Ramazan is supposed to be a month when Muslims cease hostilities but the Islamic State, showing its true nature, vowed to launch more attacks than ever. They have followed through with that bloody promise. In the last week alone, the IS has claimed responsibility for brazen attacks at a café in Dhaka, the airport in Istanbul, security forces in Yemen, at a Christian area in Lebanon and a border crossing in Syria. In addition to that, individuals pledging allegiance to the IS shot up a gay nightclub in Orlando in one case and killed a police officer and his partner in France in another. Now, the group has launched what may be its worst recent attack at a shopping district in Baghdad, killing over 120 people and injuring at least 150 more. The attack is believed to be a response to the recent military defeat the IS suffered in Fallujah, where it was forced to flee after an assault by US airstrikes and Iraqi troops. The one thing this attack should tell us is that the IS is not a conventional enemy which can be defeated in pitched battles. As important as a territorial stronghold can be for a militant group, the IS is far too decentralised to contain through military force. Its fighters are stationed around the world, and with so many individuals willing to carry out lone wolf attacks and die in its name, the IS must be tackled in a different manner.
In Iraq, the IS has taken advantage of the chaos left by the US both to take over cities and draw supporters to its banner. This is why the worst possible way to try and defeat the IS is with further US involvement. The same applies in Syria, where the involvement of outside powers like the US, France, Britain, Russia and Turkey has only made the problem worse. In Yemen and Syria too, the interference of the US and the mess it left behind created space for the IS. For the group and its poisonous ideology to be defeated, each country must come up with its own indigenous solution – without meddling from outside powers. In Europe and the US, the alienation felt by first- and second-generation Muslims will need to be tackled. The rise of Islamophobia and the Far Right – in the form of the radicalisation of the Donald Trump-led Republican Party in the US and the likes of UKIP, the National Front and many others in Europe – is the single greatest contributor to the appeal of the IS. It may be the most extreme militant group yet but the response to the IS should not be greater extremism from everyone else. https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/132975-Terror-in-Baghdad
Comments are closed.