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Al Qaeda on the Indian Subcontinent
A new gambit by Al Qaeda sparks security concerns in Southeast Asia, but the franchise is best viewed as part of a struggle for supremacy with an ascendant Islamic State, writes Rachel McLaughlin.
On 3 September, Al Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri declared that Al Qaeda has established a new branch, ‘Al Qaeda on the Indian Subcontinent’, sparking widespread security concerns across the region.
In a 55-minute video monologue posted across jihadist web forums, Zawahiri explained that the force would lead Al Qaeda’s struggle in the Indian subcontinent, defending Islam and breaking down borders dividing Muslim populations in India, Myanmar and Bangladesh. He made a pointed reference to the state of Gujarat, where around 790 Muslims (and 254 Hindus) were killed in riots in 2002, at a time when current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the state’s Chief Minister.
India is home to the world’s third-largest Islamic population. 15 percent – or approximately 175 million – of all Indians are Muslims, which amounts to only slightly less than the entire population of Pakistan. The Islamic Mughal Empire ruled parts of India for centuries, and India’s recent wars with Pakistan and Bangladesh were bloody and divisive. However, the vast majority of India’s Muslims remain steadfastly moderate and tolerant. Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, has a history of violence between separatists and security forces, but attacks outside of Kashmir tend to be initiated by external Pakistani militias, reportedly funded by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Agency. The most recent mass attack occurred in November 2008 in Mumbai when ten Pakistan-based extremists laid siege to several buildings in the country’s financial capital, killing 166 people in a three-day massacre.
Security analysts, including a spokesperson for the US National Security Council, have rejected suggestions that this announcement reflects new capabilities for Al Qaeda, which has long had a presence in the Indian subcontinent. Rather, the motivation for Zawahiri’s video lies in a struggle for supremacy with the ascendant Islamic State (IS) and a bid to boost its flagging influence in the jihadist world. For a long time, Al Qaeda was synonymous with the international jihadi cause. However, the rise of IS in Syria and Iraq, coinciding with a reversal in Al Qaeda’s fortunes following the 2011 US raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, poses a distinct threat to the group’s authority.
In February 2014, Al Qaeda formally dissociated itself from IS, despairing of its vicious assaults on fellow Islamic rebels in Syria and its brutality against civilians. Since the split, the breakaway group has seized swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, declared a new caliphate and laid claim to the allegiance of all Muslims worldwide. For the younger generation of jihadists, Al Qaeda’s ageing leadership hiding out in the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderlands is beginning to lose lustre in comparison with the bloody and action-packed images coming from IS’s propaganda machine. Al Qaeda’s new focus on South Asia is part of an attempt to reclaim legitimacy.
There are fears that this new Al Qaeda wing represents an alliance between Al Qaeda and Pakistan’s ISI. ISI leaders are apparently unhappy with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s desires for rapprochement with India, and Al Qaeda’s announcement of an Indian front allows for a revitalising of jihad in Kashmir without obvious state orchestration. ISI is widely believed to have ties to Lashkar-e-Toeba, the group which attacked Mumbai in 2008, and it is possible Al Qaeda’s new arm also enjoys a degree of tacit support from Pakistan’s spies.
However, just days after the announcement, the new front became a laughing stock: on 6 September, in a case of mistaken identity, ten Pakistani militants stormed a Pakistani navy frigate in Karachi port in the misguided belief that it was a US aircraft carrier. The attack was easily repelled by security forces. Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent claimed responsibility for the attack, as IS supporters took to Twitter to mock the group as out-of-date and ineffective.
Whilst the Indian security establishment cannot afford to slip into complacency, there is great scepticism about Al Qaeda’s reach in the Indian subcontinent. For all the tensions that exist in the region, this is a part of the world with a long history of pluralism and tolerance. Muslim leaders in India have been vehement in their denunciation of Zawahiri’s call to jihad. Even Kashmiri separatists responded that Al Qaeda had no role to play in their struggle against Indian rule of the territory.
In this context, the Indian government’s drive for economic reform assumes security implications: if the Indian government can maintain economic momentum, that will help them ward off extremism amongst India’s Muslim population. South Asian governments, particularly India and Bangladesh, have also stepped up cooperation on issues of counterterrorism, leaving them better equipped to deal with any increased threat. So long as these positive developments continue, security in South Asia is unlikely to take a dramatic turn for the worse.