Messianic Ideas of Jihad

Homegrown terrorism and extremism 'an enduring threat'
By Rohan Gunaratna

The terrorist threat to Australia has altered significantly during the past five years.
Since 9/11, the threat of international terrorism to Australia has been surpassed by the threat of homegrown terrorism.

Today, homegrown terrorists present the biggest security challenge to Australian law enforcement and to security and intelligence services.

As much as 70-80 per cent of Australian counter terrorism resources are now dedicated to monitoring, tracking and targeting homegrown jihadists.

Homegrown jihadi terrorism is a new paradigm that has emerged after the earlier wave of centralised organisation structures like the Al Qaeda and other transnational terrorist groups.

The rigorous efforts of global counter-terrorism initiatives and the cooperation between various state-level and intergovernmental agencies had resulted in the systematic decimation of the organisations and networks of the major terrorist groups.

The intentions and capabilities of these groups have transmuted into decentralised and devolved entities of homegrown jihadists.

As opposed to international terrorists, homegrown jihadists are Australian citizens. They are either convert or cradle Muslims. As opposed to mainstream Muslims, homegrown jihadists are driven by the ideology of global jihad, a brief system constructed in the last decade.

Popularised by Al Qaeda and its associated groups, they adhere to the clarion call of Osama bin Laden that "it is the duty of every good Muslim to wage jihad."

The homegrown jihadists believe that the United States, its allies and friends are purposely targeting Islam and wilfully killing Muslims. They equate the West to Satan. They see it as their religious duty and sacred obligation to fight those opposing Islam and the Muslims.

The extremist and terrorist ideologues, including those living in Australia, have called for attacks against the US, allies and their friends. They have stated that if you die in jihad (holy war), a place in heaven is guaranteed.

According to the jihadist discourse, it is not a must for the jihadist to travel to a conflict zone such as Iraq or Afghanistan. These conflict zones where Muslims are suffering have been declared as lands of jihad. It is permitted to attack the targets of the US, its allies and friends anywhere and at anytime.

To justify attacks against civilians including women and children, the terrorist ideologues claim that as Australians pay taxes enabling Australian forces to operate in Iraq and Afghanistan. The jihadist operational code also permits mass fatality and mass casualty attacks by employing suicide attacks.

To lure young Muslims to kill and die, jihadist ideologues have given the status of "martyr" to a recruit. They call the terrorist operation a "martyrdom" attack. Most youth who volunteer for suicide attacks have had a secular education. A shallow understanding of Islam makes them susceptible to indoctrination and radicalisation.

Their knowledge is informed mostly through the Internet by visiting terrorist and extremist websites. Furthermore, they have constructed a set of rewards to trap the foolish and misguide the idealistic Muslim youth.

(1) Immediate entry to paradise
(2) Audience with God
(3) Forgiven for vices and sins
(4) Guarantees entry of 70 members of the family and relatives to heaven
(5) Served by 72 virgins
(6) Eternal life

Terrorist ideologues
To make the offer attractive, terrorist ideologues including Australian terrorist ideologues have given graphic accounts of paradise. One such ideologue living in Australia embellished the beauty of the heavenly virgins. Some youth are driven by these accounts that are designed to send youth to their death. Driven by the global jihad ideology of Al Qaeda, these youth are willing to kill and die for their belief.

To make the offer credible, the terrorist ideologues state that the recruit should pay all his debts before conducting the martyrdom operation. If he fails to fulfil this requirement, the ideologue states that the martyr will be held at the gates to heaven. Immediately before the attack, some recruits have written very sorry letters to their parents appealing to them to pay their dues.

In the West, including in Australia, the terrorist ideology is disseminated mostly through the Internet.

The virtual space has been the greatest enabler of teaching, nurture and sustenance of the jihadi ideology and how to do training manuals spread in mass diffusion throughout the world. The ideology of the homegrown jihadists is fortified by the tragic events in Iraq as well as the suffering of the Muslims in conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir and Palestine. Some segments of mainstream media especially television images reinforce their belief. These self recruited jihadists link up with like minded jihadists through the Internet. They meet over chat rooms and other forums.

In some migrant and diaspora pockets, including in Australia, there are self appointed imams seeking to radicalise youth to generate support as well as to recruit. Those susceptible to politicisation and radicalisation are the politically marginalised youth. As vast majority of the Muslims are moderate, it is difficult for preachers of hate to function in mainstream mosques for too long.

As such, they have formed small prayer groups in New South Wales and in Victoria.
As opposed to foreign terrorist groups, homegrown individuals, cells, and groups rarely leave behind a footprint. They lack formal group structure of leadership, membership and a support base of supporters and sympathisers. As they have no hierarchical structure, they cannot be dismantled. As they are networked, they are resilient to destruction. They are not formally educated and trained. They emerge spontaneously. As such, a new set of measures and counter measures are necessary to fight the homegrown phenomenon.

The physical security measures of security and safety have secured the territorial and demographic foundations of the state. However, the emotional and cognitive domains of the minds in the 'secured state' are now exposed to the ironies of the freedom of electronic information flows. This serves as a formidable catalyst motivating the young Islamists who have been far from their Islamic home societies into secular host societies that are irreligious and secular.

Reaching out
In Australia, the Government has developed a reasonably robust operational response. While the security and intelligence services have widened their coverage of radical nodes, the law enforcement authorities are investigating several suspects. However, many governments worldwide have lagged behind in crafting a non-lethal, non kinetic The key is for government to engage the Muslim elite to reach out to the community. As such, the threat of homegrown terrorism will persist in the foreseeable future. Furthermore, it is likely to grown in the years ahead.

The globalised world of the West with its material-centric norms has no emotional and dogmatic equivalent to the young host society Islamists who are amidst of an ethnic identity crisis or a racial or religious contention. The cognitive vacuum of the young Islamist is thus vulnerable to the messianic ideas of jihad and the epithets that encourage 'martyrdom' for the false promise of a heavenly inheritance.

The promise is lucrative to the alienated young Islamic individual since the material milieu around him is deceptive and he is made to be convinced that the only hope is going to be the cyberspace emotive idea of being a devout Muslim in an irreligious world.

Contemporary evolving counterterrorism initiatives do not effectively deal with the uninterrupted surge of the cyber-based jihadi inspirational feeds that subtly entice the vulnerable and misguided mind to acts of predatory violence.

The implications of this trend include:

1 The physical counter terrorism measures have secured the filtration of foreign jihadists into the territorial domain of the state, but the recourse of the global jihadi discourse is to use the internet-the platform of social and economic globalisation to be the basis for remote controlling the rank and file of the faithful in the 'host' societies;

2 The Internet cannot be policed effectively and policing measures have always produced even more countermeasures and subtle, devious means to neutralise it;

3 The fermentation of the local home grown Islamic faithful in the discourse of jihadism is perhaps the best fifth column tactic that the global jihad has adopted to the rigours of the physical counterterrorism measures.

In conclusion, homegrown terrorism and extremism is an enduring threat. Especially for migrant and diaspora hosting countries - US, Canada, UK, EU and New Zealand - homegrown jihadism has emerged as the greatest security challenge.

- Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Nanyang University, Singapore

http://www.abc.net.au/news/opinion/items/200706/s1943497.htm