Global terror: Blame it on the US

The horrific attacks on Kabul airport, last week, that killed 13 US soldiers and 60 Afghans and left around 160 wounded, is a reminder that terrorism rears its head anew, each time it seems like there may be a glimmer of hope that it has subsided.

This time it was not the Taliban to blame, that appears to be cooperating with the US so far, but the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (IS-K).

The IS-K, is the regional affiliate of the Islamic State terror outfit, as recognised by the Islamic State core leadership in Iraq and Syria. The IS-K was established, in January 2015, by former members of the Pakistani Taliban, Afghan Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. It gradually grew by poaching militants from various other groups.

By 2018, it managed to consolidate territorial control in several rural districts in north and north eastern Afghanistan. Within its first three years, IS-K launched attacks against minority groups, public areas and institutions, and government targets in major cities across Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In 2018, the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Terrorism Index had listed it as among the top four deadliest terrorist organisations in the world.

The Islamic State, itself, was founded in 1999, by Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and participated in the insurgency in Iraq as a fallout of the specious US invasion of Iraq. And by December 2015, it held an area extending from western Iraq to eastern Syria, containing an estimated eight to twelve million people, where it enforced its interpretation of sharia law. Islamic State is believed to be operational in 18 countries, including Pakistan. In 2015, Islamic State was estimated to have an annual budget of more than US$1 billion and over 30,000 fighters.

The Taliban, on the other hand, can be traced back to the mujaheedin that was involved in a war of insurgency with the Soviet Union, after the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in 1979. The Soviet Union, itself, turned invader out of fear that Islamic extremism was threatening the Central Asian region.

Pakistan’s ISI, with direct approval and complicity from the US, stoked the insurgency against the Soviets, channelling money and equipment to the mujaheedin. About 90,000 Afghans, including Mohammed Omar, the founder of the Taliban, were trained by Pakistan’s ISI during the eighties. After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, the Taliban gained power in Afghanistan. By 1996, the Taliban controlled around three-fourths of Afghanistan.

Incidents and fatalities from Islamic terrorism have been concentrated in six Muslim majority countries – Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Nigeria and Somalia – while four Islamic extremist groups – Islamic State, Boko Haram, the Taliban and al-Qaeda – were responsible for 74% of all deaths from terrorism in 2015. The annual number of fatalities from terrorist attacks grew sharply from 2011 to 2014, when it reached a peak of over 32,000, before declining to less than 14,000 in 2019.

Since 2000, these terrorist incidents have occurred on a global scale, affecting not only Muslim-majority countries in Africa and Asia, but also Russia, Australia, Canada, Israel, India, the United States and countries within Europe. Such attacks have targeted both Muslims and non-Muslims, with one study finding 80% of victims of terrorism to be Muslims.

While global terrorism has its roots in Islamic chauvinism, the US is culpable for stoking the ascendancy of at least two of the above-mentioned terrorist organisations – the Islamic State and the Taliban.

In 2003, the US invaded Iraq on the falsehood that Saddam Hussein had amassed weapons of mass destruction. In subsequence, the Islamic State gained traction, what with fallen Saddam Hussein’s generals joining its ranks. The US invasion of Iraq, in fact, reeked of selfish geo-strategic interests.

The same applied for Afghanistan, where the US’ complicity in abetting Pakistan’s overt support of the mujaheedin against the Soviets in the Cold War era, gave rise to the Taliban against a seemingly progressive albeit Soviet-backed regime. As long as Pakistan suited US geo-strategic interests in Afghanistan, Pakistan happened to be the US’ blue-eyed boy. The US simply ignored the fact that Pakistan was the single-largest exporter of global terror.

Countries like India that happened to be at the receiving end of Pakistan’s terror initiative, were cautioned by the US to exercise restraint. Not so, when Pakistan’s support for the Taliban continued in the aftermath of 9/11. And the discovery that Pakistan had hoodwinked the US by harbouring Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.

However, today, old friends have become friends again. While the US sought its way out of the Afghanistan quagmire, worn down to defeat by the Taliban’s combative war of attrition, Pakistan swiftly had a hand in brokering the spurious US deal with the Taliban, that led to the abrogation with progressive Afghanistan, and the Taliban coming back to power in Afghanistan. Pakistan, in turn, is filled with the glee of triumph, no matter the depredation caused to its hapless neighbour, Afghanistan, as can be reflected in the shameful way Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan celebrated the return of the Taliban.

Considering that, today, the headlines of the world are beset with news of global terror, not much is made of the US role in abetting it. Countries like Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan have reached points of destruction, from the grim onslaught of extremism, and the cruel way in which the US’ overlying and selfish geo-strategic interests led to its materialisation. The US is responsible for much of the pain in the world today. We have the right to blame it on the US.