'India forging links to fight faith-based terror'

India is strengthening political and security linkages with countries in the region to combat 'faith-based' terrorism with 'external linkages' that has emerged as one of the biggest challenges globally, National Security Advisor M K Narayanan said in New Delhi.

Such links will help the country to protect its pluralism and democracy, and maintain peace and stability in its immediate neighbourhood and beyond, Narayanan told an international seminar in New Delhi on 'Growing Challenges of Terrorism with special reference to railways.'

"One of the important features of faith-based terrorism is the extent of its external linkages," he said, adding that in many, if not most, cases there is the element of external sponsorship -- whether state-sponsored, state-supported or by non-state actors.

Narayanan also said most terrorist groups today 'tend to have a radical Islamist visage' as well.

"Our effort has, hence, been to strengthen political, economic and security linkages across the entire region. We have offered a wide array of political and economic incentives to countries across the region and in some cases have helped strengthen structures for functional cooperation," he said.

Sponsorship and external linkages have 'tended to fertilize indigenous terrorism,' he said.

"We, are nevertheless, determined that even while dealing with the challenges, there will be no dilution of our determination to sustain India as an inclusive, open, multi-racial, multi-lingual and multi-ethnic society," he told an audience that included Robert Jamison, Deputy Administrator of the US Transportation Security Department.

Noting that it was 'difficult to grade, or benchmark, the different types of terrorism,' he said: "Nevertheless, experience the world over has been that the intensity of violence has been much higher in the case of religion-oriented terrorism than of other forms of terrorism."

"India seeks peace and stability in our immediate neighbourhood and beyond it. Stable conditions in India's vicinity alone will ensure a peaceful environment within the country," Narayanan observed.

Asserting that there was a need to understand the nature and roots of current day terrorism, he said the world faced an entirely new breed of terrorists. Countries were 'pitted against global actors, dispersed, fanatical terrorist networks who have the capacity to wage war internationally,' he said.

"Motives and morale, men and material, scale and scope -- all have changed, apart from technology. Many more terrorist outfits today have a trans-national reach, most are seemingly un-tethered to geographical locations or even to political ideologies," he added.

Narayanan said the 'institutionalisation of violence' had made new terrorism more asymmetric as newer groups combined many 'precepts and practices' of older outfits with novel attributes, much of it made possible by state-of the art technology, global mobility and increased stealth.

"They share common operating procedures and common training practices. They espouse common operating philosophies. They often have common funding structures. Terrorist attacks, whether they are in Madrid or Mumbai, or suicide bombers be they be in Bali or Casablanca, Jerusalem or Jammu, show the same pattern of improvisation of tactics, weaponry, reconnaissance techniques, the use of improvised explosive devices and other sophisticated delivery systems," Narayanan said.

It is 'noteworthy' that captured militants, whether in Kashmir, London or Indonesia, claimed that it was possible for their groups to gather recruits from 'different climes, backgrounds, skills and countries, through a uniform training programme,' Narayayanan explained.

"Such cross-cultural compatibility has paved the way for deadly attacks in unexpected locales," he said, adding that efforts of terrorists are accelerated by technological innovation.

Technology has become a 'force multiplier,' helping to break down barriers in communication and spread ideas while empowering non-state actors to carry out acts of violence, he said.

"Technology has eased the way for the spread of the ideological virus of terrorism, a virus that floats invisibly across borders and replicates itself in different ways, targeting disconnected young men, via the internet. Terrorism could not have become the global threat that it has become today but for the advent of technology," he said.