The brand of terrorism has gone global
since the 9/11 attacks and the world realized that even the most powerful
countries can become a target. The modus operandi of terrorist organizations
has become to widen their reign of influence beyond tribals and locals of
under-developed and oppressed Middle Eastern countries to not just educated Muslims
but also people of other religion even in developed countries. The perspectives
of people towards the kind of people terror organizations attract has been
limited since the late 80’s to what pictures rural Iraq and Afghanistan draw in
their minds. The game today, in this limitless digital age, terror has become
organized and flexible in its management than ever.
Forming
of a Terror Conglomerate through M&A
In the past we’ve heard news channels
speak about how the number of people in terror organizations has been growing
globally. What we are looking at is the fruitition of Al Qaeda’s merger and
acquisition strategies. It began in the mid 90’s with amalgamating with Egyptian
Islamic Jihad group that was led by the current Qaeda top boss Al-Zawahiri.
Since then the organization has come a long way in acquiring terror groups
globally. Now in case of two groups uniting there can be different paradigms at
work. A smaller terror group can either work under the aegis and brand of Al Qaeda
to gain more acceptances in its home country or they pledge their allegiance to
the global cause of terror. Sometimes the latter happens unwillingly due to
strong arming of the smaller group. This also leads to alienation of host
nationals to their original cause, which might have earlier not been extreme.
For example Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat in Algeria, whose
allegiance to Qaeda has won them new targets and more so, newer and more
powerful enemies.
Identification
of potential recruits
Qaeda is said to have a proto-type of
the kind of persons they seek to attract. Analysis by the Multinational Force
Iraq revealed that this proto-type consists of mostly impressionable men, who
may or may not be followers of a religion in concern, in the upper end of their
20’s who are un employed or work blue collared jobs with little or no education
and military experience. Clearer difference is given to the audience they target
as: Identity seekers, who wish to create a unique persona and look for
belonging; Status Seeker: Looking for Recognition, Revenge Seeker: Looking for
an Outlet for Frustration, Thrill Seeker: Looking for Adventure.
These kinds of recruits are targeted from
foreign countries than home with the promise of friendship, a greater
understanding of the religion along with a purpose. Purpose is majorly what
these prototypical individuals seek; who’s other peculiar characteristic is the
need to stand out. This glass is shattered as soon as they land in these
clandestine camps training terrorists. Accompanied with distrustful sentiments
towards foreigners by other members of the organization, they are thrusted with
suicide vests and detonation training; they are brain washed into going back to
their host countries to carry out suicide attacks.
The
Process of Engagement
Al Qaeda has resorted to a structured
recruitment program that helps them to tap into the pulse of young adults who
have access to the internet.
Step
1: Sparking Interest
Enticing young audience with games,
music and online content that deems Jihad as cool, they infuse into it elements
of pop culture such as rap, hip hop, first person shooting, strategy. These
games and music videos, laced with deep seeded message of violence and
bloodletting in the name of religion and anti-nationalism create a sense of
suave to the entire idea in the minds of youth, especially from countries
abroad.
Step
2: Feeding the Spark into a flame
Step one sparks the radicalization
process, resulting in the individual identifying with the fundamentalist
ideology. The next phase draws them to mediums of further engagement and
permeation of extreme ideological psyche. This is usually done through blogs,
forums and alternate social media avenues, where messages and discussions are
promoted to spur engagement of audience.
Step
3: Equipping and Enabling
By being immersed in the content fed by
the above two assaults to the mind, the victims of these acts are motivated to
accept their calling. If they are unable to get themselves to a terror camp,
they are shown how to breed terror locally or cause destruction in their host
country. Content of bomb creation from simple grocery items and plain household
tools have made their way through all the vines of the Internet, accessible to
anyone.
Result:
Engaged and Mobile Operators
These radicalized youth are hence
unleashed into society and hide in plain sight without any notice. This is the
most dangerous form of latent terrorism breeding in our world today. One
doesn’t even need to contact an affiliated individual or even travel to a
terror camp in war torn countries of Asia where the organization operates.
Standard
operating procedures of terrorism
The recruits are enlightened to what handbooks,
which possess eerie similarity to the common employee handbook given post
induction to any employee of any organization. Laced with SOP’s of common
operations including principles and tenets of their working, mission statement,
conduct while handling counterfeit currency and forged passports, communication
channels, points of meeting, conduct to
be maintained by of commanders, overt and covert members outside and in case
one is in prison etc. Each rule, even those based on killing hostages and persons
in doubt, are backed by religious references that try and convince the
conscience of already radicalized individual all the more.
Make no mistake, these are the same
organizations that are nothing short of showing little children barely into
their teens how to tend and use an automatic machine gun with ease. With operations
financed from drug trade, extortion and kidnapping, terror has become more
structured than it has ever been. If the 20th century had seen the
rise of organized crime, certainly the 21st century, with its
limitless technology has witnessed the rise organized terror. It is a matter of
better understanding these processes and patterns that are and will help
anti-terror efforts of the world.
Terror is now having a planned source of
finance, efforts to strengthen its brand presence across mediums, analyzing
their target audience and tapping into their interests and drawing them to the
cause. It might sound a little too vague an image, but what comprises of the
organization of terror today is opaquely similar to how an MNC would generally
go about its organization. With, what seems like a recruitment strategies that
get them the right audience each time, it is an uphill task for any counter
terror agency to get cracking on this new face of terror.
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