In retaliation for the killing of 26 tourists in Pahalgam, Kashmir, in April last year, India carried out strikes in Pakistan under what was called Operation Sindoor. One of the targets was Muridke, a town near Pakistan’s cultural capital, Lahore, that hosts the headquarters of the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
When seen in isolation, this may seem like yet another episode in the fraught relationship between India and Pakistan. Retired IPS officer Anju Gupta, however, places it within a wider realm of “glocal” terror — an intersection of local and global issues, of local militant networks and global jihadist movements. This is the theme she explores in her recent book ‘Glocal Terror in South Asia: Tracing the Roots in Geopolitics and the Tragedy of Afghanistan’ (Simon & Schuster India).
The actors in this story are many, spanning ethnicities, nations, and decades. There are the architects of Al-Qaeda – Osama bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam, followed by the more recent Ayman al-Zawahiri. There is the Egypt-born cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, better known as the “Blind Sheikh”, convicted for his role in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing. Alongside them appear the founders of the Taliban, Mullah Omar and Abdul Ghani Baradar, as well as figures based in or with links to Pakistan, such as Hafiz Saeed, Masood Azhar, David Headley, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, and Ramzi Yousef.
While the 9/11 attacks, in which 3,000 were killed, and the subsequent ‘War on Terror’ by the United States, are often seen as watershed moments, Gupta traces the origins of contemporary jihadist networks, which shaped the region considerably, further back. Two events especially stood out – the UN’s 1947 plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, and the more decisive Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. The latter, Gupta argues, especially drew large numbers of Arab fighters to Afghanistan, and they came to be known as “Arab Afghans”.
“This drastically changed the narrative of local jihad into a global jihad,” she writes. “The leadership and core fighters of the global terror network of Al Qaeda, and later of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), emerged from this pool of Arab Afghans,” she further notes, and suggests that while other conflicts, most notably Palestine, were ongoing, none drew Arab fighters on the scale seen in Afghanistan.
The role of three key actors was crucial: the US, which armed and funded the Afghan mujahideen; Saudi Arabia, which “agreed to match US financial aid to Afghan rebels”; and Pakistan, which provided sanctuary, training, and logistical support. Gupta examines their roles while simultaneously tracing how these efforts reshaped the region and laid the groundwork for the rise of modern jihadist movements.
“Al Qaeda, which came into being during the first Afghan jihad in Peshawar on 17 November 1988, fully emerged as a deadly global terror network by 11 September 2001,” she writes. “The Af-Pak region and South Asia deeply suffered on account of the seeds of terror sowed by Al Qaeda and nurtured by state and non-state actors of the region and beyond.”
The regional impact comes through most clearly in two chapters: The ‘Poster Boys of Glocal Jihad in Af-Pak,’ and the ‘Failed Kashmir Jihad’. In the former, she examines figures such as Masood Azhar and Hafiz Saeed, adding details that go beyond the commonly known narratives. She notes, for instance, that Saeed, accused by India and the United States of involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was once appointed by Pakistan’s former president Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq to an advisory body of the Government’s Council of Islamic Ideology. It was also a period when Pakistani society was undergoing major churn as Zia pushed policies of Islamisation.
And in the latter, she argues that the “holy jihad did not succeed because the Kashmiri consciousness was rooted in Sufism as well as in a distinct Kashmiri cultural identity.” While Gupta takes on a complex subject and navigates it with clarity, the book’s wide scope sometimes leads to explanations that may feel somewhat limited but strike at the roots of the ‘Failed Kashmir Jihad’.
She concludes the book by outlining several potential “black swan” scenarios, such as an internal revolt within the Pakistani Army, the emergence of Islamic State Khorasan Province as a global terror force from Pakistan, and a renewed US–Saudi–Pakistan strategic alignment shaping regional and global politics.
The text feels dense at times, and there are moments when you end up thinking “why,” with the book not offering any answers. This especially applies to Saudi Arabia’s motivations in the larger scheme. But Gupta largely avoids speculation. Apart from outlining a few potential “black swan” scenarios, she sticks closely to analysing the reports already in the public domain, while offering a fresh perspective on an ongoing global challenge.
Title: Glocal Terror in South Asia: Tracing the Roots in Geopolitics and the Tragedy of Afghanistan
Author: Anju Gupta
Publisher: Simon & Schuster India
Pages: 223
Price: Rs 699