31 December 2014

Indian captives in Iraq: Question of answers

R Dayakar
Dec 31 2014 

The fate of the missing Indian workers in Mosul, many of them from Punjab, is a cause for concern. In a two-part series, a former Indian Ambassador to Iraq looks at the complex situation and how their release can be sought. The first part focuses on Iraq’s political scenario.
Families of the abducted youth in Iraq after a prayer meeting at the Gurdwara Guru Nanak Mission in Jalandhar. India is in the third rung of nations in the jihadist campaign.  

Case of missing Indians in Iraq

The cloud of suspense continues to hover over the fate of 39 Indians kidnapped by ISIL militants in Iraq over six months ago.

The government said it didn't have direct evidence of either their death or survival but would continue to search for the missing youth.

Harjit Masih, now in the protective custody of the Government of India, has said that ISIL militants kidnapped some Indians and Bangladeshis whom they later separated into two groups. The Indian group was taken to a forest and shot dead while he escaped. There are discrepancies in the account and six other sources have confirmed they are alive.

India and Indians have a fund of goodwill in the region. The release of the nurses from Tikrit is a pointer. Case for the workers' release may be inherent in the workers’ humble socio-economic background.

THE blanket silence from the abductors and absence of verifiable inputs on their location and safety has led to an existentialist debate on the fate of the Indian workers detained from a labour camp in Mosul in mid-June by the terrorist group Islamic State in Levant (ISIL).The current information available with the Government of India and shared with the Parliament appears to be based on secondary or tertiary sources. All the leads from the sources in the region, relied on so far by the Government to assure the workers’ families of their safety, seem to taper off in dead-ends, with no further onward trail to the workers or the captors. This is perhaps understandable with ISIL being a phantom monstrosity that never ceases to spring surprises with an invisible leadership and a structural and functional framework that is highly compartmentalised — making contact or communication with its core power centres nearly impossible. The conclusion by the government that the workers are safe, therefore, seems to be in the nature of an optimistic surmise from an uncertain situation. One only hopes earnestly that this is indeed the reality. 

Sunni groups

ISIL that overran Mosul is an aggregate of different Sunni groups that have bonded together to unseat the democratically elected Shia majority government in Iraq for reasons that include the doctrinal (the puritanical Wahabis viscerally oppose the ruling Shias in Iraq and were joined by foreign recruits fired by the ISIL’s call for Jihad ) as well as the political (the disempowered and banned ex-Baathists, who now have rechristened themselves as Nakshabandi Order), the tribal militias harbouring a strong sense of discrimination and victimisation by Baghdad and the nationalists who see the government in Baghdad as imposed from outside and the geopolitical (those opposed to the Iranian influence in Iraq and the region).

Its fighters, estimated to be between 20,000 to 30,000, include nationals from some 80 countries. Information on the nature of coordination and division of functions among such diverse strands of membership and its chain of command is too scanty to strategise any approach to secure the release of the captives.

Becoming incommunicado

The Indian workers became incommunicado from mid-June soon after the fall of Mosul to ISIL, while the 40-odd Indian nurses also held by ISIL around the same time in the neighboring Tikrit were safely handed over to Indian officials near Mosul though ISIL had a need for the nurses to treat its members wounded in the occupation of Mosul. 

There were unmistakable Baathist signs in the initial seizure of Mosul by ISIL, particularly in the manner of fighting, governance, treatment of the locals and security arrangements. Release of the nurses is attributed to the ex-Baathist component of ISIL who had taken control of Tikrit and who saw no advantage in prolonged detention of the nurses unwilling to work and in the face of the heightened concern in India about their safety. As a natural corollary , if the workers are in the custody of former Baathists,their physical safety is reasonably assured and there is reason to be hopeful for their eventual release. Given the difficulties the Government is facing even in contacting the captors, ex-Baathists do not seem to be the custodian of the workers and another stream in ISIL may be holding them.It is also not clear whether the ex-Baathists are still deeply involved with ISIL after it has mutated to Islamic State (IS)

Harming hostages

Nonetheless, a conclusion that the workers are not harmed may be drawn from some observations and reasoned speculation. Harming of hostages by ISIL so far has been to make political and ideological statements and was graphically publicised by ISIL itself. 

ISIL made no effort to hide their brutality, whether it was against the western hostages or Yazidis or Kurds or Assyrian Christians or Sabeans or Shias or rival Sunnis and took pleasure in publicising the same. 

The silence of ISIL on the Indian workers, therefore, provides a ground to rule out a premeditated reprisal having taken place against the workers. The Indian workers are no prize catch for ISIL, given their social and economic status that confers on them no significant political or monetary value . 

Financial burden

On the other hand, holding them indefinitely in secrecy imposes a financial and organisational burden on the captors. A possible utility from the workers to ISIL is that by lacking any ideological or sectarian affinity and ignorant of local topography, they are well-suited to be deployed safely on their sensitive work. In other words, ISIL might have put them on some secret construction work like command-and-control centres, ammunition and weapon storage sites. (That would pose a risk of a different kind in that the workers might be vulnerable to collateral damage in the anti-ISIL air strikes by US and its allies, though under-construction places might not necessarily be among the priority targets.) 

Need for new hideouts

After their work is completed, maintenance of secrecy would demand that the workers are held incommunicado indefinitely lest they should be a source of tip-off to the anti-ISIL alliance. Given ISIL’s constant need for new secret hide-outs for operational purposes, requirement for the services of the workers could be continuous. 

The one harm that could have befallen the workers is that possibly some ISIL activists, out of an ideological fervour and in an impulsive zeal and outside the ISIL’s chain of command, might have taken upon themselves to inflict a summary harm on the workers. 

A long-time Sunni resident of Mosul had reported end-June that ISIL's modules in Mosul had some Kashmiris in its ranks, going by their last name and that they are presumably from PoK. If the Indian workers were indeed harmed and the ISIL has, uncharacteristically, made no statement in that regard, it could mean that the harm was done to the workers without an explicit order from ISIL's top command. 

Internal repercussions

Harming of non-combatants, without an order of ISIL’s top brass, would have ensued some unpublicised internal repercussion and disciplinary action within ISIL. Further any such impulsive action against the workers, if at all it had taken place, would have occurred in the first flush of victories in Mosul. Further, if that were not the case, a subsequent impulsive or a premeditated harm having taken place against the workers seems highly improbable. Possible cluelessness in ISIL on leveraging the custody of the workers who do not carry any worthwhile political or economic weight could also have led to their continued detention without a thought for an end game to the capture . It is also to be noted that non-Muslims captured by ISIS had been given a choice between change of faith and harm’s way. 

Jihadist campaign

India figures among the third rung of nations in ISIL’s jihadist campaign, the first two being Arab countries and non-Arab Islamic countries, respectively.( As for the brutal execution of western hostages by ISIL, it seemed a retaliatory action in the wake of the military intervention by US and UK in defence of the Kurds against ISIL rather than as a doctrinal compulsion.)India does not seem at present to constitute a prime target for ISIL, whose current focus is centred on Iraq and Syria. 

At this juncture, it is unlikely to spread its attention and resources thin at the cost of its immediate concerns in Syria and Iraq. ISIL’ s current attention towards India is to mobilise fresh recruits from sections of its vast masses to swell the Jihadist ranks, particularly so as the western conduits are being plugged by a concerted action by the governments there and to score points vis-à-vis Al-Qaida in the incipient competition for the Jihadist turf in the subcontinent.

Diplomatic drive

To bring back the workers, India has launched a special diplomatic drive in West Asia to reach out to the kidnappers.Its scope and results are understandably not in the public domain. Given the nature and nurture of ISIL, help of regional and non-regional players in West Asia, both the state and the non-state, is crucial in any effort to secure the release of the workers. ISIL has no overt friends or apologists in the region. However, all regional states and extra-regional powers with local stakes keep an active tab on its reach, networks and resources overtly and covertly. Principal help which they can extend to India in the matter would be in the form of actionable inputs, constant assessment of the ground situation, timely tips, development of contacts and dependable intermediaries. Countries with a potential to play helpful role in the matter in varying degree are Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Israel, USA and the UK. Major non-state players include the Iraqi exiles of different political, ideological and sectarian background located in Iraq’s neighbourhood, various factions of the Sunni Tribal Confederation with members scattered in Anbar, Mosul, Baghdad, Erbil, Ankara,Istanbul and Amman and the local franchises of the Muslim Brotherhood and Tablighi Jamaat. 

Role of Indian officials

None of the state or non-state entities would be in a position to provide singly a solution to the workers’case or ever accept that they or their acquaintances knew ISIL or someone else who knew ISIL, though in private they might be forthcoming more candidly under guaranteed secrecy.

It is for the Indian officials to nudge them into parting with the details they have and to piece together the constantly emerging bits of information to move forward. Contacts with the captors, when it materialises, will most likely be through indirect channels and could involve multiple relays in a dispersed human chain in transmitting messages to and fro the captors. It will necessarily be a slow process and could take considerable time even to get across a single message. Need to maintain secrecy and zero traceability of the relay would decide the pace and impact of the negotiations.

(To be concluded)
The writer is a former Indian Ambassador to Iraq

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