Tag: Al Qaeda
Indonesia has a plan
On Monday, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) hosted its annual Fullerton Forum in Singapore. The keynote address was delivered by Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs and a retired general in the anti-terror squad of the Indonesian special forces. Pandjaitan was introduced by both Tim Huxley, Executive Director, IISS-Asia and by Ng Eng Hen, the Defense Minister of Singapore.
Pandjaitan stated that the goal of terror groups is always to destabilize countries and demoralize their populations. ISIS has not succeeded in doing this so far in Indonesia because the Indonesian government is clear that it does not negotiate with terrorists and will respond immediately to any attacks. ISIS recruitment is a global problem; the number of foreign fighters joining ISIS doubled between 2014 and 2015. Brookings estimates there are 46,000 Twitter accounts that support ISIS. In Indonesia, even some middle-class people have joined ISIS, including a policeman who died in Syria.
Indonesia is a huge country with many poorly-educated people; ISIS’s propaganda concerning the caliphate is powerful among lower-class people. Syria and Iraq are included in Islamic “end times” prophecies, and ISIS convinces people to fight the West and all countries that lack Sharia. ISIS wants to see the caliphate expand to Southeast Asia. Its fighters are hard to deal with because they have what Pandjaitan refers to as a “one-way ticket”: they are prepared to die.
In the January 14 attacks in Jakarta, Indonesian security forces responded rapidly, eliminating the terrorists in less than 12 minutes. They killed four terrorists, and using one of their cell phones, were able to track down and arrest others. This sets an example for terrorists. The attackers were previously linked with Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian affiliate of Al Qaeda. Even though ISIS and AQ are fighting each other in Syria, their affiliates are capable of cooperation; Indonesia believes the local ISIS and AQ leaders have merged their work.
Terrorists in Indonesia operate in cells to maintain secrecy; cells do not have contact with other cells, making it difficult for the police to crack down on networks. So far, the authorities have had success in mapping terror networks, but Pandjaitan cannot promise that Indonesia is immune from attacks. Terror groups also communicate their final decisions to stage attacks via couriers, which are hard to intercept.
Fighting terror effectively involves three components:
- A soft approach.
- International intelligence cooperation.
- A hard approach.
The soft approach to fighting terror is Indonesia’s strategy of first resort. This includes counter-radicalization and deradicalization campaigns that are holistic in nature and will partially be conducted using the media. They are working with Indonesia’s two largest Muslim organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah to spread the message, including on television, that ISIS is not Islam and Islam is not ISIS. Indonesia has freedom of religion, so people have the freedom to follow sharia law.
The government is also campaigning against religious intolerance. Indonesia is the largest archipelago country in the world, which makes it difficult to manage. The government is working on categorizing terrorists as ideologues, militants and sympathizers. Ideologues will be imprisoned separately to help stop radicalization in prisons. The government is also cracking down on social media content supporting terror, including videos that provide instructions on how to build bombs.
The ASEAN countries already have a platform for intelligence sharing regarding threats, attacks, and terror financing. Intelligence cooperation in the region is already very good.
The hard approach is a secondary approach, but is one that Indonesia is prepared to use. Indonesia has prepared its special forces to conduct operations anytime and anywhere within the country. If terrorists take hostages, the special forces will free them immediately. The Indonesian government is also altering counterterrorism legislation so that the authorities will be able to detain those suspected of plotting terror attacks for 7-30 days. Those found to have no terror links will be released. New legislation also allows the government to revoke the citizenship of Indonesians who join groups of foreign fighters.
Another key to stopping terror in Indonesia is economic improvement. Economic growth has stopped slowing. The economy grew by about 5.5% this year. Consumer confidence and confidence in the government have increased. The government has been trying to distribute economic growth more evenly between Indonesia’s regions and improve the country’s infrastructure. There has historically been a large gap between the haves and the have-nots. Many terrorists come from poor backgrounds. This year, Indonesia will spend $70 billion or 36% of the national budget on outlying regions. Funding for villages has increased from $2 billion to $4.5 billion in 2016. This will give each village around $100,000 to spend, which will help reduce rural poverty and boost economic growth. Poverty reduction is crucial. Indonesia has 230 million Muslims. If 2% live in extreme poverty and are brainwashed by ISIS, one can imagine how many will become terrorists and stage domestic and regional attacks.
An audience member asked Pandjaitan about links that had been discovered between the terrorists in the recent Jakarta attacks and terrorists from Mindanao in the Philippines. Pandjaitan stated that radicals in Mindanao are supporting radicals in Indonesia, including through the smuggling of weapons and explosives. Indonesian authorities are working to crack down on weapons smuggling.
Another audience member asked about Indonesia’s position regarding China’s actions in the South China Sea. Because of Indonesia’s territory in the Natuna Islands, Indonesia has declared that its Special Economic Zone extends into the South China Sea. There were reports that Indonesia was considering pursuing international arbitration against China. Pandjaitan replied that China acknowledges the Natuna Islands are part of Indonesia, so China and Indonesia are not in conflict regarding this matter. However, Indonesia views the South China Sea as an important area for global shipping. Indonesia does not wish to see power projection in this area and views freedom of navigation as very important.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Hangups: why and who
The Syria peace talks did not begin as projected in Geneva today, though they are likely to convene before the end of this week. Secretary of State Kerry is doing his damndest to make it happen. What are the hang ups? Is he wise to press so hard?
There are two big hangups: why talk and with whom. Or in diplomatese: the agenda and the shape of the table.
Why is the bigger issue. The Syrian opposition, backed by Washington, wants to talk about transition of power away from Bashar al Asad to a “governing body with full executive powers.” That 2012 formula has been repeated ad infinitum since, either explicitly or implicitly (by reference to the June 2012 United Nations communique in which it first appeared). The regime has made it clear it will not negotiate about transition in Geneva. Nor did it last time the UN tried for a political solution, two years ago. Bashar al Asad’s delegation will stick with an anti-terrorist pitch, backed by the Russians and Iranians. The military gains the regime has made against its opponents since Russia’s intervention in the fall mean it is feeling little pressure to yield.
While the Russians never tire of saying that they are not wedded to Bashar al Assad, everything they do suggests the opposite. There is good reason for this. Moscow has no hope of a welcome in Syria by a serious successor to the regime, so the Russians are sticking with what they’ve got.
Iran even more so. Tehran has risked Hizbollah, Iraqi Shia militias it supports and Revolutionary Guard forces in Syria, certainly losing thousands. Though Syrians in my experience are little inclined to sectarianism, the approximately three-quarters of the population that is at least nominally Sunni is not going to easily forget what Iran and its proxies have done to prop up a dictator. Nor will the Alawites and Shia who have backed the regime want to find out what the majority population is inclined to do in retaliation. So having Iran at the table, entirely justified by its role in the conflict, is no easy formula for a solution.
In addition, there are other “who” problems. The fragmentation of the Syrian opposition, often cited as a serious obstacle, is not such a big problem this time around. With Saudi sponsorship, the main opposition forces other than al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al Nusra and the Islamic State have chosen a High Negotiation Commission (HNC), headed by former regime Prime Minister Hijab, and a negotiating team. The main body of the opposition is, in fact, remarkably unified this time around, at least for the moment.
The problem is that there are forces claiming to be opposition that lie outside the HNC, which does not recognize them as such. They come in two flavors: Kurdish and so-called “internal” opposition, both heavily favored by Moscow.
The Kurds who count are affiliated with the Kurdish PYD militia who are fighting in northern Syria against the Islamic State with US support. Washington doesn’t want them excluded from the talks, even if they are affiliated with the Kurdish militia waging a rebellion inside Turkey. Moscow agrees, not least to give Turkey grief.
Moscow also backs elements of the “internal” opposition who aren’t regarded by the opposition forces represented in the HNC as real opposition. Russia is trying to force internal opposition figures into the HNC delegation, likely in exchange for allowing some of what Moscow regards as extremist groups also to join. From Moscow’s point of view, the more unmanageable and fractious the HNC presence in Geneva, the better. The last thing Moscow wants is for the Syrians to choose their own delegation, which would be heavily anti-Russian.
The HNC seems determined to reject Kurdish participation in its delegation, not least because the Kurds often clash with opposition brigades represented there and collaborate with the regime in territories the Kurds largely control. But of course that may mean separate Kurdish representation, which in some ways is precisely what the mostly Arab HNC should not want to see. Separate Kurdish representation in the talks could well favor Kurdish ambitions for a separate federal unit within Syria, like the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq. The Syrian Kurds are calling theirs “Rojava.”
With all these complications, is Secretary Kerry wise to insist?
Richard Gowan argues that there are reasons to proceed, despite the odds: possible progress on humanitarian issues, keeping a peace process alive because it may eventually lead somewhere, and most of all the need Washington and Moscow are feeling to limit their recent competition and try for some cooperation in the aftermath of the Iran nuclear deal. Even a failure, in this view, has the virtue of trying.
My own inclination is towards skepticism, not least because failure at this point will likely mean another tw0-year hiatus. Secretary Kerry is a far greater risk-taker than most of his predecessors. He tried with Israel and Palestine far beyond the point at which others would have given up. The result is an impasse that may last a long time. He pressed forward with Iran on nuclear issues to good effect. Will his Syria effort look more like the former or the latter? More likely the former, with catastrophic consequences for millions of Syrians.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Ethics matter
On Wednesday, the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York hosted a talk by Jean-Pierre Filiu, Professor of Middle East Studies, Sciences Po.
Filiu related that he chose this topic months before the Paris Attacks; he knew the ISIS threat was unprecedented.
Thirty years ago, Filiu met the first jihadis while doing humanitarian work in Afghanistan. He was introduced to the disturbing Arab “volunteers” who had already begun to sneak in. He heard about Bin Laden and Zawahiri but never met them. He concluded that they lived on a different planet and wished to annihilate our way of life. Nobody took his warnings seriously.
The jihadists founded Al Qaeda (AQ) in the last month of the Soviet occupation. Al Qaeda means “the base,” which refers to a territorial base and a transnational network.
In 2001, the US and its allies responded appropriately by hitting AQ in its base in Kandahar. It is important to strike such threats at the source, the territorial base, before going after the global network. The decision to rely on local forces in the Northern Alliance was prudent. This action prevented a second wave of planned attacks.
Then the US launched the Global War on Terror and invaded Iraq. France warned against this and was correct, as it opened the Middle East to AQ. It also provided the instability that led to the London and Madrid attacks. French jihadis who had fought in Iraq were the masterminds of last year’s attacks.
ISIS was formed as a continuation of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), established by former Jordanian criminal Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. Unlike Bin Laden (a son of a tycoon) and Zawahiri (a doctor), he was not bourgeois. He used his expertise in crime. He was the first to behead a hostage, Nicholas Berg, in 2004.
Bin Laden thought this tactic too gory. But it made Al-Zarqawi a star. The US focused on targeting him, so other jihadis followed him. He was killed in 2006. His successors were killed in 2010 and were succeeded by Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, who had been detained in Camp Bucca in 2004, but was released for good conduct. Al-Baghdadi was able to maintain order in the camp by making other inmates listen to him; this would have made Filiu suspicious.
When Al-Baghdadi took over, AQI was losing ground because of the surge of US troops. AQI was later able to regain ground with the help of former Baathists alienated by the sectarianism of the Maliki government. AQI also gained ground in Syria thanks to Assad, who preferred to be up against jihadis rather than peaceful protesters for propaganda reasons. The more dictators you have in the Arab world, the more jihadis you will have. Ethics in international relations is not a luxury, but could be a real solution to many problems.
The US lost moral leverage after it did not act on its red line regarding chemical weapons in Syria. ISIS recruitment exploded. ISIS argued that the US and its allies were letting Syrians be gassed and presented its mission as humanitarian. ISIS learned from AQ not to depend on an external force, like the Taliban. ISIS runs its own totalitarian regime in a region more symbolic for Muslims than Khorasan.
The Levant is key to Muslim “end times” narratives. ISIS now incorporates much of this apocalyptic material into its propaganda; they talk about places mentioned in prophecies. In their narrative, the final battle will be in Jerusalem. The Israeli strategy of hoping ISIS and Hezbollah will just fight each other is shortsighted. ISIS is now recruiting inside Israel. Read more
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Gulf style
Saudi Arabia’s decision to break diplomatic relations with Iran raises the question of how much worse things can get. It depends of course on Riyadh’s and Tehran’s objectives and what they are willing to risk to gain them.
Marc Lynch at Monkey Cage today suggests the Saudi motives for escalating its conflict with Iran by executing Shia cleric Nimr al Nimr are three: to isolate and contain Iran even as the nuclear deal proceeds, to distract from foreign policy failures and to rally regional Sunni support. He regards domestic repression as a relatively unimportant factor, which I find hard to credit. Only four of those executed last weekend are known to be Shia. The other 43 were presumably Sunni, many of them extremists responsible for attacks that occurred a decade or more ago. Someone is surely trying to send a strong signal to Sunni extremists about the consequences of targeting the Kingdom.
But let’s examine the international factors and their consequences.
Executing a nonviolent Shia cleric isn’t a likely way to isolate or contain Iran. But Tehran helped the Saudi cause when it allowed Riyadh’s embassy to be sacked. That’s a surefire way of getting negative diplomatic attention, especially from the US and UK. Score one own goal for Riyadh. The Supreme Leader also threatened Saudi Arabia with God’s wrath. That puts him in good company with some right-wing American politicians who are likewise convinced that God acts on their behalf (and maybe even at their behest).
Riyadh is getting some regional support. Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates have downgraded their relations with Tehran. That doesn’t count for much more than an improved field position in my book. Nor are the executions likely to distract much from foreign policy failures, and then only temporarily. The wars in Syria and Yemen are not going well from the Kingdom’s perspective. Riyadh is going to have to throw even more money and hardware into them, while encouraging others to do likewise, if it wants to have a serious impact.
The US failed to condemn the Saudi executions, though it regretted their contribution to increasing sectarian tensions in the region. Friends don’t condemn friends, I guess. It certainly would not have helped Washington’s relations with Riyadh, which are already tense because the Saudis are feeling sold out in the Iran nuclear deal. The question is how much longer friendship will trump honesty. The Americans are in no position to object to executions per se, but no one in Washington thinks much of the Saudi justice system. At least from what is readily available in public, it is hard to picture how anything al Nimr said would justify the death penalty.
The blowup between Iran and Saudi Arabia puts at risk the UN-sponsored Syria peace talks, which are scheduled to being January 25 in Geneva. But it also makes them all the more important. You wouldn’t know it from the headlines, but the Saudis and Iranians have a common enemy in the Islamic State. If only they could agree on how to fight it.
On BBC Five Live last night I was asked whether the current downward spiral could lead to war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. It’s hard to rule that out, as breaking diplomatic relations can be a prelude to war and feelings are certainly running high. But both countries seem much keener to fight on third-country turf than on their own. Iran has Revolutionary Guard forces commanding and training in Syria, but most of the actual fighting is done by Hizbollah on Tehran’s behalf. The Saudis are bombing Houthi forces in Yemen, but they seem to have kept their ground forces mostly out of the fight. Some naval dueling in the Gulf, possibly involving tankers, might be in the offing, but proxy war through intermediaries is more the Gulf style.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
A bad way to start the new year
2015 was a disastrous year for the Middle East. Uncivil war in Syria raged on, with Russia pitching in on behalf of the Assad regime. Yemen also descended into full-fledged war, with Saudi Arabia pitching in on behalf of President (or former President, depending whose side you are on) Hadi. Libya’s UN-brokered peace agreement seems far from implementation, with two parliaments, two governments and many militias, as well as a growing Islamic State presence. The Islamic State lost territory in Syria (to Kurds) and in Iraq (to Kurds Yezidis, Shia militias and Iraqi government forces), but it would be hard to claim the tide of war has changed direction. Egypt continues to crack down on not only the Muslim Brotherhood and more extremist Islamist threats but also on moderate secularists. Israel and the Palestinians are at an impasse, one in which deadly violence on both sides is escalating.
Can it get worse?
The weekend’s events answer that question: yes. Friday Saudi Arabia, current chair of the UN Human Rights Council, executed 47 people, one of whom was a Shia cleric whose commitment to nonviolence seems uncontested, even if he was no friend of the (Sunni) monarchy. Yesterday Iranians responded by sacking part of the Saudi Embassy, a move that will remind the world of how little the Islamic Republic can be relied upon to protect diplomatic facilities. Today the Saudis claimed that Iran executed hundreds last year with little legal basis. The Iranians are promising that God will punish the Saudi monarchy.
We are clearly in the midst of a downward spiral that could well end in more sectarian bloodletting. Iran can pump more weapons and fighters (both Hizbollah and its own Revolutionary Guards) into Syria. Saudi Arabia can beef up support for insurgents there and escalate its attacks on the Houthis in Yemen. The more regional conflict and chaos, the stronger the Islamic State and Al Qaeda grow in Syria, Yemen, Libya and Afghanistan, even if they are losing territory in Iraq and northern Syria. Instability breeds instability.
President Obama wants to keep the United States out of the fray, except to attack those who directly threaten the homeland. That means the Islamic State as well as Al Qaeda and its affiliates. His astoundingly disciplined refusal to engage otherwise leaves a vacuum that militants expand to fill. Those who think the President indecisive or irresolute have misunderstood. He is determined not to get drawn back in to the Middle East. Watching the Iranians and Saudis go at it should be enough to make many Americans sympathize.
But not doing things is just as much a policy as doing them. It has consequences. The downward spiral is unlikely to stop of its own accord. The Middle East is a high wire act without a net. There is no regional security framework or even a loose association like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to help de-escalate. The Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation is far too weak a reed. The Gulf Cooperation Council is an adversary of Iran, not a neutral. Neither Europe nor the U.S. has had much success in getting the Islamic Republic and the Kingdom to temper their conflict.
It is difficult to see how this ends well. It may well be we are heading for a conflagration with much more catastrophic consequences than we have seen so far. Only when the Saudis and Iranians see that happening are they likely to stop. And then it may be too late.
We haven’t seen much yet of 2016. Just enough to know it is a bad way to start a new year.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
The end is nigh, once again
Two years ago I published a post with this title. Remarkably little has changed since then in many conflicts:
- South Sudan is suffering even more bloodletting.
- The Central African Republic is still imploding.
- North Korea is no longer risking internal strife but continues its belligerence on the international stage.
- China is still challenging its neighbors in the East and South China Seas.
- Syria is even more chaotic, with catastrophic consequences for its population and strains for its neighbors.
- Egypt continues its repression of the Muslim Brotherhood and secular human rights advocates.
- Israel and Palestine are no closer to agreement on a two-state solution.
- Afghanistan has a new president but the Taliban are stronger in the countryside and the Islamic State is gaining adherents; money and people are still expatriating.
- Al Qaeda is less potent in many places, but that is little comfort since the Islamic State has risen to take the leading role in Salafist jihadism.
- Ukraine has lost control of Crimea, which has been annexed by Russia, and risks losing control of much of the southeastern Donbas region.
The only issue I listed then that is palpably improved is the Iranian nuclear question, which is now the subject of a deal that should postpone Tehran’s access to the nuclear materials required to build a bomb for 10 to 15 years.
Danielle Pletka of AEI topped off the gloom this year with a piece suggesting there are reasons to fear Putin’s recklessness could trigger World War III.
Without going that far, it is easy to add to the doom and gloom list:
- Europe is suffering a bout of right-wing xenophobia (the US has a milder case), triggered by migrants from the Middle East and North Africa.
- Mali and Nigeria are suffering serious extremist challenges.
- The Houthi takeover in Yemen, and intervention there by a Saudi-led coalition, is causing vast suffering in one of the world’s poorest countries and allowing Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to expand its operations.
- Civil war in Libya is far from resolution, despite some signatures on a UN-sponsored agreement to end it.
- Turkey has re-initiated a war against Kurdish forces that had been in abeyance.
- Even Brazil, once a rising power, is suffering scandals that may bring down its president, even as its economy tanks.
I’m still not ready to throw in the towel. Some successes of two years ago continue and others have begun: Colombia‘s civil war is nearing its end, Burma/Myanmar continues its transition in a more open direction (even though it has failed to settle conflicts with several important minorities), Kenya is still improving, ditto Liberia, which along with Sierra Leone and maybe Guinea seems to have beaten the Ebola epidemic, and much of the Balkans, even if Kosovo and Bosnia are going through rough patches.
I still think, as I said two years ago:
If there is a continuous thread running through the challenges we face it is this: getting other people to govern themselves in ways that meet the needs of their own populations (including minorities) and don’t threaten others. That was what we did in Europe with the Marshall Plan. It is also what we contributed to in East Asia, as democracy established itself in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and elsewhere. We have also had considerable success in recent decades in Latin America and Africa, where democracy and economic development have grown roots in Brazil, Argentina, Ghana, South Africa, and other important countries. I may not like the people South Africans have elected, but I find it hard to complain about the way they have organized themselves to do it.
This is what we have failed to do in the Middle East: American military support for autocracies there has stunted democratic evolution, even as our emphasis on economic reform has encouraged crony capitalism that generates resentment and support for Islamist alternatives. Mubarak, Asad, Saleh, Qaddafi, and Ben Ali were not the most oppressive dictators the world has ever known, even though they murdered and imprisoned thousands, then raised those numbers by an order of magnitude as they tried to meet the challenge of revolution with brute force. But their departures have left the countries they led with little means of governing themselves. The states they claim to have built have proven a mirage in the desert.
If there is reason for doom and gloom, it is our failure to meet this governance challenge cleverly and effectively. We continue to favor our military instruments, even though they are inappropriate to dealing with most of the problems we face (the important exceptions being Iran and China). We have allowed our civilian instruments of foreign policy to atrophy, even as we ask them to meet enormous challenges. What I wish for the new year is recognition–in the Congress, in the Administration and in the country–that we need still to help enable others to govern themselves. Investment in the capacity to do it will return dividends for many decades into the future.
RSS - Posts
