Ancient tactics in modern Mumbai
The tactics are similar swarm attacks meant to put pressure at several points at the same time not allowing defensive forces to concentrate efforts. The problem with this effort is that the terrorist lack sufficient force to achieve anything of consequence beyond a mass murder of noncombatants. Where is the victory in that?The Army of Muhammad is back. This was the message buzzing in radical Islamist circles yesterday as the world tried to absorb the shock of the terrorist attacks in Bombay, India's economic capital.
While it is not yet clear which group was behind the attacks, it looks as if the perpetrators were trying to imitate the tactic of ghazwa, used by the Prophet against Meccan caravans in his decade-long campaign to seize control of the city.
The tactic consists of surprise no-holds-barred attacks simultaneously launched against a caravan or settlement with the aim of demoralising the enemy and hastening his capitulation.
The Bombay attacks differed from previous terror operations in India in a number of ways. In the past, one approach had been to place explosive-packed devices in crowded places with the aim of killing large numbers at random. Another was suicide attacks on specific targets by lone "volunteers for martyrdom".
This time, however, the approach was "symphonic", in the sense that it involved different types of operations blended together.
Involved in the operations were men who had placed explosives at selected points. But there were also gunmen operating in classic military style by seizing control of territory at symbolically significant locations along with hostages. Then there were militants prepared to kill, and be killed, in grenade attacks against security forces.
Whoever designed the operations had another important Islamic tactic in mind: tabarra or exoneration.
This consists of separating the "outsider", in this case the British and American "infidel", from the community with the intent of blaming them for the ills of the world before sacrificing them. It was no accident that one of the places attacked was a Jewish centre, where gunmen seized a rabbi and several members of the congregation as hostages.
The loud message was that a small group of individuals could turn a megalopolis of almost 15 million inhabitants into a battlefield for at least a day.
Terrorism is a beast with an extraordinary ability to mutate. As soon as its victims have learnt to cope with its methods, it develops new ones. Groups of anarchists throwing bombs follow the lone assassin who would target a king or a political leader. The hijacking of passenger jets is replaced by the transformation of aircraft into missiles against fixed targets.
All the time, the intention is to terrorise the largest number of people, eroding the ordinary man's confidence in the ability of the authorities to protect him, and, in the long run, persuading a majority of the people, who just want to live their lives, to trade their freedom for the security that the terrorist promises in his utopia.
Although new to India, the tactic of "symphonic" attacks has been tried in a number of other countries in the past decade, notably Algeria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, at times with devastating effects.
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What they accomplished is more rejection of their cause and less respect for their point of view.
I am a little disappointed in the telegraph. Anybody with the most basic grasp of arabic will know that ghazwa simply means "battle". There is no deep terrorist tactic connoted by the word. Hence the word 'Ghazi' meaning simply someone who participated in a battle and lived to tell about it (as opposed to the "shaheed" who died).
ReplyDeleteMoreover there is no such thing as no-holds-barred in the Islamic rules of war. There are laws to protect even vegetation from destruction during a battle, let alone civilian non-combatants.