By Muhammad Saeed
Present-day vigorous American involvement broadly into the regions of Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan has a history of more than twenty five and fifteen years respectively. This intervention is hugely supported by the western countries either directly through diplomatic and political coalitions or under the umbrella of pure military partnerships. A small number of Muslim countries particularly Turkey and Jordan have opted voluntarily to join American lead west to enjoy certain fringe benefits that are gradually proving nuisance especially in view of re-emerging powers like Russia and China on the world arena to checkmate American hegemony as well as avenge the vengeance. Several countries like KSA, Egypt and UAE have joined as proxies of America due to security and economic obligations, mainly petro-dollar commitment.
Consequently most part of Middle East, Africa and complete region of Afghanistan are in great shambles due to unending upsurge of terrorism and violence, in other words an intricate style of proxy war by the American lead west, though some of the latter countries are compulsively attached with the long war of power and politics, causing more harm rather than estimated payback, France carnage is the latest example. There have been spectacular terror incidents across Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan killing not hundreds but hundreds of thousands of people during this period. However, over the last fifteen years there have been a number of large and devastating terrorist attacks in Western countries too as a result of American policies leading to intervention into aforementioned regions.
From the description, designation and perspective of violent organizations like Al Qaeda, Taliban, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, Daish or ISIS, West includes whole of Europe, United States, Canada, Australia and Israel. Spectacular incidents that occurred in the West since American intervention in regions like Asia, Africa and Middle East, includes the 9/11 attacks of its kind which killed more than three thousand innocent people. Another devastating incident was Madrid train bombings which killed nearly two hundred people likewise the Norwegian massacre which caused death to more than seventy and the London underground bombings which killed nearly sixty persons. Latest terror incidents in France of November 30, 2015 that caused 132 deaths and immeasurable psychological and reputation impact on the standing of France are indication of how American policies unveil in the Middle East. A new research has revealed that since Sept. 11, 2001, most of the attackers in the US claiming or appearing to be motivated by extremist Islam were either US-born or naturalized citizens but none were refugees displaced from volatile regions. In case of Paris attack the tread goes to Belgium that is suffering the stigma of a failed state which failed to realize and interpret the intelligence provided by Turkey.
It is important to compare significant events with the more persistent and severe impacts of terrorism occurring in the rest of the world. According to the recent Global Terrorism Index GTI-2015) report attacks in Western countries accounted for a small percentage incidents, representing 4.4 per cent of terrorist incidents and 2.6 per cent of deaths over the last 15 years. The four large attacks listed above excluding the November 13, 2015 Paris attack, make up 91%r cent of deaths from terrorism in the West during this period.
More recently ISIL has replaced al-Qa’ida as the biggest threat for attacks in the West through lone wolf tactics, but the west now cannot claim that Paris attack was a lone wolf incident. This means that ISIS is adopting a better tactics in Europe against the perceived or propagated perception of lone wolf tactics. One must recall that on September 22, 2014 the spokesperson of ISIL called for sympathizers to engage in attacks in Western countries.Despite this link between Middle-East and South Asia based terrorist groups and attacks in the West, the West was wrong to think that it was not the main focus of these groups.
Most recently Israel has blatantly accused America for supporting ISIL by providing them weapons and finances. This clearly is an indication of what America wants for and from its partners in West; surely America has called for forming of a World Coalition after realizing that rest of the western countries are loosing interest in previously constructed Coalitions to further American goals. Paris incident followed by Turkey’s shooting of Russian Jet and calling for a world coalition by the US is a telltale of future scenarios in the regions of Middle East, Africa and South Asia, France is likely to play a lead role as major proxy of the global power. Pakistan must continue to defeat extremism and terrorists while India is gradually becoming an extremist country.
