Revisiting strategy against urban terrorism in South Asia

This shifting of borders is symbolic to the shifting of battlefields, from international arena to the internal arena

The influence of the Islamic State (IS) began expanding to Bangladesh late last year. Since then, the IS has claimed attacks on Hindus, Christians, Shias, Ahmadis, security officers and expatriates. Al Qaeda in South Asia (AQIS) and local militant groups such as Ansar alIslam and Jamaatul Mujahideen, have also been responsible for recent attacks on minorities, secular bloggers, writers and activists. The militant landscape of Bangladesh appears to be evolving for the worse, and the country has unfortunately become a critical arena in South Asia’s theatre of the war on terror. Not only was the recent attack in Dhaka premeditated, well-coordinated and theatrical in terms of how hostages were singled out and hacked to death with sharp weapons over a 12-hour-long siege, but its timing was equally crucial — the last Friday of Ramazan, days before Eid, at a time when cafes are teeming with customers. The choice of location — Gulshan — a diplomatic area and heavily securitised enclave considered to be one of the safest, was exposed as the most vulnerable place in the capital. The attack has been claimed by the IS, though the group’s organisational presence in the country is yet to be accurately ascertained.

There will be plenty written, as has been, on IS in Bangladesh, and the support it garners from local militant groups. There is no doubt the surge of religious violence in Bangladesh has been exacerbated due to the presence of al Qaeda and its various branches in south and southeast Asia, followed by the ‘provinces’ of the IS, and the smaller cells and lone wolves these franchises have encouraged. But in the wake of this tragedy, there is a need to revisit two other trends: a systematic rise in urban terrorism over the last decade, and overall disharmony in South Asia that pre-dates the conflicts we are experiencing at present. Both of these trends form an internal-external nexus of instability in the region.

Within cities, barricading neighbourhoods or securitising gated communities creates a sense of exclusion, which does little to harmonise a population or encourage a healthy flow of movement. It only breeds resentment between the upper and lower echelons of society, thereby encouraging violence. This further exacerbates extremism within societies and terrorism within an aggrieved populace. As the attack in Gulshan, Dhaka, demonstrates, such enclaves are never truly secure.

Similarly, within a regional neighbourhood, isolation of one particular state, or the overt domination of another, can create a similar form of inequality and distrust. Moreover, believing that one state is protected from religious extremism because of its secular nature, as it borders a state founded upon a different ideology that appears better suited for religious extremism, is unwise.

While on the one hand, we are recognising how borderless our world is becoming, on the other hand we are quick to fortify our urban fronts. This shifting of borders is symbolic to the shifting of battlefields, from the international arena to the internal arena. Yet this shifting does not in itself indicate a separation of these modes of conflicts, neither were they ever truly detached; domestic insecurity, whether manifested as a result of local or national politics, is intimately tied to national, regional and international insecurities.

What appears to be happening, then, is parallel militarisation — both by security forces as well as militant groups and non-state actors — of the inner and the outer, or the micro and the macro, suggesting a multi-layered conflict, the cause and effect of ‘fourth generation warfare’, if you will. Urban conflicts may be studied as mirror images of regional conflicts, or as the technique mise en abyme suggests, a mirroring effect, like a story within a story, where the centre is no longer easily identifiable. Here, multiple power players and stakeholders are involved in ‘low-intensity conflicts’ that are reflected in and through other images. It may be argued, then, that to counter this particular urban mirror image, a collective regional identity — such as a ‘South Asian identity’ — that promotes cooperation, cohesion and communication may in fact be a better way of countering terrorism regionally, and, by extension, on urban battlefields as well.

A South Asian regional identity that values plurality and diversity may be an optimist’s favourite approach, but workable, according to a sceptic, only in theory. A realist should, nonetheless, appreciate the fact that within a state’s own territorial limits, a ‘national identity’ may be vaguely and weakly established, especially if there are numerous religious or ethnic ‘nationalisms’ at work. Instead of focusing on the autonomy of states and trying to craft a singular national identity, perhaps we should rise above these limitations and reclaim a regional identity that incorporates various, at times overlapping, nationalisms.

Pakistan has been locked in conflicts on all fronts where border disputes, skirmishes, shows of strength, appear to have become the norm, be that in the case of recent confrontations with Afghanistan, stand-offs with India or deteriorating relations with Iran, all of which continue to destabilise the country internally. If a strong South Asian identity could create an atmosphere of trust and reliability within nation-states, we could move towards countering and defeating cross-border terrorism, and crippling transnational terrorism. This is, however, contingent upon a mutual will on the part of all stakeholders involved, which appears to be severely lacking. And while this lacks, urban terrorism prevails. Dhaka, Mumbai, Karachi, Peshawar, Lahore, and others will witness more of the same. Groups like the IS and the AQIS find appeal and local affiliates within domestic fault lines that are intricately connected with national, regional and international fault lines. They are, thus, both localised as well as regionalised threats that transcend borders.

The recent attacks in Bangladesh are sad reminders of how the regional-domestic insecurity nexus is what the new generation of militants are favouring. The states concerned must move away from politics of insecurity towards politics of certainty by making peace with ghosts of our past conflicts if there is to be any long-term solution to extremism and terrorism in South Asia.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 9^th, 2016.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.