It is the most iconic archipelago in the world: famous for its sandy beaches, crystal-clear waters and, as they write in tourist brochures, as close as you can get to “paradise”.
But the tiny island chain of the Maldives, with its population of just 345,000, is becoming famous for something rather less attractive: as a fertile recruiting ground for Islamic State (IS) jihadists.
In a telecon interview with INNLIVE the islands’ former President Mohamed Nasheed warns that up to 200 Maldivians are currently fighting for IS in Iraq and Syria.
India needs to be worried … very worried. If the doom and gloom scenario projected by leaders of Maldives’ major opposition party - the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) is true, then the brutally violent Islamic State (IS) may well be setting up base, right in India’s backyard.
INNLIVE met the visiting former foreign minister of Maldives Ahmed Naseem in New Delhi and a couple of other senior functionaries of the MDP. Besides, conducted a telephonic interview with Mohammed Nasheed, who served as the fourth President of Maldives from 2008 to 2012, one of the co-founders of the MDP who lost the recent presidential elections and Abdulla Yameen became the President.
During the course of a face-to-face interview Naseem came up with a stunner that at least 200 Maldivians have been recruited by IS and are currently fighting in Syria on behalf of this brutal outfit.
Naseem’s most damning allegation was that he suspected Maldives’ Minister of Islamic Affairs Sheikh Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed to be behind Maldives’ rapid degeneration into Wahabi Islam. He alleged that his country’s Islamic Affairs Minister was in cahoots with the IS.
Former President Nasheed added more grime to this grisly narrative when he told this writer that most of Maldivian recruits to the IS went through the Turkey route and the Islamic Affairs Minister was a frequent traveler to Turkey.
Nasheed said Maldives, a 100 per cent Muslim archipelago of just about 350,000 people, was fast becoming a fertile recruiting ground of hard core jihadists and the international community needed to act fast before it was too late. Incidentally, the Yameen government has accused Nasheed himself of fomenting terrorism and is contemplating to book him under terrorism charges.
Hamid Abdul Ghafoor, International Spokesperson of the MDP, told this writer that “dozens” of the 200-odd Maldivians recruited by the IS had returned to Maldives. The implication is clear: the Maldivian IS recruits who have returned home may have done so to set up a base in Maldives.
Naseem, the former foreign minister, says that his party had all the necessary details including the photographs of such persons.
Omar Razzak, the former State Minister and a member of the MDP Foreign Relations Committee as well as the MDP National Council, told this writer that the Islamist threat was real and it was only a matter of when, not if, the dreaded IS sets up shop big time in Maldives.
Incidentally, it is not the first time the top leadership of the MDP has made serious charges against the Yameen government since it swept into power following the presidential elections in November 2013. Former President Nasheed had also made similar charges during his visit to London in September 2014 as well.
However, the notable point is that not only is the MDP is sticking to these allegations but is also pushing the envelope further by targeting the Maldivian Islamic Affairs Minister as responsible for pushing the country into jihadists hands.
It is difficult to dismiss these serious allegations as the main opposition party of Maldives, the MDP, is making these charges.
Maldives, a SAARC country, definitely needs more attention from India urgently. While the international community is seized of the serious threats posed to world peace and harmony by the IS, it will be India which would be immediately affected if the charges were indeed true.
If true, the allegations would mean that for the first time the Islamic State would be spreading its wings right under India’s nose in it’s backyard.
It is for this reason that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming bilateral visit to Maldives in less than three weeks from now would be all the more significant.
And here we have still not talked about the omnipresent China angle, the fragile Maldivian polity, the collapse of government-opposition relationship in Maldives, the worsening security scenario in the Indian Ocean, the Sri Lanka-type Maldivian political narrative wherein the Chinese juggernaut is continuing with its overdrive relentlessly.
Meanwhile, at least four are known to have been killed in fighting in the past six months, while last week in the islands’ capital, Malé, there was a pro-IS rally featuring banners that called for the introduction of shariah law.
A prominent investigative journalist, Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla, has been missing for more than six months after being abducted outside his home at knifepoint, while Mr Nasheed, leader of the secular opposition MDC party, has also received death threats.
One message showed his face superimposed on a picture of the American journalist James Foley along with the explicit threat: “you’ll be next”.
The situation in the islands is causing concern not just internally but among foreign intelligence agencies as well. A recent US State Department terrorism report said that links had now been made “between Maldivians and violent extremists throughout the world”.
During a visit to London Mr Nasheed warned the situation was deteriorating and claimed there were links between jihadist groups and both the country’s military and the police force.
“Radical Islam is getting very, very strong in the Maldives,” he said. “Their strength in the military and in the police is very significant. They have people in strategic positions within both.
“Of the 200 people who have gone to jihad, the vast majority are ex-military.
“What’s happening is they are taking people in for training and they will go away [to fight abroad]. They are using the Maldives military to train their people.”
Nasheed said that society had become much more conservative because of the influx of Saudi money – paying for Wahhabi imams and mosques, and spreading a deeply conservative view of Islam at odds with the islands’ traditions.
He expressed concern that the government of President Abdullah Yameen, was too weak to counter the threat and might tacitly encourage it: “President Yameen feels he can deal with the Islamist threat later but first he wants to consolidate power.
“He has the Islamists with him and he can’t do away with them. He would deny that but I don’t see the government taking any measures against the Isis flag being displayed on the streets and all the indoctrination going on. They have allowed the military to grow beards.
“They are very short-sighted. Their thinking is that Islam has a lot of support and you can whip up more [political] support with religion.”
Nasheed added that most people were afraid to stand up to what he believes is a growing threat.
“Most people don’t want to talk about it. They are afraid to talk about it because the minute you mention Isis you get death threats.
“The moment you print this I will get four of five death threats. Isis don’t want me to be saying this. Of course they don’t.”
Nasheed said that there was no direct threat to the one million-plus tourists who visit the Maldives each year, as it was not in the interests of extremists to draw attention to such a fertile recruiting ground. But he warned that the government was unstable and could be susceptible to challenge.”
He added: “They don’t want to hit the tourism industry because they are getting such good ‘milk’ out of it. They are able to launder their money through it. They are able to recruit people. The government wants the money out of tourism. Everybody wants the money out of that. How the tourists behave on their uninhabited islands is nothing to do with us apparently.
“They are not worried about the hypocrisy of it. Not all worried – they think it’s very clever, and it is. They have two tracks going. You have your money on one track and then you have religion on another track. They think that they have found an excellent model.”
But Nasheed worries that the current position is unsustainable. “If you look at how Mosul fell – the top brass ran away because Isis had already infiltrated the rank and file,” he said.
“I have a feeling that our police and military are already taken. Eventually the Islamists will create havoc in the Maldives. I have no doubt about it.”
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