The Islamic State and India

In June 2014, militants of the Islamic State or Dawla Islamiyyah, then called ISIL, ISIS or Da’esh, suddenly came out of the Syrian desert and swept almost unopposed over the city of Mosul in North-Western Iraq and southwards thereafter towards Baghdad, crushing all resistance that came in their path. Since then, a question that is taxing the minds of our political authorities and intelligence agencies alike is whether this Salafi-jihadist Sunni militant organisation, which owes its origins to the insurgency that followed the second Iraq war, will be able to penetrate into India, which not only has a significant Muslim population but has also been on the hit list of radical Islamist groups like Al Qaeda in the past.

In the weeks and months that followed its emergence in North-Western Iraq, the IS, through a run of well orchestrated military successes against both the Iraqi Army and the embattled government forces in Syria, extended its control westwards up to Raqqah in Syria, eastwards towards Erbil in Kurdish Iraq, and southwards across the Iraqi Al-Anbar province, towards the cities of Kirkuk and Baghdad, capturing the Sunni majority cities of Tikrit, Fallujah and Ramadi enroute. Its advance was halted well short of the Iranian border by some dogged resistance by the Kurdish forces in the North and the largely Shia Iraqi Army around Baghdad, reportedly with some help from the Iranians.  So far, actual control by the IS exists only in contiguous oil rich areas of North-Central Iraq and Eastern Syria, that it controls physically. Its leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has however, by announcing on 29 June 2014 his organisation’s claim to the Islamic Caliphate, let known his intention that the IS would, from then on, claim global leadership, political and military, to the followers of the Islamic faith. By doing so, he literally joined battle with his Sunni rivals to this claim and also with all those he does not consider as true believers, like those who belong to various Shia sects, or those he considers as enemies of the faith, like the Christians.

Since June 2014, the IS has grown by leaps and bounds in the peoples’ imagination all over the world, a dubious achievement certainly due to the fact that, up till now, the IS has only drawn global notoriety on various counts, especially on account of its excessive brutality against captured prisoners, many of whom they have publicly executed and some, especially young Yazidi girls captured in the Sinjar mountains of Northern Iraq, whom they have enslaved. It has also displayed a continuing capacity to influence many young Sunni Muslims world-wide, even from European countries, many of whom have  given up their apparently more comfortable lifestyles in their home countries and travelled to Syria or Iraq to join the IS and contribute their lives towards protecting the faith, while experiencing the rigours and dangers associated with it. In fact, the IS has become a magnet to attract many unemployed and frustrated Muslim youth who bear antagonistic feelings of disgruntlement or hatred towards other religious communities or other sects of Islam in their home countries.

The IS has built up its finances rapidly, thanks to oil revenues from its control of about a dozen oilfields and some refineries, from where it manages to smuggle out oil through Turkey, and also reportedly through donations from patrons in some Sunni Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE. However, being unable to territorially expand further in Syria and Iraq, where its militant cadres and resources are the target of continuing Western and Russian airstrikes, and where it has recently suffered a military defeat at Ramadi, it is also making concerted efforts to open up regional branches (‘distant caliphates’ / wilayats) in Muslim majority nations elsewhere, the current focus being on Indonesia, Philippines, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Algeria and Nigeria. 

In terms of links to known radical Islamist organisations, the Boko Haram of northern Nigeria, the Jemaah Islamiyah groups of Indonesia and Philippines, the al-Tawhid Brigade of Khorasan (ISIL-K) of Afghanistan, which is a breakaway faction of the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Jundullah, some elements of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and some Salafi groups from North African countries like Libya, Algeria and Tunisia have announced their allegiance to the IS. Though the IS consists mainly of Sunni Arabs from Syria and Iraq, it has made effective use of the social media to influence Muslim youth from other countries, some of whom have  joined up and even taken on suicide missions. Recent attacks in Indonesia and Afghanistan are reflective of this trend. In some cases, people owing allegiance to the IS have, in groups, or as ‘lone wolves’, undertaken terror strikes against targets in their home countries in the West, like in Paris and San Bernadino, which the perpetrators have attributed to the IS.

On the other hand, past claimants to the Islamic caliphate, who since long have used their oil revenues generously to spread the orthodox Wahabi-Salafi brand of Sunni Islam globally, and even the Al Qaeda, the other well known perpetrator of radical Islam, see the IS as a rival which is upstaging their respective claims to global Islamic leadership, and are thus fiercely opposed to it. Consequently, Saudi Arabia and some other Muslim countries have joined  countries like the US, UK, France and Russia to launch air attacks against targets in IS held territory, which have caused some damage, but so far have largely been ineffective in defeating the IS, due to a variety of reasons. The IS, on the other hand,  has been unable to physically link up westwards towards Lebanon or eastwards with the Taliban factions in Afghanistan and Pakistan, that have announced their allegiance to it.

That brings us to the question, ‘If and how will the IS affect India?’ The question becomes very relevant considering that India, with its almost 200 million Muslim population, has the second largest number of Muslims in the world, after Indonesia. Also, on a number of occasions in the past, radical organisations like Al Qaeda, Taliban, JeM and LeT, mostly instigated by Pakistan, have announced their intent to target India, by portraying it as anti-Muslim. The Indian Government has been very careful in not making any public pronouncements against the IS as it is well aware of the security interests of our vast diaspora in this region. Nonetheless, considering that the IS influence has been spreading globally and that it has thus far also been able to attract some Muslim youth from India into its folds, it remains a potent threat which can affect India’s security paradigm at some point in the future.

Essentially, there are three ways the IS threat can manifest in India. The first is the possibility of the organisation or its cadres directly penetrating into India, on the lines of the JeM or LeT, and attacking targets in Kashmir or other parts of India. As of now, this possibility appears remote, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the IS already has its hands full saving itself from the combined wrath of the Western countries and Russia, which continue to launch  air and missile strikes against IS targets.  Also, with Iran towards its East, the Kurdish majority areas of Iraq and Turkey towards its North and the Caspian Sea and Central Asian Republics to its North East, IS would not be able to physically spread eastwards and link up directly with its claimed affiliates in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The second way that the IS can make an entry into India is in case a ‘home grown’ terror group in India affiliates itself with the IS. Fortunately, with the ‘Indian Mujahedeen’ decimated, India does not have any ‘home grown’ terror group, as of now. A group calling itself the Ansar-al-tawhid of India, based in North West Pakistan, did make a claim of allegiance to the IS recently, but the group appears insignificant and lacks influence in India. Also, the Indian Muslim community is largely at peace with itself and other communities in India. More importantly, in the backdrop of Sufi influence in India, Indian Muslims are generally moderate and mostly not easily prone to the influence of radical strains like the Wahabi-Salafi school of Islam.  To that extent, it would behove the leadership of the community to retain a progressive outlook and not fall prey to radical influence from outside. Further, keeping in view the secular and pluralistic values of democracy and freedom enjoyed in India, the Indian Muslim is largely unlikely to easily succumb to outside influences of this kind.

The third way that the IS can make an entry is through ‘lone wolves’, single or in groups, who come under its influence through the social media or during their stay in the Middle East or European countries and orchestrate terror attacks on their return. Other than negating this possibility by generating awareness among the Indian Muslim community and our, as also our expatriates, our intelligence agencies should remain alive to this prospect and deal with this problem pro-actively, in conjunction with intelligence agencies of other countries.

From the above, it may generally be inferred that, at this point, the IS does not pose a credible threat to India. However, given the security dynamics of the region, combined with the sustained efforts of inimical agencies like the ISI to negatively influence the Muslim community in Kashmir and the rest of India, we would need to be alert to these machinations at all times. The government will also have to ensure that fringe elements of all communities are kept in check so that they do not create circumstances which result in alienation of the Muslim community in India, especially its youth. The intelligence agencies would need to keep track of our citizens owing allegiance to or making contact with radical organisations like Al Qaeda, IS, IM etc, as also detect efforts by inimical agencies like the ISI to contact or subvert our citizenry and influence them to participate in anti-national activities.

Views expressed by the Author are personal. Author is the Former Vice Chief of Army Staff.