Re-thinking the Sri Lankan Approach of Countering Islamist Violent Extremism

Abstract

With the rise of Islamic State (IS), South Asian terrorist groups have been vehemently influenced since many of the terror groups such as Tanẓim Ansar al-Tawheed fi Bilad al-Hind, Tehreek-e-Khilafat, Jundullah etc. have pledged allegiance (bayath) to IS in 2014 and 2015. Also, in 2015 Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-K) was established in the AfghanPak border to enhance the tentacles of IS. Besides, many of the South Asian individuals have been stimulated to join as foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq or to conduct home-grown attacks influenced by IS ideology. After the demise of the IS in Iraq and Syria in 2019, IS has focused on the Indian Subcontinent due to the continuation of violence in the region which assist to foster new dimension of terrorist threats in the region. In such context, the nature of the Islamist extremism in Sri Lanka could be defined as a problem which has occurred in the ‘periphery’ (international) but relates to the ‘core’ (domestic) due to the created fault lines in the local context. Within such context, this research intends to highlight four aspects in dealing with Islamist extremism in Sri Lanka: 1) Importance of understanding the changing nature of Islamist extremism in the periphery 2) The influence of Islamist extremism in the core 3) Mutually exclusiveness of the growing Islamist extremism with the counter approach implemented in Sri Lanka 4) Reasons for such mismatch in counter approach and the problem of countering Islamist extremism in Sri Lanka. Finally, it has been highlighted in this research that, in order to counter the threat of Islamist extremism in Sri Lanka, there should be a mix approach of enemy-centric strategies and population centric strategic due to the volatile nature of center of gravity in Islamist extremism.