THE al-Shabab gunmen, who took over the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya and held hundreds of people hostage for 80 hours, used advanced weapons and cellular technology to coordinate and carry out their attacks.

When it was over, almost 70 people lay dead, their bodies strewn among mannequins and merchandise; and nearly 200 were injured, barely escaping with their lives from the besieged venue. With cameras everywhere, much of the carnage was recorded, and episodes of the tragedy were broadcast live around the world.

According to counter-insurgency strategist David Kilcullen, the mall attack in Kenya, the Mumbai attacks a few years ago and several other urban operations are indicators of a new kind of warfare, one which relies particularly on the urban environment and its peculiarities.

At the very basic level, urban environments provide a prodigious number of ‘soft’ targets. Mosques in Karachi, markets in Mogadishu and hotels in Mumbai can all be relied on to have large numbers of unarmed civilians, relatively easy access and unlimited connectivity. Just a handful of attackers can thus wreak maximum mayhem on a disproportionately large number of people.

Kilcullen’s thesis, which is also the basis of his new book, Out of the Mountains: The Coming of the Urban Guerilla, includes insights particularly pertinent to Karachi. Over the past several months, Karachi, a coastal megacity of the type Kilcullen describes as the venue for battles of the future, has been plagued by unstoppable violence.

The variety and nature of unrest is staggering: from ethnic conflicts that bleed out slums over territorial control, to criminal mafias battling each other with deadly weaponry, to extremist groups using mass casualties to make political statements, Karachi has seen it all.

An attack on one of Karachi’s many malls could be carried out with little effort and produce mass casualties, the figure topping even that of the Nairobi tragedy. As the apathetic aftermath of several terrorist attacks in the city has revealed, the attackers would not need to fear apprehension or punishment. If any action was taken at all, it would be a plea to bring in the military, to put tanks on terrified streets and imagine them secured.

It is in exposing the ineffectuality of this proffered solution, the use of the military to quench conflicts in urban areas, that Kilcullen’s book offers new insight into the Karachi conundrum.

Current thinking imagines problem mega cities like Karachi, Lagos and Mumbai as environments where physical security is a first-order need, with service provision of goods like water, food and electricity coming after the successful delivery of basic security.

Kilcullen’s analysis reveals a different truth: the very delivery of these basic services affects conflict and violence patterns in the city. The infiltration of criminal mafias or extremist groups follows the non-existence of a state structure to provide basic services.

In cities like Karachi, it is this service provision, the flow of food, water, and electricity that is hijacked by mafias and militias. When local populations are left dependent on them for procuring services, support blocs followed by conflict can emerge along the lines of control of these services.

As the aftermath of Eidul Azha will reveal, everything in relation to service provision is an opportunity for control and hence an invitation to conflict. The war over the hides of sacrificed animals, fought with guns, is one recurring example.

Kilcullen’s thesis is a broad one, a cautionary tale to the world regarding the emergence of a new battlefield: the failed city, a coastal, urban dystopia of crumbling buildings and harsh conditions.

It builds on the earlier work of theorists who posited the existence of “failed or feral cities” as landscapes where future conflict would flourish in the absence of good governance and in the wants of tremendous populations.

In presenting the panoramic view of this emerging terrain of future conflict, Kilcullen hopes perhaps to lay out the necessity of global engagement in the life of cities like Karachi, cities that veer on the precipice of becoming modern-day breeding grounds for ever novel varieties of evil.

For those interested in solutions, the debunking of security provision as the panacea to urban war is crucial. The answer to unending killings, to the piles of bodies, to the ever-advancing recipes for criminality and persecution does not lie in further deployment of military or paramilitary units.

Admittedly, pointing to the necessity of urban planning and the integral nature of establishing state and NGO presence in the most deprived areas of cities is not a novel solution.

At the same time, understanding the interconnectedness of unending violence and not having water for days without paying off local mafias, or being forced into agendas of this or that group to ensure a few hours of electricity, is one that needs to be underscored.

In the Karachi of today, the issue of terrorist violence, of attacks on mosques and processions, is seen as distinct from the problems of service provision; the existence of burgeoning slums ruled by criminal gangs that cannot be penetrated by law enforcement is seen as separate from the actions of ideological extremists with political goals.

A consideration of Karachi’s conditions in relation to other similar cities and the analysis of these conditions as the breeding grounds of future conflict reveal that the two are intertwined.

To save Karachi from becoming the dark, wild city of science fiction, where rabid survivors scrounge for food and armed alien drones patrol the skies, a rescue plan must allow for the procurement of simple things: food, water, and a bit of electricity, without having to fight off, pay off, or scare off the vast and varied evils of a city gone wild.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.

rafia.zakaria@gmail.com