Osama’s shadow falls Eastward

The first anniversary of the assassination of the former Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Pakistan is an opportune moment to assess the future of militant Islam, which first burst on to the global political stage during the Afghan war of the 1980s. Is violent ultra-radical Islamism less influential today? Has the jihadist juggernaut been rolled back? Are we in a new post-Islamist phase of world history where conflict has returned to revolving around traditional axes of geopolitics, alliances and rivalries among nation states, rather than around
clashes among religious bigots?

Let us face the facts. Jihadi attacks on governments and civilian targets have hardly decreased in frequency or derring-do after Bin Laden’s death. From Southeast Asia and the Caucasus to South and Central Asia and West Asia, jihadists continue to mount many routine and occasionally sensational terrorist attacks which stun states, shock societies and destabilise polities and economies. Islamist terrorist attacks in the first three months of 2012 alone show that countries as spread out as Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Thailand, Yemen and Nigeria have lost hundreds of people.
It is true that there has been no big terrorist incident on Western soil akin to the 9/11 attacks, the Madrid or the London Tube bombings. The capacity of Al Qaeda, and of its offspring which represent regional branches, to carry out numbing terrorist attacks in the West has declined. But the seeming absence of Islamist “hits” in Western urban centres has been more than compensated by Al Qaeda and its kindred engaging in a sustained war against Western militaries and their allies in non-Western terrains.
This pattern of Islamist firepower concentrating in war zones where the West is directly or indirectly intervening was one of the subtler outcomes of the “global war on terror”, wherein the American homeland was expected to be safe while the US military, its allies and innocent civilians came in the line of fire on the ground in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Philippines and elsewhere. The Al Qaeda network was thus diverted from prime targets in Western countries in a deflecting manoeuvre that is endangering Asia much more than was the case before the war on terror began.
If the Taliban are winning the war in Afghanistan through stubborn staying power despite all the technical superiority and troop “surges” pressed in by Nato, it is thanks to the “Al Qaeda effect”, which has bequeathed the compelling idea of an eternal war between Muslims and their alleged religious enemies who “occupy Muslim lands” and suppress cultural and political rights of Muslims. Islamists like the menacing Haqqani group, which are linked to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, are not merely criminal syndicates investing in terror for monetary gains but also ideologically convinced forces that trained with the “Arab fighters” (Al Qaeda) and are inspired by pan-Islamic zeal.
Bin Laden’s iconic status among radical Muslims was predicated on the near universal presence of pro-Western authoritarian regimes in Muslim-majority countries. Jihadists thrived on the belief that “puppet rulers” in Muslim countries were in the saddle because of American and Israeli conspiracies for global control. Little real political change has occurred in the Muslim world to alter this perception. Notwithstanding the promise of the Arab Spring revolutions, the prospects for democratisation of Islamic countries remain dicey and subject to reversal. A vast majority of member states of the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) are still undemocratic.
An Egypt or a Pakistan that is informally dominated by the military which depends on Western aid is the perfect recipe for Al Qaeda and its franchises to keep the pot of Muslim rage boiling. A Syria where conservative, pro-Western Sunni monarchies are attempting regime change through proxy war is an open invitation to Al Qaeda to join the battle against the Shia Assad dynasty. An Algeria where the West backs a military dictatorship in the name of confronting jihadist ideology is another red rag to the bull for Al Qaeda and its local manifestations.
To an extent, the rise of slightly moderate Islamist parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood through electoral means may possibly stem the tide of the violent jihadists. Hamas was democratically elected and has governed the Gaza Strip and sections of the Palestinian diaspora without allying with Al Qaeda. Hamas is closer to Shia Iran than to the Sunni fundamentalist Al Qaeda. Promoting these relatively moderate Sunni Islamist alternatives to the Bin Laden-inspired firebrands is a feasible international strategy for defeating Al Qaeda. It bears reiteration that communist ruling parties, not Right-wing regimes, have historically been more successful in controlling Maoist militancy. One cannot dismiss the Islamist Right if the objective is to eliminate the jihadi far-Right.
Unfortunately, the epicentres of Al Qaeda and its offshoots — Afghanistan and Pakistan — lack moderate Islamists with mass bases who could puncture the appeal of violent jihad. This makes South Asia the most vulnerable region to militant Islamism. It is not a coincidence that every major global Islamist terror attack that occurred in the last few years (even that of the self-radicalised shooter, Mohamed Merah in Toulouse, France) has a Pakistan connection. Is Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s long-time ally and successor leader of the original Al Qaeda, also hiding in Pakistan? After the surprise discovery of Bin Laden in the highly unexpected location of Abbottabad last year, one cannot rule out this possibility.
The vitiated public environment in Pakistan — where the anti-imperialists and the defenders of Pakistan’s sovereignty are one and the same as the jihadists and their ideological brood — is fertile ground for militant Islamism to flourish. The covert involvement of Pakistan’s military establishment in sustaining this poisonously permissive attitude to jihad means that Al Qaeda and its ilk will keep congregating in that country, jeopardising security in the entire neighbourhood. Even China is subtly expressing jitters about Pakistani-trained Islamists spreading terror in Xinjiang. The governor of Xinjiang province, Nur Bekri, recently said that Uyghur extremists have “countless links” to Pakistan-based jihadi outfits.
Bin Laden’s generation, which came of age during the anti-Soviet struggle, used to argue that fighting “infidels” in Afghanistan was a holier cause than making the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca. The newer militant Islamists hope to find deliverance through self-sacrifice in Pakistan, where the social and political conditions are welcoming.
The geographical coordinates of “jihad central” are shifting Eastward rapidly, which means Al Qaeda and its legacy are huge challenges for societies and states in South and Southeast Asia. Memories, grievances and tenets of “the Sheikh” (as Bin Laden is known among his acolytes) live on and threaten Asian security ever more.

The writer is professor and dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs and the first
B. Raman Fellow for Geopolitical Analysis at the Takshashila Institution, a strategic affairs think tank