Monday, April 01, 2013

“Perhaps The US Navy Seals did Capture Osama Alive...”

Cairo-based Max Rodenbeck, Chief Middle East Correspondent, The Economist, discusses Osama Bin Laden’s death, The Involvement of Pakistan and US in The Capture, and The Effects of Osama’s death on other Terror Outfits, Pakistan’s Neighbours and The Middle East, with A. Sandeep, Editor, Business & Economy.

B&E: Recently, America celebrated the end of Osama bin Laden, as the end of the mastermind behind the biggest terror threats worldwide. Is it actually such a big victory?
Max Rodenbeck (MR): Understanding that he was one of the biggest criminals in world history and the biggest threat to peace, the celebration was called for. But to hope that this would bring an end to all kinds of terrorist attacks like those masterminded by the al-Qaeda under bin Laden’s leadership, I think it is premature to think that such a thing will happen. Osama’s death is a big blow to al-Qaeda, The outfit has grown considerably weaker in the past ten years, and it is not clear as to who will be the successor to Osama. Whoever becomes the successor, he would not have the same profile or the ability to inspire such hatred or admiration amongst like-minded people.

B&E: While reacting to the news of Osama’s death, the British PM had said that there was a need for the West to be cautious of a backlash. Also, Taliban has vowed to launch an attack on US and Pakistan to avenge Osama’s death. How real are these threats?
MR: More than considering them real or not, it is better to understand these as short-term threats. The most striking response to Laden’s death from the Muslim world has been the silence. There was not a great deal of comment at all. Besides the people who are on the fringe of Islamic radicalism – the Jihadist fringe, which is a very small fringe element in the Muslim world today – the rest are not upset about Osama’s death. There also remains some degree of disbelief in the truth about US’ story regarding the killing of Laden and the truth that he died. But in terms of an immediate backlash, it is pretty likely that some of those groups associated with al-Qaeda will feel the need to either express their anger or reassert the fact that they still exist by launching an attack.

B&E: Reports have claimed that Osama bin Laden, in recent times, was not as active as he was, say about 10-15 years ago. What are your views?
MR: It is true that Osama’s leadership has not been that important in recent years. In fact, the central leadership of al-Qaeda has not been that critical. The work of al-Qaeda around the world over the last couple of years has been carried out by groups that are only remotely linked to al-Qaeda. There is no question that bin Laden’s leadership has been less important of late. I think this has also largely been because he has been unable to communicate. It has been quite some time now – I can’t remember how long – since we last saw some video or audio statement from him. His leadership position had weakened even before his death.

B&E: The growth of al-Qaeda also led to the corresponding formation and strengthening of several other similar but smaller outfits across the globe. With their agenda almost clear and certain, how big a deterrent is Osama’s death for these outfits? Or do you think other terror outfits will get stronger due to Osama’s death?
MR: I don’t think we have anyone trying or planning to play the part of al-Qaeda in the same sort of manner. In an organisational sense, there are some people who follow the policy of global jihad, but this is a small minority which mostly exists on the Internet – in terms of being real and operative on-ground, there are really very few. Maximum, we are talking about a few hundred around the world. They are all very like-minded outfits that exist in many different countries. We are talking about small cells, of hardly two dozen people each. And a lot of them have the basic primitive training and have very limited goals and what they can achieve. So, in such a scenario, we will see terrorism on a very small scale, than on a global scale. al-Qaeda’s vision, over the last 10 years, has become increasingly difficult to sustain, because it broke into a franchise, with different branches that operate independently. There is very little central leadership. And it’s hard to see any organisation that will try to emulate a centrally-led terror outfit. It is likely that there will be constant mutations and change in all terror outfits. There is already a considerable amount of debate inside al-Qaeda itself about strategy and tactics – whether they were doing the right thing or not. In the jihadi circle as well, questions have been raised whether whatever they have been doing is right or not. Questions are being increasingly asked about this kind of terrorism and radical wrong action around the Muslim world. It can also be that the pool of recruits at schools of terror is actually getting smaller. All this was happening even when bin Laden was not dead, so I am not sure whether Osama’s death will have any impact on terror groups or on whether his death will make the smaller, lesser known groups stronger. Interestingly, even if you look at geographies, there are considerable differences between the countries. Pakistan is rather unstable and has its own domestically generated and caused sources of violent Islamic radicalism. And these are not often connected to the broader or global movement such as the al-Qaeda. So there could be different forms of local terror groups in different countries.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist). For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
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