Fundamentalist terror and global strategies

Islamic fundamentalist terror is fast spreading beyond the confines of sponsoring countries. Khumeinite Hizbollah is as active in Turkey as it is in Lebanon. Indonesian Christians are the latest victims to this phenomenon.

Khumeinite philosophy of export of Islamic revolution was soon hijacked by the more strident Sunni-Wahhabi radicals centered in Ar-Rabitau’l-Islami in Saudi Arabia. Other rabid Sunni organizations in some Islamic countries fine-tuned the new brand of theo-fascism. Fundamentalists - terrorists raised by specific organizations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Burma etc. have found their way to Chechnya, Daghistan, North Caucasus, Tajikistan, Kashmir and as far away as Indonesia.

 Muslim ummah theorists reject boundaries separating the territories of Islamic countries, nor do they find it obligatory for them to obtain a passport or a visa when travelling from one Islamic country to another. Thus a fundamentalist Islamic warrior in Kashmir considers it his Islamic right to be in Kashmir fully equipped with arms and ammunition. He is told that it is his Islamic mission to fight the infidel in his own land or outside it. This also explains why most of trans-border Islamic fundamentalists-terrorists generally carry fake passports and visas.

Fighting kufr, therefore, means performing the religious duty of  destabilising legal local governments, extirpating non-Muslim populations, fighting and finishing the opponents to their creed and conscience, establishing nizam-e-mustafa (the Prophet’s system) as against the atheistic political system brought by the west, and rejoicing in the Islamic Caliphate that will emerge as the single world order. Therefore, their ruthless opposition to democracy, secularism and pluralism becomes self-explanatory. That is why, for example, Pakistan must have a military regime against democracy.

India, Tajikistan, the Philippines, the US and lately Russia have tasted or continue to taste of Islamic fundamentalist terror. Clandestine crossing of international borders, smuggling of arms and ammunition to create disturbance, fomenting lawlessness in the targeted country, unleashing rabid communal propaganda, and galvanizing volunteers and activists for the conduct of criminal acts of murder, arson, subversion, kidnapping etc. in the name of religion, are the new dimensions of theo-fascism.

With the Khumeinite exporters of Islamic revolution partially sidelined by better-organized, strongly funded and ardently motivated Sunni-Wahhabi  ideology, their operational field shifted to Pakistan and Afghanistan. The rise of Taliban provided territorial foothold to the theofascists because their regime knows no constitutional constraints or international commitments. For the first time, a lawless people in a lawless country had decided to wage a lawless war against humanity.

The first to bear the brunt of theofascists forays were Tajikistan in Central Asia and the Indian part of Kashmir. Tajikistan, the secular state and the gateway to Central Asia, and Kashmir the symbol of India’s secularist dispensation, became the immediate targets. Iran a rival of Sunni-Wahhabi theo-fascism in Tajikistan played mediatory role and brought the secularists and the radicals to an understanding of sorts for the governance of that strife-torn land. But in Kashmir, Iran has little at stake and hence her pronounced anti-India tilts manifest occasionally as in the resolutions of OIC.

India’s continued complaint to the US, the UN and the European Union against the expanded agenda of Pak-sponsored theofascists made little impression on them because of their larger political and economic interests. But then a few incidents took place that forced the West and the US to review their opinion about Islamic theo-fascism. The killing of the CIA agent by a Pakistani terrorist in front of CIA headquarters in the US, gunning down of two American Consulate officials in Karachi by the Pakistan-based terrorists, the blasting of Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad by the Islamic terrorists, rocketing of American Embassy in Islamabad, New York Trade Fair blasts and its linkage with Pakistani theofascists, the bombing of two American embassies in Africa on august 7, 1998, all made a big difference. Occasional anti-American utterances by Pakistani Jammat-e-Islami firebrands, Osama, the blind American Muslim cleric Rahman, and many others made it clear to the Americans what the Islamists were up to.

Then followed other events in a sequence. Islamic theofascists intensified their anti-India activities in the aftermath of Kargil incursion in which Pakistani government was an accomplice. Then happened the Islamic war in Chechnya and Daghistan in Trans-Caspia, fundamentalist activities in Uzbekistan and an attempt on the life of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, bomb blasts in Moscow, underground activities of Islamists in the UK in regard to collection of funds for theofascists organizations operating in Kashmir, fanning of fundamentalist flames in Xinjiang - Eastern Turkestan province of China and death penalty by the Chinese authorities to the culprits of Pakistani nationality, and finally the hijacking of the Indian airliner in Kathmandu. All this laid bare the ambitious agenda of the theofascists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The civilized world now awoke from its deep slumber.

Today, the civilized world is coming closer to discuss and adopt measures of containing the new threat. India and the United States have had several rounds of bilateral talks on the subject, and a Working Group on Counter-Terrorism has been formed. India and Russia have also begun serious bilateral talks on the subject and Russia and the US have recently decided to examine the question. Beijing and New Delhi, both have already given their full support to the Russian military action in Chechnya. Moscow was pressurized by the European Union to cease hostilities and find a negotiated settlement of Chechnya, of course keeping in mind the vast economic interests the Union countries have in the Muslim world. But Acting Russian President Putin put his foot down. He did succeed in warning the European Union that Russia was fighting the Islamic fundamentalism on the southern borders of Europe and that too single-handedly.

Washington has begun to concede that India has become the frontline state to bear the brunt face of this threat.  She has asked the military ruler of Pakistan to contain the fundamentalist-terrorist operatives and organizations in his country and to restore democratic dispensation. Islamabad considers it a clear shift in Washington’s policy in the subcontinent. This becomes more significant in view of Pakistan being excluded from President Clinton’s visit to the subcontinent in March.

It may, therefore, be assumed that the US, the UK, Russia, China, India and some more countries in Europe have begun to take due notice of the serious implications of Islamic theo-fascism trying to spread its fangs deeper and wider. It is now in their own interests and in the interests of the peace-loving Muslims all over the world to formulate a joint strategy of how to eradicate this menace and let the strangulated societies and groups breath an air of freedom. In particular, the progressive segments among vast Muslim populations forced to migrate to the US and to Europe, are reassured that their right to freedom of expression and conviction will not be denied so that they return to their native land and work for the freedom and emancipation of their strangulated compatriots.