How ISIS is bringing jihadi terror closer to India

The Islamic State (ISIS) carried out three deadly terrorist attacks killing 63 people in three continents in countries as far apart as Tunisia, Kuwait and France on Friday. All the people except for two terrorists killed in action were innocent civilians living well away from the scene of the war raging against the ISIS. Their only fault was that they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The attacks were terrorism at its worst perpetrated probably by not more than six terrorists brainwashed by the Second Caliphate. It showed the ISIS juggernaut is moving forward undeterred by thousands of airstrikes, conventional operations by disparate enemies and even a few setbacks in the battlefronts in Syria and the possible loss of territory in Iraq.

The three attacks present three different aspects of the ISIS' unique target-selection and method of operation to serve its strategic goals. Perhaps more dangerously, it also demonstrated the militant group developing an uncanny ability to coordinate operations across nations.

In both Tunisia and France a lone gunman carried out the attack. In Tunisia the gunman, now identified as an engineering student, carried out the attack in a hotel in Sousse, 140km from capital Tunis. He opened indiscriminate fire on tourists, mostly foreigners, killing 24 of them before he was shot dead. Similarly in France, a lone terrorist struck at an American-owned chemical plant, beheaded a man and probably made an abortive attempt to blow up the gas works. Some people were injured when he opened fire. The decapitated head was displayed with ISIS’ black flag indicating its jihadi signature.

The "lone wolf" attacks by individual terrorists seem to have become the specialty of the ISIS’ decentralised terrorist operations in various countries from as far as the US and Europe. It uses individuals motivated by its massive propaganda on social media dished out through thousands of sites. It is perhaps the most cost-effective way to spread terrorist attacks far and wide using individuals living beyond the pale of local counterterrorism apparatus. It is ideally suited for Europe and the US to fed upon the existing grievances of the conservative Muslim minority. Even with all the advanced technologies, no nation can keep track of individuals whose jihadi sympathies only show up when they attack.

This is a dangerous trend as it could appeal to net-savvy individuals who are brainwashed by web-based jihadi propaganda, particularly in countries like India where internet and smartphone usage is increasing by geometrical proportions. India would do well to look for telltale signs through close interaction with community leaders at the grassroots to understand the impact of jihadi propaganda among the vulnerable population. The vulnerable sections should be taken into confidence to spread general awareness of the threat to the whole community from such lone wolves with jihadi mindset.

Tunisia is perhaps the most secular country in the Maghreb. It has always been favoured by European tourists. It has been comparatively peaceful after the Arab Spring discouraged foreign tourists for a while. They were now coming back. But the arrival of foreign tourists has become the attraction for the ISIS to attack Tunisia's tourist haunts perhaps because it gets global publicity. Only three months back in a jihadi attack on the Bardo Museum 19 people mostly foreign tourists were killed. With the second attack now in a hotel, the signal is clear; as the Tunisian head of state said it is war now.

Though France had been a part of the American-inspired regime change game in Libya and its spillover conflicts in Francophone Africa, it was no blind fellow traveller of American dispensation on terrorism. However, ever since France came down heavily on Islamic terrorism in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre of 12 people in January, 2015 it seems to have become the most hated nation in Europe among jihadi terrorists. France has a long history of fighting Algerian insurgents and perhaps it is one of the best organised country to handle terrorism. It has a large Muslim population and may face more "lone wolf" attacks in the coming months.

Tunisia and Kuwait were never frontline states in the war against jihadi terrorism but they have a context in the ISIS' war against non-Sunni infidels. Kuwait is a Shia majority country in the midst of a large Sunni neighbourhood. The ISIS’ attack on a Shia mosque has strong sectarian connotations. In the neighbouring Saudi Arabia also the jihadists targeted a Shia mosque sometime back. In Tunisia, both Sunnis and Shias are minorities as the majority follow the Maliki school of Islam.

The Sunni sectarian idiom is also related to the ISIS’ competitive strategies against the al Qaeda to justify its self-styled caliphate. However the world over, Shias and Sunnis have by and large lived amicably, particularly in India, which has the highest population of Shias next only to Iran. However, the spread of Islamic fundamentalism of the Wahabi kind has fanned latent sectarian differences of Sunnis in South Asia. Shias in Pakistan have been the favourite target of al Qaeda affiliates and a few hundreds of them have perished at the hands of Taliban terrorists with the state taking little action to curb them. If the ISIS is to compete with the al Qaeda in South Asia, it has to outdo it, fanning sectarian attacks.

On Thursday, the day before the attacks the ISIS released a video in Syria showing the execution of 12 men said to belong to rival jihadi groups - al Qaeda and Jaysh Al-Islam - after parading them before the camera. Probably this is to send a message to the al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Nusra Front which had scored some battlefield success in Syria. Their relationship with the ISIS had been uneasy after the proclamation of the Caliphate. So probably the time for an overt conflict between the two jihadi groups is nearing.

The al Qaeda had recently been stealing a bit of jihadi thunder in the global limelight with victories in Yemen and Somalia through its affiliate groups Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Al Shabaab respectively. Of course, in Afghanistan, the Taliban attack on the parliament comes in the wake of its summer offensive in the Kuduz province indicating the shape of things to come in a place near India. So we may consider the Friday attacks as ISIS' assertion of power over the Islamic world to feed its global propaganda.

If this power struggle between the two jihadi groups is joined in earnest in al Qaeda’s home ground in Pakistan and across South Asia, the danger of India facing renewed jihadi attack is real. With the two Sharifs – Nawaz and Raheel – seething with anger against India, Pakistan may well provide the political backdrop for it.