HORIZONS OF SECURITY
Year:2014 | Volume:7 | Issue:23|Papers Count:9

Terrorism is undoubtedly one of the main issues of international security, severely jeopardized people’s lives as well as the relations between nations. In the modern era, the Islamic world is faced with the growth of terrorist movements, originating from Wahhabi teachings and Salafism, which result in carnage. ‘Kafer’ (infidel) is a frequent key word in Takfiri terrorism. Terrorists accuse their adversaries of ‘Kofr’ (being infidel) and then kill them. So this type of terrorism is called Takfiri Terrorism. Takfiri thought, relying on its non-Islamic bases, challenges Islamic theological teachings. This movement changes the main religious teachings in Islam. It believes they are permitted do acts of violence against Muslims’ blood, property, and family, and consider Muslims worse than infidels. In fact, their religious and theological standpoint characterizes Takfiri groups. In order to find the difference between Takfiri and other Muslim groups, it is necessary to distinguish their religious and theological beliefs. Although religious misgivings in Takfiri thoughts are stated in the framework of jurisprudential statements, they are based on religious assumptions rooted in religious and theological discussions. This paper states that theological and religious bases play a pivotal role in the formation of Takfiri terrorism. This has been focused on in the paper so that it would be used in counter terrorism planning. This research, regarding its methodology, is descriptive-analytical. The data are collected by library, documents, and historical research. Since the main subject of the paper is to identify Takfiri terrorist thoughts, it uses a theoretical method to analyze the data.

Terrorism is not a new phenomenon, but it is currently one of the main issues in the world afflicting many governments. It is widely expanding and impinging on many of international equations. It has even affected and also challenged the sovereignty of some governments. This made many think of countering it. Consequently, proposing comprehensive counter-terrorism strategies, based on different approaches towards terrorism, seems necessary. regarding to the fact that culture is the nature of any community, this research considers terrorism as a social phenomenon rooted in cultures. Accordingly, counter-terrorism is a cultural approach. The research intends to counter terrorism through proposing cultural strategies as basic strategies of fighting with terrorism. It tries to develop a comprehensive domestic plan, abiding by the rules and regulations as well as the limitations in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The paper is seven parts. Five parts subtitled “Counter-Terrorism Strategies in Various Geographical Levels”, “CounterTerrorism Strategies based on its Nature”, “Strategies Focused on Terrorist Groups”, “General Policies of Restricting Terrorist Groups”,” Countering All Kinds of Existing or Impending Terrorism in the Country” explain the policies. And the other two parts design the ways to devolve national responsibilities to implement cultural counter-terrorism strategies and to devolve the responsibilities of administrative )public( bodies to implement cultural counter-terrorism. Finally, the outlook of this proposal is to delegitimize terrorism and terrorist acts, raise awareness, and consequently decrease extremist tendencies, which in long term, with patience, result in the eradication of terrorism in the IR of Iran.

Although the emergence of Daesh, as a non-state player, dates back to the last decade, when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi formed al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in Iraq, the Iraqi security crisis has shifted the global attentions to this group the most. This paper studies the intellectual, cultural, and other environments for the emergence and expansion of Daesh in the security context of the Middle East in three national, regional, and international levels. The findings of this descriptive-analytical paper show that the concept of Takfir is based on Salafism as its intellectual context. Resistance against waves of globalization is the cultural context for the emergence and expansion of Daesh in the geography of the Islamic World. At the national level, Daesh emerged within the absence of leadership and Sunnis’ identity crisis in desperate countries, exploited the religious feeling of Sunnis, and challenged the sovereignties of desperate countries. At the regional level, Daesh, as a non-state player, counters the Islamic revolution discourse and the axis of resistance, providing an alternative Islamist discourse. At the international level, the clash of civilizations, which was declared by the US, has been transformed to an intra-civilization war for the sake of Islamophobia.

Action is to an intellectual system formed somehow in a complicated thought, based on a kind of ontology. Determination and identification of the thought, relying on the world view, shows man in a society with its epistemic discourse through the expression and emergence of individual and social activism. The realization of world views and the methodology of realization can observe, monitor, and inspect the individual. In fact, it can be claimed that events and actors in these fields and contexts are the result of the conflicts and dialectics of various world views. It is critical to understand why an activist chooses a “particular type” of action in the field. His choice is completely rooted in the cognitive model of the formed ontological world views and epistemology. Religious societies introduce religion by denominations, and the political by political theology. Theological viewpoints and denominations are the operational, descriptive, explanative, hermeneutic, and interpretive form of religion, which constructs its interactive context, security, life, and environment through a kind of “extremist textualism”. The cellular life is a form of informal organization like a Rhizome under the skin which the actors of this field, especially terrorist micro-organizations, carefully are inclined to. In fact, paradigms are furnished through intellectual systems and gradually begin and finally )if expired( institutionalize the model and pattern of life along with a particular kind of security with the curve of cellular life, ending to a particular type of civilization which relies on the theological, dispositional, and religious teachings. This paper intends to explain that the paradigms, the type of lifecellular life, and hermeneutic of security in action of Takfiri terrorism are interrelated. This also is strongly related to their theological )faith and political( basics which is considered by means of an analytical, descriptive, and semiotic method through the explanation of political theology and the political.

The dynamic ideological power of Deash group originates from two sources. The first source is a pervading jurisprudence rooted in Ibn Taymiyyah’s (14th c.( ideas which later modernized by Abd al-Wahhab)18th c.( as the ideology of modern Salafism. Accordingly, Takfiri Daesh members say their objective is to renovate Islam. The other source, totally obvious in its organization and political objectives, is Baathism and new Baath networks since secular Baathis set the renovations of Arabs’ glory as their ultimate goal. Although Daesh group uses the doctrine of radical Salafism effectively to mobilize extremists and foreign militants, it also relies on the complex networks of former Baath Party officers to lead and control its Caliphate. This paper tries to study how these two different ideological sources can join in a single organization-Daesh. In the ideology of Baath, Islam is hardly a universal message which addresses the world to improve humanity. It is considered as a mean of governing the Arab world, and its development by Baath theorists is for showing an evidence of the gratitude of Arab culture and the thinking power of Arab people. On the other hand, Baathis’ military and organizational skills have been used by the extremist Salafis-Daesh-as means of following their objectives in battle fields.

The emergence of Al-Qaeda is regarded as a turning point in the history of Islamic radicalism. The organization has three generations. The central al-Qaeda was formed with the support of the US and its allies to fight against the USRR in Afghanistan. It altered its strategy after the defeat of the Union in Afghanistan and its withdrawal from the country. The new strategy was designed to support the World Islamic Front against the Jews and Crusader. The ideological roots of al-Qaeda and Daesh date back to Takfiri Salafi beliefs, originating from Wahhabism. After the US invasion of Afghanistan in Taliban period, and also its invasion to Iraq, al-Qaeda moved to Iraq and fought against the occupiers and Shia Muslims. Strategy alteration in Iraq’s al-Qaeda resulted in a new branch in the organization. Finally, the new branch emerged as Daesh. This paper, initially, studies the formation of al-Qaeda and the separation of Daesh from the organization. It then analyzes the dissimilarities between them in terms of their ideologies, organizations, and Jihad. Finally, it highlights their similarities.

Daesh, with its expansion and reach, has seriously challenged the Middle Eastern. In fact, it is not a newly-formed movement. It is the outcome of some regional countries’ national interests, their geopolitical competitions, political leverage by transregional powers, the floating geopolitical issues, and a suitable context for the emergence of the crisis-making groups as well as the extremist thoughts in the political atmosphere of the Middle Eastern countries. The complexity of interactions between extremist groups and regional players, their expansionist actions and explosive operations, the regional and transregional powers’ different contradictory positions towards these acts, inter-group hostile conflicts, etc required an analysis of the current cumulative situation and a forecast of future situation by adopting Chaos Theory and Fractal and combining them with the concept of butterfly effect. Research findings show that the chaotic atmosphere in the Middle East, affected by the domestic, regional, and transregional factors, let these groups appear. Efficient organization, financial and military aids, using the virtual space, their ideology, and geo-cultural supports helped these groups increase, develop their effects, and become uncontrollable. However, their expansion will be restricted by the geo-strategic conditions of the region and the pressure exerted from the global-regional coalition. It is not improbable that similar groups reappear in the Middle East unless the chaotic situation in national and regional political atmosphere is controlled.

In recent years, South Western Asia has been faced with numerous terrorist attacks by Takfiri terrorists. The regional countries have applied different policies towards these terrorist acts. Employing an analytical method, this paper tries to study Saudi Arabia’s policies towards these issues in domestic, regional, and international arenas. The paper lists the influential factors in Saudi Arabia’s foreign policies towards Takfiri terrorism. The main findings of the paper show that domestically the influences from the Saudi kingdom and Wahhabism, and regionally Saudi Arabia’s model of competition with Iran play pivotal roles in the country’s foreign policies. Internationally, Saudi Arabia’s ideological capability to employ Takfiri terrorism in US foreign policy’s proxy strategy, especially in Syria, and also in US competition with Russia in Central Asia and the Caucasus is among the most important factors influencing Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy towards Takfiri Terrorism.

West Asia, especially the Middle East, has always been faced with deep unfolding ideological, political, and security crises. It is best exemplified by the advent, growth, and extension of violent movements and terrorist groups in the region. Salafi and terrorist groups has taken their actions under the pretext of both protecting Islam and resisting against the attacks of Western Humanism. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant-Daesh-is a new form of neo-Salafi activities in the Middle East. The primary justification of this group for its terrorist attacks is the collapse of Syrian and Iraqi governments, calling them allies of the infidel countries. Of course, many researchers believe that this Takfiri-Salafi group is more than an ideological religious group. But, how can we study these extremist groups in a theoretical framework? This paper explains the formation of Daesh by combining Charles Tilly’s theory of Resource Mobilization and Thomas Spragens’ Crisis Theory. In fact, any crisis can be attributed to various reasons. This paper studies and analyzes the formation and the crisis-making extension of Takfiri-terrorist group of Daesh by utilizing Charles Tilly’s theory of Resource Mobilization and Spragens’s Crisis Theory. The paper also uses various printed and electronic sources.