On Monday, June 16, 2014, The Future center for Advanced Researches and Studies organized a workshop entitled “Primitive Terrorism: Non-traditional Transformations in Arab Region”, within its headquarters in Abu Dhabi. The workshop was headed by Dr. Muhammad Abdel-Salam, the center’s academic director.
The workshop tried to determine and explain new transformations in terrorism patterns. Obviously, the Middle East witnesses the reemergence of primitive terrorism, manifested in an individual or a very small group of individuals carry out simple explosions, using primitive tools in causing violence. The new phenomenon requires exchange of ideas and reviewing this pattern of terrorism, as for its causes, motives, elements, goals, tools, beside dangers it implies, its ability to spread and how to deal with it.
At the beginning, Dr. Abdelsalam shed light on the fact that terrorism goes through nontraditional transformations, among them the rise of nontraditional patterns such as primitive terrorism, while other traditional patterns executed by violent groups with certain leaders, an extremist ideology, a central leadership and a close-knit structure, endure.
Then, he moved to illuminate causes behind the rise of primitive terrorism within some Arab countries. The official dismantling of some organizations of Political Islam and Jihadist groups and detention of its leaders led to the emergence of so-called Swarming Birds. Those Swarming Birds are small local groups made of elements from branches and families, and probably “sympathizers”, within governorates, towns and districts. The launch violent attacks against nearby targets such as police stations, policemen’s cars, check points, public institutions etc, while depending on materials available in markets in making primitive weapons and bombs on a large scale. Thus, this pattern of terrorism displays features similar to those of Homegrown Terrorism.
Terrorism Developments in the Arab Region:
The main speaker, Mr. Shadi Abdel-Wahab, the coordinator of the security trends program within the Future Center, discussed developments related to the emergence of primitive terrorism, which differs from that of large organizations such as Al-Qaeda and its regional proxies. He summarized causes behind this new pattern as follows: first: the rising danger emanating from fighters who returned home from Afghanistan and Yugoslavia formerly, and Iraq and Syria currently. Second, the emergence of leaderless terrorism, in tandem with the downfall of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt. This situation produced two new types: the Lone Wolves and independent cells.
At present, he explained, the region witnesses the rise of large terrorist groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which is moving closer to the model of “small terrorist army”. Simultaneously, the phenomenon of leaderless terrorism is rising. This pattern of terrorism depends on one individual or a small group that does not belong to the organizational structure of any extremist group or large terrorist organization, yet an ideological linkage remains. The Internet has played a vital role in maintaining links between such individuals and groups and the ideology of terrorist organizations and the indirect mobilization of the former. Also, the Internet provides much information about how to make and use improvised explosive devices from widely available materials. In turn, this led to the emergence of “primitive” terrorist operations made by unexpected individuals.
Abdel-Wahab referred to conflicting views related to the effect and significance of that pattern of terrorism. On one hand, some experts underestimate the significance of “primitive terrorism” because of limited damage it causes and its primitive nature. On the other hand, others stress that such pattern of terrorism imply great danger, because of its unpredictability and the difficulty of reaching other members of the terrorist cell, although it is easy to capture the perpetrators. This can be explained by the fact that these groups are different from traditional organizations, where the remaining cell members can be caught once leaders are arrested.
Consequences of Political Islam’s Ruling Regimes Fall:
Mr. Ali Bakr, the Islamic movements researcher in Al-Siyassa Al-Dawleya magazine, issued by Al-Ahram Establishment, commented that “MB removal from the political arena created three levels of violence: riot through demonstrations, random violence that takes the form of very small groups, each made of two or three individuals, seek to launch primitive violent attacks, and lastly the most dangerous level of big intended operations and assassinations, executed by supporting organizations like Ansar Bait Al-Maqdis (ABM).
As for its nature, Abu Bakr said that primitive terrorism is “a violent act made by a small group lacks sufficient experience. Such a group usually uses improvised materials in its terrorist operations, and often direct their attention towards simple targets, killing one or two persons. They are caught shortly after crime because of their inexperience.” Egypt is the first Arab country to experience this kind of terrorism, especially following the ouster of the MB regime.
For Abu Bakr, several reasons lie behind the rise of primitive violence, particularly in Egypt, among them: MB’s success in turning the current conflict from a political to a religious one, mixture of different organizations of Political Islam and the Jihadi ones, thus some extremist ideas moved from some to others such as violent Jihad, finally the release of some Jihadists and media focus on them as leaders led to the reemergence of the concepts of violent Jihad.
Reasons and Motives behind the individual Terrorism:
Mr. Ibrahim Ghaly, the editor-in-chief of the Future Center website, stressed the fact that the phenomenon of the primitive terrorism, in particular the individual type of it, has historical precedents in different countries that suffered violent political conflicts. This means it is not solely related to the present transformations in Islamic movements, so it can not be isolated from the general context of the recent rising and widening violence, and the emergence of what can be called “the second wave of protests against political regimes”, as a result of continuing lack of political instability, and the declining government performance at a time of rising aspirations of the citizens. All that made opting for violence a feature of some opposition movements in Egypt, such as the Revolutionary Socialists.
As for the religious reasons, Mr. Ghaly explained that “they are the declining of official religious establishments, the rising role of private religious establishments, and the spread of political and social fatwas for private goals, which led to the weakening of the “official” Islam and the mounting of the “Jihadi” Islam.”
Ghaly continued that there are three groups practice primitive terrorism; first: misled group in the name religion. Second: a more violent group, totally convinced with Jihadi ideas. Third: a group of socially depressed individuals – a personal level of depression makes the individual more inclined towards violence in order to express frustration. Thus, goals of primitive terrorism differ according to the group practicing it, ranging from the desire to support religion or a certain Islamic movement, to winning material gains through violence, and expressing a personal goal.
Experiences of Fighting Primitive Terrorism:
In his comment on the phenomenon of primitive terrorism and ways to fight it, Mr. Hossam Hasan, the director of the American Studies Program in the Regional Center for Strategic Studies, referred to U.S. experience. Washington faced similar patterns of terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. In its fight, Washington depended on preemptive operations, using intelligence information about groups that may constitute danger in future. The most recent development in this respect is the idea of establishing a fund to fight terrorism Obama mentioned during a recent speech. The fund seeks to prevent terrorist acts through intelligence and early warning efforts.
Conclusions and Questions:
The public discussions reached some conclusions, and also questions, concerning the future of primitive terrorism within the Middle East:
- Fighting religion-based primitive terrorism is a huge challenge, because its formerly mentioned features make it difficult to curb, whether by fighting or prevention.
- A big question is related to the link between primitive terrorism and significant organizations, as those who resort to primitive terrorism usually do so following their failure in joining a large organization. This is because they share common ideology.
- Primitive terrorism cause much embarrassment to the regional large organizations, because it confuses their movement in the region, while launches an unintended competition with them. This may push the large organizations towards more violent operations, based on theoretical assumption that the relation between the Jihadi organizations is competitive, rather than cooperative.
- There are fears of a possible spread of primitive violence, even if the Egyptian state managed to reach reconciliation with MB, for example. This is because such conflicts often produce individuals who oppose reconciliation, and resort to violence without permission from the main organization, as seen in Cambodia, Thailand and Ireland.
- Another big question is related to the possibility of primitive terrorism development, so that it turns into suicide operations, which has not happened so far. A possible explanation is that the one who makes suicidal operation needs to be immersed in Jihadi ideology for a long time – a condition not available in individuals who practice primitive terrorism, as they only have little knowledge of the Jihadi thinking.
** This Article is translated and edited from Arabic to English by: Marwa Sabri
