The Obama Administration’s
foreign policy continues to dither. The earlier post focused on possible
intelligence shortcomings of the US on Iraq and the unbridled advances made by
the Islamic State [known formerly as Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)
or Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL)]. By August 2014, there was pressure
from groups such as the Kurds on the US Government to intervene military in Iraq
to counter the Islamic State.
In response to gains made by the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq the United States began to deploy its military to
Iraq to defend American assets (and interests) and to advise Iraqi government
forces. In August 2014, the U.S. military began an aerial campaign directed
against radical Islamists in northern Iraq. In addition to military efforts,
the US also mounted a considerable humanitarian mission aimed at assisting
ethnic minorities, particularly the Yazidis, in northern Iraq who were and
continue to be under the threat of genocide by ISIS.
The
consequences of US strikes
One of the most horrific
consequences of US military intervention was the execution of a US national who
was abducted two years earlier while on an assignment in Syria. This was not
the first time that a US national had been taken hostage and executed by terror
outfits. Hostages have been executed by radical Islamist groups operating in
Lebanon in the eighties. James Foley, an American free lance photo-journalist
working for the Global Post was abducted in November 2012 in north-western Syria
by militants belonging to the ISIL/ISIS. In August 2014 he was executed by the
terrorist outfit in response to the US airstrikes in Iraq.
According to White House sources he was believed
to have been abducted by Shabiha militia (a shadowy outfit suspected to
have been established by Namir al-Assad and Rifaat al-Asad operating in the Mediterranean region
around Latakia, Banias and Tartous), and later reportedly held in a Syrian Arab Air Force intelligence complex in Damascus. It is not clear how or under what circumstances did Foley came under IS captivity. A US Special Forces operation was ordered by President Obama to rescue Foley and other hostages in July 2014 somewhere inside Syria. President Barack Obama ordered
the secret operation, the first of its kind by the U.S. inside Syrian territory
since the start of the civil war, after the U.S. received intelligence the
Americans were being held by the extremist group known as Islamic State in a
sparsely populated area inside Syria. The officials said that U.S. forces landed modified, heavily armed Black Hawk helicopters flown by the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, which works with both the Army’s Delta Force and Navy SEAL commandos. The regiment is known as the “Night Stalkers.” After landing nearby and approaching the facility by foot,
the force came under small-arms fire, to which it responded, the officials
said. Several fighters of the Islamic State were killed in the exchange of
fire. One member of the special operations forces team was shot and slightly
injured, the officials said. However, Foley was not located. A case of inaccurate intelligence on the whereabouts of the hostages, perhaps! The operation was a secret but was revealed
after Foley's death.
Foley's continued whereabouts were
unknown until August 19, 2014, when ISIS posted a video to YouTube depicting
Foley reading a prepared statement urging Americans to stop their support for
the U.S. government for its bombing campaign against ISIS targets.
Tackling the Islamic
State
The Islamic State or ISIS is a unique
outfit; it cannot be termed as an insurgent group in the classical sense considering
the kind of brutality that it has unleashed on minorities, especially Yazidis
and Christians. At the same time, like insurgents and unlike terrorists, it has
come to control large swathes of territory in parts of Syria and Iraq. The
Islamic State is more or less in the mould of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE). If that be the case, then countering this group is certainly
going to be an uphill task. It took the Sri Lankan forces nearly three decades
to wipe out the LTTE.
The use of air power
by US and its allies will have limited impact on the capabilities of the
Islamic State. Air power may deter IS to mount large-scale military offensives
but will have hardly any impact on its ability to carry out suicide bombing,
assassinations and hostage-taking. The US will be in a bind if its nationals
are taken hostages and their executions are filmed and uploaded on the net. The
US will have to come up with an effective counter-terrorism strategy which will
deter the IS from targeting nationals belonging to the US and its allies. The
US needs to borrow a page from that unconfirmed incident which took place in the
mid-eighties in Lebanon when about four diplomats of the erstwhile Soviet Union
were abducted by a radical Sunni Muslim outfit, the Islamic Liberation
Organisation, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Alpha (or Alfa) Group
was dispatched to Beirut in October 1985. By the time Alpha arrived, one of the hostages had already
been killed. Through a network of supporting KGB operatives, members of the
task-force identified each of the perpetrators involved in the crisis, and once
identified, began to take the relatives of these militants as hostages. Following the standard policy of no negotiations with terrorists, some of the hostages taken by Alpha Group were dismembered, and their body parts sent to the militants. The warning was clear: more would follow unless the remaining hostages were released immediately. The message
was “Release our people or you will get your people piece by piece”. The show of force worked and for a period of 20 years no Soviet or Russian officials were taken captive.
There is a great deal of
apprehension that radicalized Western Muslims have been engaging and continue
to engage in terrorist activities in Iraq and Syria as part of the Islamic State
and will eventually return home. The fear is misplaced. For if, the West is
determined to keep its soil free of Islamic extremists, the only solution is to
physically prevent them from returning home. The other option is to neutralize them.
And the last option is the Soviet option, the veracity of which incident has
been questioned by some.
Softer options of incarceration or
rehabilitation, howsoever democratic and fanciful, it may appear, will only
give rise to more rabid militant outfits. Physical elimination will ensure that
these elements will not be around to re-engage in any kind of terror activities
and will have a deterrent effect on other like-minded individuals and groups
who nurture such sinister ideas.
