Terror in Belgium

S P SETH

Terror struck Belgium recently with more than 30 dead and many more injured. It had happened before in Paris, last November, with 130 fatalities. Both appear to have germinated in Brussels, with its ring leaders/suicide bombers able to plan and move around Belgian/French borders with ease. What has come out is that Molenbeek district in Brussels is a hotbed of Islamic radicalism. And it has been left to fester and grow because of fragmented governance in the country. For instance, Brussels alone is said to have six police departments and 19 mayors. Different intelligence agencies lack focus and intelligence sharing. Molenbeek district is a sort of no go area where police seemed to follow a laissez faire policy of not wanting to know or act whatever was going on. As a report said, “ [It has] Areas where there are close-knit groups of susceptible youth, often lacking a sense of purpose or belonging outside their own circle, have proved to generate a momentum of recruitment that spreads through personal contacts.”

While Molenbeek might be a more extreme case of such concentration of alienated Muslim youth, it seems a fairly representative picture in many European countries. The first generation of migrants simply worked to survive and build up some kind of a future. And they concentrated in ghettos and were largely left to themselves by the mainstream governing institutions. The second, and now into third generations, wanted something more by way of jobs, a vision for future, and above all acceptance. And on all these counts, they felt as outsiders and marginalized, with no real hope for the future. A good number of such youth took to crime by way of drug peddling, burglary and all sorts of criminal involvement. The rate of unemployment has been proportionately very high among Muslim youth in the west, and crime seemed one way of finding some occupation. With a name like Mohammad or Ahmed, breaking into the job market was hard going.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the situation even got worse with racial and religious profiling. At the same time, al Qaeda imbued dissatisfied and alienated western Muslim youth with an ideological and political tool that made them feel empowered. And it also made intelligible in a simple and simplified sort of way-- with most of the onus on the west-- of the desperate situation of the Muslim youth and the Muslims in general. Which, by re-establishing and reviving the so-called caliphate and glorifying the Muslim past in the process, would be rectified. But the problem with al-Qaeda (and as we shall see with IS as well) is that the message of ‘empowerment’ and ‘hope’ is predicated on destroying the western system, culture, traditions and religion (Christianity). The message of 9/11 and the subsequent attacks on the west continue to be one of destruction and savagery.

Take the case of IS which prides itself on being an even ‘better’ killing machine than al Qaeda. Its spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, reportedly told its followers in an audio message in 2014: “If you can kill a disbelieving American or European, especially the spiteful and filthy French, or an Australian or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever, kill him in any manner or way however it may be.” And such killing doesn’t exclude Muslims, if they happen to be in the way and, worse still, if they are Shias and do not practice the IS version of Islam.

The IS arose out of the disastrous military intervention in Iraq, supposedly for Saddam Hussein’s alleged links with al Qaeda and his supposed weapons of mass destruction. Saddam was no angel. In fact he was a maniac and a monster but he was not inclined to be subverted by an ideology or cause that was not centred on him and his power machine. In that sense, he was an obstacle for any grand Islamic vision sponsored by the likes of al Qaeda. The prolonged tragedy in Iraq is now being played out, with even greater destruction, by a revived and expanded version of al Qaeda but with a new brand that has taken on the name of Islamic State (IS), and has managed to capture a fair chunk of territory in Iraq and Syria and declared itself a caliphate. In other words, they are pretending continuity with Islam’s glorious historical past and calling upon Muslims all over the world to rally around the ‘caliphate’ and do and die for it. And this ‘do and die’ call has meant expanding their domain and spreading terror.

And it worked as IS captured Mosul and made some significant gains in Syria, some of them now reversed. They were able to create a financial base for their new state through the illicit sale of oil, by taxing the population under its control and looting the treasury. In the process, IS managed to create an image of a ‘successful’ and ongoing enterprise, which further increased its appeal as committed to the cause of Islamic resurgence and revival it professed. This was happening at a time when al Qaeda increasingly looked marginalized with no territorial base. Not surprisingly, IS was able to attract marginalized Muslim youth in the west, especially with the skillful use of the Internet. And these alienated young people sought to channel their energy into an ‘ideal’ and a cause that seemed noble in a weird sort of way, especially as some of them were simply involved in crime like peddling drugs, burglary and the like and being in and out of jail. It didn’t seem all too hard to create terror and mayhem in Brussels, Paris and elsewhere when they were willing to die.

And if the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is right, the situation in Europe was (is) soft for such incidents of terror. According to Turnbull, “European governments are confronted by a perfect storm of failed or neglected integration, foreign fighters returning from Iraq and Syria, porous borders, and intelligence and security apparatus struggling to keep pace with the scope of the threat.” And he quotes Bernard Squarcini, a former head of France’s internal intelligence, who “described these factors in Belgium as creating a favourable ecosystem for an Islamist milieu.” 

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.  

Russia and the Syrian situation

S P SETH

Russia’s surgical military intervention in the Syrian conflict by way of bombing rebel and terrorist targets, starting September 30, has bolstered up the Assad regime’s position, giving it an advantage in any kind of parleying for a political solution. Before the Russians intervened in a big way, the Assad regime was looking increasingly shaky losing territory to disparate rebel and jihadi groups, including IS. That situation has been reversed and Damascus has recovered fair bit of its lost territory, thanks to the Russian aerial bombing and support on the ground. Having retrieved and, possibly, reversed the military situation to the Assad regime’s advantage, Moscow suddenly announced, as suddenly as they had earlier started their military intervention in September, that it was curtailing and withdrawing bulk of its military activity having largely achieved its objectives against Islamic extremists and terrorists. But that this could easily be reinstated if the situation so warranted. Indeed, Russia continued to help the Assad regime to capture from the IS the historically and strategically important area of Palmyra, which has further bolstered its position.

It is interesting to note that the drawdown of Russian military activity coincided with the starting of the political process in Geneva for a possible political solution. Russia’s action seemed aimed at multiple constituencies in the Syrian conflict from the Assad regime to rebel/jihadi groups, their regional supporters like Saudi Arabia, as well as the US. Above all, it was meant to convey that Russia was a determining force in the Syrian situation intending to help the political process rather than hinder it. For instance, it seemed to convey that Russia was not simply there in Syria to support the Assad regime at any cost. It would be willing to support any viable alternative to stabilize the situation. But at the same time, it would not ditch the Assad regime to make things worse to the advantage of extremists and jihadists of varied persuasions.

Moscow’s determined intervention in Syria is not the result of any kind of idealism. It is part of its policy of bringing Russia back into a global role after the cavalier fashion in which its interests have been treated since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990s. The expansion of North Atlantic Treaty Organization right on to its borders created the crisis in Ukraine, where it supported and fostered the rebellion in eastern Ukraine, which is still unresolved. And that has brought on Moscow a sanctions regime from the US and its European allies. In the Middle East, Russia found itself sidelined largely until it dealt itself into a determining role by intervening in Syria and virtually changing the internal balance of power in favour of the Assad regime.

Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union Moscow still maintained military interests and ties following from the Soviet time by way of a naval base and other strategic interests. Moscow has also been trying to cultivate Egypt’s president/dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, seeking to revive, in some ways, Soviet Union’s special ties with Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser, in power during the fifties and sixties. Putin’s Russia would like to have a broad-based Middle Eastern policy but has found its options rather limited as Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners are US’ strategic allies and they would rather prefer Moscow to ditch Syria and Iran, where Russia has created strategic stakes.

As pointed out earlier, even though Moscow has scaled down its military involvement to facilitate a political solution, it is retaining the option to up scale it if necessary. And as things stand, the Geneva peace process is not making much headway. Syria’s opposition high negotiating committee’s emphasis remains on creating a transitional political regime minus Assad. Which would basically mean a political order opposed to the existing ruling system. In other words, it would mean installing some sort of a hybrid regime that is difficult to even figure out because of the disparate elements involved with varying ideological, sectarian and regional interests. And this is without even thinking how an alternative (to the Assad regime) political system will deal with the IS and other terrorist outfits that are excluded from any political solution, if a solution were possible at all.

Even as the so far non-existent political permutations and combinations are imagined, the Assad regime is not willing to sign off its death warrant, and what for in any case. There is no visible alternative, even more so now that the Assad regime has further consolidated its territorial control with considerable help from Russian intervention. In this situation, even though Moscow might be willing to entertain a political transition minus Bashar al-Assad, a viable and effective alternative is not around. The US and its regional allies would very much like Moscow to facilitate a Bashar al-Assad alternative but they don’t seem to have any clear alternative. And without that, it would simply be adding further to Syrian chaos and misery. In other words, with all the will in the world, there doesn’t seem, in the foreseeable future, any resolution of the Syrian situation.

The Assad regime is likely to hang around, but with continued help from Russia. As of now, having propped up the Assad regime, Moscow is in a strong position among international players. And that is so because its surgical military intervention has produced results on the ground to make the Assad regime a credible ---some might even say legitimate—stake holder. However, if Russia were to stay around long to prop up the regime, that might be counter-productive because, however strong and decisive it might appear, its economic situation is quite fragile.

It continues to face a comprehensive sanctions regime from the west over the situation in Ukraine, and its major source of revenue from oil and gas exports has been hit hard with falling international prices. And to carry with it the economic burden of military intervention in Syria for an extended period of time will simply make things worse. So far Putin’s popularity at home from action in Ukraine and intervention is Syria has been quite spectacular. But if the Syrian situation drags on, as it looks more likely, Russia could find itself into a quagmire. But so far it is playing its cards well and would hope that it all ends well. 

Note: this article was first published in the Daily Times.