A politically appropriate probe into Dhaka attack will hurt Bangladesh

Dhaka, July 5: Investigating cases relating to terrorism so that they are politically appropriate is never a good way to go about the problem.

When the Bangladesh government ruled out an ISIS link despite each of the attackers pledging their allegiance to the Abu-Bakr al-Bhagdadi run outfit it sounded like a myopic analysis.

The point that India realised very late and Bangladesh has not realised as yet is that the ISIS uses home grown Jihadis to stage attacks. Take the case of the Belgium attack in which four out of the five terrorists were locals.

V Balachandran, former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat speaks with OneIndia about the rise of Do It Yourself Terrorism and also the dangers in probing cases with an intention of making it politically appropriate.

ISIS uses home grown terror:

Balachandran draws us to the statement made by India's Home Minister a few months back in which he had said Indian Muslims are peace loving and hence there is no threat of the ISIS. By that logic, the ISIS should have posed any threat to Bangladesh as majority of the citizens are opposed to violence, he points out.

One must not think of solving the problem of terrorism with a simplistic analysis. Post 9/11, the al-Qaeda changed its operational style. From centralised operations, they moved towards outsourcing Jihadi units. As a result of this Far Enemy strategy, the al-Qaeda would decide on the targets and the same would be hit by local units.

Balachandran says that the ISIS too is adopting the same strategy today. I had pointed out recently that the Back Flush of the indoctrinated youth is a danger. Moreover the arrests of ISIS sympathisers also indicates the gravity of the situation.

There is a mistaken notion that the raids by US and later Russia on ISIS positions had weakened the organization. We should not be lulled into inaction by that type of analysis. Even if ISIS's land holding area has shrunk, their lethal power through local affiliates owing allegiance to them remains strong.

OneIndia News