Submitted by Mousumi Roy…
Baghdadi elimination, rather death under pressure from the US army, is certainly a massive political victory for Trump before the Presidential elections but it isn’t by any means an encouraging news to the common people of this planet. Baghdadi’s death will not mean end of Islamic terrorism or Islamism as the elimination of Osama bin Laden did not mean the end of Al Qaeda.
The shift in jihad is in offing and in its effectiveness the sporadic attacks of the lone wolves, in fact, will be more lethal and will potentially be loaded to create more chaos paralysing societies.
Al Qaeda may have weakened and IS may decimate but that will not mean end of Islamic terrorism. Boko Haram still remains, Taliban continues to be a major threat in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Al Shabab, Hezbollah and Hamas are still well armed and are serious threats. Baghdadi’s death will set off a dangerous shift in Jihad President Donald Trump may have scored a huge political brownie point in United States by claiming that his army has succeeded in eliminating Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State (IS) group but has he and his army been able to eliminate Islamic terrorism which has, since past three decades in particular, the single and the biggest threat to human civilization.
The West and the United States will be worst affected and the fear now will be from their home grown newly indoctrinated individuals who would either be carrying out attacks to avenge the death of Baghdadi or carry forward his barbarism.
Baghdadi may have died but has left behind a new and changed jihad and a toxic legacy of hatred, barbarism, intolerance and chaos which I am afraid will jeopardize our societies more than ever. His indoctrination will live on for at least 50 more years and will encourage mushrooming of lone wolves everywhere in the world. It is now a matter of time that jihad will change and will revert to terror tactics rather than establishing an Islamic kingdom
Al Baghdadi and Islamic State reformatted and repositioned jihad. Rather than concentrating on terror strikes they together focussed on setting up a Caliphate and game jihad a political identity and sought to set up a haven for Islamism like what Israel is for the Jews. More than being a militant outfit IS evolved into a military organization successfully generating recruits from all over the world.
In fact and strictly speaking Al Baghdadi’s Islamic State isn’t really a terrorist group like the other Sunni salafi outfits including Al Qaeda. Audrey Kurth Cronin, the author of “How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns” says, Islamic State is not an outgrowth or a part of the older radical Islamist organization, nor does it represent the next phase in its evolution. Although al Qaeda still remains dangerous—especially its affiliates in North Africa and Yemen—ISIS is its successor. ISIS represents the post–al Qaeda jihadist threat.
Most Westerners do not realize the huge gap between the Saudi Salafy to the jihadist ones. Both are salafism but both standing on a different side of the pole. It is hard to acknowledge because it is more ideological, you cannot judge based on the clothes they wear etc. They have salafism from the Saudi side of the world and from the jihadist part. They have the moderate ones from each sides, then also there are the extremist.
Salafism, I wouldn’t describe them as peaceful Salafism, I prefer to call them just Salafism and the other side is Jihadist. They are basically fundamentalist. But even then they have the extremist inside of their ideological group and that creates a more apologetic Muslims. They are as much as a cancer like the extremist Jihadist. There are also moderate Jihadist. They encourage war against the non Muslim who they consider waging a war against the Muslim world but they do not condone civilian killings.
ISIS was never popular in the Saudi. Few of the Muslims think that a new legit caliphate has arose and there is a religious obligation to pledge allegiance and support it. When ISIS claimed the caliphate, Al Nusrah was the first to refuse to pledge allegiance. Their reason was simple, because they were there not to put any political agenda upon the Syrian people. They said at the time, they were to defend the Sunni from the Alawites aggression and that is still the only mission.
Ahrarusy Syam, They are a group of local Muslim. They have their own ideology which much alike with Al Nusrah in a way but also a lot different. Both, so far, are able to respect each other and help each other against ISIS.
Al Nusrah, They were known as the AQ in Iraq, then they claimed the Islamis State of Iraq. When they enter the Syrian war, they claimed caliphate and call themselves as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syam (ISIS) or as in Arabic; Daulatul Islam fii Al Iraq wa Asy Syam (DAISH). Mostly ISIS killing those they claimed as apostates who refuse to pledge allegiance to them. They killed members of the Al Nusrah who refused. Some of them joined ISIS.
The Earth continues to remain as unsafe and threatened as it was with Baghdadi alive. Neither will the world be any safer because Baghdadi is dead. We experienced or felt no safer when Bin Laden was killed. Has Trump been able to make the world any safer by eliminating Baghdadi? Will the death of Baghdadi mean the end of IS?
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