AQIS

On 3 September 2014 the head of al-Qaeda Central, Ayman al-Zawahiri announced to the Islamist world the birth of a new fighting group whose main purpose was to spread the Jihad throughout the Indian sub continent. For several years, in the regions of Kashmir, Gujarat, Assam and Burma, the Muslim brothers were overwhelmed by the discriminating policy of their respective governments which had condemned them to isolation and in some cases to persecution. The affiliates al-Qaeda, whose acronym was AQIS, abbreviation that meant Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent took charge of the recriminations of Muslims in India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and a part of Pakistan.

The 2014 had been a busy year for the al-Qaeda board since the young leader of ISIS Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, with the sudden proclamation of the birth of the Caliphate, had self-elected as the guardian flag of the Jihad global. The dissent revealed by al-Zawahiri and the lack of al-Qaeda's adhesion to the new self-styled state, provoked a rift among the Islamists, where the organization of bin-Laden suffered the worst recoil. Even in Afghanistan things were falling: the inaction of Mullah Omar - later declared dead the following year - had divided the Taliban who were now acting in small independent groups many of which, however, were flowing into the ISIS. In the opinion of several analysts, the birth of AQIS was a direct response from al-Qaeda Central against the infiltration of the Islamic State in that part of the world even though al-Zawahiri in a long speech, pointed out as the project "it was the product of more than two years' work in recruiting fighters and uniting diffrent pre-existing Jihadi groups in the Indian Subcontinent"¹ .

The Indian subcontinent and the Jihad

Indeed, AQIS grouped together different groups of Islamists who had been carrying out actions in that region for some time; some of the most important were the Indian Mujahideen (IM) rather than the Pakistanis of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) or Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)². The election of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi - held responsible for the massacre of Gujarat in the 2002 where they perished 1000 Muslims - fueled the discontent of an oppressed minority, forced to live in ghettos, without dignity and education. If the conditions of life in regions like Kashmir were the first cause of rebellion, from the doctrinal point of view the holy war in India ran along the path traced by Ghazwa-e-Hind or "Battle to reunite India", a Hadit of the Prophet who became the reference text for all those who longed to found a Caliphate in the region. For al-Qeada the interpretation of Price and its realization was always secondary with respect to other objectives, mainly directed against Westerners: Osama bin Laden, once he lost his bases in Afghanistan, shifted his attention to Yemen by committing, according to some supporters, an incorrectness with respect to the real sense of Jihad and where this should have been implemented with greater vigor. In the 2013, for example, the Mullah Fazlullah leader of the Pakistani jihadists of TTP claimed the importance of Hind, drawing the attention of the Islamist community on what were the real achievements of the Holy War, namely Pakistan, India, Lahore, Multan and Punjab, while the other objectives were only secondary³.

From a purely operational point of view, the Jihad Indian and Bangladesh was a contemporary phenomenon to the formation of al-Qaeda, or rather a direct consequence of the Russian Afghan conflict of the 1980s⁴. The Muslim claims in the region then escalated from the 2000, with a sharp increase in attacks against government targets. The AQIS project and the creation of a single front jihadi in the Indian subcontinent thus obtained a double advantage, above all for al-Qaeda: on the one hand the al-Zawahiri organization reaffirmed its supremacy in a sector where the Islamic State was trying to creep in, on the other the unrecognized groups of that area could finally boast of a "brand" that gave them prestige and motivation. To reinvigorate the credibility of AQIS, the Egyptian sheikh named the young Maulana Asim Umar as emir, a non-random choice that highlighted how al-Qaeda Central relied, now more than ever, on non-Arab leaders. An investiture that, according to Husain Haqqani, once again revealed the weakness of al Zawahiri compared to al-Baghdadi which had managed to grab the trust of a large part of the Arab world, once the main recruitment pool of the Qaedists.

Asim Umar was still a good choice because young (about 40 years), cultured and able to express himself in Urdu, English, Arabic and Pashto. His radicalism had matured in Karachi, at Jamia Uloomul Islamia's madrasa, one of the best known jihad popularizers in Pakistan⁵. Umar made his debut in al-Qaeda as a propaganda officer since he was accustomed to the use of the internet and a good writer: he published four books in Urdu and numerous articles, among which the best known was The Future of Muslims in India appeared in the Qaedist magazine Resurgence. In the text, Umar attacked the false "Indian democracy" guilty of crushing the identity of Muslims: "To make too many years the Muslims of India have been fooled by the empty slogans of 'Indian Democracy'," 'Land of Ghandi', 'Paece', and so on. Those who have been reduced to ashes by the Hindu 's deep rooted hatred will not be bluffed by these empty slogans "⁶. The composition of Umar actually appears as a real manifesto of AQIS where, after the usual claims, a sure victory over the infidels is promised: "A very recent event for the Muslims of India; a future linked with the establishment of the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan. The time has come for the Muslims of India to be a proactive rule in the Jihad in Afghanistan."⁷. It also appears clear that Asim makes no mention of the Islamic State, reaffirming with conviction the proximity to the Afghan emirate and a clear alignment with the ideas of al-Zawahiri. The board of al-Qaeda Central considered Umar an important pawn in the Indian scenario, above all thanks to the network of acquaintances he had woven with the Taliban groups that moved on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan and with the Muslim brothers of Kashmir.

From ideas to struggle

The debut of the AQIS jihadists goes back to the 2012 in complete anonymity, when there was still no official opinion about the existence of the group. In 2012, Aniqa Naz, a Pakistani blogger, was killed on charges of blasphemy. The following year another blogger, Ahmed Raijab Heider (photo) ended up as terrorists because he was accused of not being a true Muslim, accused of having published some articles against Islamism. These two murders were claimed by AQIS only in the 2015, when the authors now enjoyed the patronage of al-Zawahiri and needed to promote their businesses. But the murder of some bloggers was not the kind of action that could give AQIS international fame, so it needed something more striking and at the same time risky.

The 6 September 2014 some terrorists boarded the Pakistani ship PNS Zulfiqar: Undoubtedly attacking a military ship, complete with weapons and crew, was a truly spectacular action and, among other things, emerged from the purely “terrestrial” schemes of Islamist terrorism: “This attack also highlighted a new and emerging strategy of al- Qaeda to target America's control of the sea "⁸. The investigation that followed the attack - another one that failed with the killing of a terrorist - brought to light a conspiracy at high levels: the PNS Zulfiqar he boarded eight C-802 anti-ship missiles which were to be used against American ships in the Indian Ocean. Furthermore, the most worrying fact was the involvement of numerous officers and sailors of the Pakistani navy, recruited directly from the AQIS ranks. Once again the magazine Resurgence he had announced the attack with an article called Targeting the Achilles Heel of Western Economies signed by Hamza Khalid. The Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal - fundamental passage points on commercial lines around the world - were to become vulnerable points because the sea would become the new theater where to hit the interests of Western democracies, at least that was the will of Allah: "Kings of thrones. I was presented with some of my nation"⁹. The AQIS projects were above their ability and so the 26 February 2015 resumed their arms against freedom of expression, assassinating Avijit Roy, an atheist blogger of Dhaka in Balgladesh; the same was repeated for another four bloggers.

Sign of strength or weakness?

Alastair Reed, in his lucid analysis of AQIS, makes a sensible reflection about their potential: although they are few and do not have the capacity to launch sensational attacks against the West, their existence poses a real threat throughout the region, with a propensity to expand. In this sense al-Qaeda Central can keep important pawns in the Indian sub-continent with probable growth prospects, given the military difficulties of the Islamic State. Secondly there are always the Taliban who, after the final retreat of the ISAF, have regained vigor and "AQIS may well be able to exploit the situation to establish safe havens in Afghanistan from which it can operate"¹⁰. The presence of al-Qaeda, or rather a group affiliated to it, therefore offers an important alternative to those who have never wanted to align with the butchers of ISIS and also constitutes a dangerous stimulating element of those in India want to join the Jihad global against the infidels. The AQIS recruits now form what Abdel Bari Atwan called the "third generation" of Islamism: educated young people, open to the use of technology and telematic communications. If even in the Indian subcontinent - a region notoriously backward in many ways - al-Qaeda will manage to regain ground, then we will face a new and predictable threat. The most relevant fact is, in fact, that AQIS has broken the boundaries of regional and limited terrorism, presenting it on the international stage and obtaining a multiplier effect on its real offensive capabilities¹¹.