Is new jihad strategy to hold territory, recruit globally?

The reason why this is happening now is also clear. A war-weary west is now battening down the hatches to protect its core territory. They are thus leaving the fight against terror to local Muslim forces, and restricting themselves to bombing support from the air and a few counter-terrorism advisors on the ground. This was the real meaning of President Barack Obama’s recent speech on ISIS promising to “degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group.”

He will, of course, achieve nothing of the kind. Air warfare cannot prevent radical and ideologically committed forces from controlling territory – as the US experience in Vietnam and elsewhere showed. Also, leaving the ground fighting to local Islamist dissident groups means these forces can ultimately join up with the radical jihadis. We have seen this happen consistently - in Libya, in Afghanistan, and now in Syria and Iraq. Each group supported by the west to counter some other force (Saddam Hussein, Muammer Gadhafi, Basher Assad, the Soviets in Afghanistan) ended up becoming a radicalised jihadi group itself. They are now turning on America and non-Muslims groups.

India found it out to its cost by stoking Sikh extremism in Punjab and LTTE extremism in Sri Lanka. They came back to bite us.

The world is thus entering a more dangerous phase, and this is what the future looks like.

First, all the jihadi groups are clear that they can - and must - hold territory in order to create a viable economic base for their violent movements. Just as the Taliban used Afghanistan under Mullah Omar to build an Islamic state and gain official access to resources which can be used to acquire arms and critical training to target the west, the various fundamentalist groups are planning the same in multiple places. What was once a localised threat in one state is now mushrooming in multiple places.

In West Asia, ISIS is already holding territory and has declared itself a caliphate. It has revenues flowing in from the oil wells it controls and from ransoming wealthy individuals. It is busy executing westerners to see if the west can call off its bombing.

In northern Nigeria and parts of Afghanistan, Boko Haram and the Taliban already control some territory even though they have not declared themselves as formal states so far. This will happen when the US thins down its presence in Afghanistan and Boko Haram captures more territory in north-eastern Nigeria.

The literature seized from the terrorists in West Bengal indicate that they were plotting to create an ISIS-like caliphate in parts of Bangladesh and then use this base to destabilise the whole of India's north-east - especially parts of West Bengal and Assam where the demography has moved against the local populations.

Apart from having an economic base to run their jihadi operations from, what the holding of territory will enable ultimately is limited recognition as proper states. Given the amount of money invested in jihadi groups by states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran and others, how unthinkable is it that the new fledgling caliphates will finally be recognised by the Islamic world? Once you are recognised by some states, it means you get legitimate access to arms, bank accounts, etc. A renegade state, even if recognised by a few other states, will acquire the ability to create many death weapons - including chemical weapons.

Second, in keeping with the new aim of winning and holding territory, all the jihadi groups – from ISIS to al-Qaeda to others – have adopted the multinational corporation (MNC) strategy of seeking global talent and recruitment to man their new terror networks.

MNCs which want a global footprint spot talent locally, send them all over the world to gain experience, and then send them back to their original countries to create subsidiaries that have imbibed their culture and image. In the days of Lenin and Stalin, the Communists created the Comintern with a smattering of faces from every country. Our Communists fell for their propaganda. Thus when we had our independence movement, our Communists were taking their cues from the Soviet Union under mass murderer Stalin.

This is exactly what ISIS is hoping to achieve. It has created gory brochures of its accomplishments and its propaganda literature has started appearing in many countries, including Pakistan and India. ISIS flags have been hoisted in Kashmir and even Hyderabad. ISIS already runs TV stations in the territories it controls in Iraq and Syria, and uses the internet and social media extensively to find global recruits. This is how the ex-Google employee appears to have been enticed by ISIS.

A global recruitment plan means two things: more rabid jihadis, and more potential CEOs for local jihad. Cut off from their traditional cultures, these recruits will be more rabid than people recruited locally from Iraq and Syria. The new convert is always more radical than the old ones. It is not without reason that the author of the recent beheadings by ISIS is said to be a British jihadi. If martyred, these multinational recruits will be used to attract more recruits; if they survive and become battle-hardened, they will be sent back to their original recruitment zones to motivate others and create jihadi cells locally. This is why we have to worry about both who may join ISIS, and those who may return.

This is the strategy the world – and especially India – will have to confront in the near future. A world where jihadis will own countries even while attracting global talent for their murderous activities.

Are we ready? Does the world understand what we are up against?

The writer is editor-in-chief, digital and publishing, Network18 Group