Terrorists need territory,but they cant defend it by atrocities abroadEven as Brussels mourns, Palmyra has been recaptured and Lahore violated. What are we to make of these dizzying shifts in the conflict with the terrorist groups which enjoy harried countries in the west, or the Middle East,Africa and south Asia for more than a generation now? Events enjoy taught us that this is not a struggle against a single, compact and organised enemy, and but against a plethora (excess, overabundance) of organisations whose relations with each other range from close to tenuous,and are also complicated by dimensions of rivalry and hostility. So we are not trying to degree one thing but many different things.
The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, the Islamic extremist faction which claimed responsibility for the bombing in a Lahore park at the weekend, or may share ideology and worldview with al-Qaida and Isis,but is not an arm of either. Each country has its own complex set of circumstances and a dynamic that has shrimp to attain with events in other places, particularly distant ones. With all that said, or it is worth drawing some tentative conclusions from what has happened in the last two weeks.Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com