devices.

Together, this combination overawed the local police who hitherto treated terrorism and organised crime as two distinct phenomena at the incident response level. Even so, by a combination of luck and bravery, the police captured one terrorist alive. Intervention specialists from the National Security Guard accounted for the remaining nine, five of them at close quarters.

On the other hand, French first responders and intervention units only killed one of the Paris attackers, with the remainder blowing themselves up (in one case, causing no civilian casualties). There were no timed IEDs to distract attention and multiply the shock effect.

Despite their professionalism in special weapons and tactics (SWAT), French security forces did not terminate the Paris attack within three hours. Instead, the attack burnt itself out having accomplished its objective. From the above, it appears that 26/11 was a much tougher operational challenge for security agencies and tragic though the Paris massacre was, Europeans have still not seen the worst that such ‘active shooter’ incidents can do.

Does the Paris terrorist assault have lessons for India? Hardly. First, the attack demonstrated that even without state support, terrorists can conduct operations that approximate the death toll seen on 26/11 (129 versus 165). Second, while missing the guiding hand of Pakistan’s spy agency to advice on tradecraft, terrorists can practice operational security sufficient to avoid detection of their plans by human or technical means.

Third, the long-term impact of domestic jihadism is more damaging for societal cohesion and inter-communal relations than cross-border terrorism. This has become clear in France where relations between different religious faiths, already tense after the Charlie Hebdo shooting, are reaching a slow boil. Contrast this to the exemplary calm that followed 26/11, despite the terrorists’ failed effort to masquerade as locals.

The IS are a physical threat to Europe, but it is a long-term ideological threat to India. The real danger from this group lies not in its immediate attack capability, which by all accounts is low as far as India is specifically concerned. Rather, in its ability to spark a competition with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) for leadership among South Asian jihadists. As a ‘sarkari’ group that is effectively a covert arm of the Inter Services Intelligence, the LeT has a credibility problem.

Physical threat
Its trademark simultaneous suicidal assault tactics has been plagiarised by a genuinely stateless rival; in continental Europe, a region where the LeT has a longstanding logistics presence, it has refrained from direct attacks as yet. The Pakistani organisation will have to respond and demonstrate its continuing relevance. But since it cannot brazenly carry out another 26/11 attack in India without triggering overt or covert reprisals against Pakistan, its focus could shift to emulating the techniques of overseas recruitment and radicalisation adopted by IS.

From its combat performance in Iraq and Syria, the IS does not appear to be as tactically adept as media reports suggest. Its battlefield successes are mainly due to the counter-intelligence background of top leaders, who have created a detailed template for ideological subversion. Local politics and tribal rivalries are studied by ‘sleepers’, who identify entry points into communities both friendly and hostile.

Using the data gathered, the IS raises ‘defectors in place’ among rival jihadist groups, who pretend to oppose it while actually being on its payroll. At crucial moments during a battle, they reveal their true allegiance and switch sides permanently. The LeT has not had the inclination to pursue such a systematic programme of subversion in India, fearful of being penetrated in its turn by Indian security agencies.

It is content to rely on Pakistani nationals to conduct attacks that are professionally planned and executed under the ISI supervision. But with the assault in Paris, the value of using locals to exploit an already charged communal atmosphere might prompt a shift in emphasis. Indian agencies need to be prepared not for just for another cross-border 26/11, but for also one with indigenous roots.

(The writer is Senior Researcher with the Global Security Team at the Centre for Security Studies, ETH Zurich and Senior Lecturer with the Department of International Relations and European Studies, Metropolitan University Prague)