BOKO HARAM, AL SHABAB & ISIS: There is a Pattern to the Madnness- it is called stealth

The world was shocked by the beheading of Egyptian Copts in Libya last week. Rightly so, I must say. But the rise of Islamic extremism is not a strange thing. From the 1998 United States Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania there has been a steady rise in extremist attacks across the world. You would think that the 911 attacks in the US should have been the bang before the trend fizzled out. However, extremists have become bolder.

In the aftermath, extremists have gone ahead to take over Somalia. While it took the a US-led intervention to claw back Afghanistan from the grip of the Taliban, extremists have free reign over Somalia. The minimalist intervention by African Union forces is geared towards containment and little else. In Nigeria, the Boko Haram 'uprising' seems to threaten the very existence of the state as extremists wire themselves into longstanding divisions to fan their cause. The stunning rise of ISIS from the ashes of the war in Iraq and Syria went largely unnoticed until videos of shocking beheadings appeared.

Beneath the calm, danger lurks

Al-Qaeda, Taliban, al Shabab, Boko Haram and now ISIS cannot be isolated acts. Their interconnections cannot be explained by globalisation alone. Their successes cannot be explained in military terms alone. There is a grain of thinking that connects them. The ideology of terror and its apparent acceptance within the tenets of the faith they propagate is what brings them together. Acting jointly or separately they remain lethal and faithful to the cause. That is how two men with no apparent Plan B other than death could launch the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. The cause is served not by a coherent plan but by unexpected but persistent attack.

In Somalia and probably in Nigeria, the fact that the incoherent attacks do not pose a material threat to established power at the beginning has seen ineffective force deployed against terror. In Kenya, the threat of extremism in Somalia went largely unnoticed for long. It did not pose a direct threat to the country and was regarded benign until the rise of piracy along the Somali coast threatened the economy.

The Kenyan intervention in Somalia revealed just how deadly the threat was when local sympathisers probably recruited long before the intervention launched a series of reprisal attacks in the country. The Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi was not without many helping local hands. 

Extremists are building a web around an unsuspecting world in very much the same way the spider does. It is only when a wave of attacks is launched that we notice the intricate work that has gone into it. To my mind the next destination of in the global terror web is Tanzania. They could be looking across the border at the rampant corruption that has made terror take root in Kenya but completely miss out the demographic that extremists took advantage of. A rudderless, poor and young community tired of looking up to a few wealthy benefactors is connecting with the international web of terror and extremism. The spark of al shabab, al Qaeda and others offers instant glory.

To confront the threat intelligence and military resources must be directed against it. This must not happen only when a clear threat exists but should form the routine hum of our security services. Whereas the traditional threat has been political it is now religious or quasi-religious and harder to detect.

 If what I heard from the murmurings in Malindi following the Mpeketoni attacks in Lamu is anything to go buy, the extremists also know the propaganda value of the attacks. They are using the free flow of information to score larger-than-life blows on our psyche. This calls for restrictions on reporting much in the same way we restrict information about our fallen in war.

It cannot be business as usual because we are not fighting a usual enemy. When he cannot lob a grenade into a church, he will attack villagers in Mpeketoni. If that cannot happen he will hijack a bus and slaughter as happened in Mandera. To rub insult into injury he will repeat the same against mineworkers. He is not deranged, he is methodical in persistence. And so should we be- methodical and meticulous in our zeal to pursue him. Not even after we have put him down should we rest- we should go through his hairs with a forensic tooth-comb to establish any connections he has had elsewhere. We must go after his every link with a meticulous tool of our own!

The rules of engagement decreed by a democratic order are the very tool he utilises to hide and carry out his attacks. I will not call for a suspension of democracy but certainly call caution to take precedence over general rights. Whereas the general rights of the people are unassailable, the rights of individuals deemed a threat in this scenario should be subject to review. Terrorists are no ordinary criminals and the threat they pose is of a military nature. Ordinary criminals are rarely a military threat. I should think the best justice they can face is from a tribunal and not an ordinary court. We cannot treat a terror suspect like a chicken thief. The Charlie Hebdo attack showed as much- and so did the Mwembe Tayari bus attack in Mombasa which involved a terror suspect on bail.

The long and short of it is- it is we have to change and adapt to the threat of terror because it is not going away soon. The engine that drives terror is alive and evolving- I could type its a name but I haven't the ink.