Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

Can Peace Change the Nature of Terrorists?

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Can Peace Change the Nature of Terrorists?

Terrorism and suicide can never be considered as an unreasonable or accidental behavior. The terrorism phenomenon follows a strategic and rational logic. Considering terrorism as a behavioral disorder arising from an ideological or psychological depression distracts the analytical mind from reality. This deviating approach keeps us away from resolving the issue and choosing a right solution. The reason for all this confusion is that we are in a turmoil and disconcertment state against the shock of terrorist suicide. This confusion is also due to the analysis of terrorist incidents with common norms and emotional subjectivities.  Since the act of terror never conforms to human and social norms, it seems meaningless and non-understandable to the people. On Contrary to the common beliefs, terrorism is a well-intentioned and well-calculated behavior that attempts to achieve a political goal.
It must be accepted that terrorism is never an imported phenomenon, and need to be cautious that political distortions may not deviate our minds from the origins of terrorists and their nesting grounds. It is true that the ideas of fundamentalism may come from another land, but it is never possible for a completely alien with a different language to accurately identify the mission addresses in order to do their terror job.  Evidence suggests that terrorists and suicide bombers have a full local identity, but are being funded and directed by outside powers and political networks.  They cannot find their funding resources from the domestic addresses.  Hence, they rely on external resources and receive comprehensive support from the outsiders. As studies show terrorists are the descendants of their own homeland considering themselves the real compassionate of their land, and so they seek to institutionalize their sovereignty for the purpose of implementing their radical ideas in that land.
This is why we cannot deny the link between terrorism and politics. Religious engagement is completely different from systematic terrorist activities. The terrorists are seeking to establish their absolute ideological sovereignty by killing their ideological opponents. Based on this, it is realized that terrorism is working in a thoughtful way in the process of reaching their sinister goal; they try to inflict the most devastating damage with the least costs.  According to this perspective, the act of terror can be defined as deliberate punishment in order to make a fundamental change. So, terrorists act and violence are based on cost and benefit analysis being used as the most effective method. The tactic of assassination and assault is used to impose the most destructive damage with the least expenses. According to this logic, organizations such as ISIL and the Taliban are neither unreasonable nor crazy people.
Suicide bombing tries to reduce or increase the intensity of attacks as required in pursuit of its specific political goals. Therefore, the operations in Afghanistan have been increasing in the following years. From time to time, they create a massive wave of fear and massacre to plague the moral of society, and then disappear to prepare for another threat. In some cases, they put the community and the government in neglect of a long absence to properly identify and act upon their own goals. Thus, they gradually use punishment and impose more cost on   government to compel it for surrendering and achieving more privileges.
The terrorist networks in Afghanistan have found this method more efficiently; therefore, they have recieved more privileges and confidence now.  It has been known for some time that some of the designated areas of the country have actually been transferred to them as a territorial area of the Taliban, and then changed into the safe havens of the Taliban and other terrorists. Using Democratic and tolerant methods with terrorists are completely wrong, and it is conducive to strengthening the confidence of the terrorists.  In fact, working with the Taliban through peaceful means has given them opportunities to become more hopeful for victory.
The best way to curb the suicide attack is reducing their confidence for victory. This is the main reason for failure of terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria. Though terrorists had accurate and well coordinated strategy in Iraq and Syria, the invasive battle of Iraqi government makes them disappointed insofar as completely abandon their operations. Iraq was the homeland of ISIL but The Iraqi government has never approached them with jokes and flexibility. With inflicting severe blows and bombardment put them in condition that forgot their way how to escape and how to apply their method of terrifying. This way, the government of Iraq could overcome the security challenges and could defeat them.
In Afghanistan, however, the theorem is quite the opposite and has fully failed. In Afghanistan the enemy has been able to make the people disappointed with brutal repeated massacres. Therefore, the hope of living and continuity of life in Afghanistan is more similar to luck.  To this extent, flexibility against terrorist is not acceptable and neither have good consequences.  Iraq and Syria never used this method otherwise they would have been swallowed by ISIL. There is no difference between the Taliban and ISIL and al-Qaeda. Using the experience of Iraq, Syria has also succeeded to eliminate the absolute domination of terrorists. It is unlikely that a group of professional killers who has long slaughtered human beings can change their nature through peace process and respect civil values.

Mohammad Zahir Akbari is the permanent writer of the Daily Outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at mohammadzahirakbari@gmail.com

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