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The Locus of Error
Has the Gravity of Terrorism 'Shifted' in Asia?#
Ajai Sahni*
Terrorism
in its modern form has been with us for decades, at least since
the late 1960s, and has continuously expanded its sphere of influence
and operation. Yet it never fails to take its victim societies
by surprise when it is applied in a new theatre, however gradual
or deliberate its march. This is why it has been possible to speak
of the greatest single terrorist outrage in human history – the
September 11, 2001, attacks in the US – as ‘terror in very slow
motion,’ a catastrophe that, at least in its broad contours, should
have been anticipated, and that lay squarely "along an uninterrupted
continuum that extended several years into the past."1
Victim societies have, without exception, been shocked into an
utter confusion of responses in the wake of each such expansion,
and there is little evidence that the experience of other nations
or communities has ever been absorbed into the policies and strategic
perspectives of those nations who have not themselves experienced
terrorism.
The problem is not just one between
nations, but within nations as well. To take the Indian case,
we discover that, despite decades of experience with terrorist
movements, each new manifestation takes State governments and
police forces by surprise. After over 10 years of terrorism in
Punjab, for instance, the wave of terrorist actions commencing
in the end-1980s in Jammu and Kashmir were greeted with panic
and confusion that was reminiscent of the reaction to the emergence
of terror in Punjab in the end-1970s. Similarly, the first major
act of terrorism in Gujarat – at the Akshardham Temple2
– once again demonstrated high levels of uncertainty and disorder
in the state’s responses. The general bewilderment extends into
the popular discourse on terrorism, and few who are located outside
the areas worst afflicted by the scourge demonstrate any sensitivity
toward, or understanding of, the issues and the enormity of the
challenge involved. Despite a multiplicity of enduring terrorist
movements in different parts of the country, moreover, India is
still to define a coherent policy of response or official doctrine
on terrorism, and many of the state’s initiatives in this context
tend to be contradictory and counter-productive.
When the attack on a nightclub
frequented by Western tourists occurred at Bali, the same patterns
of shock and disorientation were in evidence in Indonesia’s –
and indeed in all of South East Asia’s – reactions. The bombing
in Bali "shocked the world, not only because it is considered
a follow-up to a series of terrorist acts which included Sept.
11, 2001 in the U.S., but also because it occurred on Indonesia’s
tourist island, one of our few remaining safe havens."3
This theme of a ‘paradise lost’ was often repeated in the media
coverage of the blasts,4
but the truth is, "nowhere was safe in Indonesia,"5
and there was ample evidence that the country had "become
a hotbed for Islamic militants."6
Yet, the leadership responses displayed an unwillingness to accept
the magnitude of the challenge and the pervasiveness of the threat.
The US had been "warning for weeks of a ‘specific and credible’
attack being mounted..."7
But the Indonesian leaders continued to act "like parents
trying to hide the fact that their children are chronic drug addicts
despite what their friends and neighbours know."8
Indonesia had long been plagued by Islamist extremism and terrorism
in wide areas of its sprawling territory, and though Bali had
remained ‘safe’ before the October 12 attack, a look at the incidence
of terrorist activities and concentration of militant groups on
the map would have demonstrated the enveloping pattern of the
violence. Any objective assessment on the basis of such an analysis
would have acknowledged the inevitability of an eventual attack
on the ‘soft target’ that Bali was, even in the absence of any
specific intelligence. But, as Jakarta Post asserted, "Indonesia
was in denial."9
These patterns of conflict and
disorientation in the face of terror are virtually the norm and
extend well into the strategic community. The sheer enormity of
the transformations that terrorism has wrought in the nature of
warfare is yet to penetrate the discourse on the subject, and
is only rarely reflected in the works of scholars and specialists
on the subject – and is rarer still in the public pronouncements
of policy makers. In one of the few examples of such understanding,
Dave McIntyre, writing in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist outrage
in the US, comments:
… it is fair to ask, before we proceed, "what
happened to the concept of the RMA?" The surprising answer
is that an RMA has occurred – but we did not recognize it,
because we got the definition wrong. After a decade of study
and coaxing by military scholars (and apathy or hostility
by non-military scholars), a Revolution in Military Affairs
has arrived. Except we did not do it to "them" –
"they" did it to us.10 |
In the early months after 9/11,
there was a brief crystallisation of the international will against
terrorism that created the transient illusion of a wider and deeper
understanding of the mounting danger. The contours of a coherent
and uniform international policy against terrorism were outlined
in a succession of UN Resolutions,… it is fair to ask, before
we proceed, "what happened to the concept of the RMA?"
The surprising answer is that an RMA has occurred – but we did
not recognize it, because we got the definition wrong. After a
decade of study and coaxing by military scholars (and apathy or
hostility by non-military scholars), a Revolution in Military
Affairs has arrived. Except we did not do it to "them"
– "they" did it to us.11
which rejected the prevailing moral ambivalence on terrorism and
declared unambiguously that no moral and political justification
could be accepted for acts of terror. These were reinforced by
strong and sustained rhetoric from the international leadership,
as President George W. Bush spoke of "a world where freedom
itself is under attack" and promised, "Our war on terror…
will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been
found, stopped and defeated."… it is fair to ask, before
we proceed, "what happened to the concept of the RMA?"
The surprising answer is that an RMA has occurred – but we did
not recognize it, because we got the definition wrong. After a
decade of study and coaxing by military scholars (and apathy or
hostility by non-military scholars), a Revolution in Military
Affairs has arrived. Except we did not do it to "them"
– "they" did it to us.12
A little over a year after the
catastrophic attacks of September 11, ambivalence and vacillation
are, once again, the dominant feature of our responses against
terrorism, and there is increasing evidence and mounting apprehension
of a loss of direction. As Fareed Zakaria notes in the context
of America’s abrupt shift of emphasis, from the slow and frustrating
war against terrorism to the apparently more winnable – and hence
potentially more satisfying – engagement with Iraq, "A year
ago people around the world were holding candle light vigils for
the United States. Today the easiest way to get people cheering
on the streets is to denounce US policies."13
And again, echoing rising concerns across the world, Harvey Feldman
notes:
When we read that warlords are carving off
parts of the Afghanistan that we helped liberate, and that
there is no counter-action; that Pakistan has become the new
base and sanctuary for al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations;
that although Iran remains the world’s principal backer of
terrorism, no one mentions it; or that 7 to 8 per cent of
America’s imported oil comes from Iraq; do you begin to feel
the need to set clear goals and lay out policies aimed
at achieving those goals?14
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The absence or loss of clarity
is pervasive, as the consensus on the ‘global coalition for the
war against terror’ increasingly becomes a thing of the past.
Indeed, the meandering course of the war against terrorism over
the past months led the Indian Prime Minister to lament: "It
appears that the world is not yet prepared to fight terrorism."15
But this should not have been
unexpected. It is, in fact, just one of the symptoms of the still
limited accommodation of the nature of terrorism within our strategic
perspectives, and of the sheer and enveloping scope of the transformations
in the scenario of human security and war that this phenomenon
has wrought.
Locating the Enemy
The central thesis of this paper
is that the idea of a ‘locus of terrorism’ is one among the conceptual
barriers to an effective understanding of, and response to, the
unstructured threat of contemporary terrorism; and that this notion
is, indeed, a remnant of traditional approaches to conventional
warfare, and has tended, in some measure, to distort the character
and direction of the global war against terrorism.
The idea of a ‘shift in the locus
of terror’ was first proposed in the US State Department’s Patterns
of Global Terrorism Report, 1999, and in all fairness,
referred explicitly to the ‘locus of terrorism directed against
the United States’ in its initial conception.16
But even as it was articulated, the phrase took on a life of its
own, and rapidly assumed a universality that may have been absent
in its original intent, but that is now part of established theory
in terrorism research, analysis and policy projection. Indeed,
even as it was projected by the US State Department leadership
to the Press, the qualifying clause ‘against the United States’
had a perplexing tendency – perhaps located in superpower hubris
– to disappear, and the idea advanced was of a generic "geographical
shift of the locus of terror from the Middle East to South Asia,"17
with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir identified as the new loci
and primary sources of extremist Islamic militancy. It was this
notion that proliferated with a rapidity that imitates the fecundity
of terrorism itself, and each afflicted community in widely dispersed
regions of the world – though particularly in South, South East
and West Asia – claims title to the ‘locus of terrorism’, or seeks
to project the current location of its own tormentors as the ‘centre
of gravity’ of terrorism. Thus, India’s Deputy Prime Minister
L K Advani, recently argued that, "the epicentre of global
terrorism had shifted to Pakistan after the fall of Taliban in
Afghanistan."18
These tendencies have been progressively reinforced by a multiplicity
of events in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the campaign in Afghanistan,
and the progressive detection of the global network of Islamist
terrorism.
The idea of a ‘locus of terror’
is, at least in part, an operational necessity for those who are
planning a strategy of response – an allocation of resources is
required to cope with the most urgent challenges, and, naturally,
the most visible convergence of the ‘enemy forces’ must be located
and neutralised. Among the primary challenges of strategic planning
in the theory of conventional warfare is the location of the ‘decisive
areas’ of the enemy’s concentration, and their domination through
an allocation of sufficient, if not overwhelming, force. This
approach relies heavily on concepts of depth and mass to secure
the ends of policy that war is intended to serve, and is what
was witnessed in the US campaigns in Afghanistan after the catastrophic
terrorist attacks in the US. Simply put, the enemy must be identified
and a location defined if a military campaign is to be planned
and executed. Regrettably, while these tactics may remain necessary
as a part of the counter-terrorism response, they cannot provide
an effective or ample strategy for the defeat of terrorism as,
indeed, the Afghan campaign itself demonstrated. It is, consequently,
useful to assess some of the difficulties inherent in this notion
and the approaches it dictates.
- The claim of a shift is contrafactual: There
is no evidence of any sudden or abrupt ‘shift’, or a radical
discontinuity in the situation at the time when the thesis was
articulated – Afghanistan’s spiral into chaos had been an inexorable
fact for over a decade, as had Pakistan’s complicity and steady
decline. Even a cursory glance at fatalities in Jammu and Kashmir
would confirm, moreover, that terrorism had been at comparable
– albeit escalating – levels in this theatre for over a decade.19
If we assess more recent claims of a further ‘shift in the locus
of terrorism’ to South East Asia, we discover, first, that these
claims gained currency particularly after the intervention of
US troops in counter-terrorism operation in the Philippines
and in the wake of rising concern over the kidnapping – primarily
for ransom – of Westerners by the principally criminalised Abu
Sayyaf Group (ASG). It is useful to note, however, that Islamist
fundamentalist activities and violence had been a rising feature
in the South East Asian region over an extended period, and
there is ample evidence of the active development of this theatre,
including strong Al Qaeda linkages assiduously developed by
Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law, Mohammad Jamal Khalifa, since
1988.20
It is important, moreover, to keep in mind Philippines President
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s somewhat scathing observation that
"terrorism is not a franchise only of Al Qaeda."21
- The question also arises as to what constitutes
a ‘shift’? How are we to locate the locus? Is it the region
of the largest concentration of terrorists? Or of their leadership?
Or of their activities? A decision in favour of any one or a
combination of these criteria would create problems of its own.
The concentration of terrorist groups in organised ‘training
camps’ in Afghanistan and Pakistan, for instance, was a deceptive
aberration. This is not the manner in which terrorists forces
are ordinarily structured or deployed. The dispersed patterns
that have emerged after the US campaign against the Al Qaeda–Taliban
combine in Afghanistan, in fact, are more characteristic of
the nature of terrorist mobilisation and movement and, while
transient concentrations of terrorist operatives and leaders
may, from time to time, be evidenced, these are immensely fluid
and highly unpredictable manifestations. If our attention fixes
on the manifestation of the greatest or, alternatively, the
most numerous, or the most devastating terrorist actions, we
would, in effect, simply be chasing the trail of small, though
lethal, operational groups, often after they have executed their
tasks. Would such an orientation, moreover, imply that the ‘locus
of terror’ somehow momentarily ‘shifted’ to New York and Washington
on 9/11? Evidently, there are insurmountable difficulties with
any one of these approaches.
- There is an additional problem: which terrorism
are we speaking of? Islamist Fundamentalist terrorism currently
exhausts the entire focus of Western energies and of a burgeoning
body of scholarship on the subject. But it is sobering to learn
that Sri Lanka has witnessed over 5,617 fatalities in the terrorist
conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam just over
the period March 2000 and July 200222,
and an estimated 64,000 persons have lost their lives in this
‘war’ since its commencement in 1983.23
Nepal has witnessed at least 4,247 fatalities in the conflict
with the Maoist extremists between March 2000 and August 10,
2002.24
A multiplicity of insurgencies in India’s Northeast has resulted
in at least 12,901 deaths between 1992 and October 6, 2002.25
None of these movements has any connection with the ideologies
of extremist Islam; yet most of them have an international dimension.
By contrast, terrorism in Israel – the earlier ‘locus’ in West
Asia which is said to have shifted to South Asia – had resulted
in a total of 881 deaths between September 1993 and October
3, 2002.26
Israel is significant on another
count. Throughout 1999 and well into 2000, there was a rising
rhetoric of ‘permanent peace’ under the Oslo Process, and it
was this illusion building27
that had created the context of the ‘shift of the locus of terrorism’
thesis. Yet, within five months of the public articulation of
this thesis, the Al Aqsa Intifada carried the Israel–Palestine
conflict into a crescendo of violence that still continues.28
Nothing had ‘shifted out’ of West Asia, though there had been
a temporary lull in violence. Indeed, in the many examples we
mention, what we are speaking of appears more to be a shift
in the focus of our (more appropriately, American) attention
than a shift in the locus of terrorism.
- Terrorism is not bound by geography: It is
commonplace to note terrorism’s ‘global linkages’, but it is
more important to understand that the apparent geographical
foci of terrorism are illusionary. Military campaigns can sometimes
easily exert extraordinary pressure on identified terrorist
concentrations – but the ‘successes’ that follow are often deceptive
and, at least occasionally, significantly compound the problem.
This is the case both within limited theatres of terrorism as
well as for the global march of terror. In the Indian Punjab,
for instance, where Sikh fundamentalist terrorism raged for
nearly a decade and a half, a military operation called Operation
Rakshak I brought extraordinary pressure on terrorists operating
in what was, in 1989, regarded as their ‘heartland’ in four
police districts along the Pakistan border. The operation was
widely considered a success at the time, but in the absence
of a clear policy of containment, it ‘squeezed out’ the terrorists
and spread them virtually across the State. It also provoked
important tactical transformations in terrorist activity, which
had previously concentrated in rural areas, but became increasingly
urbanised, and that laid increasing emphasis on improvised explosive
devices (IEDs) in crowded public areas in the cities and towns,
as against terrorist operations by roving gangs that targeted
the security forces and villagers.29
A similar ‘squeeze effect’ has been generated by American operations
in Afghanistan, and while crucial damage has been inflicted
on the Al Qaeda–Taliban combine, it is also the case that the
pressure has resulted in the dispersal of the very significant
surviving force of this terrorist axis across the world, and
the consequences of this movement are yet to manifest themselves
and are, within our current understanding of the dynamics of
terror, far from easy to predict. Unlike conventional warfare,
consequently, the military domination of territories is of very
limited significance in the war against terrorism.
- Part of the preceding criticism may be met
by arguing that the locus of terror is a dynamic entity, and
must be neutralised where it is encountered – which was, on
some assessments, in West Asia earlier, shifting thereafter
to South Asia, and now increasingly visible in South East Asia.
But such a notion, even, conceived of as a dynamic and constantly
shifting locus, condemns us to a perpetually reactive mode in
counter-terrorism policy, following the changing geographical
location of the latest concentration of incidents or militant
cadres. As Mao Zedong shrewdly noted in his analysis of guerrilla
warfare, losing the initiative means to be defeated, to be annihilated.
In fighting a battle you must bring the enemy where you want
him to be, not run after him.30
- The idea of a dynamic locus, moreover, fails
to address the generative dynamic which motivates, mobilises,
trains, equips and directs the visible actors of the armies
of terror – most of whom, if we restrict our attention to the
widening web of Islamist terror, are no more than the meaner
instrumentalities of the ‘great jihad’. It is, thus,
dangerous to focus inordinately on the transient geographical
location or concentrations of terrorist incidents, activities
and movements, to the exclusion of their ideological and material
sources, their state sponsors, or their intended targets and
proclaimed goals. The error here is the belief, for instance,
that the threat of Islamist terrorism is contained within the
regions of its most visible manifestation. Extremist Islam (just
as any other militant doctrine that may motivate terrorists)
must, however, be recognised for its essential character as
an ideology, and terrorism as a method that it accepts and justifies.
A method will be adopted wherever it is perceived to have
acceptable probabilities of success. An ideology extends wherever
it has believers. These are the actual limits or foci of extremist
Islamist terrorism. The identification of the locus of terrorism
with the transient geographical location where it finds the
largest number of victims, or from where it mounts the most
significant of its recent outrages, is a grave error of judgement.31
We are dealing, here, with a method; with an evil that transcends
its agents and its physical manifestations. Thus, if we focus
only on the apparently shifting loci, the processes of mobilisation,
of the generation and consolidation of the armies of terror,
go on unhindered in other places – often where they are least
noticed – till they have assembled the components of their next
great excess. As one commentator notes,
Anti-terrorist experts see the
real enemy well beyond the dusty Afghan camps targeted by American
firepower. They see the planners of international havoc, dressed
in suits, going to work each day in office buildings in Baghdad,
Damascus, Teheran and even Beirut. U.S. intelligence sources
have located the United Arab Emirates, the United States and
Germany as sites for planning the Sept. 11 attack. Hamburg
is a special locus for terrorism.32
- A closer analysis would indicate that it is
more accurate to speak of the spread or expansion of the
sphere of terrorism, rather than any dramatic ‘shift’.33
Indeed, as terrorists and their state sponsors secure even limited
successes in one region, their methods are adopted in others,
threatening an ever-widening spectrum of nations and cultures.
It is, now, increasingly clear that no nation in the world is
entirely free of the threat from extremist Islamist terrorism.
This includes not only the affluent – or ‘decadent’ as the Islamist
would have it – West, and other concentrations of ‘unbelievers’,
but also Muslim majority ‘Islamic’ nations that do not conform
to the extremist Islamist’s notion of his Faith and its practices.
The extremist Islamist vision is not limited to its current
sphere of militancy, or to the economic and political jockeying
for control of Central Asia that some ‘Great Game’ theorists
believe, but to God’s ‘universal empire’. "The world is
divided into opposing forces," Altaf Gauhar insists, "there
is no common ground between secularism and Islam."34
Allah Buksh Brohi is even more explicit:
Many Western Scholars
have pointed their accusing fingers at some of the … verses
in the Qur’an to be able to contend that world of Islam
is in a state of perpetual struggle against the non-Muslims.
As to them it is sufficient answer to make, if one were
to point out, that the defiance of God’s authority by
one who is His slave exposes that slave to the risk of
being held guilty of treason and such a one, in the perspective
of Islamic law, is indeed to be treated as a sort of that
cancerous growth on that organism of humanity, which has
been created "Kanafsin Wahidatin" that is, like
one, single, indivisible self. It thus becomes necessary
to remove the cancerous malformation even if it be by
surgical means (if it would not respond to other treatment),
in order to save the rest of Humanity… The idea of Ummah
of Mohammad, the Prophet of Islam, is incapable of being
realised within the framework of territorial states much
less made an enduring basis of viewing the world
as having been polarised between the world of Islam
and the world of war. Islam, in my understanding,
does not subscribe to the concept of the territorial state…35
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The ‘surgical’ removal of the ‘cancerous malformation’
that is the non-Islamic world is what the Islamist terrorists
believe they are engaged in.
- The ‘locus’ thesis can also result in a perverse
and often counter-productive focus on specific terrorist groups
or actors, and the Al Qaeda is a case in point. While the enormity
of what this group achieved cannot be denied, it is also necessary
to note that the inordinate focus on this single organisation,
and the virtual iconisation of Osama bin Laden after the US
Embassy attacks at Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1988 by the
American and international media contributed in no small measure
to the larger than life image this organisation and its leadership
secured among widely divergent streams of Islamist extremism.
This, in turn, resulted in the greater crystallisation of the
Pan-Islamist network of terror through increasing linkages with
a wide range of terrorist and fundamentalist groups. Indeed,
Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda were, at best, minor players
throughout the anti-Soviet campaign and the processes of the
consolidation of Islamist extremists in Afghanistan. The key
player was, and remained till September 11, 2001, the Pakistani
Army and its external intelligence agency, the Inter Services
Intelligence (ISI). As Selig Harrison expressed it much before
the 9/11 outrage, "The key to ending the threat from Osama
bin Laden and the Taliban does not lie in Afghanistan but in
Pakistan…"36
Laden, however, has now assumed a status and iconic presence
that, even if he were dead, would cement the forces of Islamist
extremist terrorism for some time to come.
- At a tactical level, the locus thesis can distort
responses creating expectations that cannot be met, and provoking
clumsy and misdirected initiatives that seek out the enemy where
he is not present. At a local level, this is what was seen in
at least some operations on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border
areas, where US troops resorted to crude actions and indiscriminate
operations that harassed civilian populations and undermined
assiduously cultivated local intelligence resources.37
At another level, this is again what appears to be happening
through the diversion of the ‘global war against terrorism’
into a campaign against Iraq and to unseat or destroy its dictator,
Saddam Hussain. Thus, albeit rather quaintly, the physicist
James Gordon Prather articulates his anxieties:
If the warhawks disregard
the opposition of the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Countries)
and the WAT (War against Terrorism) coalition and invade
Iraq on the pretext of keeping the nukes Saddam doesn’t
have out of the hands of Islamic terrorists who aren’t
in Iraq, the chances of those Islamic nukes that really
are in Pakistan falling into the hands of Islamic terrorists
that really are in Pakistan will go way up. So will your
chances of getting nuked in your jammies.38
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Stated simply, there is a danger,
where the enemy is difficult to locate – as is often, if not
invariably the case with terrorism –, to invent his location.
The initial phases of the US campaign in Afghanistan were deceptively
easy, and this was the result of a strategic miscalculation
on the part of the Al Qaeda–Taliban combine that allowed the
confrontation to assume the character of a conventional war
between two considerably unequal forces. This was an aberration
in the character of fundamentally terrorist organisations, and
where it generated euphoria in the initial phases, it has resulted
in deep frustrations subsequently. It is substantially these
frustrations that are now triggering a search for an apparently
easy and demonstrable victory in Iraq.
- The locus of terrorism perspective imposes
a particular theory and pattern of strategic and tactical responses.
Crucially, it predefines the stage of appropriate counter-terrorism
intervention at a point well after a particular terrorist concentration
has crystallised and secured a high level of lethality – often
ignoring the problem till an exceptionally outrageous terrorist
attack, or succession of such attacks, makes it impossible to
disregard the threat. The identified ‘locus’ also demands a
focus of response – in terms of geography or group identity
– and this tends to result in a neglect of other, often arbitrarily
excluded, ‘non-locus’ or non-priority areas. It is important
to notice, in this context, that the human capacity for self-deception
is immense, and often, when problems are confusing or overwhelming,
we tend to address precisely those areas or components where
we feel most capable of securing results, in our own areas of
strength. This may well be an element in the American preference
for an attack on Iraq, as it certainly was in the sheer explosion
of Western research and literature on the threat of ‘cyber-terrorism’
in the pre-9/11 phase.
- The locus of terrorism perspective also imposes
an unrealistic timeframe of response. While there is much talk
of a ‘long haul’ in the war against terrorism, at the operational
level, it is the near-term operations that receive priority,
while the strategic and ideological responses are often neglected.
This results in an overwhelming emphasis on purely military
responses but, as one of India’s foremost counter-terrorism
experts has expressed it, the military has a long record of
victories against terrorists, but a poor record of victory against
terrorism.39
None of the preceding arguments
is intended to suggest that actions against identified concentrations
of terrorists, or of prominent groupings of terrorists, are futile,
or to be diluted in any way. We will have to continue to fight
terrorism wherever we find it. At a tactical level, the identification
and neutralisation of all manifestations and concentrations of
terrorist activity and force must remain a military, policing
and intelligence priority. Nor, indeed, is it my argument that
all other aspects of, and trends in, terrorism have been excluded
from the concerns of the global war against terrorism. What is
suggested, rather, is that the fitfulness and increasing incoherence
of the global response to terrorism is, at least in part, a consequence
of an inappropriate context of assessment. On the other hand,
we find that the enemy’s orientation is immensely more focused
and functional. It is, consequently, necessary to fight, not where
we see a tangible enemy and a high probability of victory, but
wherever the imperatives of the war and the nature of the enemy
require us to fight for a more palpable and decisive victory.
Defeating the Enemy
It must be amply evident that
there can be no simple formulae for a quick fix to the enormity
of what terrorism has brought upon us. There can be no easy search
for solutions, and if this war is to be won, it will have to be
fought through a succession of approximations. The most important
criterion in our choice of responses will have to be their internal
coherence and their consistency with a broad and clearly defined
strategic framework based on an accurate assessment of the nature
of the enemy and the character of the conflict. This could well
require a ‘Napoleonic reorganisation’ of our strategic perspectives,
if we are to bring some order into the theatre of sub-conventional
terrorist warfare. In this context, it is necessary to note that,
even at a tactical level, the success of an engagement depends
overwhelmingly on clearly defining the commander’s objectives
and intent. And such intent must be firmly rooted in a larger
plan and a coherent global strategy. In the absence of such a
strategic context, it is impossible for counter-terrorism planners
and forces to define and pursue the requisite end state of the
‘war against terror’, and, while many visible victories may be
scored against terrorists, a victory against terrorism would prove
elusive. It is, consequently, necessary to define, in concrete
terms and not as generalised slogans, the end state we seek to
secure in the conflict.
The present and brief study cannot
pretend to provide, or even to outline, any such strategic perspective.
It is possible, however, to attempt to identify at least some
of the elements or considerations that must be accommodated within
a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy for the present war
against terrorism.
- The threat of terrorism is unstructured, immensely
complex, constantly changing in form and tactic, and significantly
unpredictable. To counter it, it will be necessary to confront
the full magnitude of the dynamics of terrorism – the proliferation
of small arms; the complicity of the arms industry and of its
sponsoring or dependant states (a neglected aspect here is that
most weapons supplies originate in the West, and all proposals
to control the weapons industry and trade have been vigorously
resisted by players in at least some of the most prominent members
of the international coalition against terrorism); the magnitude
of a range of covert operations entered into by the ‘free world’;
the support to predatory, secretive and authoritarian governments
by the ‘free world’; geographic and demographic factors; ideological
continuities and discontinuities; flows of finances, areas of
passive or covert support to terrorist movements, including
both friendly and ‘neutral’ powers; growing linkages with organised
crime and opportunistic collusive arrangements with ideologically
neutral, or even opposed, political and financial players; etc.
- The war against terrorism – in its present
dominant form, substantially, though not exclusively, a war
against global pan-Islamist terror – is an ideological war,
and demands responses at the level of ideas. The spread of the
ideologies of terror do not necessarily rely on any material
transfer of resources or personnel; these ideas and the methods
they legitimise are transmitted through channels of free communication,
including the popular media. This proliferation of a dangerous
and destructive creed will have to be fought and neutralised
at the level of ideas. Regrettably, while the ideologies of
hatred and violence have, in recent times, been vigorously promoted
and liberally funded, the liberal democratic ideology has had
very poor advocacy. Indeed, some of the most powerful advocacy
of terrorism has come from the liberal fold itself, among those
who find ‘justifications’ for Islamist terrorism in past US
policies, in historical wrongs, in the alleged suffering of
the people who resort to terrorism, and in inchoate ‘root causes’
of terrorism. Mark Steyn, for instance, remarks on "…the
European inclination to render terrorism as an impersonal abstraction
born of ‘desperation’ and ‘hopelessness’…"40
It is now necessary to radically
alter the liberal discourse on terrorism, and to recognise the
enormity of the threat that contemporary extremist movements
pose, not only to specific regimes or nation states, but to
the very possibility of the liberal democratic order, and to
human civilisation itself. The ‘self-evident truths’ of the
‘rights of man’ are not self-promoting or self-perpetuating.
There is a ‘myth of democracy achieved’ that manifests itself
in, as Harry Eckstein expresses it, "the bare belief that
democracy need only exist to succeed,"41
but it is necessary to constantly remind ourselves that, "Unless
freedoms are extended, they are whittled away."42
It is important, equally, to recognise that this will require
an extraordinary effort, that "Truth does not triumph;
unless it has champions to propound it, unless it has armies
to defend it."43
- Such a defence will have to go well beyond
persuasion, education and propaganda, and will have to comprehend
our own practices. Here, regrettably, there is little consistency
in the policies adopted by liberal democracies towards various
illiberal and predatory regimes across the world, and, as one
commentator notes, it is important to understand that "Terrorism
will retreat where democracy advances, not where autocrats muzzle
political expression or buy peace at home by financing violence
abroad."44
It is, consequently, necessary that the leaders of the liberal
West "Don’t ask Third World countries to put up with less
democracy than we want for ourselves."45
As US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice candidly admits,
"We have to ask how many dictators we should have stopped."46
- Terrorism is an ideologically neutral and global
method of warfare: While a single ideological form of
terrorism – Islamist fundamentalist terrorism (neglecting its
many internal variations) – appears to comprise the most urgent
and widespread contemporary threat, it is necessary to recognise
that terrorism is in no way uniquely tied to this ideology and
has been, and continues to be adopted as a favoured method of
warfare and state destabilisation by a wide range of actors
who are unrelated to ‘Islamism’. It is consequently necessary
to understand that any apparent successes attributed to the
use of terrorism (and it is equally necessary to understand
here that, while movements may not succeed in attaining their
‘ultimate goals’, they can still be perceived as ‘successful’
if they secure a wide range of intermediate ends – one of which
is the survival or persistence of the movement itself), produces
imitators. In this context, it has rightly been noted: "Terrorism,
moreover, is not the problem of its victim societies alone.
Its impact reverberates across the globe. A victory for terrorism
anywhere in the world is a victory for terrorism everywhere."47
It is no longer possible for nations to respond only when their
own interests are targeted. Foreign policies cannot continue
to be constructed on near term considerations of the ‘interests
of state’. It is now necessary to delegitimise and defeat terrorism
in all its manifestations lest it consumes us. David MacIntyre
warns, "The future is being determined by our actions today.
And the smell of blood could draw a number of scavengers too
timid to attack by themselves, adding to our problems and making
attribution and retaliation very difficult."48
- Identify and neutralise the sources of terrorist
mobilisation: There are cultures of accommodation and there
are cultures of hate. To try to apply the norms of an accommodative
culture to a culture of hate is to place the former at a definitive
disadvantage, and to yield all initiative to the more vigorous,
belligerent, determined and violent side. The cultures of hate
– and the many states and regimes that support such cultures
– will have to be identified and targeted by a coordinated range
of policies that must include coercive diplomacy, economic sanctions,
international isolation, and, where necessary, direct, determined
and non-discriminatory military intervention. Robin Wright observes:
"Osama bin Laden and his wider al-Qaeda network may have
undertaken the worst acts of terrorism in modern history. But…
they were only bigger, flashier and deadlier than what has been
a steady progression of extremism in the Islamic world over
the past three decades."49
It is the ‘steady progression of extremism’ that must be halted.
Within this context, there must be a complete ‘denial of deniability’,
a refusal to allow sponsors of terrorism to shield behind formalistic
defences regarding evidence and definitions of terrorism.
- Contemporary terrorism has irrevocably altered
the character of internal conflicts within nations – these are
almost invariably internationalised. Local movements have dovetailed
seamlessly into international networks to create an unstructured
global threat that severely undermines, and will demand modifications
in, notions of state sovereignty and the character and content
of international treaties, statutes and legislation. Cooperating
nations will have to harmonize their domestic laws and practices,
and to enter into international arrangements that enable efficient
sharing of intelligence and resources, as well as co-ordinated
real time responses against terrorists, their front organisations
and their sponsors.
- Our advantage, Mao Zedong noted in another
context, "is to be found in the strategy of a protracted
war."50
We will have to change the time frames of our perspectives and
policies and understand that this is not a conflict that can
be resolved in months or even years. Decades of coordinated
effort will elapse before the free world can declare its final
victory over the scourge of terrorism. The advantage in this
‘protracted war’, however, lies squarely on the side of the
liberal democratic order, despite all its imperfections. Much
of the patterns of economic and social organisation in the world
today – and this includes the thrust towards globalisation –
is mandated by technological transformations, and is substantially
irreversible. It is, of course, the case that these patterns
have produced severe distortions, and the skewed ‘modernity’
of our age has dispossessed many, and inflicted great suffering
on vast regions of the world. This will require correctives
but, crucially, these correctives will arise out of the ‘modern’
world itself, not out of a revanchist reaction to it. The fact
is, the Islamist extremists offer "utopian solutions virtually
impossible to provide… in practical terms, it (Islam) is no
panacea to instantly cure all societies’ ills."51
The various streams of terrorism
today, with their roots in substantially contrived religious
and ethnic identities, do not propose ‘solutions’ on the basis
of a constructive vision of an alternative future, but instead
seek escape in a fictional past. While they are manifestly capable
of inflicting substantial harm and suffering on their target
societies, they lack the strategies and means to transform and
empower their own people. This is precisely because the alternative
societies they seek to create are incapable of generating the
intellectual, material, social and political resources for the
tasks of modern state-building or social reconstruction. Thus,
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Freedom, interpreted to mean national independence,
was seen as the great talisman that would bring all other
benefits. The overwhelming majority of Muslims now live in
independent states, but this has brought no solutions to their
problems.52
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The fact is, the patterns of
economic activity and growth that underpin all power in the
modern – and increasingly globalised – world, cannot be sustained
by groupings that seek "smaller worlds within borders that
will seal them off from modernity."53
The inexorable truth is that contemporary technological imperatives
and the corresponding intellectual demands they impose on dynamic
societies – and not just ‘US hegemony’, though the hegemon is
an inescapable fact of our age – have imposed very high levels
of integration and interdependence on the international order;
and systems and societies that seek to insulate themselves from
this trend eventually and inevitably disempower themselves.
It is "not possible to simultaneously sustain a thrust
towards international globalisation and regional or local ‘ghettoisation’."54
Significantly, as Olivier Roy
correctly notes, the apparently ‘anti-modern’ Islamist networks
are inevitably linked up with the globalised world – irrespective
of their ideological predilections and antipathies:
Even in a traditional society such as Afghanistan,
the network that develops around a smalltime local commander,
himself plugged into an "international" network
for the circulation of goods (arms, and sometimes drugs),
is no longer the clan that existed before, but a recomposition
of the traditional segmentation around a new political elite
and the globalised flow of wealth.55
The liberal democratic world,
consequently, with all its imperfections, retains the greater
power to resolve the deficiencies of the emerging world order.
This power is compounded with the passage of time, and the world
has seen a continuous trend over the past decades, to the progressive
weakening and marginalisation of authoritarian and extremist
cultures. This latter progression, of course, creates its own
impulses to violence and disruption, but this is the reaction
of the disadvantaged – those who are excluded to suffer "the
frustration inherent in an unattainable consumerist world"56
– not the initiative of those who possess the means for transformation.57
Finally, when we draft our strategy
to defeat the "prairie fire of jihadi terrorism
spreading across the world,"58
we must explicitly confront the rather obvious reality that the
essence of terrorism is terror. Terrorists exploit our
inordinate fears of what they can do in order to paralyse our
responses and sow confusion in our minds; they encourage our mistaken
belief that if we do not respond, or if we conciliate, appease,
enter into ‘rational engagement’,59
the terror will de-escalate; the belief that we can somehow bribe
this relentless and utterly ruthless enemy to stop murdering our
women and children. But the one principle that stands out clearly
is that there can be no compromise with terrorists; all such compromises
reward terrorism. Fitful policies seeking negotiations with terrorists,
with their front organisations and their sponsoring states, have
only helped entrench these groups, creating an alternative sphere
of a violent, murderous politics that is fundamentally a negation
of democracy and the principles that sustain the international
community. An extraordinary and unwavering determination in the
leadership of the world is now necessary in order to defeat terrorism,
and the time available to build the international consensus that
must underlie such determination is severely limited.
# |
The present paper
elaborates on a draft presented at the conference on Terrorism
in the Asia Pacific: The Threat and Response, organised by
the Asia Pacific Conferences & Event Management (APCEM),
Session 7, October 17-18, 2002, Singapore. |
* |
Dr. Ajai Sahni is
Executive Director of the Institute for Conflict Management,
and the South Asia Terrorism Portal. He is also the Executive
Editor of the Institute’s quarterly journal, Faultlines: Writings
on Conflict & Resolution and the Editor of the weekly
South Asia Intelligence Review. He writes extensively on issues
relating to conflict, terrorism, internal security and governance.
He has co-edited (with K.P.S. Gill) The Global Threat of Terror:
Ideological, Material & Political Linkages (2002); Terror
& Containment: Perspectives on India’s Internal Security
(2001). |
-
Ajai Sahni, "South
Asia: Extremist Islamist Terror & Subversion," in
K P S Gill and Ajai Sahni, eds., The Global Threat of Terror:
Ideological, Material and Political Linkages, New Delhi: Bulwark
Books – ICM, 2002, pp. 181-83.
-
"…on September
24, 2002, two terrorists launched an attack in the Akshardham
Temple of the Swaminarayan sect of Hindus, one of the most
hallowed temples in the western Indian State of Gujarat. They
first lobbed grenades and opened indiscriminate fire on the
devotees in the crowded hour of the evening aarti (prayer),
and then, as darkness fell, entered into a protracted exchange
of fire with security forces that lasted through the night.
They were eventually killed at dawn by a crack team of the
National Security Guard, but only after they had taken the
lives of 32 persons, including 16 women and four children,
and injured at least another 74. With this outrage, militant
Islamists opened up one more theatre of terrorism on Indian
soil." K.P.S. Gill, "Gujarat: New Theatre of Islamist
Terror", South Asia Intelligence Review (SAIR) Volume
1 No. 11, September 30, 2002, http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/sair/Archives/1_11.htm#assessment1.
-
Imanuddin, "Intelligence
capability and the Bali blasts," The Jakarta Post, October
29, 2002, http://www.thejakartapost.com/Archives/ArchivesDet2.asp?FileID=20021029.E02.
[Emphasis added].
-
"Paradise
Lost," Channel NewsAsia, October 16, 2002.
-
"Britain
Embassy warns ‘nowhere safe’ in Indonesia," Jakarta Post,
October 26, 2002, http://www.thejakartapost.com/Archives/ArchivesDet2.asp?FileID=20021026.B01.
-
"Lessons
from the Bali blast", Jakarta Post, October 16, 2002,
http://www.thejakartapost.com/Archives/ArchivesDet2.asp?FileID=20021016.E03.
-
Ewen MacAskill
and John Aglionby "Suspicion Turns on Indonesia’s Islamist
Militants," The Guardian, London, October 14, 2002, www.guardian.co.uk/indonesia/Story/0,2763,811368,00.html.
-
Kornelius Purba,
"Stop pretending that we are safe," Jakarta Post,
October 18, 2002, www.thejakartapost.com/Archives/ArchivesDet2.asp?FileID=20021018.E03.
-
"National
tragedy", Jakarta Post, October 14, 2002, http://www.thejakartapost.com/Archives/ArchivesDet2.asp?FileID=20021014.E01.
-
Dave McIntyre,
"We need to Study War Some More," Journal of International
Security Affairs, Washington, D.C., Summer 2002, pp. 11-12
and 3.
-
Most prominently,
Resolutions 1368 and 1373.
-
Address to Joint
Session of Congress & the American People, November 21,
2001, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html
-
Fareed Zakaria,
"Stop the Babel Over Babylon", Newsweek, New York,
September 16-23, 2002.
-
Harvey Feldman,
"Editor’s Introduction", The Journal of International
Security Affairs, Number 3, Summer 2002, p. 1.
-
Prime Minister
Atal Behari Vajpayee at New York, September 14, 2002, reported
on STAR News, September 15, 2002.
-
The Report was
first released in April 2000, and stated: "In 1999 the
locus of terrorism directed against the United States continued
to shift from the Middle East to South Asia." See http://www.usis.usemb.se/terror/rpt1999/asia.html.
-
Ambassador Michael
A. Sheehan, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, US Department
of State, Statement for the Record Before the House International
Relations Committee July 12, 2000, http://www.usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/00071702.htm.
Ambassador Sheehan was echoing Secretary of State Madeline
Albright’s earlier statement (of May 1, 2000) that there had
been an "eastward shift in terrorism's center of gravity"
towards South Asia. See "US says terrorism threat has
shifted from Middle East to South Asia", CNN.com, May
1, 2000, http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/05/01/terrorism.report.02/.
-
"Pak is
epicentre of terror: Advani", The Statesman, New Delhi,
October 2, 2002.
-
Total Fatalities:
1990 – 1177; 1991 – 1393; 1992 – 1909; 1993 – 2567; 1994 –
2899; 1995 – 2795; 1996 – 2903; 1997 – 2372; 1998 – 2261;
1999 – 2538; 2000 – 3288; 2001 – 4507; 2002 – 2683 (till November
18). Source: South Asia Terrorism Portal, http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/jandk/data_sheets/annual_casualties.htm
-
Zachary Abuza,
"Tentacles of Terror: Al Qaeda’s Southeast Asian Linkages",
paper presented at the Conference on Transnational Violence
and Seams of Lawlessness in the Asia Pacific: Linkages to
Global Terrorism, at the Asia Pacific Centre for Strategic
Studies, February 19-21, 2002.
-
Interview with
Lally Weymouth, Newsweek, February 2002.
-
"South
Asia Intelligence Review," vol. 1, no. 8, September 9,
2002, South Asia Terrorism Portal, http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/sair/Archives/1_8.htm#table.
-
"South
Asia Intelligence Review," vol. 1, no. 16, November 4,
2002. South Asia Terrorism Portal, www.satp.org/satporgtp/sair/Archives/1.16.htm#table.
-
South Asia Intelligence
Review, vol. 1, no. 4, August 12, 2002, South Asia Terrorism
Portal, www.satp.org. http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/sair/Archives/1_4.htm#table
-
Compiled from
data on the South Asia Terrorism Portal, www.satp.org.
-
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0i5d0.
-
See K.P.S. Gill
and Ajai Sahni, "The J&K ‘Peace Process’: Chasing
the Chimera," Faultlines: Writings on Conflict &
Resolution, New Delhi, vol. 8, April 2001, esp. pp. 3-6. Also
available at http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/publication/faultlines/volume8/Article1.htm.
-
The ‘shift’
thesis had been published by the US State Department on May
1, 2000. The Al Aqsa Intifada commenced after Ariel Sharon’s
visit to Temple Mount on September 28, 2000.
-
K.P.S. Gill,
"Endgame in Punjab: 1988-1993," Faultlines: Writings
on Conflict and Resolution, New Delhi, vol. 1, no. 1, May
2000, esp. pp. 51-52. Also at http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/publication/faultlines/volume1/Fault1-kpstext.htm.
-
Mao Zedong,
cited in General Tao Hanzhang, Sun Tzu: The Art of War, Hertfordshire:
Wordsworth Reference, 1993, p. 56. Emphasis added.
-
This point was
made earlier in Ajai Sahni, "South Asia: Extremist Islamist
Terror and Subversion," in Gill and Sahni, The Global
Threat of Terror, p. 184.
-
Robert Novak,
"After Afghanistan, Iraq?" October 9, 2001, townhall.com,
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20011009.shtml.
Emphasis added.
-
This point was
made earlier in Ajai Sahni, "South Asia: Extremist Islamist
Terror and Subversion," in Gill and Sahni, The Global
Threat of Terror, pp. 184-85.
-
Altaf Gauhar,
The Challenge of Islam, London: Islamic Council of Europe,
1978, p. 309.
-
Allah Buksh
K. Brohi, "Preface", in Brigadier S.K. Malik, The
Quranic Concept of War, New Delhi: Himalayan Books, 1986,
pp. xix-xx.
-
Selig S. Harrison,
"To get at the Taleban, apply pressure on Pakistan,"
The International Herald Tribune, Paris, March 8, 2001.
-
Colin Soloway,
"‘Yelled at Them to Stop’", Newsweek, October 7,
2002, pp. 20-22. Also, "Newsweek: U.S. Special Forces,
Witnesses in Eastern Afghanistan Say Operation Mountain Sweep
was a Disaster," September 29, 2002, http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020929/nysu009a_1.html.
-
James Gordon
Prather, "Supercritical Thoughts: It’s Pakistan, Stupid",
World Net Daily, August 31, 2002, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28793
-
K.P.S. Gill,
"Approach Paper: Managing Internal Security Threats in
India’s Northeast," 2002, unpublished.
-
Mark Steyn,
"Dust bin," The Spectator, London, June 29, 2002,
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2002-06-29&id=1999.
-
Harry Eckstein,
"Lessons for the ‘Third Wave’ from the First: An Essay
on Democratisation," www.democ.uci.edu/democ/papers/lessons.htm.
-
Paul Goodman,
"Anarchism and Revolution", The Great Ideas Today
– 1970, Robert M. Hutchins and Mortimer J. Adler, eds., Chicago:
Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., 1970, p. 46.
-
K.P.S. Gill,
Knights of Falsehood, New Delhi: Har Anand, 1997, p. 26.
-
"Dancing
with Dictators," New York Times, September 1, 2002.
-
John R. MacArthur,
"The Ugly American Mindset," Toronto Globe and Mail,
November 6, 2001, reproduced at Common Dreams News Center,
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1106-01.htm.
-
Time, September
16, 2002, p. 38.
-
K.P.S. Gill,
"Statement on the Launch of the South Asia Terrorism
Portal," March 11, 2000, New Delhi, www.satp.org/satporgtp/kpsgill/terrorism/Mar11.htm.
-
MacIntyre, "We
need to study war some more," "We need to Study
War Some More," Journal of International Security Affairs,
Summer 2002, p. 7.
-
Robin Wright,
Sacred Rage, New York: Touchstone, 2001, p. 13.
-
Stuart R. Schram
(Trans.), Mao Tse-Tung: Basic Tactics, London: Pall Mall Press,
1966, p. 53.
-
Robin Wright,
Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam, New York: Touchstone
Books, Simon & Schuster, 1985, p. 289.
-
Bernard Lewis,
"What Went Wrong?" The Atlantic Monthly, Boston,
January 2002, http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/01/lewis.htm.
-
Benjamin R.
Barber, "Jihad vs. McWorld", Atlantic Monthly, March
1992, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/foreign/barberf.htm.
-
Ajai Sahni,
"Gujarat: Communal Ghetto or Global Enterprise?",
in M.L. Sondhi and Apratim Mukarji, eds., The Black Book of
Gujarat, Delhi: Manak Publications, p. 65.
-
Olivier Roy,
The Failure of Political Islam, London, New York: I.B. Tauris,
1999, p. 19.
-
Ibid, p. 4.
-
These themes
have been explored in greater detail in Ajai Sahni, Democracy,
Violence & Transformation: Exploring the Limits, [forthcoming
title]; and also, with particular reference to Islamist extremism,
in Ajai Sahni, "Al Qaeda’s Strategic Reach in India,"
Paper presented at the International Conference on "Transnational
Violence and Seams of Lawlessness in the Asia-Pacific",
organised by the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies,
US DoD, Honolulu, February 19-21, 2002, [forthcoming publication].
-
B. Raman, "The
Prairie Fire of Jehadi Terrorism," South Asia Analysis
Group, Paper No. 538, 24.10.2002, http://www.saag.org/papers6/paper538.html.
-
Steve Coll,
"Mr. Armitage, as they say here: Your’re most welcome,"
LA Times-Washington Post, reproduced in The Indian Express,
New Delhi, May 29, 2002.
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