Terrorism casts its ominous shadow yet again

It was a false comfort that terrorism had receded. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has been the dominant theme in international political discourse since February 2022 and other issues have been buried under the carpet for some time.

Terrorism is back in full force worldwide after a period when it appeared to have receded.

The concert hall attack in Moscow on March 22, in which 139 people died and 180 injured at the last count, has dramatically brought terrorist images into homes everywhere through wall-to-wall television coverage of the tragedy. For almost 20 years, Russia has been largely spared of terrorist acts, contained by President Vladimir Putin’s no-holds-barred crackdowns on all forms of violence and extremism. The last such heinous attack in Russia was on September 1, 2004, when Chechen suicide attackers took 1,100 people hostage, including 777 children, at a school in Beslan. This terrorist outrage ended with 334 deaths, 186 of them children. 

Six months ago, the world woke up on October 7 to images of Israel’s illusory security collapsing with 1,200 deaths and over 250 people being taken hostage in coordinated Hamas attacks inside the Jewish State.

Within hours, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was “deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel.” Since then, India has balanced that initial tweet by not designating Hamas as a terrorist organisation. But in a world deeply polarised by sympathy for long-occupied Palestine and anti-Semitism, large sections of opinion worldwide consider the October 7 incidents as a dangerous resurgence of terrorism.

Many will argue that it was a false comfort that terrorism had receded. Because the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been the dominant theme in international political discourse since February 2022, other issues have been buried under the carpet for some time. It is an argument which has considerable validity.

Equally logical is the reasoning that Israel’s excessive response to the Hamas attack — and actions that are seemingly short on strategy but concentrating on mindless revenge — has given a shot in the arm for terrorist recruitment on a global scale. It may have created fertile ground for extremist violence for many years to come. 

Nearer home for Indians, there are reasons to be concerned. There have been three major incidents of violence inside Pakistan in 10 days, which have potential strategic and international ramifications. These were well beyond routine, murderous, Shia-Sunni clashes. An attack that killed five Chinese engineers, an attempt to overrun a naval base and a full-scale bomb and gun raid on Gwadar port.

In the ominous shadow of the Ides of March, there was a turning point in terrorism between brothers-in-AK47s and Kalashnikovs, Afghanistan-Pakistan. Pakistan’s Air Force struck against ‘terrorist’ bases in its south-eastern neighbour’s Khost and Paktika provinces on March 18. This was in retaliation for the deaths of seven Pakistani soldiers on the night of March 15-16 in attacks by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) based in Afghanistan.

Whether the Ides this March will go down in South Asia’s history like the assassination of Julius Caesar on that day will be known in due course. For the moment, Pakistanis would do well to recall Hillary Clinton’s advice to them when she was United States Secretary of State. “You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them to bite only your neighbours.” The Generals in Rawalpindi, who installed a terrorist militia regime in Afghanistan not once, but twice, are belatedly finding that their diabolical plots are coming home to roost. 

It may be tempting as a diversionary tactic for state and non-state actors in Pakistan and Afghanistan to turn against India while the country is preoccupied with its elections. This may explain India’s surprising, recent outreach to the Taliban in power in Kabul to stitch up some mutual working arrangement as a protective measure. Hopefully, the March 1 bomb blast at Bengaluru’s Rameshwaram Cafe was an isolated incident, and not a rehearsal for any cross-border plot. It was surprising that even though the bomber is at large, investigation methods on how the authorities tracked him down have been leaked to the media on a daily basis.

Indian authorities should learn from the Russians: not a word about how they tracked down the gunmen in the concert hall attack has been revealed. Only their identities were revealed in court.

This week Reuters resurrected skimpy details of a failed al Qaeda plot in 1996 to assassinate US President Bill Clinton during a visit to the Philippines. The plot remained under wraps for almost 28 years. In India, the priority is to claim credit even before conspiracies are fully cracked. This makes the people less safe, not more secure. It is no way to fight terrorism which is once again on the rise globally.

(K P Nayar has extensively covered West Asia and reported from Washington as a foreign correspondent for 15 years)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.