he 22 March 2024 terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall, 12 miles west of Kremlin in Moscow, is hardly new or surprising in the context of the world’s protracted failing war on terrorism. Unfortunately, “22/3” has almost been forgotten only to be added to the growing list of other terrorist–attack memorial dates, including “9/11” (New York), “26/11” (Mumbai), “7/7” (London), “11/3” (Madrid), “12/10” (Bali), “21/9” (Nairobi), and “23/7” (Sharm El Sheikh), to name just a few.
Following the tragedy of 9/11 and other major terrorist attacks that followed it, the United Nations member–states began foreseeing increased global terrorist activity resulting from mutually reinforcing symbiotic relationships between different terrorist and criminal networks in permissive environments such as Afghanistan. This prompted them to unanimously adopt the UN Global Counter–Terrorism Strategy on 8 September 2006. As a unique global instrument, “the strategy is supposed to enhance national, regional and international efforts to counter terrorism.”
Despite this non–binding global consensus, however, the UN member–states have hardly worked together to implement the strategy, effectively allowing instrumentalization of terrorism as a covert state policy against domestic and foreign adversaries. No UN member–state is as notoriously implicated in its relentless instrumentalization of terrorism and extremism to achieve its foreign policy and geostrategic goals as Pakistan under the firm rule of its military and intelligence establishment. The latter’s decades–long nurturing, sheltering, training, equipping, and deploying Taliban militants to undermine international stabilization efforts in Afghanistan between 2001–2021 have been adequately documented, studied, and reported publicly.
Indeed, this long–standing Pakistani policy eventually bore fruit on 15 August 2021, when the Taliban illegally and forcefully toppled Afghanistan’s young democracy, calling it a victory of their years–long jihad. Having shared battlefield space with the Taliban over the last 10 years and having observed their archrival’s steady climb to victory over NATO forces (given the latter’s premature withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021), ISKP, al–Qaeda and other global jihadist groups have been inspired by the Taliban’s unprecedented strategic gains in the country.
Now resurgent, al–Qaeda and ISKP have resumed carrying out terrorist attacks across the region. While al–Qaeda has operationally enabled Tehrik–e–Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to hit targets of strategic choice in Pakistan, ISKP has carried out spectacular terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and most recently Moscow. ISKP operatives arrested in Russia confessed to having lived and received training in Tajikistan, immediately bordering Afghanistan. This is a growing terrorist threat the rest of the world should not take lightly.
But no one country, regardless of its influence and resources, can effectively counter and defeat terrorism, unless major UN member–states act together, consistent with the principal goals of the UN Global Counter–Terrorism Strategy. A failure to do so guarantees that Taliban–inspired terrorist attacks will spare no one. The 22/3 tragedy is just another wakeup call for concerted global action against terrorism before another terrorist attack in another nation claims more innocent lives and limbs.
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The need to act against Taliban–inspired jihadist groups
Kabul, Afghanistan. Image by Mohammad Rahmani from Unsplash.
May 25, 2024
The 22 March 2024 terrorist attack on Moscow's Crocus City Hall highlights the ongoing global struggle against terrorism. Despite the UN's Global Counter–Terrorism Strategy, international cooperation remains insufficient, writes M. Ashraf Haidari.
T
he 22 March 2024 terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall, 12 miles west of Kremlin in Moscow, is hardly new or surprising in the context of the world’s protracted failing war on terrorism. Unfortunately, “22/3” has almost been forgotten only to be added to the growing list of other terrorist–attack memorial dates, including “9/11” (New York), “26/11” (Mumbai), “7/7” (London), “11/3” (Madrid), “12/10” (Bali), “21/9” (Nairobi), and “23/7” (Sharm El Sheikh), to name just a few.
Following the tragedy of 9/11 and other major terrorist attacks that followed it, the United Nations member–states began foreseeing increased global terrorist activity resulting from mutually reinforcing symbiotic relationships between different terrorist and criminal networks in permissive environments such as Afghanistan. This prompted them to unanimously adopt the UN Global Counter–Terrorism Strategy on 8 September 2006. As a unique global instrument, “the strategy is supposed to enhance national, regional and international efforts to counter terrorism.”
Despite this non–binding global consensus, however, the UN member–states have hardly worked together to implement the strategy, effectively allowing instrumentalization of terrorism as a covert state policy against domestic and foreign adversaries. No UN member–state is as notoriously implicated in its relentless instrumentalization of terrorism and extremism to achieve its foreign policy and geostrategic goals as Pakistan under the firm rule of its military and intelligence establishment. The latter’s decades–long nurturing, sheltering, training, equipping, and deploying Taliban militants to undermine international stabilization efforts in Afghanistan between 2001–2021 have been adequately documented, studied, and reported publicly.
Indeed, this long–standing Pakistani policy eventually bore fruit on 15 August 2021, when the Taliban illegally and forcefully toppled Afghanistan’s young democracy, calling it a victory of their years–long jihad. Having shared battlefield space with the Taliban over the last 10 years and having observed their archrival’s steady climb to victory over NATO forces (given the latter’s premature withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021), ISKP, al–Qaeda and other global jihadist groups have been inspired by the Taliban’s unprecedented strategic gains in the country.
Now resurgent, al–Qaeda and ISKP have resumed carrying out terrorist attacks across the region. While al–Qaeda has operationally enabled Tehrik–e–Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to hit targets of strategic choice in Pakistan, ISKP has carried out spectacular terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and most recently Moscow. ISKP operatives arrested in Russia confessed to having lived and received training in Tajikistan, immediately bordering Afghanistan. This is a growing terrorist threat the rest of the world should not take lightly.
But no one country, regardless of its influence and resources, can effectively counter and defeat terrorism, unless major UN member–states act together, consistent with the principal goals of the UN Global Counter–Terrorism Strategy. A failure to do so guarantees that Taliban–inspired terrorist attacks will spare no one. The 22/3 tragedy is just another wakeup call for concerted global action against terrorism before another terrorist attack in another nation claims more innocent lives and limbs.
