Fighting global terror We fight terror because it is a threat to national security and world peace. But to fight terror you have to understand how it reacts, when it may rebound, and the forms into which it can mutate. When terror groups splinter they tend to become not only more lethal, but also to expand their reach. Take Al-Qaeda, for example, and the way it has spawned franchises all over the globe. Al-Qaeda is but the culmination of a historical process that began with the birth of the hard-line Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, a group whose fanatical views, as expressed in the writings of Sayyid Qotb, paved the way for a myriad of terror-practicing organisations that in due time gave birth to Al-Qaeda. Just as the Muslim Brotherhood franchised its business across borders, Al-Qaeda soon learned that lesson. But first it had to have a refuge in which to practice its ideas, and the Taliban provided it, with deadly outcome. It was in Afghanistan that the quantum leap happened, and where the ideas of global jihad were turned into a disturbing reality. The US retaliated for the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington by smashing the Taliban regime and sending Al-Qaeda into hiding, and also into other countries. From this time on, Al-Qaeda hit upon a simple strategy. First, when under attack, you hide. Second, when you encounter an overwhelming show of force, you send your members across borders, creating cells and forging roots in other countries. Then, ultimately, you franchise your business to like-minded people across the globe. From Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda's seasoned operatives went abroad and waited. And whenever the time was right, they stepped in, as they did in Iraq after the US invasion, in Syria after the revolution, and in Libya after the regime's ouster. In Yemen, the power vacuum was already too inviting. The suicide attack off Yemeni shores on the US guided-missile destroyer USS Cole, back in 2000, was just the beginning. In North Africa, Morocco was able to control the militants, but just barely. In Algeria, the conflict between the Islamic Salvation Front and the army reportedly claimed 250,000 lives. Al-Qaeda now has franchises in most Arab countries: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, and Sudan, to mention but a few. Somalia, like Yemen, had no immunity against the jihadists, who knew a power vacuum when they saw one. In a nutshell, Arab national security is not just threatened by the Islamic State (IS) group but by a continuum of rabid militancy of which IS is only the tip of the iceberg. Egypt has no franchises of IS, but it has a local branch of Al-Qaeda, which may be receiving help from regional bases. At recent meetings of the anti-terror coalition, Egyptian officials felt that the whole manner of fighting terror was skewed. With the focus being on IS alone, the big picture is lost and whole endeavour may thus get off to an inauspicious start. Focusing on Irbil and some Iraqi governorates when the reach of global jihad is much wider could backfire. Of course, areas connected to American interests will take top billing, but without a good sense of direction we might be fuelling terror by the very measures through which we hope to stop it. The danger to security in this region is hardly confined to Iraq. Yemen and Libya, both on the verge of collapse, must be the top priority. In both countries, central governments are teetering while Al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists are gaining ground. To fight a global war on terror, you cannot pick and choose. You have to go for all the possible locales into which the terrorists may run: Libya and Yemen and Egypt are but a few examples. Double-dealing may be an established international practice but it is unlikely to help in this case, not with terror being the target. Disregard for the future of countries facing disintegration will come at a heavy cost, for it offers safe haven to global jihadists, thus amplifying the problem instead of resolving it. Let's say that IS comes under intensive air strikes in Iraq, and is thus forced underground. What will it do? As previous experience shows, it will most likely send its fighters to countries experiencing a power vacuum, to nations suffering from civil war, to desert countries where large swathes of territories are under-policed. And most countries in the region, at this point in time, fit the bill. When the Americans crushed the Taliban in 2001, Al-Qaeda sent its people to Pakistan. Thirteen years later, Pakistan is still suffering from the shock. So an ill-advised action in one country, however satisfactory in the short term, can have lasting consequences on many more nations than the planners had intended. This region is more volatile than at any time before in its history. And those who want to start a war on terror should think twice. Either they form a strategy for the whole region or they risk doing more damage than good. To stamp out terror you have to deny it safe havens all round, and you must do the intellectual and social groundwork to discourage the young from joining the game. Above all, for those of us living in the Arab world, we must develop our own strategy for fighting global terror. If we subscribe to the piecemeal approach of outsiders we may be setting ourselves up for failure.
