ISIS Threat To Reclaim Kashmir?

After its battlefield successes in Syria and Iraq and some recent reverses, ISIS seems to have now set its sights on Kashmir. In an interview to the group’s magazine Dabiq, ISIS leader Hafiz Saeed Khan, has expressed the resolve to “reclaim Kashmir from cow-worshipping Hindus”. Khan is the group’s  ‘Emir of Khorasan’ the region that stretches across Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan and extends to parts of India and China. He says the ISIS has specific arrangements in India and that “the Muslims will soon hear pleasant news about the caliphate’s expansion” to Kashmir. Khan talks at length about Pakistan Army’s allegedly self-interested approach to Kashmir, and the exploitation of the issue “for their personal interest”. He goes on to detail how the Pakistan Army chooses to “ceasefire, withdraw, retreat” as Islamabad’s interests “fluctuate back and forth”. And as a result the people of Kashmir have “hit a roadblock and there was no one to save them from the quagmire into which they were thrown.” Such analysis of the Kashmir conflict reflects a deeper understanding of the prevailing situation in the state than what Al Qaeda and ISIS spokesmen have traditionally exhibited in their respective statements on the state. Perhaps Khan’s past as the Tehreek Taliban commander and his possible link to the militancy in Kashmir might have come handy. Khan has termed Lashkar-e-Taiba  as an “apostate faction” as they followed the “tug and pull” of Pakistani army and did not have “control over any territory in the regions of Kashmir”.  

The interview has generated a lot of media attention in India, not the least for its informed reflection of the ground reality in the state. And this has only enhanced the credibility of the threat. Media itself hasn’t helped the matters, going on the overdrive highlighting the imminent arrival of ISIS to India’s shores and most certainly in Kashmir. Really? Is the threat that credible? It isn’t. For one, it is not the first time ISIS has talked about Kashmir and for that matter, early Al Qaeda has.  In 2014, Al Qaeda had released an exclusive new video on Kashmir calling for re-launching the armed struggle in the state. The video derided the peaceful resistance as “expedient”, even criticizing the stone-throwing by the youth as a diversion from jihad which doesn’t earn “Azadi”. 

“Who perpetrated this injustice that after the martyrdom of 90,000 persons, the path to self-respect and greatness was given up. Whose conspiracy was is it that put the ice of expediency on the bosoms burning with lava of Azadi,” Maulana Asim Umar,  an Al Qaeda leader in Pakistan said in  the 13 minute video.   Earlier in 2006, the then Al Qaeda’s spokesman Adam Gaddahn, aka Azzam al Amriki, had in his video message identified New Delhi as one of the group’s targets besides Tel Aviv and Moscow. He had also blamed India for killing “one lakh Kashmiris” in a message  which for the first time brought the state on the compass of the outfit’s jihadi discourse.

However, while the countries around the world, including India are mulling a vigorous security response to the threat, none is paying attention to the political issues that the global jihadist outfits like Al Qaeda and ISIS exploit for the recruitment and as a justification for their violence. Need is therefore not only for the measures underlining the need for the security response but also for a regional initiative to pre-empt the chances of violent spillover of the wars as far afield as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. There is a case for India and Pakistan to get together and cooperate on finding solution to the region’s problems. But considering the great potential for a renewed political turmoil and uncertainty which is unlikely to be amenable to only a military response, there is an urgent need for the two countries to talk and talk uninterruptedly. The fast changing geo-politics of the region not only requires the neighbours to meaningfully engage but also take concrete steps to address their long running issues. A durable Indo-Pak reconciliation is the guarantee of peace in the region, free of ISIS, Al Qaeda and the other outfits. 

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