Guest Column | Right Steps

Somesh Goyal

The meteoric rise of the ISIS as a mean nihilistic terror machine relying on meticulous planning, extreme violence and efficient execution, use of technology and internet to cast its web across the globe by attracting youth from more than 85 countries to establish the Islamic caliphate has brought ‘radicalisation’ in sharp focus. The western security experts, statesmen and media persons have repeatedly underlined the global concern about increasing radicalisation of citizens, particularly the youth from almost every continent. The security discourse was hitherto confined to ‘terrorist’ or ‘extremist’ elements or groups who challenged the establishment and did not eschew armed response to espouse their cause.

However, the growth of the ISIS has made the world sit up and ponder over the threat of radicalisation of minds of recruits by the ISIS, which has taken senseless violence to unprecedented levels. Strategies to ‘degrade and destroy’ the ISIS are being devised particularly by the western countries as the ISIS’ ire is primarily targeted against them.

According to the recently released US Congressional Research Report on the ISIS and the Soufan Group’s assessment of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, as many as 16,000 foreign volunteers from 90 countries traversed to Syria since January 2012 to be part of the ever swelling rank and file of the ISIS. From 12,000 foreign warriors in 2014, the figure has jumped to a whopping 30,000 in 2015. Western Europe, Russia and Central Asia’s contribution has more than doubled in the last one year.

The Indian figure pegged between 23 and 50 fighters may not be alarming but leaves no place for complacency and calls for formulating a comprehensive strategy to counter what David Ignatius, the American journalist, defines as religious, psychological and technological faces of ISIS. There are inputs that ISIS is trying to forge an alliance with terror outfits operating in India like the Indian Mujahedeen, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI), etc. Ansar ul Tawahid a break-away group of the Indian Mujahedeen is already operating with the ISIS. The large Indian diaspora in the Gulf is also a soft target for the ISIS recruiters. Scores of ISIS sympathisers have been identified in India that are targeting young technocrats and youth with venomous propaganda and online indoctrination. In November 2015, the intelligence agencies uncovered Ansar-ut Tawahid (AuT), a terrorist group with links with the ISIS, using online propaganda in West Bengal and neighbouring Bangladesh to woo the rural youth. What surprised the intelligence agencies was that the terrorist outfit used Bengali as a medium to reach out to the target audience. The ISIS translation of its propaganda material in Mandarin for the Chinese audience is also well known. It is gratifying that intelligence agencies of several states like Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, etc. have successfully interdicted homegrown prospective ISIS fighters and apprehended some recruiters. The net savvy approach of the ISIS and use of social media does not undermine the importance of institutions like some madrasas in sowing the poisonous seeds in the young and impressionable minds particularly in the rural and semi urban India. A careful yet unobtrusive watch needs to be maintained on some of these institutions.


Extremist outfits including the ISIS have followed the model of advancement in the field of education. If you cannot go to a school, you have several courses offered online by the best in business. The schools of jihadi terror and radicalisation, often identified with madrasas, have started effective distance learning programmes in hardline Islamic teachings, reinforcing perceptions of alienation, discrimination and persecution, assembling of bombs and improvised devices and so on. The ISIS has attracted well-educated technocr

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