Opinion One-man armies

Experience suggests the individual is often greater than the terror organisation.

May 10, 2011 01:21 AM IST First published on: May 10, 2011 at 01:21 AM IST

Amid the welter of words and the high-decibel debate over the future of al-Qaeda and who will be the likely successor to the late unlamented Osama bin Laden,the popular view seems to be that global jihadists will be inspired rather than undermined by his passing. Reactions by the Taliban in Afghanistan,reported statements by al-Qaeda leaders in Syria and Yemen and the scenes of outrage and mourning led by our own Most Wanted,Hafiz Muhammed Saeed of the Lashkar-e-Toiba,have only served to bolster the argument. Yet,even as the world braces for the widely predicted backlash,there is another side to the argument that has been missed by most strategic analysts. Apart from Islamic-related terrorism,in the subcontinent we have seen the rise of two major terrorist groups committed to a violent ideology with much fervour and fearlessness. One was the Liberation Front for Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka led by V. Prabhakaran and the other was the Khalistan movement in Punjab whose prime mover and rallying icon was Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

Like al-Qaeda,both used religion and ethnic identity to create an ideological backbone for their bloody crusades. Both used the bogey of the omnipresent state it was the Sri Lankan government for Prabhakaran and its Indian equivalent for Bhindranwale to create a persecution complex among their recruits and a sense of betrayal and revenge. Not dissimilar to what bin Laden and his clones have done with the Muslim identity and the thirst for revenge against the West for perceived bias and attacks on a particular community. For groups like the LeT,it is against India. The similarity doesnt end there. Both Prabhakaran and Bhindranwale rose to prominence and notoriety by the force of their personalities (charisma seems a bit of a stretch),their ability to organise substantial funds and popular backing from large sections of the Tamil or Sikh population locally and abroad,and,like Osama,their own image of bravery and courage.

Heres the key issue: they both had a massive following,armed and dangerous and ideologically committed,and yet they were one-man armies. Prabhakarans death was also the death of the LTTE. They are a spent force today,unable to rise and regroup,rendered headless. Bhindranwales bloody end created a violent backlash,including the assassination of a prime minister,but because of the damage to the Golden Temple where he was holed up,and not because of any sense of revenge for his death. The Khalistan demand died a natural death without a rallying figure who was seen as taking on the might of the state,as was the case with Prabhakaran.

Both were such larger-than-life figures,made larger by myth and legend,that they became symbolic of the movements they led and the violence they unleashed. Their passing also buried an ideology and the violence that became its signature.

Osama has the potential to go the same way as far as the group he founded,al-Qaeda,is concerned. Other Islamic militant groups,most notably the LeT,will survive mainly because of the state sponsorship they receive,but al-Qaeda without Osama,even as figurehead,may not. For one,al-Qaeda does not embrace or attract all Muslims. It is,in fact,intolerant of non-Sunni branches of Islam and most of al-Qaedas alternative leadership regards liberal Muslims,Shias,Sufis and other such sects as heretics.

Also,al-Qaedas management philosophy has been described as centralisation of decision and decentralisation of execution. Al-Qaeda Central revolved around bin Laden. His ideological sway was paramount and singularly effective in inspiring legions of misguided followers. Over the years,terrorism experts have argued that al-Qaeda has fragmented into a variety of disconnected regional movements that have little connection with each other. Without Osama,there is now no umbrella organisation. According to the award-winning 2004 BBC documentary,The Power of Nightmares,al-Qaeda was so weakly linked together that it was hard to say it existed apart from bin Laden and a small clique of close associates. The lack of any significant number of convicted al-Qaeda members,despite a large number of arrests on terrorism charges,was cited by the documentary as reason to doubt whether a widespread entity that met the description of al-Qaeda even existed.

Indeed,in the months leading up to Osamas death,a survey of Muslims around the world found evidence of waning support for bin Laden. Among the six predominantly Muslim nations recently surveyed by the Pew Research Centres Global Attitudes Project,Osama bin Laden received his highest level of support among Muslims in the Palestinian territories although even there,only 34 per cent said they had confidence in the terrorist leader to do the right thing in world affairs. In Indonesia (26 per cent),Egypt (22 per cent) and Jordan (13 per cent),the numbers who expressed confidence in Osama were down drastically from an earlier survey in 2003. In fact,he had little support among Turkish (3 per cent) or Lebanese Muslims (1 per cent) in the latest poll. Since 2003,the percentage of Muslims voicing confidence in him has declined by 38 per cent. The greatest decline has occurred in Jordan,where 56 per cent of Muslims had confidence in Osama in 2003,compared with just 13 per cent in the latest poll.

What this suggests is that Osamas influence and rallying power may have been highly exaggerated and,towards the end,obscured by myth and legend. Abbottabad may acquire a larger symbolism of closure than just the death of one man.

dilip.bobb@expressindia.com