“Conventional” terrorism, as we have known it for the past few years, has abated — and not only as a result of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Governments have spent considerable amounts of money on counterterrorism initiatives and global efforts to stem the transnational flow of weapons, funds and terrorists.
Moreover, the defeats of Daesh and Al-Qaeda robbed both these groups of the physical wherewithal and leadership to direct massive, publicity garnering attacks. The pandemic has prompted strict lockdowns and advanced forms of techno-surveillance, which has further hampered the aims of would-be terrorists.
With the exception of the coordinated terrorist bombings in Sri Lanka last year, the world has not experienced a series of terrorist incidents around the globe such as those we saw in the 2000s.
However, this does not mean that newer types of terrorist threats will not rear their ugly heads in the months and years to come.
The factors that fuel terrorism are still very much in play worldwide. Under the guise of combating COVID-19, a number of governments in countries, such as Tanzania, Colombia and India, are clamping down on civil liberties. This will weaken the unwritten contract between societies and their law-enforcement agencies, which is the bedrock upon which intelligence agencies rely to prevent terrorist incidents.
In some cases, ruling regimes have actively stoked the fires of identity politics and fueled ancient tribal hatreds as a way of diverting attention away from their mishandling of the pandemic. This has irreparably damaged the social fabric of these countries and could create fertile breeding grounds for terrorists.
Since the start of the pandemic, senior members of the ruling party in India, aided by government-friendly media organizations, have been busy vilifying the country’s 200 million-strong Muslim minority as “superspreaders” of the disease. This followed anti-Muslim violence in Delhi in February. Elsewhere, police officers allegedly stood by and allowed rioters to run amok — and, in some instances, even participated in the riots.
In Sri Lanka, government agencies openly insulted the country’s Muslim community by spiriting away and cremating the bodies of Muslims who died from the coronavirus. This has created long-lasting fissures that extremists will be more than happy to exploit.
In other countries, localized grievances will continue to flare up in the form of insurgencies.
We can already see an example of this in northern Mozambique, where years of government neglect, corruption, discrimination and heavy-handed tactics toward the local population have given rise to what is now a full-blown insurgency. The insurgents there have sworn allegiance to Daesh but this might be nothing more than branding, allowing them to burnish their credentials and perhaps attract more recruits and funding.
We might also see more localized acts of terror perpetrated by lone-wolf terrorists, such as the recent knife attack in Paris.
However, the most serious threat of transnational terrorism now emanates from white nationalist organizations in the West.
In the US, there is a curious convergence between groups of white extremists and the conspiracy theorists that routinely peddle anti-Semitic ideas, the gun lobby, and “anti-maskers.” Members of these groups have shown up to stage counterprotests during Black Lives Matters events.
There is a growing awareness among intelligence agencies in the West of the transnational threat posed by white extremists. This was particularly apparent in the aftermath of the Christchurch attacks in New Zealand last year. The attacker derived much of his ideology from white-nationalist ideas emanating from the US.
More recently, Germany disbanded one of its elite special forces units that was found to be full of far-right extremists. Its members had hoarded explosives and ammunition as part of plans to carry out terrorist attacks or overthrow the government.
One German minister called far-right terrorism the greatest threat to the nation’s democracy. Over the past two years, far-right terrorists have attacked a synagogue, assassinated a politician and murdered nine immigrants.
A recent UN Security Council report warned of the danger that the pandemic could fuel extremism. Close to a billion school-age children are confined to their homes, and a growing number of adults are unemployed. There have been reports of increased browsing of extremist content online, particularly as COVID-related anxiety fuels widely swirling conspiracy theories.
The inability of social media companies such Facebook to stem the flow of extremist content is particularly galling.
Dnyanesh Kamat
The inability of social media companies such Facebook to stem the flow of extremist content is particularly galling. A recent investigation by The Wall Street Journal, for example, claimed that senior Facebook executives in India chose not to delete inflammatory content posted by a member of the ruling party. The report alleged that they did not want to anger the government in New Delhi.
While the world has not experienced, since the pandemic began, any mass casualty acts of terrorism on the scale of the Sept. 11 attacks or the 2005 London bombings, this does not mean that the menace of terrorism has gone away.
COVID-19 is consuming the thoughts of policymakers as they consider the future of governments and economies — but they must also seriously ponder whether the pandemic has truly flattened the terrorism curve or created the conditions that will, in time, cause a spike.
- Dnyanesh Kamat is a political analyst who focuses on the Middle East and South Asia. Copyright: Syndication Bureau
