‘How Terrorism Ends’ was the title of the final panel discussion of the conference, and despite a packed two day schedule, the speakers remained on top form.  Moderated again by Dr. Peter Neumann, the panelists were: Professor Audrey Kurth Cronin, author of How Terrorism Ends; Shiraz Maher, Senior Research Fellow, ICSR and former seniot member of the British wing of Hizb ut-Tahrir; Hekmat Karzai, Director of the Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies in Kabul; and Michael Semple, Fellow at Harvard’s Carr Centre.

Audrey Kurth Cronin kicked off the session by giving the audience a quick overview of the findings of her fine book, in which she identified the six main ways that terrorist groups come to an end:

1)    A decapitation of the group in which the leader is killed or captured and the organisation dissolves;

2)    Successful negotiations;

3)    The group succeeds in achieving its aims;

4)    The group fails, and loses popular support;

5)    State repressed succeeds in crushing the group;

6)    A re-orientation toward different behavior, whereby the group shifts its focus to criminal enterprise or insurgency.

Of these six, it was the fourth outcome that Kurth Cronin found to be the most common.
Shiraz Maher was then asked by Dr. Neumann what prompted him to leave the extremist organisation in which he was involved for a number of years after 9/11.  As well as citing his move to a city where he was not surrounded by former members, Maher also very interestingly noted of Islamist dogmas that “once you pick at them, they can collapse very quickly.”
Dr. Neumann then asked Hekmat Karzai to share with the audience some of the findings of a recent study his organisation had undertaken on how and why young people were becoming suicide bombers or fighting for terrorist groups in Afghanistan.  Karzai gave five main motivators:

1)    Financial: Many fighters join groups for the monetary benefits, and the families of suicide bombers are often very well taken care of;

2)    Revenge:  civilian casualties have sometimes “provided the oxygen” which fuels extremism;

3)    Lack of governance;

4)    Madrassas: many insurgents and terrorists are brainwashed in religious schools;

5)    Ideology: a salafi-jihadist belief system which demanded confrontation with the West.

Addressing the same issue, Michael Semple said that his research also found that many terrorists in Afghanistan join insurgent groups so as to earn a livelihood and gain a status in society unattainable in most other circumstances. He also cited a desire to be part of a peer network.

Asked by the Chair to compare the conditions for Muslims in Afghanistan and Europe, Shiraz Maher said that although there was a crucial dynamic difference, there is also a global and unified “core ideology”, which is shared by all extremists.  He also referred to a number of jihadist defectors in Britain – such as Noman Benotmen and Abdullah Anas – who were working towards dismantling and countering the ideological roots of jihadism.  Maher also recommended that any strategy adopted by the United States to prevent violent extremism should not co-opt non-violent Islamists, but must instead adopt a “values-led approach” that seeks to groups and individuals who represent these values.

The final part of the discussion addressed a question from the audience about how the current conflict in Afghanistan will end. Although the majority of the panelists agreed that there will have to be some form of political solution, which included negotiations with the Taliban.  Karzai was concerned that the current strategy in the country was contradictory to the achievement of a political solution and that the approach had to change.  The only dissenting voice was that of Shiraz Maher, who was skeptical about the effectiveness of any negotiations with the Taliban.  He pointed to the series of failed talks between the Pakistani Taliban and the Pakistani government over the past years, which often reached agreements only for the Taliban to renege on them soon after – using lulls in combat to consolidate and expand.

On this interesting, if pessimistic, note, the final panel discussion of the conference was concluded and the stage was set for the final keynote address delivered by H.E. Tsipi Livni, former Israeli Foreign Minister and no leader of the opposition Kadima Party.