No Easy Answers

The Nation (Nigeria)

26 November 2015

In the past, warfare strategies were simple. All a good commander needs do is to gauge the strength and weaknesses of the enemy; the number and strength of troops, weapons in their arsenals, the terrain of warfare among other critical factors. When all these are available through intelligence, he plots his strategy on how to attack, cut off the enemy supply routes, fortify his own supply routes etc. But a new kind of warfare that presently obtain means things have changed.

In today’s complex world the enemy, most of the times, does not wear a uniform and is not “organised” in the conventional sense. He goes in mufti like most citizens and freely mixes and blends with everyone. He keeps devising ingenious ways of getting at his victims. For instance, in the attack that took place at a hotel resort in Tunisia, the attacker came through the ocean to kill more than twenty people relaxing on the beach in cold blood. He knew it would’ve been difficult to come through the hotel. At other times, he targets densely populated areas to blow himself up killing others in the process.

So how do you identify him? That’s the big challenge the world is grappling with today. We have entered an era of new, extremely dangerous and complex kind of warfare. With Boko Haram in our midst; we have to be consistently on our toes in Nigeria. If France can be under emergency rule and Brussels and some cities in Belgium were on lockdown for days because of an imminent terrorist attack, then we have our work cut out for us.

… Rohan Gunaratna, a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St. Andrews, Scotland in his book “Inside Al Qaeda Global Network of Terror” examined the leadership, ideology, structure, strategies, and tactics of the “most violent politico-religious organization the world has ever seen.” This definitive work on Al Qaeda is based on five years of research, including extensive interviews with its members; field research in Al Qaeda-supported conflict zones in Central, South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East; and monitoring its infiltration of diaspora and migrant communities in North America and Europe.

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