The IS threat

In claiming that the Islamic State poses an ‘unprecedented threat’ to the world, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is merely echoing rhetoric we have been hearing from the West, not just in the last few months, but ever since Al-Qaeda emerged as a transnational terror group. Ban claims IS is different in the scope of its threat because it has already managed to gain the allegiance of 34 militant groups around the world. This, too, is far from unprecedented, since Al-Qaeda, and even Hezbollah in the 1980s, was able to get support in places outside its base country. Where IS has been more successful than previous militant groups is in attracting the support of alienated and radicalised people in Europe and the US. These people, as in the California shootings, have carried out lone wolf attacks but draped themselves in the IS banner. That this has happened is partly due to advances in technology and the reach of the IS on social media. But for its supposed technological prowess, IS would never have reached as wide and willing an audience as it has were it not for Muslims in the West made to feel unwelcome and hated after 9/11.

By labelling the IS as such a monumental threat, the secretary general may also have tried to place this threat in context. The IS did not emerge from a void. It first emerged in Iraq after the US invasion toppled Saddam Hussein and its decision to ‘de-Baathify’ the country caused a Sunni backlash and the inevitable civil war. With a territorial base in Iraq, it was then able to take advantage of the chaos in Syria. The US and its allies incredibly repeated the same mistake in Libya when it bombed the Qaddafi government and ignited another civil war, giving more space to the IS. The IS may be more brutal than the militant groups that preceded it but this brutality has been nurtured in a region that has been a playground for military adventurers. Critics, both within and outside, of the West’s various wars had predicted this as a consequence. It is interesting that Ban Ki-moon pointed to countries like Pakistan and Libya as examples of fertile hunting grounds for IS, since it is these countries that have had to bear US bombing and pressure. In Pakistan, we already have to deal with the TTP and its allied groups. Adding the IS to this combustible mix will not only lead to more violence at home, it will also bringing further outside scrutiny to the country. Certainly the international community needs to do all it can to prevent future attacks from IS and its affiliates. The only lasting solution, though, is to stop creating space and support for such groups in the first place.