{"id":32357,"date":"2017-06-13T11:00:33","date_gmt":"2017-06-13T01:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=32357"},"modified":"2017-06-09T14:36:55","modified_gmt":"2017-06-09T04:36:55","slug":"age-blowback-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/","title":{"rendered":"The age of blowback terror"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

World powers have often been known to intervene, overtly and covertly, to overthrow other countries\u2019 governments, install pliant regimes, and then prop up those regimes, even with military action. But, more often than not, what seems like a good idea in the short term often brings about disastrous unintended consequences, with intervention causing countries to dissolve into conflict, and intervening powers emerging as targets of violence. That sequence is starkly apparent today, as countries that have meddled in the Middle East face a surge in terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n

Last month, Salman Ramadan Abedi\u2014a 22-year-old British-born son of Libyan immigrants\u2014carried out a suicide bombing at the concert of the American pop star Ariana Grande in Manchester, England. The bombing\u2014the worst terrorist attack in the United Kingdom in more than a decade\u2014can be described only as blowback from the activities of the UK and its allies in Libya, where external intervention has given rise to a battle-worn terrorist haven.<\/p>\n

The UK has not just actively aided<\/a> jihadists in Libya; it encouraged foreign fighters, including British Libyans<\/a>, to get involved in the NATO-led operation that toppled Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi\u2019s regime in 2011. Among those fighters were Abedi\u2019s father, a longtime member<\/a> of the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, whose functionaries were imprisoned or forced into exile during Qaddafi\u2019s rule. The elder Abedi returned to Libya six years ago to fight alongside a new Western-backed Islamist militia known as the Tripoli Brigade. His son had recently returned from a visit to Libya when he carried out the Manchester Arena attack.<\/p>\n

This was not the first time a former \u2018Islamic holy warrior\u2019 passed jihadism to his Western-born son. Omar Saddiqui Mateen, who carried out last June\u2019s Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida\u2014the deadliest single-day mass shooting in US history\u2014also drew inspiration from his father, who fought with the US-backed mujahedeen<\/em> forces that drove the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

In fact, the United States\u2019 activities in Afghanistan at that time may be the single biggest source of blowback terrorism today. With the help of Pakistan\u2019s Inter-Services Intelligence agency and Saudi Arabia\u2019s money, the CIA staged what remains the largest<\/a> covert operation in its history, training and arming thousands of anti-Soviet insurgents. The US also spent $50 million on a \u2018jihad literacy\u2019 project<\/a> to inspire Afghans to fight the Soviet \u2018infidels\u2019 and to portray the CIA-trained guerrillas as \u2018holy warriors.\u2019<\/p>\n

After the Soviets left, however, many of those holy warriors ended up forming al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other terrorist groups. Some, such as Osama bin Laden, remained in the Afghanistan-Pakistan belt, turning it into a base for organising international terrorism, like the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US. Others returned to their home countries\u2014from Egypt to the Philippines\u2014to wage terror campaigns against what they viewed as Western-tainted governments. \u2018We helped to create the problem that we are now fighting,\u2019 then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted<\/a> in 2010.<\/p>\n

Yet the US\u2014indeed, the entire West\u2014seems not to have learned its lesson. Clinton herself was instrumental<\/a> in coaxing a hesitant President Barack Obama to back military action to depose Qaddafi in Libya. As a result, just as President George W. Bush will be remembered for the unraveling of Iraq, one of Obama\u2019s central legacies is the mayhem in Libya.<\/p>\n

In Syria, the CIA is again supporting supposedly \u2018moderate\u2019 jihadist rebel factions, many of which have links to groups like al-Qaeda. Russia, for its part, has been propping up its client, President Bashar al-Assad\u2014and experiencing blowback of its own, exemplified by the 2015 downing<\/a> of a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula. Russia has also been seeking<\/a> to use the Taliban to tie down the US militarily in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

As for Europe, two jihadist citadels\u2014Syria and Libya\u2014now sit on its doorstep, and the blowback from its past interventions, exemplified by terrorist attacks in France, Germany, and the UK, is intensifying. Meanwhile, Bin Laden\u2019s favorite son, Hamza bin Laden, is seeking to revive al-Qaeda\u2019s global network.<\/p>\n

Of course, regional powers, too, have had plenty to do with perpetuating the cycle of chaos and conflict in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia may have fallen out with a fellow jihad-bankrolling state, Qatar, but it continues to engage in a brutal proxy war with Iran in Yemen, which has brought that country, like Iraq and Libya, to the brink of state failure.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Saudi Arabia has been the chief exporter of intolerant and extremist Wahhabi Islam since the second half of the Cold War. Western powers, which viewed Wahhabism as an antidote to communism and the 1979 Shia \u2018revolution\u2019 in Iran, tacitly encouraged it.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Wahhabi fanaticism became the basis of modern Sunni Islamist terror, and Saudi Arabia itself is now threatened by its own creation. Pakistan\u2014another major state sponsor of terrorism\u2014is also seeing its chickens coming home to roost, with a spate of terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n

It is high time for a new approach. Recognizing that arming or supporting Islamist radicals anywhere ultimately fuels international terrorism, such alliances of convenience should be avoided. In general, Western powers should resist the temptation to intervene at all. Instead, they should work systematically to discredit what British Prime Minister Theresa May has called \u2018the evil ideology of Islamist extremism.\u2019<\/p>\n

On this front, US President Donald Trump has already sent the wrong message. On his first foreign trip, he visited Saudi Arabia, a decadent theocracy where, ironically, he opened<\/a> the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology. As the US and its allies continue to face terrorist blowback, one hopes that Trump comes to his senses, and helps to turn the seemingly interminable War on Terror that Bush launched in 2001 into a battle that can actually be won.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

World powers have often been known to intervene, overtly and covertly, to overthrow other countries\u2019 governments, install pliant regimes, and then prop up those regimes, even with military action. But, more often than not, what …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":482,"featured_media":32374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[273,1428,127],"class_list":["post-32357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-counterterrorism","tag-donald-trump","tag-terrorism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe age of blowback terror | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The age of blowback terror | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"World powers have often been known to intervene, overtly and covertly, to overthrow other countries\u2019 governments, install pliant regimes, and then prop up those regimes, even with military action. But, more often than not, what ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-06-13T01:00:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-06-09T04:36:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/panel-2091793_960_720.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brahma Chellaney\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Brahma Chellaney\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/panel-2091793_960_720.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/panel-2091793_960_720.jpg\",\"width\":960,\"height\":720},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/\",\"name\":\"The age of blowback terror | The Strategist\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-06-13T01:00:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-06-09T04:36:55+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/de93656772fd3940ede5d6ca24b86124\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The age of blowback terror\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/de93656772fd3940ede5d6ca24b86124\",\"name\":\"Brahma Chellaney\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fd617a464df31dc4b7d841dc248c299d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fd617a464df31dc4b7d841dc248c299d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Brahma Chellaney\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/author\/brahma-chellaney\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The age of blowback terror | The Strategist","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The age of blowback terror | The Strategist","og_description":"World powers have often been known to intervene, overtly and covertly, to overthrow other countries\u2019 governments, install pliant regimes, and then prop up those regimes, even with military action. But, more often than not, what ...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/","og_site_name":"The Strategist","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org","article_published_time":"2017-06-13T01:00:33+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-06-09T04:36:55+00:00","og_image":[{"width":960,"height":720,"url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/panel-2091793_960_720.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Brahma Chellaney","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ASPI_org","twitter_site":"@ASPI_org","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Brahma Chellaney","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/","name":"The Strategist","description":"ASPI's analysis and commentary site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-AU"},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-AU","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/panel-2091793_960_720.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/panel-2091793_960_720.jpg","width":960,"height":720},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/","url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/","name":"The age of blowback terror | The Strategist","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2017-06-13T01:00:33+00:00","dateModified":"2017-06-09T04:36:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/de93656772fd3940ede5d6ca24b86124"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-AU","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/age-blowback-terror\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The age of blowback terror"}]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/de93656772fd3940ede5d6ca24b86124","name":"Brahma Chellaney","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-AU","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fd617a464df31dc4b7d841dc248c299d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fd617a464df31dc4b7d841dc248c299d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Brahma Chellaney"},"url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/author\/brahma-chellaney\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32357"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/482"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32357"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32376,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32357\/revisions\/32376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}