25 September 2020, NIICE Commentary 6010
Ahmad Naweed Ghulami
Since 2001, terrorism – as a non-traditional security threat – has been rapidly growing in South Asia. From Afghanistan’s perspective, it has domestic, regional, and global dimensions. The article explains the reasons behind the rapid growth of terrorism in South Asia and proposes a comprehensive and fundamental solution to fight terrorism.
There is an assessment which shows that terrorism is growing; its capability, its violence, and its determination to fight us all. So, the question is why is it growing, even after all those sacrifices that Afghanistan made together as nations of the world. Particularly, the South Asian countries have been directly fighting terrorism, like Afghanistan, in one way or another and have been involved in supporting counter-terrorism activities over the past one and half decades. Still, there is growth in terrorism and its capabilities. Some of the reason behind this can be as follows:
Firstly, terrorism is used as a foreign policy instrument and it cannot be defeated unless states decide not to sponsor terrorism. For instance: very recently NDS (National Directorate of Security), which is Afghanistan’s intelligence agency has arrested and killed three most senior leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province (ISKP) in Afghanistan. Abdullah Orakzai – also known as Aslam Farooqi – head of Daesh/ ISIS for Afghanistan was arrested on 5 May, 2020, who is a terrorist of Pakistani origin. Zia-Ul-Haq, known as Abu Omar Khorasani, the IS leader for South and East Asia was arrested on 11 May 2020, and Assadullah Orakzai, a Pakistani-origin terrorist who was the IS Khorasan’s Head of Intelligence was killed on 2 Aug 2020 during an encounter with Afghan security forces. There are many concrete evidences that shows, Pakistan’s involvement in sponsoring and supporting terrorism in the region to gain its interest, particularly in Afghanistan and India.
Second, as terrorists have sanctuaries, it cannot be defeated unless these sanctuaries are eliminated. The Taliban which is the main terrorist and insurgency group, fighting against the government of Afghanistan, has sanctuaries inside Pakistan. For instance: the Taliban’s two main councils are in Quetta (Baluchistan’s capital city) and Peshawar (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s capital city).
Third, terrorism has financing sources and unless their financing sources are dried up and their operational assets and capabilities are deprived, it cannot be stopped. Recently, there is a new political and security dynamic in the region that has led to the growth of new terrorist actors including ISIS, the old actors are moving in to new actors and posing new challenges and threats.
Terrorism is the enemy of all, not just of one country. For instance, Afghan Taliban or Haqqani network have Afghan agenda; TTP (Tahrek-e-Taliban Pakistan) has country-specific agenda in Pakistan; LET (Lashkar-e- taiba) has specific agenda in India; ETIM (East Turkistan Islamic movement) has specific agenda in China, however Al-Qaida, ISIS and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan have regional and global agendas. While we are fighting all these terrorist networks in Afghanistan, they indeed have both country-specific, regional and global agendas. Hence, one should not make mistake that terrorism is the problem of one specific country. It is a common enemy which should be fought together. Moreover, sometimes there’s an attempt to trace origins (religion and region) of terrorists, however, the truth is that the Muslims are the one who have suffered most by terrorism. It has nothing to do with Islam or any other religion. On average, 30 Afghans are losing their lives every day because of terrorism, though it is an Islamic country Hence, the issue is not about Islam, but it is about political, socio-economic and ideological problems.
Moreover, while terrorism is a common enemy, there is need to have a common strategy to defeat that enemy. Unfortunately, we do not have a common strategy to combat terrorism at regional or global level. The only way to defeat terrorism is by developing a regional and global consensus and developing a comprehensive regional and global counter-terrorism strategy. Fighting terrorism cannot be achieved by a military strategy alone, there is a need of a comprehensive strategy combining the political, diplomatic, military, economic, and informational assets. Same is required to be done in Afghanistan and in the region at large. In addition, economic growth and economic integration in the region is a key enabler for nations to fight terrorism. Similarly, unless we do not deal with the three above mentioned reasons, terrorism cannot be eliminated.
