Clarion of a Holy Crusade-II

Why provoke now?

             To think of it, ISIS was bound to rise. The region had known nothing but turmoil for the last 1,500 years. Help offers were all about access to the extensive oil reserves of the region. The stage, it seems, had been set for centuries. The Sunnis of Iraq and Syria are wrongly led to believe that they are the largest demographic group in that region. They are taught to feel oppressed by the existing Shia governments. ISIS, for its part, appears to be attempting to exploit this concern.

           By 2008, the Al-Qaida affiliated militias no longer swarmed the streets. Despite major issues like unemployment, corruption and as such, the national budget was reasonably promising and the defense was better than before. There was hope. It was a new atmosphere. It was full of promise. The tantalizing prospects of creating a stable state seemed within reach. But the world is never ideal. Prime minister of Iraq, Nouri-al-Maliki, then started using counterterrorism laws to imprison Sunni dissenters and to boot them from upper echelons of administration. Public protesters were branded as terrorists and tortured quite selectively. Men were arrested and shipped to “secret jails” never to be seen again. The morale among the ranks fell. To a whole new low.

           Simultaneously in Syria, attempts were being made to overpower President Bashar-al-Assad. The Syrian civil war provided a great window for the ISIS to gain stand in Syria as protests in the Kurdish inhabited areas of Syria evolved into armed clashes. The Syrian dictator has vigorously pursued a divide-and-conquer strategy during the war. He's tried hard to push the sectarian angle of the civil war, making it into a life-or-death struggle for his Alawite (Shia) and Christian supporters against the Sunni majority. ISIS' extremism has helped convince Alawites that defecting the rebels means the destruction of their homes and communities. Assad has also used ISIS to divide his other opponents: the moderate Free Syrian Army, other Islamist groups, and the United States. As ISIS grew at the expense of the rebels, US had a hard time intervening against Assad. And ISIS and moderate rebels have begun fighting against one another, further dividing the war in a way that's beneficial to Assad. So as ISIS gets a relatively free ride in Syria, Assad gets to weaken his enemies. Both hate each other but realize the advantage of the standing status quo and are getting along. They are frenemies.

               Incomprehensibly, ISIS succeeded in attracting followers from all over the world. Organizations like these generally thrive on attention. They are full tilt divas. ISIS currently has the spotlight on it and doesn’t look like it would not seize the moment. They appeal to radicalized Islamists who seem to find a fealty to violence. They appeal to frustrated youth who jump at the least chance of venting their anger. They appeal to the generally disaffected youth who want to kill each other. The funny thing is that no reference to executions or beheadings was found in Islam. 

        The recent ISIS mass executions, and increased activity of its members on social media starting with the video of execution of James Foley, an American journalist, show that ISIS no longer wishes to stay off radar. They aren’t blind. They search for opportunities and might possibly look forward to throwing a challenge to any potential interference (mostly USA). Any remaining doubt about ISIS remaining off stage was eliminated when ransom for Foley was named at an astounding $132 million. They are game.

How all this?

         Napoleon once said ‘An army marches on its stomach’ and even ISIS needs to feed and arm its soldiers. It needs to provide for their families. This is necessary to keep people’s interest and loyalty. Their predecessor Al-Qaida had its revenue drawn mainly from foreign investments. ISIS was too clever. Although they do receive considerable “dough” from donors abroad--- Saudi, Qatar, Kuwait and other gulf states, controlling or stopping this source won’t help much.

        As any sane head would, ISIS uses oil resources of the land to generate funds. This however involves smuggling crude oil out of borders. This led USA to carry out airstrikes aimed at the oil rigs controlled by ISIS. Did it help? I wouldn’t say so. It considerably reduces their income. But starving them to desperation is miles away. ISIS devised a more ingenious way to generate funds.  It smuggles, it skims, it extorts, it fences, it kidnaps, it loots—you name it! ISIS feeds itself off lay people’s plates through organized crime. So as of now, it is not very far from truth to say US air strikes, unless aided by strategic and coordinated land raids, helps only in worsening the lives there further.

          Taxation! One more ingenious way of fund raising.  ISIS imposes taxes on its subject populations. Apart from revenue generation, it helps regularize civil control to a great extent. Gives them the feeling of properly ruling a land. Gives them the authority to do so. There have also been reports of ISIS demanding voluntary donations to the state from its citizens. Voluntary donations whenever a local banks, uses public services, gets paid, lives.

In a nutshell

        The Islamic State has a plan to build a viable state right now, not some vague borderless world run by extremist jihadis. This issue is barely religious as it may seem; it is much like a political tinderbox.  ISIS, learnt from the mistakes of its predecessors. It has been showing great extent of strategic intelligence. It intends to keep a firm ground in Iraq and Syria. Although scores of Sunnis were massacred in mindless slaughter the fact that they still rely on ISIS is not worth ignoring. As a part of politico-military strategy, it's set up community, child-care, and medical services in some of the Sunni communities it controls in order to reach out to Sunnis.

       Now if we look for the silver lining, with ISIS's brutal legal system, it seems like Sunnis will eventually tire of the group. They should.  If ISIS's Sunni allies turn against it, there is a chance. But it’s never easy. The government needs to do a better job making its rule look attractive. ISIS may lose the Sunni population backing it in Iraq. In Syria though, it's hard to imagine either Assad or moderate anti-Assad rebels mounting an effective military campaign against ISIS in the near term. Whether they want to, as discussed, is also debatable. Here, (at least for now) containing ISIS to small piece of Syria, in itself is a victory. But this plan needs a lot of effort to be put in, from all countries jointly. ISIS is not invincible.



Katyayani S
BITSMUN Society. 

P.S   Let us all pray for peace. #Peshawar

Clarion of a Holy Crusade

How it all started?

        Human mind is very imaginative. It doesn’t like anything to be anything it doesn’t like! So when a seriously diminishing situation presents itself, it covets. We covet. We like to think about a perfect setting of the situation. We satisfy ourselves with a “good old times”. Most of us have a steaming cup of tea after that! But what if some people who don’t like tea, stand up to actualize that “good old times”? What if they don’t care about the realisability of “the good old times”? What if they have coffee instead??

       An idea takes birth. An idea of fundamentality. Resilient. Contagious. Dangerous. It develops a stress crack which wouldn’t heal with time as it should, forcing people to think (or not to). After a while most give up. But there is always a person (well, may be two) who wouldn’t! Abu Ayyub al-Masri didn’t; neither did Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. They didn’t like the existing system. They wanted a superior rule-a fundamental Islamic rule. The then existing Al-Qaida was too slow for them (now they are too violent for Al-Qaida!). they learnt from Al-Qaida’s mistakes and established an Organization turned Caliphate-recognized state  --- Al Dawla ai Islamiyye f’il Iraq w’al Sham.

        Translated roughly as the Islamic state of Iraq and Levant, the later part, most take to be Syria. The non-most claim Levant stands for regions of Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and southern parts of Turkey, modeled after the Prophet’s caliphate(632—652 AD). ISIS took root in 2003 after the USA invasion of Iraq, but really gained traction in 2006 after a U.S. bombing raid took out al-Qaeda leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

       After splitting from al-Qaida in Iraq, till date ISIL has conquered about a third of Syria and parts of Iraq including the city of Fallujah, potentially stale-mating the Syrian and American Governments with exceptional tactical brilliance. ISIS is more like conventional army using military tactics like assault rifles and grenades. Al-Qaida in comparison seems a bunch of hot-heads (with smart strategists). Let us not even consider the very high popularity of ISIS. In current position, ISIS can lay claim on a country or two, and still hide amongst their citizenry. In fact the ISIS managed to dodge the spotlight till the fall of Mosul.

Why a big deal?

       Back to basics now. The internet gives us definitions of caliphate as "an Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader known as a caliph – i.e. "successor" – to Muhammad.  Conceptually, a caliphate represents a sovereign state of the entire Muslim faithful, ruled by a caliph under Islamic law (Sharia)."

643 AD

       It is the ultimate goal of all Muslim Fundamentalists, in a broad sense, and ISIS, in particular, to establish a global caliphate. This is not happening in a day or two and ISIS knows that. We know ISIS knows, when ISIS left Bagdad untouched because ISIS knew it couldn't dislodge the huge concentrations of Iraqi troops there — or hold a majority-Shia city that would never accept a Sunni ISIS. A brilliant maneuver it was! This kind of terrorism intends to rule the land by fear. From beheadings to summary executions to amputations to crucifixions, the terrorist group has become the most feared organization on globe right now.

2013-14 AD  (close enough)

         Noted, that most Gulf States like Saudi Arabia, offer only cursory lip service about counterterrorism. They fund militant groups. They arm them. They aid them. Why? The purpose of many seem to be the destruction of Israel. These nations hate the “Palestinians” and the only reason they aid the Palestinian cause is to gain access to the west bank. Once they do there is no stopping the attacks on Israel and Tel Aviv. Want more proof? Why didn’t King Abdullah of Jordan want any Bedouins on his side of Jordan river? Because he identified them as nothing but a drain of his resources. Why did Egypt refuse to let the Palestinians settle in the Sinai Peninsula after Israel's War of Independence in 1948 and banish them to the Gaza Strip I wonder? Just so you know, Sinai is as important to Egypt as your appendix is to you unless you are an awesome horse reading this article! Suddenly everyone is unusually threatened by ISIS. They behave like bowl-fish before earthquake. Classic example is of Saudi Arabia, in its first ever public service announcement about terrorism, saying that “ ISIS will be in Europe in a month and in America a month after that”! Did anyone else hear that?

           That is why ISIS  IS a big deal, that’s why!
                                                                                               ..............to be continued

Katyayani S

BITSMUN Society

 

Ebola: Today's Plague?

Have any of you played the game Plaque. Inc. before? That crazy game where we control a microbe of sorts and try to obliterate the world with it. Fun game to play, isn’t it. Well, for all those who love this game, you’re in luck, you get to see a live demonstration of the game on actual humans. But believe me, it’s not all that fun when you’re trying to save yourself from the microbe.

This Ebola strike has, like many other of its sister viruses, has started in Africa. I wonder what Saharan magic they use to create these stuff. And this time, it’s worse than the previous. Infecting even one person in a country is enough to leave their people shivering in July. I suppose Thomas Duncan, the Liberian who injected Ebola into USA, must have been one of the most feared men in the country when he was still alive, though it wasn’t his fault at all.

Map of infected regions in West Africa. The dark red regions indicating more than 500 infected cases.

The worst part about the virus is its incubation period. It can infect you and you might not realise it for even 3 weeks and more than 70% of the infected die. The virus transmits through bodily fluids, so no eating your friend’s ice cream. Even with the assistance of the European nations, the western African nations have been unable to control the virus, and without a cure or a vaccine, can it get any worse.

A chart showing the growth of Ebola in the world in 2014

I am sure this news can get very frightening, and you have a good reason to do so. The place near the hospital where Duncan was treated has turned into a ghost town. Parking lots deserted, streets empty, and doctor appointments, cancelled. But all said and done, the virus is still infecting more people every day.

Now, we have a frightful situation, what do we do? We can stop the infection from spreading. I know, I know, almost every single post of Ebola on every news channel tells you the same thing. But that is because it is important. We can take a clear example of Nigeria and the other western African countries which have been affected. As of October 20, Nigeria has been declared Ebola free, with just 8 people diagnosed with the disease. The Nigerians responded quickly and effectively, eliminating the disease. I believe that such a response is necessary, and all countries, especially densely populated countries like India must take necessary precautions.

Basic precautions like avoiding the bodily fluids of the infected and using proper protective gear near the infected must be taken. Also, any case of a person showing relevant symptoms must be reported immediately. This is a must for everyone out there, because Ebola has the potential to wipe out entire nations if left untreated.

Hemanth Chenna

BITSMUN Society