In the shadow of terror
Josh HongPublished: Apr 1, 2011 2:22 PM | Updated: Apr 1, 2011 2:28 PM
For decades, the Arab world evoked only the image of men with shaggy beards and fanatical looks, and women with headgears and frightened eyes. As if touched by a magic stick, the perceived obscurantism is now giving way to boisterous shouts for liberty.
We may be seeing yet more mayhem.
For decades, the Arab world evoked only the image of men with shaggy beards and fanatical looks, and women with headgears and frightened eyes. As if touched by a magic stick, the perceived obscurantism is now giving way to boisterous shouts for liberty.
The wave of the so-called Jasmine Revolution has presented the United States with a new dilemma. So far, it is not at all clear whether leaders popularly elected by the regional populaces in the coming months will continue to play the role of a loyal watchdog for US interests, or bow to grassroots pressure and adopt an independent foreign policy that may propel power realignment on a seismic scale.
Like it or not, despots in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Qatar and, to a lesser extent, Libya, would not have been able to sustain their iron rule without the staunch support - tacit or overt - from western allies. Now that these regimes have become embroiled in political unrest and turmoil one after another, those with vested interests are forced into contemplating a future in the region without ‘a safe pair of hands’.
Most importantly, leaders in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have been fighting the Washington-led war on terrorism as faithfully as no others, often serving as operatives to contain al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups. While the joint effort has indeed ensured stability, it is often considered as being done at the expense of regional interests nonetheless.
Geo-strategically, collapse of traditional allies could severely undermine US anti-terrorism prevention mechanism. As the frontlines fall, informational gathering and military coordination will become all the harder, which may in turn throw the regional countries into greater disarray. After all, terrorist attacks that targeted the US other European countries in the past had their roots in MENA.
Developed nations not the only target
But the developed nations are not always the only ones on the receiving end of terror. In late January this year, a suicide bomber detonated explosives at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport, killing 36 people and wounding more than 200. A promising Ukraine playwright and poet Anna Yabloska was among those brutally killed.
In the past decade, North Caucasus separatists have wrought major havoc on Russia several times, while atrocious acts such as assassinations and kidnappings remain the norm. Unlike al-Qaeda operatives, Chechen militants hardly propagate the US as their common enemy. It is therefore reductionistic to attribute these attacks to the global ‘jihadist’ campaign against the West. However, al-Qaeda has been manipulating the conflict in North Caucasus to its own advantage in order to drum up Muslim support worldwide.
Meanwhile, Commander Khattab - the late rebel leader who was instrumental in the Moscow bombing in 1999 - had spent considerably time with Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s.
Another Chechen warlord Doku Umarov - implicated in the recent airport attack - has also fashioned his war language along the lines of al-Qaeda’s by denouncing Russia as an ‘arch-foe’ of the Muslims on account of its Eastern Orthodox tradition.
(On a side note: Malaysia under Dr Mahathir Mohamad once harboured Anzor Maskhadov, despite that the son of the then Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov was using his guise as an ‘international student’ to recruit potential sympathisers in the host country.)
And the sporadic violence in Xinjiang, China, too, has some of its origins in the al-Qaeda ideology, not to mention India, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines that are similarly beset with the challenge of terrorism to varying degrees.
A borderless struggle
It goes without saying that anti-terrorism is now a borderless struggle, but any reckless decision by a major power - not to mention the US-Anglo-French trio - could easily end up radicalising an already complex situation. France’s call for arming and training of the rebels in Libya is particularly impetuous. Why hadn’t someone given the French a crash course on the phenomenal rise of al-Qaeda?
Some al-Qaeda members have been exploiting the civil war too. One Libyan rebel chief by the name of Abdel Hakim al-Hasidi has just admitted that around 25 militants were recruited from eastern Libya to fight against the US in Iraq.
In what looks either like a coincidence or an utter strangeness, Der Spiegel of Germany came out recently with gory pictures of a US soldier posing with dead civilians in Afghanistan while grinning at the camera. Germany has opted out of the military action against Libya and perhaps al-Qaeda militants on a lookout for new ‘divine missions’ are now elated and wanting more, and there is no better bait than ‘hard evidence of Christian atrocities’.
With the conundrum becoming more intractable by the day, the world may be seeing the beginning of yet more mayhem.
JOSH HONG studied politics at London Metropolitan University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. A keen watcher of domestic and international politics, he longs for a day when Malaysians will learn and master the art of self-mockery, and enjoy life to the full in spite of politicians.
The wave of the so-called Jasmine Revolution has presented the United States with a new dilemma. So far, it is not at all clear whether leaders popularly elected by the regional populaces in the coming months will continue to play the role of a loyal watchdog for US interests, or bow to grassroots pressure and adopt an independent foreign policy that may propel power realignment on a seismic scale.
Like it or not, despots in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Qatar and, to a lesser extent, Libya, would not have been able to sustain their iron rule without the staunch support - tacit or overt - from western allies. Now that these regimes have become embroiled in political unrest and turmoil one after another, those with vested interests are forced into contemplating a future in the region without ‘a safe pair of hands’.Most importantly, leaders in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have been fighting the Washington-led war on terrorism as faithfully as no others, often serving as operatives to contain al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups. While the joint effort has indeed ensured stability, it is often considered as being done at the expense of regional interests nonetheless.
Geo-strategically, collapse of traditional allies could severely undermine US anti-terrorism prevention mechanism. As the frontlines fall, informational gathering and military coordination will become all the harder, which may in turn throw the regional countries into greater disarray. After all, terrorist attacks that targeted the US other European countries in the past had their roots in MENA.
Developed nations not the only target
But the developed nations are not always the only ones on the receiving end of terror. In late January this year, a suicide bomber detonated explosives at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport, killing 36 people and wounding more than 200. A promising Ukraine playwright and poet Anna Yabloska was among those brutally killed.
In the past decade, North Caucasus separatists have wrought major havoc on Russia several times, while atrocious acts such as assassinations and kidnappings remain the norm. Unlike al-Qaeda operatives, Chechen militants hardly propagate the US as their common enemy. It is therefore reductionistic to attribute these attacks to the global ‘jihadist’ campaign against the West. However, al-Qaeda has been manipulating the conflict in North Caucasus to its own advantage in order to drum up Muslim support worldwide.Meanwhile, Commander Khattab - the late rebel leader who was instrumental in the Moscow bombing in 1999 - had spent considerably time with Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s.
Another Chechen warlord Doku Umarov - implicated in the recent airport attack - has also fashioned his war language along the lines of al-Qaeda’s by denouncing Russia as an ‘arch-foe’ of the Muslims on account of its Eastern Orthodox tradition.
(On a side note: Malaysia under Dr Mahathir Mohamad once harboured Anzor Maskhadov, despite that the son of the then Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov was using his guise as an ‘international student’ to recruit potential sympathisers in the host country.)
And the sporadic violence in Xinjiang, China, too, has some of its origins in the al-Qaeda ideology, not to mention India, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines that are similarly beset with the challenge of terrorism to varying degrees.
A borderless struggle
It goes without saying that anti-terrorism is now a borderless struggle, but any reckless decision by a major power - not to mention the US-Anglo-French trio - could easily end up radicalising an already complex situation. France’s call for arming and training of the rebels in Libya is particularly impetuous. Why hadn’t someone given the French a crash course on the phenomenal rise of al-Qaeda?
Some al-Qaeda members have been exploiting the civil war too. One Libyan rebel chief by the name of Abdel Hakim al-Hasidi has just admitted that around 25 militants were recruited from eastern Libya to fight against the US in Iraq.
In what looks either like a coincidence or an utter strangeness, Der Spiegel of Germany came out recently with gory pictures of a US soldier posing with dead civilians in Afghanistan while grinning at the camera. Germany has opted out of the military action against Libya and perhaps al-Qaeda militants on a lookout for new ‘divine missions’ are now elated and wanting more, and there is no better bait than ‘hard evidence of Christian atrocities’.
With the conundrum becoming more intractable by the day, the world may be seeing the beginning of yet more mayhem.
JOSH HONG studied politics at London Metropolitan University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. A keen watcher of domestic and international politics, he longs for a day when Malaysians will learn and master the art of self-mockery, and enjoy life to the full in spite of politicians.
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