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(i) land – IS and Taliban occupy substantial land in Iraq-Syria and Afghanistan respectively.
(ii) labour – by recruiting people.
(iii) capital – by state-sponsored funding (Hezbollah and Houthis by Iran, Syrian rebels by US
and Saudi Arabia etc.) or by selling goods such as oil from the land controlled by them.
(iv) entrepreneurship – emergence of leaders which set up new terror outfits, akin to
employees leaving the industries to start their own ventures.
3. Competition for the market share and diversification of portfolio to include newer
products (attacks) – from IEDs to vehicular bombs to suicide bombers and fidayeen-
type attacks.
4. Offices in different continents and franchising terror – Al Qaeda have its branches in
Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) as well as Africa (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb). Boko
Haram, a Nigerian terror outfit, has pledged it’s allegiance to Islamic State (IS).
5. Leveraging social media for marketing their ideologies and recruiting new employees
(fighters) from social media by training professional recruiters.
6. Industry provides wages, accommodation and becomes a part of life for the worker.
Terror outfits also provide these facilities and promote themselves as a new way of
life.
7. Disruptive innovation that affects the system disproportionally, such as brainwashing
and the sudden rise of “lone-wolf” attacks, which are very hard to foresee or
prevent.
However, the biggest difference between terrorist outfits and industries is that while
traditional industry seeks to produce goods and services that are beneficial or entertaining
to the mankind and make human work easier. However, terrorism only spreads fear, hate,
and uncertainty.
There is a need for the world to join hands and take concrete multilateral initiatives to
ensure that terror groups are dealt with a heavy hand. Accepting and ratifying the
Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) proposed by India would be
good first step.