Freedom fighters and terrorists

Recent conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa have once again raised the mainly academic debate over how to define militant groups. In Yemen, the northern Shiite rebellion has been labeled terrorist action by the local authorities. In Iran a number of groups operate against the central regime such as the Kurd Pjak and Sunni Baloch Jundollah. In the occupied territories, Hamas has been labeled a terror organisation and in Lebanon Hezbollah also shares this label. So how do we define the term objectively?

It is clear that the two distinctions come down to motivation and tactics. To be a legitimate freedom fighter it is clear that the group must have a political agenda, must represent a majority in a defined area (not necessarily the majority nationally) and should direct their attacks against enemy forces and not civilian populations; although the argument for doing so can be made easily to justify the ends.

Terrorist groups, however, can share these same characteristics and like al-Qaeda it is clear that these groups can easily be labeled freedom fighters. They too are fighting against an enemy, for a people according to a set political (religious) agenda. The Islamic State of Iraq is one such example. In the Middle East at least most militant groups (labeled as terrorists) are fighting for political power. So can we define al-Qaeda as a freedom fighter militant group? The answer must be yes.

Any group can and has used terror as a tactic in warfare. States use it, militant groups, militias and individuals use it. Applying the label terrorist therefore becomes problematic and if used often takes on a new meaning and a meaning that lends one to see the groups less in the light of the classical terrorist group but more in the so called legitimate freedom fighter clique. One thing is for sure the label 'terrorism' has been over used particularly by governments keen to eradicate internal dissent and external threats to their power base and hegemony. Terrorism is thus used to instill fear rather than understanding and when it is used to justify certain actions is nothing but a smoke screen.

Implications of the Red Mosque siege

In a continued effort to bring Middle East Security Report: News & Views readers up to date analysis of current regional security issues we have recently joined with James Voortman from the South East Asia Review. He presents his first article to us, below.

The standoff between the Pakistani military government and militants at the Lal Masjid mosque in Islamabad has now ended, but Pakistan is due to experience a number of political and security effects. A number of possible outcomes exist for the troubled South Asian nation in the wake of this well publicised incident.

What is fairly certain is that the country is bracing itself for a period of instability in the coming months. Politically, Lal Masjid did not produce a clear winner. Since March, President Musharraf has been under substantial pressure due to his dismissal of Pakistan's chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. The country has been engulfed by mass protests in cities throughout the country. Analysts were predicting his downfall, insisting that he would be unable to hold on to power by democratic means and that his only alternative would be to either resort to authoritarian tactics or to make a deal with the exiled leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Benazir Bhutto. The eventual siege and the relative success of the operation have served to distract the public's attention from Musharraf's troubles. However, this reprieve may be short lived, especially with the supreme court due to decide on the fate of Chaudhry in the next week. The president has a number of options. Most experts believe the best choice would be to strike a deal with Bhutto, which would enable the former prime minister to return from exile. However, Musharraf may have to resign his post as General of the military - a step he might be unwilling to take. Alternatively the president may still use the Lal Masjid situation to his benefit. The barrage of militant attacks expected by security experts in the wake of the siege may enable the president to declare a state of emergency in the country. This would result in a postponement of elections and more breathing room for Pakistan's embattled leader.

The security implications of a raid on the Lal Masjid were always going to significant. In late 2006, the Pakistani military bombed a number of madrassas in the country's north western tribal area. What followed was a substantial increase in terrorist attacks in both the tribal areas and in Islamabad. A similar situation is almost certain to occur in the wake of the mosque siege. Already a video tape released by al-Qaeda has shown the organisations second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri urging Pakistanis to avenge the Mosque siege and to revolt against the Musharraf regime. Threats such as these may finally galvanise the Pakistani military into abandoning what many western officials have called their half hearted attempt at fighting militants within their borders.

The military has a long history of using militant outfits to fight their wars in Indian administered Kashmir and in the Soviet occupied Afghanistan. However, since Pakistan joined the US-led war on terror the military has been expected by its allies to play a prominent role in dismantling such groups. With Musharraf running out of options the motivation for doing this will never be greater. Troops have already been redeployed to the tribal regions and security has been greatly beefed up outside areas of strategic importance. The coming months in Pakistan are likely to charecterised by a significant degree of instability. The country is likely to experience street protests and militant attacks during this time. However, Pakistan is unlikely to become to creep toward an Islamic state as some analysts have suggested. This is because the military remains a unified, influential and most importantly secular organisation. The security situation is however, likely to remain dire, while the future of the current and successive government's will be uncertain.
-James Voortman
Senior analyst
http://southasiareview.blogspot.com/

Creating new realities in the Middle East

Tracking the evolution of terrorism has become a key concern for policy makers, security experts and regional leaders. Understanding the root causes of jihad (holy war - terrorism, depends who you are) are imperative in understanding the motives of the enemy and predicting whether or not the enemy will strike again. Understanding these causes would also help in the formulation of policy designed to engage with and ultimately negate the threat to domestic security.

Jihad is in essence a response to the presence of the infidel on holy ground. The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 is seen as a turning point in the history of the region and a catalyst to the subsequent conflicts in the region and future conflicts. Israel remains a blight on the region, a blight Arab Muslims hope to eradicate. Arabs have long struggled to develop a single homogenous approach to how this would be achieved. Arab nationalism and now the rise of political Islam are approaches being used to build nation states and homogenous polities capable of forming sustainable governments and governments strong enough to eradicate foreign bodies such as Israel.

Since 1948 the situation has become complicated with the involvement of foreign powers, particularly the US in the power struggles in the region. The US has made matters worse by siding with the Jewish state against the Arab. This in and of itself has created additional fuel for the anti-Western/Jewish fire that threatens to burn out of control. Israel and the US are seen as occupying powers by most Arabs in the region. Removing these forces and destroying their homelands has become a prerequisite of most jihadi groups. Some states however have come to accept the status quo, have accepted that Israel and the US are here to stay. Chief amongst them are Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Lebanon. This does not mean that their people agree however with their leaders, however. Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and a host of other Islamist parties have taken advantage of this feeling amongst the masses and are making gains regionally, threatening the so called apostate allies of the West and Israel. Buoyed by a strong religious ideology and public mandate they have called for an end to foreign interference and the destruction of the Zionist state. Jihadi groups have benefited from this rise in political Islam and favourable economic conditions (poverty) as well to recruit new members and gather support for their campaigns against the West and Israel. There task has been made increasingly easy by subsequent US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. For the dissillusioned millions jihad presents an opportunity to strike out at an enemy, that albeit technologically superior, is relatively close at hand and vulnerable to guerilla style and terror tactics.

Solutions for the West are not simple. It is essential that moderate Muslims are engaged in dialogue. These groups must be shown as the new order. Of course breaking with the past, notably the nationalist Arab parties, will be difficult but if sustainable peace is to be had it is essential that moderates be approached in order to sideline conservative and extremist Muslims. This change must be accompanied by a withdrawal of foreign armies from Arab soil. Allowing local actors to control their own destinies is imperative. Military and political power must return to local leaders. Lastly, local economic and religious elites must be forced to give up their power to the new emerging classes. They were supported in the past by Western foreign policy to the detriment of local peoples. If democracy is truly to be embraced these actors must be coerced into giving over power. In a nutshell the West must acknowledge the failure of 60 years of foreign policy in the region and accept their losses, pulling out and creating a new reality a reality that is acceptable to the majority of the Arab people, not to political elites and select allies.

On 9 July authorities discovered two VBIEDs in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden. Details of the discovery remain unclear. The discovery follows the 2 July bombings in Marib that killed seven spanish tourists. Yemeni forces have been carrying out a series of operations following the Marib incident. At least 15 suspected al-Qaeda militants have been captured and one killed in a shootout with police in Sanaa on 4 July. For more on the threat from terrorism in Yemen see below.

Al-Qaeda's menacing presence in Yemen

On 2 July 2007, a suicide bomber drove his vehicle into a group of Spanish tourists in the Marib governorate, 140km east of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, killing seven tourists, two local Yemenis and injuring a further six people. The attack, allegedly carried out by an al-Qaeda linked militant, occurred near an ancient temple to the Queen of Sheba (or Bilquis). The tourists were preparing to leave the area with their police escort when the bomber struck. This attack is one of the most severe on foreign interests in recent years and provides an example of the ongoing high threat from terrorism in this impoverished country. It also comes at a time when 36 members of al-Qaeda are standing trial in Yemen for planning and carrying out terror attacks. Several of these militants are still on the run, after they escaped from a Sanaa prison in February 2006.

Yemen is a country deeply connected to al-Qaeda. This is evidenced by the disproportionally large number of Yemenis within al-Qaeda's ranks and by the fact that Yemen is the ancestral home of al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden. Yemen has also been the scene of numerous al-Qaeda attacks since the 1990s. More recently, in September 2006, militant groups carried out attempted attacks against two oil facilities in Marib and in the Dhabah region of Hadramawt. This attack followed the bombing of the US navy vessel, the USS Cole, in October 2000 and other minor attacks on the British, US and Turkish embassies. In 2002 al-Qaeda also claimed responsibility for an attack on an oil tanker off the Yemeni coast.

The 2 July bombing in Marib follows recent warnings from al-Qaeda that it would carry out attacks against government interests in Yemen. On 30 June 2007 it threatened to carry out unspecified attacks if its captured members were not released from Yemeni jails. On 1 May 2007 al-Qaeda in Yemen also purportedly told a local journalist that it was preparing to carry out attacks against members of the Yemeni security forces. This they said was in retaliation for the alleged torture of al-Qaeda suspects while in police detention, and for other attacks against the al-Qaeda leadership, most notably the assassination in 2002 of the head of al-Qaeda operations in Yemen, Abu Ali al-Harithi. To highlight this threat, al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the 29 March 2007 slaying of Ali Mahmud Qasaylah, the chief criminal investigator in the Marib governorate. General warnings have also been issued in the past by the group, threatening to target Westerners and Western interests.

Despite the Yemeni government's well-publicised support for the war on terrorism, it faces a number of internal problems that are likely to divert attention away from efforts to combat terrorism. It faces a Shiite sedition in the northern Saada governorate, strong opposition from pro-independence groups in the southern regions, high levels of poverty and government corruption, and as witnessed by the recent attack, an inability to defend foreign interests against extremist attacks. The strength of local tribal groups also makes policing large swathes of territory problematic.

As such, despite Yemen's repeated promises to beef up security at foreign embassies and offices the likelihood of further attacks against Western interests remains a distinct possibility. Even though most visits to the country pass without incident, travellers wishing to visit Yemen are urged to remain cognizant of the high threat from terrorism in the country. They should if at all possible maintain a low profile while in the country. The latest attack also shows that a police escort, while advisable, is no guarantee of a safe trip.