Colombo: Easter Day bombings in Sri Lanka must be an eye opener to everyone living in South Asia. Though the region is not new to terrorist attack, the nature of Sri Lankan bombings and the fact that the dreaded Islamic State has claimed responsibility is something to sit up and ponder.
Islamic State is notorious for its brutality and reach. They have reached point in their ill fame that fanatics who are inspired by their extreme and militant Jihadi ideas take it upon themselves to become willful suicide bombers and attackers. Without any central orders or direction, these attackers blow themselves up or ride trucks into crowded areas.
The IS later takes credit for the rampage and accepts the dead or captured terrorists as their own. This is the modus operandi of the organization and this is how their global reach has frightened the civilized world. Anyone in the street can become a potential bomber or gun wielding terrorist.
This makes it extremely hard for security agencies to track down the movements of the so-called soldiers of the jihadits organization.
The IS are on the run in the region that they once held sway. The IS had controlled large swathes of Iraq and Syria from where they committed unspeakable horrors on the local population especially minorities like Yazeedis and Christians.
With a multi-national assault against the terrorist organization they have been defeated from their former areas of control. Muslim fighters across the world had flowed in to Iraq and Syria to fight for the IS and the Caliphate. Motivated by ideas of Muslim domination of the world and a chance to execute their dark fantasies of murder and sexual satisfaction imagined by their sick minds, these soldiers of Islam had wrecked chaos in the Arab region.
The Western powers with their allies in the region have been able to destroy the infrastructure and most of the leadership of IS. However, they could not wipe out the deranged philosophy of the Islamic State. That is the danger that slowly creeps around the world.
With the bombings in Sri Lanka, their philosophy of jihad and global terrorism has come knocking at the door of India and South Asia as a whole.
South Asia have been suffering the brunt of terrorism for long. Small groups of Islamic, communist, and other regional and ethnic terrorists have destroyed the peace of South Asia for long. However, with the incoming of Islamic State things are going to change.
We must remember that IS achieved something that even the Godfather of Islamic terrorism Osama bin Laden failed to achieve. The Islamic State was able to create a Caliphate. They had an actual geographical area under their control and they managed it by a crude form of administration. They even had ministries that controlled education, health, etc.
This is the biggest motivation that potential terrorists will have to join the group in large numbers. Unlike, enlisting for a military post in a country, a IS sympathizer just needs to plan and execute a terror attack to be called as their own by IS leaders.
The unification of smaller terror outfits:
Recently the Indian intelligence forces received grave information that the Jaish-e-Mohammad is trying to forge alliance with the Taliban and also the Haqqani Network. They terror organizations are realizing that a united and coordinated terror network is need of the hour to wreak destruction in India and also in other countries of South Asia.
Read this with the emergence of IS in South Asia and a grim picture emerges. These smaller Islamic terrorists can pool their resources and strike at India and other countries with impunity. Once the onslaught is heightened these outfits might even eventually merge into the global Islamic terrorism – the Islamic State.
Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has been speaking relentlessly against the threat of global terrorism for years now. His warnings are becoming a reality now. Sri Lanka which was slowly emerging from years of civil war had to bear the brunt of IS for now.
We must realize that under his strong leadership, Islamic terrorism has been limited to Jammu and Kashmir. The intelligence report that had warned of terror attacks in Sri Lanka had also warned about attacks in India. Indian security services were able to prevent such an incident.
The dipping of terror attacks in India for five years is a huge testimony to Narendra Modi’s policies against terror and the sharp moves of his trusted National Security Officer, Ajith Doval. A weak Congress leadership cannot withstand the might of Islamic State.
What New Zealand and Sri Lanka teaches us:
Sri Lankan Deputy Defence Minister had said earlier today that the bombings were done in retribution for the New Zealand attack on Muslims in two mosques. That is why churches were specifically targeted and that too on the holy day of Easter when Christians gather in churches in large numbers.
To a global terrorist the boundaries of nationalities break down. If Muslims are killed in New Zealand, they will avenge it with bombings in churches thousands of miles away in Sri Lanka.
For them the world is divided into Muslims and the infidels.
New Zealand killer was a white supremacist and his actions had nothing to do with Christians in Sri Lanka. However, the Christians in a far away land from New Zealand is made to suffer.
For a Muslim terrorist, the world is for his taking. To him killing the infidels is his sacred duty. And he can do it with no remorse where ever he finds himself to be.
Only a world united against terrorism can effectively fight against this global threat. Just like climate change the dangers of terrorism is real and is only going to be more vengeful and destructive.
Strong leaders like Narendra Modi must emerge to tackle the gravest danger of the immediate future of the world.
