Over the weekend, media outlets reported that the Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier who killed four French soldiers and injured 16 in the Tagab district of Kapisa claimed to have been motivated by the video of US Marines urinating on the corpses of the enemy in Helmand Province.

I encourage our friends and allies in France to consider (1) the source, (2) the history of “green-on-blue” attacks in Afghanistan, (which see members of the Afghan National Security Forces, ANSF, attacking their partners of the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF), and (3) who gains by advancing this interpretation of events.

THE SOURCE: The Telegraph received this information from an “Afghan army officer” and was “backed by an intelligence source and another with access to information from the Afghan ministry of defence.”

This account is, in short, impossible to confirm based on The Telegraph’s reporting and there are plenty of reasons to doubt this account as explained below. The French are conducting an investigation. I am sure ISAF is conducting its own. Any judgments and operational decisions should be postponed until these investigations end.

And the French suspension of operations was to be expected. They have done the same thing after sustaining casualties before. As for talk of an early French withdrawal, it doesn’t look like that is going to happen.

GREEN-ON-BLUE ATTACKS: The claim that the soldier, 21-year old Abdul Mansour, launched this tragic attack due to the video is one of a few competing versions of events out there. French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said he was told in a meeting with General Emam Nazar of the 3rd Light Infantry Brigade of the ANA that the killer was a Taliban infiltrator who had returned to the ANA after deserting to Pakistan. This is a claim the Taliban confirmed, but unusually, they denied it at first. Insurgent groups in Afghanistan have a history of claiming "green on blue" attacks that they had nothing to do with. President Karzai downplayed the possibility of Taliban infiltration.

The suggestion that the Marine urination video was the cause is more insidious, as it can undermine inter-ally relations.

Why do these attacks happen? They rarely happen due to Taliban infiltration, but it seems more likely in this case than the video explanation. By and large, these attacks happen because inter-personal disputes and inter-cultural animosities that have nothing to do with the Taliban. I highly recommend an unclassified ISAF red-team study from last year called, A Crisis of Trust, examines how ANSF and US personnel view each other in order to understand and mitigate “the phenomena of ANSF-committed fratricide-murders.” This report is an excellent example of red-teaming.

I’d be curious to discover the soldier’s ethnicity, because if he is a Tajik (which, judging by the ethnic composition of the ANA, he most likely is), this makes it even less likely that he cared what happened to a couple of dead Pashtun Taliban on the opposite side of Afghanistan. If anyone knows anything more about Abdul Mansour, please let me know on Twitter: @evansryan202.

WHO GAINS?: In short, some actors in the Afghan government and the Taliban. This is not to suggest they are colluding. Quite the opposite. But parties on each side have an interest in advancing this narrative. The Taliban have an obvious interest in undermining trust in the ANA and inter-ally relations so as to disrupt what is intended to be a carefully orchestrated ISAF withdrawal plan.

Some actors in the Afghan government feel threatened by the course of negotiations between the Taliban and the United States. They worry (with some justification) that their interests are not being looked after and they believe they are not being kept in the loop. President Karzai’s heated reaction to a video of Marines urinating on dead insurgents (when members of the ANSF do worse to living insurgents all the time) and possibly the leaking of this information from the Afghan MoD should be seen in this context.

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There has been a steady stream of thought-provoking remarks about the role of leadership (or lack thereof) in the activist movements that coordinated via social network sites to overthrow the Mubarak regime in Egypt. Most recently, Clint Watts wrote a thoughtful post on the subject at his blog, Selected Wisdom. His comments were sparked by a Steve Inskeep interview with Wael Ghonim, the Egyptian activist and Google executive who played a significant role in the uprising. The occasion of the interview was the release of Ghonim’s new book, Revolution 2.0, which I blogged briefly about the other day.

Ghonim insists he is not a leader.

The question of leadership is an old one in social movement studies and the larger discipline of sociology (dating back to Weber). As a disciple of both who is beginning a PhD this year on the dynamics of social movements in the Muslim world and Egypt more specifically, I am keenly interested in the questions raised by the ‘Arab Spring’ and, more specifically, Clint’s arguments about leadership in ‘leaderless’ movements.

Ghomin told Inskeep that “[T]his revolution has no leader, has no face to it. And the collective effort of all the Egyptians is what mattered at the end of the day.” Similarly, he told Newsweek that, “What you don’t understand, and it seems what you don’t want to understand, is that this protest doesn’t have real organizers. It’s a protest without a leader.”

Inskeep himself expressed his skepticism, asking Ghonim:

I wonder if you're not giving yourself enough credit, because you describe yourself putting up Facebook pages, sending out statements, writing quite dramatically on behalf of causes, doing things that leaders do, and organizing protests, getting this revolution going.

In response, Ghonim insisted: “I think this is not leadership. When I say a leader, it means that directs the revolution, where it should be going.” This is something Ghonim refuses to do.

Should we take Ghonim’s claim of non-leadership seriously? Of course not.

Whether or not Ghonim wants to acknowledge it, he is a leader, although he was a more important one than he is now, having been overcome by the superior “organizational weapon” of the Muslim Brotherhood political machine and others who are not so shy about their status as leaders.

Things that social movement leaders do:

•    Inspire commitment
•    Mobilize resources
•    Create and recognize opportunities
•    Devise strategies
•    Frame demands
•    Influence outcomes

Although he seems happy to take a backseat now (like his former patron, Mohammad El Baradei), Ghonim did all of these things. Scholars Aldon D. Morris of Northwestern University and Suzanne Staggenborg of McGill University define movement leaders as “strategic decision-makers who inspire and organize others to participate in social movements” (pdf). No matter what Ghonim says, he fits this definition.

The cycle of contention that led to Mubarak’s downfall was sparked by the torture and death of 28-year old Khaled Said in June 2010 at the hands of Egyptian police. In his book, Ghonim explains:

Together, we wanted justice for Khaled Said and we wanted to put an end to torture. And social networking offered us an easy means to meet as the proactive, critical youth that we were. It also enabled us to defy the fears associated with voicing opposition. The virtual world seemed further from the oppressive reach of the regime, and therefore many were encouraged to speak up. (p. 66)

Ghonim then did something many of us have done: he started a Facebook group. But whereas the Facebook groups most of us have founded were related to sports teams, celebrities, or – in my case – photos of jack-o-lanterns vomiting (I wish I could say it was due to my relative youth, but I still think they are funny), his was called “We are all Khaled Said” and its aim was – as Ghonim (who adopted the pseudonym Al Shaheed, or “the martyr”) noted – to stop torture in Egypt. It attracted thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. It became a key node for activists to organise and coordinate the massive street demonstrations that eventually toppled the regime.

This wasn’t Ghonim’s first dance. This marketing guru previously ran Mohammad El Baradei’s official Facebook group and social media campaign. A Newsweek article quotes Ghonim as saying of his El Baradei’s period, “In the morning I lead a 1m budget [at Google]. At night, I am a video editor at YouTube.” I recommend reading the whole article and Ghonim’s book for the rest of the story.

Popularly viewed as the standard-bearer of secular, left-wing virtual activism, Ghonim refuses to express the slightest hint of concern about the Brotherhood’s political ascendency (And one of the many interesting details in his book is that he was a sometimes-participant in Brotherhood activism while in university, but this sort of flirtation is not uncommon for young, politically-interested Egyptians).

Clint Watts argues that the "Twitter uprisings" have two crucial weaknesses: (1) Internet-based activists are happy to coordinate effective anti-regime protests, but have reluctant "to collaboratively and physically discuss, compete and compromise as an organization around a central agenda and stated long-run objectives" since Mubarak fell. And (2), they are averse to "developing, appointing and following leaders." Watts explains:

Notions of leaderless movements are the rage on social media platforms and corporate America loves talking about flat organizations.  But, those structures work well only in certain situations where motivations and values are shared equally amongst the organization’s members and objectives are clearly defined.  Revolutions are conflicts and during the fog of war, sustaining the organization’s values, the motivation of the troops and keeping actions in line with objectives requires leadership.

As such, Ghonim’s aversion to accepting the leader role, while admired by some as humbleness, is the biggest weakness of the most visible, vocal, and largely left-wing activists responsible for Mubarak’s fall. And, as Watts notes, the Brotherhood who played an equally important, but much quieter role in the revolution, has reaped the electoral gains along with the Salafi Nour Party.

If he refuses to accept this role and use his popularity to take the next logical steps of old-fashioned party-building and political organisation, that is his prerogative, but it may come at the cost of seeing the ideals he and others in Tahrir stood for, wither on the vine while other (more religious) vineyards flourish. It is not the first time that those heavily involved in the early period of a revolution remained out of power when things settled down (examples here, here, and here).

He is just one man, but with Mohammad El Baradei out of the running, there are few figures more admired by the secular(ish)* left in Egypt than Ghonim.

But I am still going to call him a leader. Deal with it, Wael (if I may).

And you can read more about my thoughts on the Egyptian revolution in my forthcoming (Febuary-ish) review of Performative Revolution in Egypt: An Essay in Cultural Power by Jeffrey C. Alexander for the blog, British Politics and Policy at LSE (Spoiler Alert: It’s good and short so you should read it).

*The democratic activists of Tahrir Square deployed religious idioms more often than was reported in the Western press.

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The tone of recent newspaper and journal articles can scarcely be more triumphant. Al Qaeda on the Ropes; The Rise and Fall of Al Qaeda and The End of the Road for Jihad are just some of the headlines at the newspaper stands in recent weeks. What accounts for this triumphalism? We are told that the Arab Spring has seen the politics of non-violent protest and the ballot box triumphing over the politics of the bullet and the suicide bomber.

We are told that the Arab Spring has severely undermined the Al Qaeda narrative. In his Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri argued that, ‘The international Jewish-Crusader alliance, led by America, will not allow any Muslim force to obtain power in any of the Muslim lands ... It will impose sanctions on whomever helps it, even if it does not declare war against them altogether. Therefore, to adjust to this new reality, we must prepare ourselves for a battle that is not defined to a single region but rather includes the apostate domestic enemy and the Jewish-Crusader external enemy.’ Yet rulers are being toppled generally non-violently and Western nations have either stood on the sidelines or actively supported the Arab street against repressive rulers. More importantly, Islamists have come to power via the ballot box in both Tunisia and, in more spectacular fashion, in Egypt. Whilst Zawahiri masterminded the attempted assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia in 1995 and failed, young people in Tahrir Square managed to topple the “Pharaoh” through non-violent means.

Whilst the undermining of al-Qaeda’s narrative together with the death or incarceration of its senior leadership certainly raises questions as to the organisation’s future, it is far from certain that its goal towards the creation of several Islamist states on the way to a caliphate has been abandoned. After all, the victors of both the Tunisian and Egyptian polls were not exactly the young Facebook and Twitter activists desirous of a liberal democratic state. In both countries despite assurances to the contrary from the Islamists, Coptic Christians and their churches are being attacked in Egypt whilst in Tunisia female university students are being physically assaulted when not dressed “appropriately”. Is this Islamism by stealth? One of the Muslim Brotherhood’s early and most prominent ideologues, Sayyid Qutb, did not only influence generations of Muslim Brothers but also the very founders of al-Qaeda itself, especially Ayman al Zawahiri. If two organizations differ on tactics but agree on the same end-goal, does it really make the two organisations that different from each other?

The most recent edition of Newsweek has an interesting piece on how al-Qaeda’s traditional funders from the Persian Gulf are now supporting the Muslim Brothers and the Salafists at the polls. What do they know that we do not? Is this a case of al-Qaeda is Dead, Long Live al-Qaeda?

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The late great sociologist Talcott Parsons writing in 1964:

Since in social conditions the most effective action is collective action, the most important liberty is liberty to co-operate with others to participate in collective action. Furthermore, the most important single condition of effective co-operation is communication with others. The most important deprivations of liberty are therefore those that block communication, in order to limit or prevent altogether co-operation with others.(Talcott Parsons (1964) “The Place of Force in Social Processes,” in: Eckstein (ed.) Internal Wars (New York:Free Press), pp. 41-42)

Activist and, dare I say it, revolutionary Wael Ghonim in his new memoir, Revolution 2.0:

Minimal or not, April 6 sent out a clear signal to everyone that the Internet could be a new force in Egyptian politics. The security force's reaction was to develop a new division dedicated to policing the Internet. Similarly, the NDP established an "Electronic Committee" rumored to have legions of well-paid young men and women whose mission was to influence only opinion in favor of the part through contributions to websites, blogs, news sites, and social networks. (p. 36)
…
Together, we wanted justice for Khaled Said and we wanted to put an end to torture. And social networking offered us an easy means to meet as the proactive, critical youth that we were. It also enabled us to defy the fears associated with voicing opposition. The virtual world seemed further from the oppressive reach of the regime, and therefore many were encouraged to speak up. (p. 66)

Enjoy Steve Inskeep’s recent interview with Ghonim here.

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More than eighty Christians have been killed in recent weeks in northern Nigeria following the ultimatum by the Islamist sect Boko Haram for Christians to leave the largely Muslim northern Nigeria. This only adds to the more than 500 killed last year by the group. The fact that these attacks took place despite the state of emergency existing in Yobe, Borno, Plateau and Niger states as well as a curfew in Adamawa state point to the inadequacy of the security response. Indeed, the security response itself is problematic.

The use of the military and its heavy-handed response has only served to alienate the local population. In one incident, Nigerian soldiers set fire to a whole street of cars, punishing residents for not warning them of a bomb attack. Part of the problem is that the army is a national force and not a local one and therefore does not share the cultural and ethnic background of local residents undermining both trust and sympathy. In the process, some locals are actively supporting Boko Haram. Whilst the group only consists of 300 fighters, its local sympathizers are said to number in their thousands. These sympathizers may also be in government. In a recent speech, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan claimed that Boko Haram sympathisers are also located within the executive and legislative arms of government, in the judiciary as well as in the armed forces, police and other security agencies. Clearly no counter-terrorism effort could be successful in this context and these supposed supporters need to be rooted out. In addition, the Nigerian government also needs to adopt a more focused intelligence-driven approach to counter-terrorism – one which would not alienate the local population. This however, is easier said than done. Professor Murray Last of University College London recently noted that, “Not even the intelligence people in Nigeria know the leadership [of Boko Haram], they are not on top of it at all”.

Any sustainable counter-terrorism effort also needs to consider the broader context in which Boko Haram thrives. Beyond the obvious religious dimensions of the conflict in terms of the demand for sharia law, there is also the socio-economic context. 75 percent of Northern Nigerians live in poverty compared with 27 percent in the South resulting in Northern Nigerians becoming increasingly alienated from Abuja and the central government. Religious differences between North and South are also compounded by ethnic divides. In the volatile mixed city of Jos, for instance, religious and ethnic divides reinforce each other pitting the Christian Berom against the Muslim Hausa.

Commenting on the deteriorating security situation, a hapless President Jonathan drew parallels between Nigeria now and during the 1967-1970 Biafra War when a million people were killed. The difference he lamented was that at least then one knew who and where the enemy was. In the current situation neither does the Nigerian state know who Boko Haram is or where and when they will strike next. Small wonder then, that Nigerian Christians have lost faith in their government’s ability to deal with Boko Haram with Reverend Ayo Oritsejafor, the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria branding the attacks on Christians and churches as a `declaration of war’ – one in which Christians `have no choice but to respond appropriately’.

Whilst sectarian strife threatens Nigeria, US General Carter Ham, head of the US military Africa Command warned that Boko Haram may be expanding because of an alliance with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Somali-based and Al Qaeda aligned Shabaab. This, in turn, raises the danger of overlapping and reinforcing extremist Islamist networks from East Africa to the Sahel and Sahara.

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This article was originally posted on Foreign Policy's 'AfPak Channel'

 

When the U.S. Army and Marine Corps released their FieldManual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency, in2006, key military leaders and civilian advisers promised a different kind ofwarfare. Written as Iraq crumbled, the manual institutionalized key tacticaland operational methods that were geared to fighting against irregular armedfoes, rather than the maneuver warfare most of the U.S. military had preferred.The new theory was based around several key principles, including proportionateand precise use of force to minimize civilian casualties, separating insurgentgroups from local populations, protecting populations from the insurgents, theimportance of intelligence-led operations, civil-military unity of effort, andsecurity under the rule of law.

Some of these methods had already been practiced in Iraq byinnovative commanders, but Gen. David Petraeus, who oversaw the process of writingFM 3-24 and later went on to command U.S. forces in the country, was key to theirinstitutionalization and broad implementation in the context of an overalltheater-level strategy.

As President Barack Obama decided to "surge" forces intoAfghanistan in late 2009, former Joint Special Operations Command head Gen.Stanley McChrystal was tasked to follow the Petraeus playbook in Afghanistan.When he was relieved, Petraeus, the man many saw as having helped bringstability to Iraq, was called upon to do it again in Afghanistan. However,success has eluded the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), whichhas been unableto translate operational progress into strategic success. A number oftriumphant obituaries for counterinsurgency have since emerged, as it becomesclear that the campaign in Afghanistan is failing to deliver on its promises.

There are five inter-related drivers of this cauldron ofdiscontent with COIN: First, the rise of counterinsurgency as a standardpractice in the U.S. military left skeptical American officers and institutionswho preferred emphasizing conventional capabilities (large-scale armoredwarfare, for instance) feeling disenfranchised. Second, the common narrative ofthe war in Iraq viewed (and somestill view) Gen. Petraeus as the hero who brought counterinsurgency (andsubsequently stability) to the country. This narrative alienated some officerswho had already been using some counterinsurgency methods effectively beforethe introduction of FM 3-24. Third, among the commentariat, the caustic domestic political divisions from thefirst phase of the Iraq War, divisions that were aggravated in the lead-up tothe Afghan "surge", remain unhealed. Fourth, the military officers and thinktank scholars who became most closely associated with COIN's rise developed apartially-deserved reputation for cliquishness, self-reference, and conceit.And finally, there has been a dearth of clarity on the goals of the Afghancampaign on the policy and strategy levels.

Col. Gian Gentile (who represents the first, second, andfinal strands of anti-counterinsurgency discontent) presents one of his standardarguments in "COINis Dead: U.S. Army Must Put Strategy Over Tactics." He argues the UnitedStates military has failed in Afghanistan and Iraq because it allowed afascination with the tactical and operational methods of COIN to supersedeimplementation of an actual strategy in those conflicts. In fact, looking atoperations in Iraq and Afghanistan for lessons is a fundamentally misguidedventure, he argues. Rather, we can only view our experiences of the lastdecade as lessons in failure and return to embracing our conventionalcapabilities.

Others are preoccupied with the political battles behind counterinsurgency.Michael Cohen, a vocal critic ofthe war in Afghanistan, refusesto acknowledge that counterinsurgency lessons are worth keeping andinstitutionalizing until advocates of the population-centric approach inAfghanistan "loudly acknowledge - indeed even shout to the hills - that everytime someone recommends fighting a counterinsurgency this is [a] really,really, really bad idea...." This seems akin to arguing that we cannot updateour doctrine on nuclear warfare, expeditionary warfare, and other capabilitiesthat are far more costly until we "shout to the hills" that to use these wouldbe a "really, really, really bad idea." Advocates of maintaining counterinsurgencycapabilities have been happyto acknowledgethese campaigns tendto be long, hard slogs, but Mr. Cohen's criticism does not address the military'sneed to be able to adapt to contingencies as ordered. We cannot wish away theagency of our enemies.

Still others see those who support counterinsurgency's place inthe toolbox of American power as being part of a new "military-industrialcomplex." Major Mike Few, an armor officer (like Colonel Gentile) and editor ofSmall Wars Journal, arguesthat some think tanks and defense contractors have formed a "cottage industry"that champions counterinsurgency for ego and profit at the cost of "trillionsof dollars, thousands of lives and abandoned security projects elsewhere thatcould have benefited our republic exponentially more..."

For one thing, the weaponssystems, equipment, and capabilities necessary for modern "conventional"campaigns are far more costly and more lucrative for defense contractors (the2009 defense industry-subsidized congressional debateabout the F-22 reminded the world that the original military-industrialcomplex is alive, well, and costing the U.S. taxpayer for over-budget,malfunctioning weapons systems of questionable utility). Further, the use ofconventional capabilities against a major power may well take more militarylives than those we have lost in Iraq andAfghanistan. But this aside, our abilities to conduct counterinsurgencyoperations and major combat operations are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, aspeople like Maj. Few understand, John Nagl's Centerfor a New American Security -- the unnamed bogeyman in his critique andothers -- did not decide to go to war in Iraq or Afghanistan. Nagl was merely oneof many in the U.S. Armed Forces who sought to make the campaigns of twoconsecutive Commanders-in-Chief work.

Indeed, the debate surrounding counterinsurgency has becomehighly personal, emotional, and angry. This has been most recently demonstratedby the snideand personalrejoindersto a recent articleteasing out the lessons of Iraq by Dr.David Ucko of the National Defense University. Increasingly for somecritics of counterinsurgency, their opponents are not just wrong, but immoralliars. Yet for all of the heat this debate, it has produced little substantivediscussion of the future of counterinsurgency after the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan, or more broadly the appropriate uses of limited funds andmanpower.

Before declaring the death of counterinsurgency and maligningthose who see value in some of its precepts, analysts should ask if insurgencyis dead. Indeed, the most significant failure of these anti-COIN arguments istheir shared focus on the response to a problem -- counterinsurgency tacticsand strategy -- at the expense of the problem itself. None of these articlesproclaim that "insurgency is dead" because to do so would be absurd. Insurgencylives, and has proven itself throughout history as the best means by which tooppose established political and military power. AsAndrew Exum recently observed, about 80 percent of all conflicts since theend of the Napoleonic Era have been insurgencies or civil wars. Futureinsurgencies are all-but-certain to challenge American interests to the pointthat our civilian political leadership will need to decide if our military willbecome involved in countering them. And if insurgency lives, then so must counterinsurgency.

Critics also make the mistake of particularizing a form of counterinsurgencydesigned during a specific historical period meant to counter a distinctiveform of insurgency known as popularprotracted warfare. If anything, the key failure of counterinsurgency inthe past decade has been the myopic view of the military and key counterinsurgencyproponents that counterinsurgency could only take the form advocated byscholar-practitioners like the French officer David Galula (who developed histheories in Asia before implementing them in Algeria) and the British officerSir Robert Thompson in Malaysia, who were both grappling with different, lessevolved forms of violent struggle than what we have seen in Iraq andAfghanistan. Thus, for critics to proclaim the death of counterinsurgencymakes them guilty of the same error that they often pin on their opponents: relyingon an expired intellectual framework.

The real question is: what form will American counterinsurgencytake in the future? It seems reasonable to argue that "big footprint," "population-centric"counterinsurgency is dead, but "small footprint" counterinsurgency that focuseson security force assistance, Special Operations, and/or foreign internaldefense lives on (see Yemen,the Philippines,and Somalia).But is it really inconceivable that we will ever again conduct another large-scalepopulation-centric counterinsurgency campaign? Those who think it impossible mightconsider how the United States would respond to violence spilling over theborder from catastrophic state failure and humanitarian crisis in Mexico, forinstance.

As always, our choices will be structured by the agency ofour competitors. Therefore, we would be foolish to avoid learning the tacticaland operational as well as the policyand strategic lessons of the last ten years.We must maintain our capabilities and competencies for counterinsurgency,if only because history has shown that they will come in handy again.

How we do this is what we mustdebate and discuss.

 

 

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Al-Shabaab to Hold Online Q&A

This is an ICSR Insight written by Research Fellow Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens

Yesterday, the Somali Islamist militia al-Shabaab announced that it was taking questions from jihadi forum users for an ‘open meeting’ with its official spokesman, Sheikh Ali Dhere.  The group will take questions via email and private forum messages until Saturday 14 January, at which point they will be answered by its spokesman in a video.

In a move which suggests a continuation of the burgeoning relationship between the Somali militia and al-Qaeda, the announcement by al-Shabaab’s al-Kataib Media Foundation was made through the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF), al-Qaeda’s main jihadi media centre.

This type of online question and answer session has been used by jihadis in the past, with the most famous example being the one conducted by al-Qaeda’s chief ideologue Ayman al-Zawahiri when he took questions between December 2007 and January 2008. This was done against the backdrop of the heavy criticism he had received from former al-Qaeda thinker Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (also known as Dr Fadl), and suggests that jihadi groups set up sessions like this during times of hardship.  With al-Qaeda having just suffered what is perhaps its worst year since its creation, al-Shabaab are sensing a loss of momentum in the global jihad and shrinking morale among its supporters. It will be hoping to use this session to allay the fears of its followers and encourage them to refocus their efforts.

Content Analysis

This announcement should be seen in the context of al-Shabaab’s recent efforts to expand its global reach through use of its own alternative media. The question and answer session is described by the press release as ‘a connecting link between the mujahideen commanders and the muslim ummah’, and demonstrates the value that the al-Shabaab leadership, which has begun to put more emphasis on the group’s online media profile over the last twelve months, places on its ability to produce, disseminate and control its own alternative media network. 

The creation of alternative media allows a group such as al-Shabaab to reach its target audience and provide it with the requisite information that will help attract new recruits as well as strengthen the resolve of existing members through providing them a conduit through which they can interact with more senior and respected individuals within the organisation.

Al-Shabaab also intends to make use of the new technology and media available to it, claiming that it will publish the list of questions, as well as the subsequent answers, ‘in public forums and social networking sites.’  The announcement asks that supporters also help publicise the meeting by collating the lists of questions and republishing them on other forums.

The group welcomes questions from supporters and detractors alike, stating that ‘the meeting is open to everybody, muslims or non muslims, jihad supporters or those who disagree with them’.  Al-Shabaab will likely be hoping to use tough questions as an opportunity to answer the various criticisms leveled against its activities in Somalia.

Relevance to Western Jihadism   

Al-Shabaab’s intentions appear to be to fill the vacuum in the production of English-language jihadi propaganda left by the deaths of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, who were the chief producers of these types of materials.  In recent months, the group has released a number of English-language materials formulated specifically to recruit and insight Muslims in the West.  For example, Omar Hammami, the best known Western face of the group, recently released a sermon entitled ‘Lessons Learned’ which is the lengthiest and most detailed works he has produced in English.

Although the session with Sheikh Dhere will be conducted in Arabic, the group also specifies that it will take questions written in English and there will very likely be a full English translation made available shortly after the session is broadcast.

Western participants in the session who support al-Shabaab and are perhaps intent on assisting or joining the group are likely to use the opportunity to ask questions regarding religious rulings.  Among the more pressing issues for them will be clarification on the obligations upon Muslims who live in Western countries and whether it is incumbent upon them to migrate to Somalia and other theatres of jihad in order to assist the ummah (global Muslim nation).
 
As part of its strategy to recruit Western Muslims, al-Shabaab launched its own Twitter account late last year, and will possibly publicise the question and answer session on its feed. Surprisingly, given the number of fluent English speakers now involved with al-Shabaab, the press release lacks the level of literacy found on the group’s Twitter account, which often mocks its Somali detractors for their spelling mistakes when criticising the militia on their accounts. Contract article -

Some of Afghanistan’s reintegration and reconciliation strategies may be questionable, but at least one effort appears promising. Amongst the less-than-helpful mechanisms are the national efforts to peal away political-leaning Taliban leaders and bring them into the “democratic” fold. It is obvious from any Afghan farmer in his field to U.S. Marine Corps Lance Corporal at his post that the Taliban comprise seemingly dozens of disparate factions to include reconciliation-ready pragmatist leaders, who have little to no sway over anyone else. Arguably another unsuccessful attempt is the formation Another initiative, the establishment of District Reintegration Advisory Teams (or “DRAT”s), also continues to struggle and some of the teams are made up of overpaid bureaucrats without the means to safely bring Taliban fighters back into the societal fold.

However, there is a silver lining. The national reintegration program offers a funding stream for international forces to tap in order to promote natural and traditional society to be mentally and financially prepared to help former fighters readjust. By and large this program promotes the tribes—both bloodline and geographic communities—that have been, are, and will likely continue to be Afghanistan’s most powerful identity and force for surrendered insurgents outside major city centers. For example the population of Marjah, having been perhaps more victimised than other peoples in southwest Asia by Taliban subjugation from 2005-2009, has already seen traditional block elders discreetly reintegrating fighters under their protection. And this Afghan Reintegration Program funding has the potential to help this process continue and grow. However, whether such indigenous processes can sustain in non-Pashtun areas is unknown.

Of particular interest is the potential for the funding to go towards schools, both a locally named priority grievance in Pashtun lands and a commonly analysed source of stability of NATO civil affairs and infantry units. Here are some details on how, theoretically, this vital funding stream can use schools to help locals reintegrate Taliban:

1) Beneficiaries must have education options to allow a path to skills, accreditation, and economic opportunity lest former fighters rejoin the Taliban for money. Any educational program that is open to all residents to include former Taliban will be a platform for former fighters to assimilate as they gain the trust of other students—and gain a sense of community and brotherhood facing common academic challenges. Furthermore, former fighters will graduate with recognised certificates so as to avoid residents’ perception that the former insurgents received special treatment.

2) Money from reintegration funds may also be a development incentive for communities to seek out potential recruits to a reintegration programme, after all it is the communities that will offer the protection and sense of belonging to those disoriented and perhaps scared few who left the Taliban. Lack of education is an identified local grievance and source of instability. Building a school as part of a larger local education infrastructure—locally owned, locally appropriate, long-term, and sustainable—will have a measurable effect on mitigating this identified source of instability. Schools will offer communities what they have stated they need.

3) Finally, in a very immediate and practical sense, schools may curb the Taliban’s ability to recruit children from their families for free quasi-Deobandi extremist madrassas in nearby Pakistan where they have a chance to become radicalised.

The Afghan government would do well to continue any programmes that continue to promote natural resiliencies, which are already helping to reintegrate former extremists.

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This article originally appeared in the Irish Times

It was a long summer of claims, counterclaims and negotiations to try to bring the IRA hunger strikes to an end

APRIL 1981

WHEN BOBBY Sands became MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone on April 11th, some British officials hoped his election might encourage the IRA to move away from violence and into politics.

Sir Kenneth Stowe, permanent under-secretary of state at the Northern Ireland Office, told cabinet secretary Sir Robert Armstrong that there was “reason to believe that the PIRA have been thinking seriously about an end to the campaign of violence, but feel that they need a success and an avenue to pursue their aims politically”.

As more prisoners joined the hunger strike, however, officials concluded that the IRA was primarily interested in short-term political gain rather than a new departure. On April 29th, with Sands expected to die within a few days, an intelligence assessment suggested that IRA “tactics have been determined on a day-to-day basis to take advantage of opportunities as they occur and it is unlikely that they have any clear policy on what to do next”.

MAY 1981

On May 11th, Dermot Nally, secretary to the Irish government, was visited in Dublin by Sir Robert Armstrong, his British counterpart. Both men agreed that the IRA was not, at that point, interested in an escape route from the strike. “The ‘wild men’ thought they were on to a winner and were determined to pursue their present line as far as possible,” Nally said.

The following day Francis Hughes became the second hunger striker to die. The British embassy in Dublin reported a growing feeling in Ireland that this yet was another instance “when British political sense and acumen are switched off when faced with Irish problems”.

On May 21st, Margaret Thatcher’s principal private secretary Clive Whitmore warned that the deaths of Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara (an INLA hunger striker) were imminent, after which there was likely to be a three- to four-week hiatus until the next striker would be close to death.

“There was no sign that the Provisional Irish republican leadership, which was controlling the strikes, would let them give up,” he wrote, adding that there was “no doubt that McCreesh’s family, including his brother, who was a priest, had specifically dissuaded him from breaking fast on 16 May.”

On May 26th, Thatcher hosted a high-level meeting with secretary of state Humphrey Atkins, RUC chief constable Jack Hermon and Gen Sir Richard Lawson, the GOC of the British army in Northern Ireland, at Chequers, the prime minister’s country residence.

Both Hermon and Lawson emphasised their fears of the increasing alienation of the Catholic community. “If the government could dispel the impression of inflexibility and could get over instead that its policy was magnanimous and caring, these risks might be reduced,” they suggested.

Thatcher remained “rock solid” against concessions. At the end of May, when her civil servants wrote to the European Commission of Human Rights to reassure it that the government would be prepared to respond to “anything the other party may put forward”, she was furious. “No, no, no!” she wrote in the margins. “This implies that if they moved we would move.”

EARLY JUNE 1981

By June 12th, even Atkins, who had previously shared Thatcher’s hardline position, warned that in the perception of the outside world, “the line between firmness and intransigence is a narrow one”. In a memorandum entitled “The Need for Movement”, he wrote: “We may outface the hunger strikes, but we shall pay a heavy price for doing so.”

According to an intelligence- based analysis dated June 16th, some officials had previously believed that a consequence of increasing involvement in electoral politics by the Provisionals “might be a reduction in the amount of energy they put into their terrorist campaign”.

Now it was feared that “the Provisionals ‘gone political’ can succeed, where their terrorist activity has failed, in reversing the progress of recent years towards ‘normality’ and renewing for them a base from which a revitalised terrorist campaign could be launched”. As the hunger strike continued into mid-June, both the British and Irish governments became increasingly convinced that the hunger strikers were “pawns” in the strategy of the IRA leadership.

LATE JUNE 1981

On June 18th, 1981, senior Irish civil servant Dermot Nally called Downing Street on behalf of Charles Haughey to report that “there is at present some tension in relations between the parents of the hunger strikers, the hunger strikers themselves and the Provisional IRA controllers outside, which could be exploited”.

On June 23rd, 1981, the Irish ambassador in London, Eamon Kennedy, went to Downing Street to personally submit a letter from the taoiseach urging “another initiative”, on the back of a recent statement by Irish bishops criticising the strike.

Thatcher responded by telling Kennedy that while she welcomed the church’s intervention, the IRA was “in the hands of left-wing extremists who were not greatly interested in the views of the church” and “it was not easy to see what HMG could do”.

On June 25th, Nally called Downing Street again to suggest that “there is significant room for manoeuvre”.

Sir Robert Armstrong, the cabinet secretary, also believed that the IRA leadership might be amenable to a settlement. Although they had gained in terms of propaganda, “they must be apprehensive lest, if the succession of deaths is resumed, public opinion could swing against them and they might lose what they have gained”.

When Nally called back the next day, he told Armstrong “it was now a question of ‘percentages’”. Some “slight movement – not a major step”, might bring a resolution to the stand-off between the government and the prisoners.

Towards the end of June, the British government began tentative discussions with the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace (ICJP), a body set up by the Catholic Bishops Conference, which had made proposals for improvements in conditions in the Maze Prison.

Following these discussions, in a policy statement on June 30th, Atkins stated that changes in work, clothing and association might be possible, while reiterating the government’s bottom line that political status would not be considered and that the prison authorities must retain full control of the H-Blocks.

JULY 1981

On July 1st, new taoiseach Garret FitzGerald once again informed the British that there were strong indications that the prisoners themselves wanted a deal.

The following day, Atkins told a cabinet meeting that the Provisional leadership felt under pressure from a “combination of signs of weakening resolve among some of the hunger strikers, a desire among moderate Catholics to see a reasonable settlement related to the ICJP’s proposals, and a reaction to manipulation of the families”.

On Saturday July 4th, Atkins publicly raised the prospect of “general improvements” being made in prison conditions, while insisting that the government would not act “under duress”. In other words, the strike had to end before any changes were implemented.

The same day, a statement was telephoned to the NIO (Northern Ireland Office) on behalf of the prisoners which recognised “that not all five demands would be achieved”. The IRA however still required “firm guarantees” by the British government “before the prisoners considered a ‘move’.”

The statement insisted there was no discrepancy between the prisoners’ position and that of the outside leadership, although British officials did not believe this to be true.

At this point, the IRA leadership made direct contact with the British government through an established “channel of communication” which had been used at previous points in the 1970s. That channel is presumed to have run from Derry businessman Brendan Duddy and MI6 officer Michael Oatley. In this batch of British state papers, the figure believed to be Duddy is referred to as “Soon” or “the channel”.

According to Soon, the July 4th statement by the hunger strikers was “issued independently by the prisoners in the Maze and the timing came as a surprise to senior Provisionals outside”. Although “the content did represent what was previously agreed”, Soon said it had “caught the Provisionals unaware”, with the leadership “dispersed”.

Nonetheless, Soon was “optimistic” that the basis for a deal was in place. This would involve an end to the hunger strike, followed by immediate concessions on clothing (prisoners would be allowed to wear their own) and parcels and visits, to give the IRA a “face-saving way out”. The issues of work and association would be dealt with shortly afterwards.

When Soon called back on July 5th, he said the Provisionals did not like the ICJP acting as a “mediator” and took a “destructive” view of its proposals. They were also suspicious of the fact that the British had not contacted them directly if they were serious about a deal. In reply, the British stated that, when it came to “the channel”, they “had only ever initiated calls in response to queries for clarification”.

Soon said that Danny Morrison, Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams were the only individuals of sufficient clout to offer the “persuasion, education and knowledge” to push through any deal. The British made special arrangements for Morrison to be allowed to enter the Maze to talk to the prisoners directly, although they rejected a request that McGuinness be allowed to join the delegation.

(Morrison has challenged the British account of these events, as reported in The Irish Times of last Saturday, December 31st, on page five, headline “McCreesh family deny British claim”.)

Soon also said he had managed to convince the IRA leadership that the government was “not interested in any settlement unless the hunger strike is called off first” and was “fairly confident that this was acceptable”.

At 11pm on July 5th, however, things seemed to turn for the worst. Morrison had returned from his visit to the prison with a series of “alarming reports”.

According to Soon, the situation “was now so bad that the possibility of any settlement was seriously in doubt”. There was “a complete feeling of hostility among the prisoners towards the ICJP . . . [which] had created an alarmist view of the sincerity of HMG, and every type of neurosis imaginable was surfacing within the Provisional leadership”.

“From an apparently enthusiastic position,” according to a summary of the conversation, “Soon had been called into an angry and hostile meeting of the Provisionals almost verging on a complete breakdown”.

There were “many incoherent abuses aimed at the Soon channel, with the implication that the time spent in discussion on the Soon channel had been a front by HMG to enable the ICJP to manoeuvre the prisoners into an impossible position”.

At 1am on July 6th, Soon rang back to convey the agreed position of the IRA leadership, which was that the prisoners’ statement was the only basis for a successful deal and that they insisted that they were given a draft response by the government before they called off the strike.

It was only at this point that Thatcher was told by Atkins that in conjunction with the ICJP efforts, the government had been “approached by a third party who is trusted by the Provisional leadership”.

He made it clear that “no negotiations have been taking place but it is obviously only sensible that if the Provisional leadership wish to communicate something to us indirectly about this critical problem, we should listen”. Their views were “important because so far they seem to be largely in control of the strikers”.

Meanwhile, other British officials reported that there were “indications that the PIRA leadership are concerned that one or other of the prisoners might give up; and also that the work of the ICJP might put them in a humiliating position”. They were also worried that “more pressure from the families” might tip things in the government’s favour.

On July 6th, Thatcher approved a message to be sent through “the channel” which outlined the terms of a deal. The clothing regime in Armagh prison would be applied to all prisons in Northern Ireland (allowing prisoners to wear their own clothes), restrictions on parcels, visits and letters would be lifted and there was “scope for yet further developments” on work and remission.

If there was a “satisfactory” response, the government was prepared to provide the Provisionals with an advanced text of the arrangement.

On July 7th, following a high- level meeting at Downing Street, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland told the prime minister: “Following the sending of the message which you approved last night, we have received, as you will know, an unsatisfactory response. That channel of activity is therefore no longer active.”

The Provisionals, he reported, “did not regard it as satisfactory and that they wanted a good deal more. This appeared to mark the end of this development and we made this clear to the PIRA.”

In a dramatic twist, however, just after midnight on July 8th, Atkins met Thatcher again to inform her that – following the shutting down of the channel – the IRA had told the government that it was “not the content of the message to which they had objected but only its tone”.

It had also hinted that a slightly revised statement “would be enough to get the PIRA to instruct the prisoners to call off the hunger strike”. For the moment, Atkins recommended that the government hold firm to its position (although another deal was to be offered 10 days later)

Later that day, however, public recriminations began as it became clear that the expected deal had not materialised. The ICJP accused the NIO of clawing back on previous offers and the British government became increasingly concerned about its international reputation.

On July 14th, a foreign office minister suggested that the only way to prevent any more deaths was to feed the prisoners intravenously, against their will. If this option was taken, the prison authorities would also have to restrict visitors because “any relatives and priests allowed in may well be fanatical enough to wrench out the drip and smash the equipment”.

The same day, the foreign secretary Lord Carrington raised the prospect of “force feeding” in a meeting at Downing Street because of the damage being done to Britain’s international reputation by the deaths. Others suggested surreptitiously inserting glucose into the water provided to those fasting.

LATER JULY 1981

Another document in the prime ministerial files, dated July 18th, reveals that the British made one last attempt to revive the deal. NIO officials confirmed that they offered the same deal but with “fuller words” and it was passed through “the channel” again. Once again, when a satisfactory response was not forthcoming, the channel was shut down.

At midnight on July 19th, however, FitzGerald called Downing Street to suggest that there might be an opportunity to “persuade the prisoners to overrule” Brendan McFarlane, the IRA leader in the H-Block, who was now seen as an obstacle to the settlement.

On July 19th, the priest of Kevin Lynch (an INLA hunger striker), told British officials that the relatives of Lynch and Kieran Doherty wanted an NIO official “to clarify the government’s position to Lynch and Doherty respectively, on the same basis as before – ie without McFarlane present”.

At this point, however, the strikers themselves seemed to have intervened and said they wanted McFarlane present. According to prison authorities, Lynch had previously stated that he did not want McFarlane there.

On July 21st, officials finally concluded that the Provisionals “are not prepared to accept our position about prison conditions”.

Intriguingly, they also claimed that “we have a clear acknowledgement from McFarlane (which we are already making use of) that the hunger strikers have no power to give up”, although they did not elaborate further.

On July 30th, Atkins noted that “external pressures from the families, from interested priests, from others concerned about the situation – will now be focused on Brendan MacFarlane as the ‘hard man’ who is apparently discouraging the hunger strikers from ending their fast”.

The following day, July 31st, is usually seen as the day in which the hunger strike began to break, after Paddy Quinn’s mother insisted on medical intervention to save his life, although there were to be four more deaths before the strike officially ended in the first week of October.

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“Without women, there is no security”

This is the title of a new campaign about to be launched in Israel by a group of women organizations. As if in a direct line with the conclusion of my research that looks at the role of woman in peace negotiations, emerges a project that confirms everything that I thought. There are not enough women involved in security issues in Israel. This innovative campaign is based on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325.

On October 31st 2000, the United Nations adopted Resolution 1325 – a resolution concerning women, peace and security. This revolutionary, unique, formal and legal document called for the adoption of gender perspective. Resolution 1325 acknowledged the changing nature of warfare and peace building – realms in which women continue to be excluded. SCR 1325 addresses not only the impact of war on women, but also the role that women should have in conflict management, conflict resolution and sustainable peace. Resolution 1325 calls for increased participation of women at all levels of decision-making including in national, regional, and international institutions, in mechanisms for the prevention, management and resolution of conflict, in peace negotiations and in peace operations.

On July 20th 2005, the Knesset passed legislation concerning The Equality for Women’s Rights. It declared that appropriate representation of women from diverse population sectors must be included on every governmental team or committee at the national level. This revolutionary legislation in Israel officially recognizes women’s unique and critical contributions to policy-making and positions gender status as crucial to all issues. This fundamental legal change was a by-product of SCR 1325.

And now, as 2012 begins, it is once again up to Israeli citizens to increase awareness to the importance of the integration of women and to make sure that these laws are implemented. Well done!!

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Whilst Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has vowed to crush the militant Islamist sect Boko Haram, following their murderous attacks on Christian Churches on Christmas Day which left dozens dead, the Nigerian state has clearly taken their eyes off the ball. His Administration and allowed Boko Haram to transform from being a violent cult to posing a national security threat to the Nigerian state as a whole.

Boko Haram’s terrorist attacks have increasingly displayed growing sophistication in terms of weapons used, the nature of the attacks as well as the targets chosen. From the use of bows and poisoned arrows to small arms, Boko Haram has increasingly started using fuel-laden motorcycles, car bombings and suicide bombings. Since its formation in 2002, their modus operandi has also matured from drive-by shootings on motorcycles to multiple person teams involved in co-ordinated bombings. The increasingly confident nature of the attacks also transformed Boko Haram from constituting a local terror group to a national and potentially international one. Whilst initially focusing on local police stations and local politicians, the suicide bombing of the national police headquarters in Abuja and the bombing of the UN headquarters in Abuja clearly point to Boko Haram’s growing ability to wreak havoc. The greater sophistication demonstrated by the group in its terror attacks also suggest that they may well be receiving assistance from like-minded groups like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Al Shabab in Somalia. Since late 2008, AQIM and Boko Haram have been in contact and the choice of the attack on the UN in Abuja reflects AQIM’s own choice of targets. In December 2007, AQIM launched a suicide attack on the UN headquarters in Algiers. This, in turn, raises an intriguing question: how much of influence does AQIM exercise over Boko Haram?

Whilst Boko Haram has grown in strength, constituting an ever graver challenge to Abuja, the Nigerian state vacillated in its response. On the one hand it adopted a violent crackdown on the group, but as this was not intelligence-driven many innocent northern Muslims suffered at the hands of the heavy-handed tactics of the Nigerian security apparatus. Such an approach proved counter-productive and may well have resulted in more recruits for Boko Haram. Another approach which was mooted was some sort of immunity for Boko Haram and bringing them into the political process in exchange for their giving up violence. But the organization has scoffed at such “weakness” on the part of the Nigerian state, believing the state to be illegitimate and pressing on with its demand to have all 36 states to be ruled by Sharia law and not just the current 12 states in northern Nigeria.

Following his promise to crush Boko Haram, President Jonathan has instituted a state of emergency in several Nigerian states, closed some of the country’s borders with neighbouring countries and ordered the Chief of Defence to establish a counter-terrorism unit to eradicate the scourge of Boko Haram. Whilst some of the measures like the closing of the country’s borders make sense, given the AQIM presence in neighbouring Niger, others clearly do not. For instance, it is hard to see how any counter-terrorism unit could be successful fighting the terrorism threat posed by Boko Haram blind-folded. Consider here just one aspect: since the killing of its founder-leader, Mohamed Yusuf, nothing is known about its structure and chain of command or the identity of its current leadership. In other words, how are the security forces supposed to fight an organization it has so little intelligence on?

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This week marks the first anniversary of the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor, whose death triggered the Arab Spring. Looking at the celebrations in his home town and across the Middle East one would swear that Bouazizi has reached the cult status of an American rock star. Yet, any rational person would view the young man’s death as the height of despair, and rather a depressing episode. It was an act of extreme despair which motivated the young fruit seller to pour gasoline over himself and set himself alight following the confiscation of his cart. Yet Bouazizi and his family hold an honoured position now in Arab society. I would never forget a ten year old Egyptian boy informing me that he wants to be a martyr whilst his friends looked upon him with approval. I recall thinking that my own son was about this boy’s age and I wanted him to live not die!

This fascination with the death and its concomitant cult of the martyr needs to be countered and needs to form a central pillar in counter-terror efforts. After all before a suicide bomber detonates his or her vest he/she must be ideologically indoctrinated to believe that he/she is doing the “right” thing – both in terms of the act and the target. Moreover, such an act exists within a social milieu in which such acts are not only condoned but also lauded. For this reason Martha Crenshaw believes that martyrdom has a cultural base, ‘Unless martyrdom was valued by society or at least by a sub-culture, individuals would not seek it’. Moreover religious authorities in Muslim societies often gave legitimacy to such acts by sanctioning them. As Crenshaw goes on to state, ‘The martyrs were widely revered in Muslim society. In some cases, the individual who changes his mind about carrying out an attack was scorned as a “half-martyr”’.

Groups like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) have certainly capitalized on this cult of the martyr. Robert Fowler, a former UN special envoy to Niger who was held captive by AQIM for four months between 2008 and 2009 noted that one of his captors informed him, “We fight to die, you fight to go home to your wife and kids. Guess who will win?” This love of death has fundamentally altered the challenge that terrorism poses to security officials everywhere. The seriousness of these profound challenges to counter-terrorism experts is summarized by British Lord Chalfont, ‘…the whole time I have been involved in [counter-] terrorist organizations, which goes back 30 years, my enemy has always been a man who is very worried about his own skin. You can no longer count on that, because the terrorist is not just prepared to get killed, he wants to get killed’.

Closely related to this love of death, is a profound negation of the status quo which is almost anarchic. Indeed violence, destruction and terror almost become an end in itself as confrontation with the proverbial other is actively sought. Indeed Al Qaeda itself is quite clear on its stance regarding dialogue, debate and diplomacy. Its training manual notes, ‘The confrontation that we are calling for with the apostate regimes does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of the bullet, the ideals of assassination, bombing and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine gun’.

From a counter-terror perspective, those agents and institutions of socialization which promote the cult of the martyr will have to be identified and neutralized to prevent a new generation of jihadists from emerging.

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ICSR's co-Director Dr. John Bew has published an article in LSE’s Ideas Special Report which follows on from a conference earlier this year on the Lessons of Northern Ireland.

To read the article, please click here.

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When Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first attack on the World Trade Centre in 1993, was arrested in Pakistan in 1995 and flown back to the United States he informed federal agents that he hoped that by bombing American targets he would effect a change in Washington’s policy towards the Middle East. To put it more directly – threatened with violence the US will cave in to the demands of the blackmailer/terrorist.

Why would Yousef believe this? Did US troops not leave Lebanon following a horrendous terror attack on its marine barracks? Did the US not leave Somalia following the bodies of US rangers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu? Did the US not leave Saudi Arabia following the bombings of the Khobar Towers?

Of course, there were far more strategic reasons why the US left the countries when it did but in the collective psyche of your Islamist terrorist, there is a perception that the US is a weak and declining power, that when given a choice between staying and fighting or to cut and run would inevitably choose the latter. Indeed the characterisation of Americans as weak has a long history in radical Muslim circles. Go back over fifty years ago and read the writings of Syed Qutb characterizing America as a society more concerned about sensuality than about anything else. When attending a recent conference on the Middle East, Muslim scholars echoed Qutb by announcing that the “Americans had no stomach for a fight” and this was their reason for withdrawing from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yet, any understanding of American society and history will prove that few nations can rival their success in adversity, their strength in their own beliefs and their desire never to give up. In a recent article, Risa Brooks points out the terrorist challenge the United States was confronted with in the form of Puerto Rican nationalists and militant leftists. Between January 1969 and October 1970, 370 bombings occurred in New York City alone. The American resolve remained undaunted and the challenge posed by these violent nationalists and the Weather Underground joined history’s legions of other failures.

Unfortunately this aspect of America is not getting through to those who believe that Americans are essentially weak and will easily give in to blackmail. To the extent that this perception of American weakness persists, it will continue to encourage terrorists to strike American targets in the hope of affecting some change in policy.

This constitutes a missing dimension in US counter-terrorism efforts. Whilst US public diplomacy has been extremely active on a variety of fronts, it would need to do much more not only to project a positive image of the US but also to clarify its strength as a nation that will not give in to blackmail and will ensure that those who harm innocent civilians will pay a steep price indeed.

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The Taliban’s aim is to deny all information except its own propaganda.

During Taliban rule in the 1990s, they seized the federal television broadcasting home office, stopped all programming, and issued a nationwide blackout of film, TV, and (eventually) Internet. State radio sent out only Taliban religious messages, and the few printing facilities were a means of publishing more propaganda. The Taliban attempted to monopolise the information environment, and continue to do so today.

Competing for radio

Today, the Taliban has earnestly attempted to compete with a fledgling but complex and growing media non-extremist infrastructure. A recent USAID-sponsored survey counted 75 active TV stations and 175 active radio stations in addition to a few hundred print media with limited distribution. These media platforms—targeting Afghans—are 60% profit driven, 19% from the military, 13% from neighboring nations, and 8% self funded. Although Kabul is nearing TV and radio saturation with 30 television channels and 42 radio stations, smaller rural capitals and towns without electricity have little more than access to AM and shortwave radio.

Currently, radios are a dominant media format in most regions. Radios are easily accessible, are easy to power, and were a legacy of the Taliban-era when contraband radio was all but the only means for locals to obtain news aside from Taliban propaganda. Although only around 42% of the population has some access to electricity, “Radio in a Box” distribution programs allow around 86% of Afghan household to own at least one radio and 88% to listen to radio broadcasts each month in 2009 with rates increasing each year since.

Competing for Cell Coverage

Another insurgency method is through denial of cell phone coverage to remind civilians that the Taliban hold influence in general; disrupt U.S. forces from receiving calls from informants on Taliban locations, activities, and plans; to simply affect the Afghan government, NATO, ISAF, and businesses; and to sell the appearance of being a viable player for that future date when NATO combat forces leave Afghanistan.

These shut downs, according to press reports, may affect upwards of millions of Afghans countrywide. The Taliban have destroyed cell towers and directly threatened major cell phone company leaders such as those of Etisalat (one of four major Afghan cell corporations) to force shut downs. For example, in Helmand’s capital Lashkargah the Taliban force cell towers to shut down from 8pm to 8am daily. In Wardak, cell signal goes dead 13 hours a day. In Zabul’s capital Qalat there is cell coverage five hours per day while the rest of the province receives no coverage whatsoever. Other provinces suffer from 20-hour shut downs. Reportedly only a few NATO military bases have yet to build cell towers out of the reach of Taliban attack and intimidation.

All the while, the Taliban send out mass text messages to recruit, inspire, and threaten. The Taliban even have distributed its own ring tone—ironic since a previously Taliban-dominated Afghanistan forbade music.

Dominating the Internet

As an insurgency today, the Taliban focuses much on the one area where there is little non-extremist competition.

They focus their effort on websites and social media to blast their narratives out to the widest possible Afghan audience. Without absolute rule, the Taliban liberalised rescinding its ban on depicting images of human beings (considered fallacy by Taliban’s bastardised-Deobandi ideologues) to help reach any and every Internet user in the cities with the hope that word-of-mouth spread messages to the provinces.

The Taliban released 86 online statements or videos from February 2010 through October 2011 for an Afghan audience. The Taliban’s focus on the Internet indicates they they consider the Internet to be a viable forum to reach, at least in part, Afghan audiences to earn some level of popular support or recruitment.

While non-Taliban online ventures are relatively few—possibly due to struggles to attain self-sustainability, limited technical training, illiteracy, and thus far rare use of marketable vernacular language in mainstream written literature—the Taliban saturate the Internet with messages in multiple languages to include Dari, Pashto, Arabic, Urdu, Baloch, and English.

The bottom line is the Taliban dominates online forums when it comes to anything on violent extremism. Therefore, it behoves Afghans and Afghan partners to focus on competing with and undercutting the ability of the Taliban to affect any Afghan audience online. Certain online forums can be a source for community discussions, radio DJs, community leaders, and political leaders in Afghanistan to further expand Internet messages.

It is never too late.

The Importance of Media in Afghanistan

What is the importance of media in a word-of-mouth and sometimes conspiracy-theory-driven society? According to some studies, Afghan citizens do at least consider and even muse over media content—even messages from known political and military sources. Although media participation is low with approximately 85% of listeners never calling into radio stations, 90% of Afghans with access reportedly discuss information from media broadcasts with those in their own communities—suggesting an echo effect between those with regular media access and the rest of society. Media therefore holds some importance and perhaps some ability to sway opinions in Afghanistan, and allowing the Taliban to dominate an important media platform is a grave error.

Moving Past Stability Operations into Countering Radicalisation

It is high time we moved past stability operations in Afghanistan and considered the tactics of a concerted counter-radicalisation campaign. Such a campaign should encompass empowering Afghans to be able to compete with Taliban messaging on every platform—to encourage Afghans to help prevent the young from joining insurrection’s ranks, to force the Taliban more onto the rhetorical defensive, and to perhaps help the non-ideological reintegrate.

Although some of Taliban’s online messaging may be focused internationally for fundraising and regional relevance, some Internet narratives clearly target Afghans, and the Taliban’s online dominance needs to at least be thrown into question.

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Faced with repressive rule by autocrats backed by the armed forces it is understandable when ordinary Tunisians, Egyptians or Libyans rise up against such a regime. It is also understandable when these citizens, given the right to exercise their vote in a free electoral system, choose to vote Islamists to power. The Islamists, too, bore the brunt of the brutal repression of the previous regime. Whilst these autocrats plundered state coffers and remained unresponsive to the needs of their citizens, Islamists were providing food, medical care, education and shelter to the poor and disenfranchised.

It should, therefore, come as no surprise that Tunisia’s Islamists secured forty percent of the votes cast. In Egypt, the scene is set for a bigger landslide victory for Islamists parties. In preliminary electoral results from nine out of Egypt’s 27 governorates, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party secured 36.6 percent of the votes cast whilst the hard-line Salafist Al-Nour secured 24.4 percent. By comparison moderate and liberal parties performed poorly with the Egyptian bloc securing 13.4 percent, the al-Wafd 7.1 percent and the al-Wasat a measly 4.3 percent of the votes cast. There is no indication to suggest that the Islamist juggernaut will lose momentum in the elections in the remaining eighteen governorates.

These Islamist parties, however, need to be made aware of an important fact – that sympathy on the basis of previous repression and gratitude for charity work done in communities does not translate into voters buying into every aspect of their agenda. Indeed, voter turnout in Egypt was only 52 percent – a very low figure considering this was the country’s first truly free and fair poll. The relatively low voter turnout also suggests popular voter disillusionment with the choices on offer.

Societies such as Tunisia and Egypt emerging from corrupt authoritarian rule need healing and reconciliation. They do not need more fractures undermining the cohesion of their respective societies. This is a lesson which the Islamists have unfortunately not learned. In Tunisia, Islamists have clashed with secular students following their demands to end mixed-sex classrooms at universities and compelling female students to wear the niqab or full-face veil. In Egypt, assaults on Coptic Christians and attacks on their places of worship have become tragically routine. For pessimists, the point gleaned from this is depressingly familiar: political Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy. Turkey’s AKP Islamist party, once considered the poster-child of a modern functioning Islamist democracy, coupled with a vibrant market economy is increasingly demonstrating its illiberal nature in the manner it is dealing with its Kurdish minority as well as the numbers of its incarcerated journalists.

As a progressive Muslim, I reject the notion that intolerance is the norm of political Islam. As a Muslim scholar I reject the notion that political Islam is incompatible either with liberal democracy or secularism. Indeed, Islamists in Tunisia and Egypt can tap into the wealth of Islamic literature to chart an alternative future – one in which peace, tolerance and respect for the other becomes the norm.

The key principle underlying this is the Quran verse 2: 98 that there can be no coercion in religious affairs. This is again repeated by the Quranic verse 18:30: ‘This is the truth from your Lord, let him who will, believe, and let him who will, disbelieve’. In the 39^th chapter of the Quran, the Prophet is ordered to tell unbelievers: ‘It is Allah I worship in sincerest obedience’. Now as far as you are concerned, ‘Worship , what you like, besides him’. At other places, the Quran is even more explicit, ‘For you, your religion and for me, my religion’. In a similar vein, Allah asks a rhetorical question. Addressing the Prophet, He says: ‘If thy Lord had enforced His Will, surely all those on earth would have believed, without exception. Will thou, then, then take it upon thyself to force people to become believers?’ The underlying point here is that where religion is enforced, faith itself is undermined.

At the political level, too, Islam is entirely compatible with liberal multi-party democracy. In Islam one could draw a clear distinction between the religious and political spheres. Karen Armstrong, for instance, powerfully argues that the Quran insists that the Prophet Muhammed had no political function but that he was simply a nadhir (a warner). Of course, he did become head of the first Islamic state but this was more due to the political vacuum existing at the time as opposed to some divine pre-ordained plan. Also contributing to this separation between religion and the public sphere was that throughout Islamic history there never was a single voice that represented the canons of religion or Shar’ia law. As Khaled Abou El Fadl has asserted:

Historically, the Islamic faith and Shar’ia law have been represented by several competing schools of theological and jurisprudential thought, the most powerful and notable of these organized into privately run professional guilds. Although the state often claimed to rule in God’s name, the legitimacy of such claims were challenged by these professional guilds.

A secular state is not an anti-religious one; rather it sets the basis where people of different faiths can co-exist harmoniously. This is especially important in our modern heterogeneous and conflict-prone polities. More importantly Islamic concepts such as freedom (al-hurriya), equality (al-musawat), justice (al-adl), and consultation (shura) are all norms that can be found in a liberal, multi-party, secular polity. Furthermore, the first four caliphs in Islam, beginning in CE 632, were all elected by a majority vote. In addition, as early as the 9^th century a rationalist movement, called the Mu’tazilites was established in the Islamic world which promoted secularism.

The underlying point, of course, is whether the Islamists in North Africa have the political maturity and acumen to tap into this rich Islamic tradition and embrace inclusion and diversity into their political programmes.

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In Egypt the first elections since the revolution have seen a remarkable turnout (around 70% according to reports) with votes now being counted. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party is expected to achieve a sweeping victory and to be the leading bloc in the new parliament, with possibly 40% of the seats. The more conservative Salafist party of Al-Nour is likely to come in second place, winning around 20% of the seats.

Turkey has announced that it will impose a set of economic sanctions against Damascus, due to the continuing crackdown on protests. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu stated that President Assad’s regime had ‘come to the end of the road’. Meanwhile, Syria promised to free hundreds of protesters in an attempt to ward off the implementation of sanctions against the country. On Thursday a UN human rights official stated that the country had entered a state of civil war, with the death toll reaching 4,000 since protests began earlier this year.

In Jordan’s capital Amman, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with Israel’s opposition leader Tzipi Livni, in order to discuss the renewal of peace talks. Mr Abbas said that he hopes that an election will be held on May 4, 2012, after having also attended reconciliation talks with Hamas leaders.

Israel is expected to release a considerable amount of tax money that it had recently withheld from the Palestinian Authority, on the condition that the PA will not undertake unilateral steps. In addition to this Israel’s deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon announced that the Israeli government may cut off all support to the Gaza Strip, if the Palestinian Authority will not reconsider its reunification plan with Hamas. Currently Israel supplies roughly 60% of Gaza’s electricity supplies and about 5 % of its water supplies.

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On Wednesday, December 7 the United States House and Senate Homeland Security Committees will hold an unprecedented joint hearing to discuss the homegrown terrorist threat to military communities in the United States. Since 9/11, there have been approximately 15 plots and attacks targeting U.S.-based military personnel and facilities, perpetrated by American citizens and legal residents who were radicalised by violent ideology introduced by al-Qaeda and its supporters, including the 2009 shooting at Ft. Hood in which U.S.  Army Major Nidal Hasan killed 13 and wounded more than 30 others.  Ideally, the hearing will result in recommendations to tackle the threat at its root cause; the point of radicalisation.  Indeed, if the perpetrators had not been radicalised the plots would never have been born.  

The origin of any attack is an idea. The ideas in question are inspired by al-Qaeda, its forbearers, its affiliates, and its supporters, which decree the United States is at war with Islam and all Muslims are obligated to take action to retaliate against the U.S. military and preclude its operations in Muslim majority countries.  

Historically, the ideology was generated and disseminated exclusively by al-Qaeda spokesmen, whose names we knew and whose faces we recognised.  Now, the ideology is taking on a life of its own in the hands of its consumers.   With the rise of the “lone wolf” movement, an effective radicalising agent could be anyone with a camera and internet access, and their violent message could be acted upon by any one of the random strangers who happens upon it and finds it compelling.

Since the 1980s, al-Qaeda has campaigned to radicalise U.S. citizens with the hope of turning our own population into a weapon against us.  They started by sending their representatives to the U.S., like Omar Abdel Rahman (“The Blind Sheikh”), to radicalise mosque goers.  Then, over the course of more than two decades, their tactics became more infusive with the availability of new technology.  Today, blatant al-Qaedist propaganda created by young Americans can be spotted on such popular websites as YouTube and Facebook, despite the ongoing requests from politicians, including Senator Joseph Lieberman, to get rid of it.  

We can no longer predict with certainty who will be imparting the message; it could be someone in a Brooklyn apartment or in a basement in Phoenix.  Nor can we predict who will be exposed to the message, who will be radicalised by it, or who will ultimately conspire to attack.  Thus, our response to the threat must adapt to the less clearly defined battle environment.  It simply makes no sense to go after a thousand different messengers and multi-thousands of potential recipients of the message. Rather, the focal point of our counterterrorism efforts should be on the one variable that remains constant; the message itself.  

Identifying and eliminating the message that inspires violence and murder will require training of counterterrorism professionals, and even the general public, which comprises the actual user base on social media networks and media-sharing sites.   The training should include unambiguous explanation of the al-Qaedist narrative so the distinction between the dangerous ideology that leads to violence and the vital expression of dissent will be clear.  An effective strategic plan will also include sustained pressure on social media sites, such as YouTube and Facebook, to scrub its content of al-Qaedist and other violent propaganda.  

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I spent my spring and summer in southern Helmand conducting research.  The population’s prescience was unnerving.

Right or wrong, unfounded or founded, the locals overwhelmingly saw the war with the Taliban as yet to come.  The tired and sometimes clumsy argument in London and Washington that the Taliban will pour over the Afghan borders upon NATO withdrawal is alive and well around the town centers, wells, and mosques of Marjah and Garmsir.  The locals truly believe that Pakistani Taliban—madrassa students and patient trainees ready to die—will storm across NATO-built highways in civilian trucks wave after wave, undaunted by death. 

The locals are understandably afraid.  They endured at least three Taliban tidal waves in the 1990s.  One call in 1997 by Mullah Omar to the Northwest Frontier Province Dar-ul-Uloom Haqqani—the Yale of Deobandi extremism excellence—led the school’s administrator to close down courses with an order for all students to run across the border to directly link up with the Taliban in Afghanistan.  Earlier headmasters of 12 other radical Deobandi madrassas in the Northwest Frontier Province shut down to send around 8,000 students to join Taliban ranks.  And Jamiat-ul-Uloomi Islamiyyah—the Harvard of Deobandi extremism—in a Karachi suburb gave up 600 precious students.

And then the Taliban returned again in 2005 turning the fields to poppies and markets to wide-open morphine/opium/heroin emporiums.  The Taliban slapped around Afghans with out-of-regulation beards and publicly beheaded tax dodgers.  Those in southern Helmand, not currently heavily involved in Taliban support, fear Pakistan, Pakistanis, the Pakistani Taliban, and a war yet to come.

Southern Helmandis seem to understand the spirit of the six-part counterinsurgency strategy: shape, clear, hold, build, expand, and transition.  They understand because they have witnessed NATO struggle through the steps inelegantly.  And they also understand because they have witnessed the Taliban rolling through the steps brutally in the past.  If NATO is in the hold and build stage currently, the Taliban are in the earliest of the early stages of “shape.”  Without hope of ever defeating a NATO unit or of completely upturning Afghan security and popular morale, insurgents appear mainly to be testing and observing Afghan security and NATO disposition, composition, and strength—like a reconnaissance mission for a forthcoming war once NATO is gone.

Why do locals seem so sure?  What are their sources of information?  Are they paranoid?  Are they misinformed?

It does not really matter.

What matters is that the Taliban will likely attempt some type of resurgence in poppy-ready Pashtun areas when and where it is possible.  Perhaps that means the formal (but unlikely to be complete) “pull-out” 2014, 20 January 2013, or sooner if NATO troops reshuffle out of the now relatively quiet south Helmand.

What matters is that many arbakai (militias), local police, and Afghan National Police believe the Taliban will come back and immediately want to be prepared to defend themselves and their families against it. 

This is when counter-insurgency demands a new focus on counter-radicalisation—from more focus on Village Stability Operations for local defense militias, efforts to inoculate the young from joining future Taliban ranks, and demobilisation and reintegration of every possible criminal and stripe of Taliban along with strategies to reduce recidivism. 

While military and aid missions attempt semblances of stability; while civil affairs teams push temporary poppy alternatives; while academics ruminate over what level of corruption is acceptable in Afghan government; while intelligence analysts strive to understand the myriad of overlapping types of Taliban and criminals; while local politicians attempt Taliban reconciliation with relatively unthreatening and sidelined Taliban; and while strategists look to Iranian and Chinese long-term interests in Afghanistan, NATO should focus precious assets on countering-radicalisation to stave off the effects of impending Taliban expansion.  Empower indigenous resiliencies.  The ideological Taliban will probably return again strongly.  Afghans at every level of society—not just in the security services—must be ready.

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Israeli president Shimon Peres visited Amman last Monday, and held talks with King Abdullah II of Jordan about reviving the Israel-Palestinian peace talks. It followed very shortly after King Abdullah visited Ramallah to discuss the stalling issues with the Palestinian authority. Peres' visit was strongly criticized by Jordanian civil society, particularly in light of continued Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and especially with the recent controversy around the destruction of Al-Mughrabi Bridge in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Of course neither the Israeli president nor the Jordanian king has the key to the solution. The Arab league produced a workable plan for peace in the Middle East in 2002. The onus is now on the Israeli government and Knesset to do the same. Diplomatic talks alone will not do much progress, it's actions that will get us closer to peace.

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I want to believe that today, November 30 2011, will be the resurrection of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

In the Jordanian capital of Amman, the head of opposition in Israel, Tzipi Livni, met with the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, and called on the Palestinian Authority to return to peace talks with Israel saying that "we must work together now to fend off the extremist Islamic forces". Abbas replied that he considered peace and negotiations to be the only ways to reach a two-state solution, based on the 1967 borders, and to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We will have to wait and see what tomorrow brings but I wish for the next step to be a return to the negotiation table.

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By any reckoning, 2011 was not a good year for Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (Movement of Striving Youth) or al-Shabaab (the Youth) as it is more commonly known. This Islamist and Al-Qaeda aligned group in Somalia suffered various setbacks. In March, Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces together with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) recaptured the town of Bulo Hawo. In April, the town of Dhobley, near the Kenyan border, also fell under the control of the TFG. By 6th August, al-Shabaab was driven out of Mogadishu as a result of the co-ordinated attacks from AMISOM and TFG fighters.

In the process, some senior and experienced al-Shabaab commanders were killed. On 16th March Abdelkadir Yusuf Aar who served as the group’s leader in the Juba and Gedo region was killed. On 3rd April another senior al-Shabaab operative, Hassan Abdurahman, was killed in Dhobley. On 11th June Fazul Abdullah Mohamed was killed by security forces in Afgoye, north-west of Mogadishu. Not only was Mohamed an al-Shabaab commander but he was also a senior Al Qaeda operative.

In addition to this military pressure from AMISOM and the TFG, al-Shabaab was also suffering from a series of organizational problems. Tensions between the movement’s northern and southern commanders escalated on the ideological and tactical fronts; less money was entering al-Shabaab’s coffers from the Somali diaspora at the same time when support for the movement from the Somali business community was ebbing; and clan militias increasingly challenged al-Shabaab’s territorial hegemony in its heartland of southern Somalia.

It is in this context that the authorities in Nairobi embarked on an ill-conceived, badly planned and poorly executed Operation Linda Nchi (Swahili for “Protect the Nation”) which involved hundreds of Kenyan troops crossing the border into Somalia on 16th October. The immediate catalyst for the operation was the kidnapping of several tourists from Kenya by ostensibly al Shabaab militants (It should be noted that al Shabaab never claimed responsibility for these abductions). In doing so the government of Mwai Kibaki has played into the hands of al Shabaab. For some time now al Shabaab has been attempting to lure Ethiopia, the US and Kenya into sending boots on to Somali ground. In having a foreign “occupation” force once more on Somali soil, al Shabaab hopes to play the nationalist card and to unite all factions under its banner whilst simultaneously weakening the TFG which is then seen as the “puppets” of these foreign forces.

Washington, however, has refused to play by al Shabaab’s rules, preferring surgical predator drone strikes. Addis Ababa, having withdrawn their troops and having learned their mistakes from its earlier intervention see no reason to once more re-engage militants on their home turf. Unfortunately, Nairobi still has to learn this painful lesson. Far from using its armed forces to seal its borders with Somalia or using its air force to provide support to TFG forces as it did at Dhobley, Kenya chose to send troops into al-Shabaab’s heartland in southern Somalia to take on the movement directly. This will prove to be a costly mistake for Nairobi.

In the first instance, the Kenyan authorities were not clear as to the objective of its military intervention. Thus whilst at first, Nairobi stated that their armed forces were pursuing al-Shabaab fighters across the border, subsequent statements suggests that the military objectives became ever more expansive. These expanded objectives included dismantling al-Shabaab itself as well securing Kismayo, an al Shabaab- controlled port, 155 miles from the Kenyan border. Second, given the expanded objectives and the topography of the region the military force deployed was much too small to attain the avowed objectives. Third, Kenyan military planners seemed not to have factored the weather when drawing up their plans. One reason for the offensive to have stalled was because of the heavy rains and mud which is slowing the advance. Fourth, rather than fight the Kenyans in conventional terms, al Shabaab is employing guerrilla tactics – which the Kenyan military unfortunately did not anticipate. Fifth, the intervention is exacerbating popular anger against Kenyans – especially when innocent civilians are being targeted. On 30th October, for instance, the Kenyan air force, conducted an aerial bombardment of an internally displaced persons camp in Jilib which resulted in the deaths of five civilians, and the wounding of 45 others. Of the latter, 31 were children. Al Shabaab has tapped into this popular anger as it recruits more fighters.

It is already clear that Nairobi is seeking a not too gracious exit from the Somali stage. Recently a Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said that if the TFG commits to fighting al-Shabaab (which it has been doing), Kenya will halt its military advance. This Kenyan misadventure in Somalia may well prove to have given al Shabaab a life line.

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It is incumbent on every Muslim to give a portion of one’s earnings for some charitable purpose (zakat). It is also a religious duty to support charitable works through voluntary deeds or contributions (sadaqah). Whilst zakat is collected by the government, local mosques and religious centres in the Middle East, sadaqah is paid directly to the Islamic charity. This is, however, where the problem begins. According to Robert Looney because zakat and sadaqah are viewed as religious duties there has been little oversight off these activities. Moreover, the fact that donations have been made anonymously coupled with the opaque financial and operating structures of Islamic charities has created a perfect environment which terrorists can exploit. One indication of this comes from Somalia where one survey points out that 70% of Arab donors allowed the recipient complete autonomy to manage and disperse funds with little or no accountability.

Recently leaked State Department cables to the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks illustrate American diplomats’ frustrations with getting Arab countries to monitor these charitable donations. Indeed Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who leads his kingdom’s anti-terrorism activities was quoted as saying, “if the money wants to go to terrorist causes, it will go”. A similarly fatalistic attitude was adopted by the Qatari and Kuwaiti leadership. This compelled the US officials to bemoan Islamic militants’ “...ability to generate money almost at will from wealthy individuals and sympathetic groups throughout the Middle East while often staying ahead of counter-terrorism officials”.

The size of these charitable donations has been immense. Josh Martin estimates that since the early 1970s Middle East charities distributed US $110 billion, of which US$ 40 billion found its way to Sub-Saharan Africa, making Arab states the largest donor bloc to this region. There is, however, a strong belief that this figure of US $110 billion is too conservative. After all, the Saudi-based and funded Muslim World League alone has disbursed US $75 billion between 1962 when it was founded to 2002.

More important than the amounts disbursed however, are the actual activities of these charities. Whilst many of these charities are involved in useful social welfare activities, providing schools and clinics to the poor, they can also contribute to political tensions by proselytising a radical Islamism which can undermine security in a given African state by exacerbating tensions between Muslims, Christians and Animists and between Wahhabi and Sufi-inclined Muslims. Salih, for instance, powerfully argues that “... some Muslim NGOs have been used as a vehicle for spreading political Islam at an accelerated rate combining faith and material rewards among the disenfranchised Muslim poor ... becoming cronies to militant Muslim groups, including an emergent tide of indigenous African Islamic fundamentalist movements”.

In Somalia, for instance, the Saudi-funded al-Islah organization supports and runs numerous schools, health facilities and community centres. Whilst the organization is not violent itself, its long-term political goal is to establish a theocratic Islamic state not only within Somalia’s borders but also in Somali-inhabited regions of neighbouring countries.  At an ideological level, such a position hardly differs from the Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab terrorist grouping in Somalia today. It should be noted that the diverse Sufi orders did resist al-Islah and its radical ideology “viewing it as a form of religious and cultural imperialism”. However these Sufi orders lacked access to the external funds of al-Islah which allowed it to propagate its Wahhabist creed and win over converts. Al-Islah received its funding from two Saudi entities – the Muslim World League and al-Haramain. The latter was designated by the United States as a terrorist entity on account of its financial ties to Al Qaeda.

More than just providing such organizations with money, Saudi and Kuwaiti backers are also alleged to provide them with protection through corruption. Peter Kagwanja asserts that funds from the Africa Muslim Agency (a Kuwaiti charity), the CIFA Development Group (a joint Tanzanian-Saudi investment venture) and the Saudi-based petroleum company Oilcom were used to bribe corrupt members of Tanzania’s ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party to turn a blind eye to the spread of Wahhabist Islam.

Indeed throughout East Africa, security officials have witnessed the close relationships between some Gulf-funded Muslim charities and local extremist groupings which have been undermining the respective countries’ security. Following the August 1998 Nairobi bombing, the Kenyan government banned five Islamic NGOs on account of their alleged sympathies and funding of local Islamic fundamentalists. Those banned included Mercy Relief International, the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, Help African People, the International Islamic Relief Organisation (IIRO), and the Ibrahim Bin Abdul Aziz Al Ibrahim Foundation. In similar vein, the European Intelligence Agency contends that Uganda’s Islamist extremists are receiving support from the IIRO, the Islamic African Relief Agency, the World Islamic Call Society, the International Islamic Charitable Foundation, the African Charitable Society for Mother and Child Care and the Sudanese National Islamic Front.

The underlying point being made is that without Arab radical Islamist indoctrination and financial support emanating from the Arab states, Islamic militancy in Sub-Saharan African would not have been as severe a problem both in scale and magnitude as it is currently.

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The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has been running my country since the 11th of February. To be more precise the military has actually been leading my country for the past 59 years since the coup d’état which turned into a revolution in July 1952. Currently SCAF is acting as president but the military has been enjoying the privileges that come with the leading positions in Egypt for many decades. The four presidents since 1952 have all been military men. Most of the Governors, Ministers, and CEOs of major companies and have been either military or ex-military.

I felt so proud when the military chose to side with the people in February. I was in London when Mubarak was ousted and left SCAF to run the country while the people were chanting: “the people and the army are one hand!!” The following weeks I was thanking Allah every single minute as the situation deteriorated in Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Syria where the armies were either defecting or fighting against the people. I kept telling people that we were blessed in our revolution since our military is neither tribal nor sectarian which helped them to make the easy choice in deciding to take our side.

When I came back to London this October, I felt different. I was hesitant to tell people that we were doing fine back home. During the Annual Atkin Conference at King’s College London, I was showered with questions from people asking me about the direction that Egypt is taking. I told them that I think that SCAF means it when they talk about their intentions of stepping down soon. However, SCAF wants guarantees before doing so - guarantees regarding their decision making, finances and immunity from prosecution for violations they have previously committed. The SCAF does not want to stay involved in everyday issues especially with the poor economy and security issues that have now worsened since Mubarak stepped down.

In the past ten months, we experienced both ups and many downs in our relations with SCAF. Military men found themselves driving their tanks in the busy streets of Egyptian cities helping law enforcement and supporting the reluctant police force to help people feel safe and bringing everyday life back to normality. They have been responsible for every single detail of our lives as well as the arrangements of the transitory period which has had its complications.

The way SCAF has run my country, with the big questions they have raised – or not as the case may be - has led to many divisions. The main divisions have been over whether the new constitution should come before or after elections, yes or no to the amendments of the 1971 constitution, Muslims or Christians, liberals or Islamists, should we depend on ourselves or apply for international grants and should we keep the Cabinet or change. I could go on! Many of these issues were already on the ground in February but what is new is the fact that these issues are now dividing us.

The military has made some fatal mistakes. I believe that some of them were made on purpose and for two reasons:
1.    To extend the transitory period.
 
2.    To have a better bargaining position and political powers so they would be able to pass certain supra-constitutional principles to guarantee certain privileges to their institutions. This was shown with articles 9 and 10 of the suggested document on supra-constitutional principles, which was hated from day one. These articles have been one of the only things that every single Egyptian politician and activist - whatever their ideology - has refused. Isn’t it ironic that this is the only thing we have had a consensus on. The military was convinced- in my view- that they could follow the Turkish model in terms of the military becoming the guardian of the democracy and the legitimate keeper of Egypt.

This time, there will be no cheers from the Egyptian people – or at least not as much - if SCAF ousts itself or announces a return to its barracks due to several reasons:

1.    The long term bond and deeply profound respect of the people for the military. The people do not share the same view as some of the activists who believe that there is a large difference between the military as an institution and SCAF as a ruling power. The people see any threat to the status and/or role of  SCAF as a threat against the armed forces as a whole.

2.    The fear of the unknown. Those who cheered after the ousting Mubarak were hugging soldiers and throwing candy on the tanks but now they are asking about the substitute, with a focus on the reluctant performance of the police. People have been asking the military commanders in their local area to help them in everyday matters since the January. The military in general has been the ruler on the ground not just SCAF.

3.    Many Egyptians are not convinced that the military wants to stay in power. They think that the military did show their real intentions when Mubarak resigned when they chose to side with the people showing patriotism and altruism.. They also say that the military enjoyed many privileges under Mubarak’s regime without have the burden of their current responsibilities.

On Friday November 25th Kamal El Ganzori (at the age of 79) held a press conference to publicly accept the position of prime minister. At that very moment, a million people were marching in Cairo headed by the activists who had lost their eyes in the confrontations this last week. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands were gathering next to military zones and bases to show support to the SCAF. This is what I see as the division of all divisions. The split between the revolutionary powers and the common people… parents, workers, students.

Today we are going to vote and to elect our first democratically elected parliament in many decades.  Personally, I do not believe in this parliament. I always thought that we should have written a new constitution first.  How can we elect a parliament if we don’t know exactly its duties and responsibilities? How can we elect the parliament while we are still questioning the legitimacy of SCAF which is the head of the executive power. How about the poor security conditions that prevent many from voting? How about the ex-members of the dismantled National Democratic Party who are running as candidates - and will possibly win seats - but then might stand trials afterwards for committing crimes of political corruption.

Have I said that I am going to vote?  Both the Islamist and other groups see the elections as the only way out of this huge division. The only peaceful and tranquil way for there to be a transition of power to the people is through an elected parliament. Since we have no time to organise a campaign to boycott the elections, I am going to vote. Millions are going to vote and I do not want to boycott what the majority is going to take part in. I also believe that there will be no vote manipulation today, at least not inside the voting points. I encourage everyone I know to vote today.

We are going to vote dressed in black as a tribute to our martyrs. The 1200 we lost in the first wave and the 50 martyrs lost in the second wave. Our joy over elections is not yet complete. The divisions are numerous and have led to a division that now looks like a huge crack between the revolutionaries and the ordinary people.   

Do I still feel proud and optimistic? Indeed I do. The people are awake now. Revolutions are like riding a bicycle, once you have learnt you never forget. The squares are sending a very strong message to whoever is playing or going to play a political role in Egypt -  you cannot remove the squares and we are always able to come back if you did not meet our demands. Pray for Egypt and keep your fingers crossed.

Operation revolution is still in progress.

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Click here to see some amazing images of young Egyptian protesters kicking back the tear gas canisters being thrown into the crowds. It is almost like they are losing their eyes so that we can see the light.

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The End of Terrorism?

By Leonard Weinberg, Senior Visiting Fellow at ICSR

Previewing his newly published book, The End of Terrorism? (London and New York: Routledge, 2012).

With suicide bombers blowing themselves and others to pieces in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and elsewhere it may seem premature to consider the end of terrorism a serious possibility.  In the United States and Western Europe the authorities warn of the danger posed by difficult to detect ‘lone wolves’ stalking through the streets in search of vulnerable targets. Some experts still consider the possibility of terrorists acquiring WMD to be a serious threat.

On the other hand, in Spain the group Basque Homeland and Liberty (ETA) has recently decided to abandon its armed struggle, after many years, and pursue negotiations with the authorities in Madrid. A few years ago in Sri Lanka the Tamil Tigers were crushed by the country’s armed forces. And if al Qaeda was a multi-national business corporation few investors these days would be willing to buy its stock in the expectation of making a decent profit. Indeed, the Washington Post reported earlier today that al Qaeda’s leadership has been reduced to just two members.

This is to suggest that in some cases terrorism does seem to come to an end.  How and why?

The tactic survives, people (may) change

As a tactic terrorism seems unlikely to disappear. Carrying out spectacular attacks on civilians in the hope of wreaking vengeance, winning publicity and stimulating fear is an attractive option for relatively weak groups confronted by powerful enemies. But to say this is not the equivalent of saying the same cast of characters with the same goals stage these attacks endlessly. Both terrorists and terrorist groups have come and gone over the years or decades.

In the case of individuals, the claim ‘once a terrorist always a terrorist’ is simply not true. The world abounds with former terrorists, individuals who participated in terrorist violence in their youths but who have gone on to other careers in later years.

Dilma Rouseff, the current president of Brazil, was a member of a revolutionary ‘urban guerrilla’ band in her youth. A former leader of the Provisional IRA, Martin McGuiness was recently defeated in his bid for the Irish presidency. Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dorn became academics following clandestine lives in the Weather Underground during the 1970s when they appeared on the FBI’s most wanted list.

However intriguing such personal stories, my book focuses on the circumstances of how terrorist groups or, better, groups that use terrorism come to an end. The answer provided in The End of Terrorism? Is that they (1) suffer defeat, (2) achieve success or (3) undergo a transformation.  
Scenario #1: Defeat

Defeat is the most common outcome.

Terrorist groups may be defeated in several ways. The most obvious is through the coercive power of the state – the arrest, capture or killing of a group’s members. Some evidence exists suggesting that the police are better than the military at bringing about this end. On some occasions ‘decapitation’ seems to work. Arresting or killing the group’s leadership seems to make a difference. This is particularly true for groups such as Japan’s Supreme Truth and Peru’s Shining Path that are led by charismatic individuals.  

The consequences of the American-led campaign to decapitate al Qaeda via the use of missile-firing drone aircraft remain a matter of controversy. At a minimum it seems fair to say these ‘hellfire’ attacks have severely disrupted its operations.

Terrorist groups may also defeat themselves. For example, they may cause a popular backlash among their nominal constituencies by staging attacks on segments of the population whose support they had hoped to win. Also, since terrorist groups are typically composed of a mix of ‘irreducible’ extremists along with more politically sensitive individuals, they are subject to fragmentation. This tendency is particularly true for underground groups whose members live their lives on a clandestine basis.

Scenario #2: Success

It is less common, but terrorist groups may also succeed in getting what they want.

In 1983-84 Hezbollah’s precursors succeeded in persuading the U.S. and France to withdraw their armed forces from Beirut by staging suicide attacks on their embassies and military personnel.  This instance and a list of others that could be cited suggest that terrorism may achieve tactical successes.

Strategic success – situations in which terrorist groups achieve their ultimate goals – are rarer, but they still occur. The use of terrorism helped the National Liberation Front (FLN) win Algerian independence from France (1954-1962). It was an auxiliary means to be sure, but terrorist attacks carried out by both the Vietminh and Vietcong insurgencies aided in the communist success against the French and American forces in Vietnam.   

In cases of strategic success, terrorism seems to work best when it is used as part of the repertoire of broad scale insurgent groups – rather than as a stand-alone measure.

Scenario #3: Transformation

Terrorist groups also may end by going through a transformation.

Terrorism is a tactic which may be picked up and put down as the perceived need for it changes. On some occasions terrorist groups may become peaceful political parties which seek support through the ballot box rather than the bomb. The Provisional IRA (PIRA) ‘decommissioned’ its weapons and resurrected itself as Sinn Fein which now competes for voter support in Northern Ireland. Something similar may be in the process of occurring with ETA in Spain.

The categories described above will not satisfy the social science requirement of mutual exclusivity.  Coercion and backlash may combine to bring about a group’s defeat for example. Various other combinations are possible. Nevertheless they clearly point to the fact that terrorist groups are not endless. They do come to an end.  

Leonard Weinberg’s The End of Terrorism? (London and New York: Routledge, 2012) is available here. 

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The pipe bomb, a hallmark of many a half-witted terrorist venture, made a reappearance yesterday when Mayor Bloomberg of New York announced the arrest of Jose Pimentel. The Dominican-born American convert to Islam is accused of planning to use the device to target U.S. post offices and military personnel returning from active duty in Afghanistan. Although he appears to be the latest in a long line of hopeless "lone wolves," there are aspects of this story which are worth keeping in mind.

It appears that Pimentel constructed the bomb using instructions found in Inspire magazine, an online English-language publication created by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The magazine was run by Anwar al-Awlaki and his media-savvy sidekick Samir Khan until their recent assassination, and is designed to target Western Muslims and mobilize them in the cause of global jihad. Its pages therefore offer the requisite ideological, strategic and tactical information for carrying out attacks on Western cities, while also encouraging the lone wolf model. Pimentel appears to fit this mold, and according to Mayor Bloomberg, there is "no evidence he worked with anyone else."

Inspire's first issue includes a section entitled "How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom," which offers instructions for building precisely the same device shown in the picture released by the New York Police Department. The police commissioner also suggested that Pimentel was a follower of Awlaki's, a recurring feature now to be expected of almost any Western jihadi terrorist suspect.

Not only does this case contribute towards answering the ongoing questions about the potential of Awlaki's work to continue to inspiring terrorism after his death, but also demonstrates the (very slight) success of al-Qaeda's strategy in the West.

Even before 9/11, al-Qaeda strategists had already begun devising ways in which they could project their ideas across the globe. They concluded that in order to survive the group had to morph into something more akin to a social movement, thus freeing itself from the shackles of a formal and tightly-knit organization. Through the establishment of online media centers and support for charismatic preachers, they therefore sought to inspire support for the group on a global scale. They would no longer need to venture out in search of recruits; enthusiastic supporters would come to them, or even remain hidden in their host societies and strike without warning.

Much of these efforts have focused on the English-speaking world, identified as fertile ground for recruitment due to its relative freedoms compared to the police states in the Arab world. Freedom of speech and lack of internet censorship meant that for many years jihadi websites and media centers operated with impunity, and in some cases they still do.

Inspire was but one of the conduits through which Awlaki sought to inspire a mass-movement in support of al-Qaeda in the West. Before his formal affiliation with al-Qaeda, he had produced a number of lectures in which he sought to tailor the key aspects of al-Qaeda's ideology so that it would appeal to a Western audience. He has succeeded in doing this, albeit to a much smaller extent that he had hoped. There are now many examples of young Western Muslims who have acted alone in their pursuit of the glories of the hereafter after consuming al-Qaeda media.

In May 2010, London-student Roshonara Choudhry nearly killed British legislator Stephen Timms after stabbing him at his local doctor's office in East Ham. Also completely unconnected to any terrorist group, she was moved by Awlaki's work, which she had come across on YouTube only months earlier, and decided to kill Timms due to his support for the Iraq war. Thus far, she has been among the more successful of this type of jihadi in recent years (the worst example being Nidal Hasan, who killed 12 fellow soldiers and a civilian in Fort Hood, Texas), and thankfully most have turned out like Pimentel. As the global jihadist threat begins to diminish in the West, these cases remind us that it is not the time to grow complacent.

Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens is author of As American as Apple Pie, How Anwar al-Awlaki Became the Face of Western Jihad. Contract article -

On December 1, 1955, a black woman named Rosa Parks from Montgomery-Alabama in the American south refused to give up her seat on a public bus to make room for a white passenger. Her action kick-started what has become known as the civil rights movement in the United States, which transformed race relations in America and the wider world. As we are approaching the 56th anniversary of the Montgomery incident, six West Bank Palestinians set out to ride on the public transportation provided for Jewish West Bank Settlers to go to Jerusalem, defying the current situation which prohibits them from accessing those buses or going to Jerusalem without applying for permits. These six individuals were referred to as the Freedom Riders, which was the same reference given to Ms. Parks and her fellow civil rights activists.

They set out on last Tuesday afternoon from Ramallah, and waited for a few hours before a bus would stop to let them on. While on the bus, the activists made statements about their intentions, and talked about the Palestinian reality in the West Bank. Their statements were live-streamed on the internet from a small handheld camera and internet transmitter. Israeli Journalist, Mya Guarneri followed the story of freedom riders and wrote an article for +972 Magazine, an independent Israeli blog that focuses on issues related to Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

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Following the suspension of Syria from the Arab League for its continuous crackdown on protests, approximately another 70 people were killed across the country this week. The EU has reacted by adding antoher 18 Syrian officials to the list of people affected by the travel ban and asset freeze. Germany, France and the UK has drafted a resolution condemning the Syrian regime, which is now expected to be presented at the UN General Assembly, perhaps backed by Arab countries. Also this week King Abdullah of Jordan was the first Arab leader to call explicitly for the Syrian President to step down - “I believe, if I were in his shoes, I would step down.”

The head of Syrian National Council, Burhan Ghalioun, announced that his attempt to convince the Russian government to back the Syrian opposition’s calls for President Assad’s resignation were not successful. Meanwhile, defectors allegedly attacked an air force military base in Harasta, near Damascus. If confirmed, it would be the biggest action undertaken by the Free Syrian Army since its establishment.

In Egypt, the Higher Administrative Court has decided, despite criticism from many Egyptian activists, to overturn the recent ban on former National Democratic Party members running for the upcoming elections. By joining other parties or running as independents, ex-members of the NDP can now participate in the process that will lead to the formation of an assembly which will write the new constitution. Late this week clashes have been reported in Cairo among residents and Christian Copts marching to end discrimination against them.

In Israel members of Kadima Party, the main opposition party, protested after the Knesset approved bills that, in their opinion, would seriously tilt the balance of the Supreme Court to the right, and by doing so undermining the independence of the judicial power. This package came a day after a cabinet committee backed measures that would end foreign funding for Israeli human right groups that are against the building of new settlements.

Hamas and Fatah have agreed to hold elections in May 2012. According to Azzam al-Ahmad, a Fatah official, the two main Palestinian factions have agreed to form a committee that would lead to elections then. This marks a turning point in the four year rift between the two, which started when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007.

Six Palestinian activists (calling themselves ‘Freedom Riders’) were detained by Israeli police after they boarded a bus only allowed for use by Jewish settlers to take them to Jerusalem.

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On November 15 I was invited to the annual lunch of the Labour Friends of Israel. This organisation supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and in 2011 changed their slogan to "Working towards a Two-State Solution".

The keynote speaker was the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition, MP Ed Miliband.

In his speech he talked about his Jewish roots and expressed his gratitude to Israel for giving refuge to his grandmother and aunt over 60 years ago.

He said that 18 years after the Oslo Accords, he shared the "anger" of those who had lived for 10 years under a rocket barrage from Gaza and that he "understands the fears and frustrations" of those who have seen settlement construction continuing amid a lack of progress in talks. Israel and the Palestinians have to make decisions that advance peace, not set it back"

He noted that the Labour party supports the "two-state solution as the only way forward towards peace in the Middle East. He went on to say that “we believe in a safe and secure Israel as a state for the Jewish people living side by side with a Palestinian state - but only through negotiations.”

As an Israeli, I felt very privileged to be given the opportunity to hear such an inspiring and motivating speech and as a member of the “Peace Army” I left feeling that he had given me hope.

Hope because he believes that it is a return to the negotiating table is possible. Hope because hope can defeat fear and “it’s all in the political power”, and hope because that is the moment I realised the “peace Army” has a true and meaningful friend in Britain.

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In what may be a first, a group of Internet hackers have threatened a drug cartel, and in a very public way. Mexican drug gang “the Zetas”, who are particularly active in the Veracruz region, apparently kidnapped a hacker, and have been threatened by the cyber-criminal group that goes by the name “Anonymous”. In a short video posted online (English version here), Anonymous tell the Zetas that they are “tired” of the gang, whose activities include “kidnapping, stealing and extortion”, and allude to committing retaliatory violence. Anonymous threaten to reveal the identities of various journalists, police officers, and taxi drivers allied with the gang - effectively endangering those individuals, who would likely become subject to intimidation or violence from rival gangs - if their colleague is not freed by a November 4th deadline.

Internet hacking is not new, but is of increasing concern for governments, corporations and individuals alike. The news from Veracruz comes as representatives of sixty nations gather in London to discuss the challenges and opportunities the growth of the Internet brings. The London Conference on Cyberspace, organised by the FCO and ongoing today, sees world leaders engaging in dialogue on the rise of cyber crime, among other topics.

It is easy to see why governments are concerned. Summer 2011 saw Lulzsec, another anonymous hacking group, use fairly crude methods to successfully compromise the websites of Sony, the CIA, and the US Senate, inter alia. The BBC reported this week that the head of GCHQ - the UK government's listening centre - believes that “the rate of cyber attacks on the government has reached a 'disturbing' level.”

But as authorities grapple with issues of privacy, jurisdiction and information security, some hackers are discovering a new, non-virtual battleground. In recent months and weeks, Anonymous have quarreled with the Zetas over disclosing one another’s identities. And, apparently prompted by words typed online, blood has actually been shed on the streets of Mexico.

Drug cartels and cyber criminals represent different ills, but both operate on the fringes of society and are similar in their facelessness. Indeed, both represent significant headaches for law enforcement, and their lack of respect for international borders means governments struggle to counter them when acting alone.

The two clandestine groups concerned - Anonymous and the Zetas - are effectively enacting their dispute in plain sight. Such a clash is something of a first, given the secrecy surrounding both types of activity, but much of the detail nonetheless remains secret. The video declines to name the abductee, for example, and authorities in Mexico claim to know nothing about the kidnapping.

In targeting government and corporate websites, as Anonymous do, cyber crime can often shine a light on poor security, and in some cases lead to improved confidentiality for the ordinary Internet user. It remains to be seen whether Anonymous’s recent video will do anything to curb drug crime - this seems rather unlikely - but it does signal an unprecedented move into what could be termed “terrorism” for this particular group. In the video, released last month, Anonymous implies that, if the Zetas fail to release their colleague by this Friday’s deadline, the hackers will consider blowing up the “cars, houses, bars and whorehouses” of the drug cartel’s allies.

Despite these militant overtones, Anonymous have styled themselves as “the good guys” - crusaders against drug crime, which is rife in the region - but their mysterious identity and Internet activities lead many to question their motives. Zetas’ treatment of “ordinary bloggers” who post information about their crimes, is undoubtedly of concern to Anonymous members. In September, a woman was decapitated by the Zetas, apparently for posting details about them on a social-networking site. That same month, two others were hanged, apparently as a “message” to would-be Internet informants.

As this decidedly 21st-century conflict plays out in the unlikely realm of Twitter (hashtag #opcartel), those in Veracruz speculate on how, and indeed if, it will come to an end. Hackers’ use of the Internet is well documented - as is that of organised-crime groups - but as they move their battlefield from computers to the streets, authorities will have to grapple with becoming more than just bystanders to these worrying activities.

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Last week, the Basque separatist group Euskadi ta Askatasuna, better known by its acronym, ETA, declared that it was permanently ceasing fire. The sense of normality this has brought the region has been both welcome and palpable - life is no longer overshadowed by the constant threat of violence, and, as ETA moves away from such tactics, its victims and their families can begin to move on with their lives. With good reason: terrorism from ETA as we know it is a neutralized threat - in part due to concerted efforts by French and Spanish security forces. Where terrorism is concerned, however, the “end” as heralded at a press conference isn’t always the end. The peaceful majorities concerned have reason to be optimistic, but more still to be cautious in these early days of the “permanent ceasefire.”

ETA: some background

Purporting to act in the interests of Basques - a Christian group with a distinct cultural identity, located in the borders of Spain and France - ETA was formed in the late 1950s, and has since pursued the creation of an independent state, claiming more than 800 lives as collateral damage. With mainly government targets and usually issuing warnings ahead of attacks, ETA falls into the category “old terrorism,” in the vein of the Irish Republican Army and the Red Brigades. Authorities have had a mixed record with the group - various attempts to negotiate were derailed by ETA’s refusal to disarm, but a significant blow to the separatists came in November 2008, when its figurehead was arrested.

The group has declared ceasefires in the past, but with its overt promise of permanence, last week’s announcement is being greeted as something different and more enduring. Prompted in part by a push from the unlikely alliance of Kofi Annan, Gro Harlem Brundtland, and Gerry Adams, the announcement, though promising, should be viewed with caution. ETA has announced a change in tactics, not goals - it still demands the release of hundreds of militants, for example - and has broken similar promises in the past.

Scars of the violence wrought by ETA are raw, and victims’ families are coming forward to express pleasure at this apparent end to violence, as well as dread at the prospect of walking the long road to reconciliation. Indeed, this announcement was a product of both public fatigue with violence and efforts by third parties, although it was made by the group themselves. Had it been made by the former, it would have gone further - ETA did not pledge to disarm or renounce its aims, but signaled a move into politics. And as many in observers have noted, memories of violence will endure.

Put another way, ETA is neither gone nor forgotten.

Key considerations

• Disengagement from violence mightn’t alone be sufficient for enduring peace. One relative of an ETA victim “worries that ETA wants peace only because violence is no longer viable, rather than because it is wrong.” Here, he gets to the crux of the “deradicalization versus disengagement” argument: for counterterrorism to be effective, need a cognitive shift take place, or is a behavioral change enough? Spain and France will confront questions such as these as they tackle reintegration of militants. Moreover, even those who have abandoned the cause of Basque independence may turn to other less-than-savory pursuits. Organized crime is a common refuge for many former terrorists, and no less a menace for state and people.

• Splinter groups may emerge. Although the Provisional IRA is for many a distant memory, the “Real” IRA, the Continuity IRA, and the Irish National Liberation Army grew alongside it and today some persist in its place. Just last week, British newspapers reported a “Real IRA Plot to Blow Up London.” Can authorities be sure the ETA equivalents aren’t lurking in the shadows?
  

• Support may remain and resurge. Even if the current generation is satisfied by the end of the violent campaign, it may not be over for future ones. Last year in Northern Ireland, marches grew into riots, fueled largely by youths who have known only the post-Good Friday peace. Intangible elements such as these may emerge in ETA’s wake.

How states handle the end of terrorist movements has been a subject in vogue among the research community of late, and the decline of ETA will be an interesting real-world test case. Despite the potential hurdles ahead, the apparent decline of ETA is reason to be cautiously optimistic; but, facilitating such an end - one that will endure - is an art, not a science.

“The process that follows will not be straightforward,” as one local put it. “But at least it means that people won't have to look under their cars every morning for bombs or have a police escort.”

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Last Monday, it was reported that a gang of around 25 EDL members attacked a bookstall in Birmingham which was run by the local Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, threatening and manhandling the stall owners. This latest example of street thuggery shows us that the EDL is not only growing in size, but is also succeeding in spreading its simplistic and bigoted views about Muslims in Britain.

As yet, the EDL has not responded to the accusation, and has ignored my requests for any comments which, admittedly, are unlikely to veer from their stock responses to similar incidents. EDL reactions to incidents like this usually take one of four forms: it condemns all violence and promote peaceful demonstrations; it has no connection with the perpetrators; the claims of violence have been overblown by a hostile leftist media; the EDL stands only against radical Islam and does not target ordinary Muslims. Seeing as a picture from the stall shows men wearing EDL hooded jumpers, we can confidently rule out the second of these, and if the group does indeed decide to release a statement on the events in Birmingham, it is likely to be a mix of the other three.

This is not the first such accusation leveled at the EDL, and Youtube is replete with videos showing EDL rallies descending into violence and bigoted chanting. In one of the more distressing examples of this, a group of EDL members marching in a demonstration in Leicester last October laid siege to a fast food restaurant, breaking windows and threatening its shell-shocked South-Asian customers, which included small children.

Putting aside for now the claims of non-violence made by the EDL leadership (which are themselves highly dubious), it is the leadership’s claim that they only stand against radical Islam instead of ordinary Muslims, along with their method of street politics born out of football firm hooliganism and BNP/neo-Nazi marches that is worth further examination. Indeed, the two are interlinked: the already specious claims of making a distinction between extremists and the majority of ordinary Muslims are hugely undermined by the actions of their foot soldiers. Addressing the problem of radical Islam through street politics alone simply will not work; it is impossible to reduce such a complex and multifaceted issue to a few slogans and chants. As the EDL has also demonstrated, this approach blurs the lines between violence and non-violence, as well as bigotry and genuine grievance.

Although the EDL’s intimidation and violence is indefensible no matter who their victims are, the fact that its members attacked an Ahmadiyya stall adds yet another layer of absurdity to the group’s image. Were they to have had any real knowledge about this issue, they would know that the Ahmadiyya are derided by the very Islamist extremists that the EDL claims to stand against. The sect differs from the majority of Muslims in that they do not accept Mohammed as the final prophet; their founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (d. 1908), also claimed prophethood, but sought to revive Islam rather than bring any new laws. This has made them targets of extremists in South-Asia and particularly in Pakistan where, encouraged by the Islamist political party the Jamaat e-Islami, they regularly murder and kidnap members of the group. Incidentally, this may also explain the lack of any serious condemnation of last week’s attack by what are usually vocal Islamic pressure groups such as the Jamaat e-Islami influenced Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), who in 2003 wrote a letter of complaint to the BBC after a news bulletin which covered the Ahmadi annual convention. Written by their then Press Secretary Inayat Bunglawala, the letter admonished the BBC both for having the temerity to refer to Ahmadis as Muslims and for even bothering to cover the event.

Worryingly, the EDL’s irrational suspicion of Britain’s Muslims is not the sole preserve of the white far-right, and this is perhaps best demonstrated by the ethnic make-up of EDL rallies. While it is predominantly made up of the white working class, there are enough black and non-Muslim Asian attendees to make one question if indeed this is a neo-Nazi, white-supremacist movement. Last year, I travelled to Luton during one of the EDL’s largest protests to see them in action for myself, and was struck by what I saw. Besides the startling amount of hard drug use (the main square was lined with groups of young men digging furiously through large plastic bags of cocaine and various different forms of ecstasy), I was surprised by the amount of non-white people I saw in the crowd, and made a point to speak to as many as possible. Almost invariably, after asking them how a minority could attend a rally apparently organised by British National Party sympathizers and former members, the response they gave me was “look around you, I’m not the only one mate!” I also asked them why the felt the desire to show solidarity with the EDL, and it became clear to me that, for them, Anjem Choudhry and his gang of thugs (who the EDL originally emerged as a response to) were a fair representation of the majority of British Muslims.

The reasons for this flawed perception are many, and along with the EDL’s role in spreading conspiracy theories and paranoia, chief among these is the tabloid media’s depiction of Islam in Britain. In 2009, the anti-extremist think tank, Quilliam, pointed out that the Daily Express had regularly referred Choudhry as a Muslim leader, and was grossly over-exaggerating the influence and size of his group, the now banned al-Muhajiroun. In reality their numbers are likely to be in the low hundreds and appear to be decreasing since the ban, and the Express and others have a responsibility to report these issues accurately.

The EDL must realise that their scatter-gun approach to radical Islam and the street tactics they use to show their anger are doing serious harm to communal relations in Britain. They are poisoning the minds of angry young men, and as the events in Oslo earlier this year demonstrated, this can have severe consequences. If they genuinely want to help, they must cease their country-wide marches and close up shop.

This blog originally appeared in The Huffington Post

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In Spring 201, two U.S.-born coverts to Islam, Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif (aka Joseph Anthony Davis) and Walli Mujahidh (aka Fredrick Anthony Domingue, Jr.) plotted to attack a military entrance processing center in Seattle, Washington. The two men were arrested on June 22, 2011 as they attempted to buy automatic weapons from undercover FBI agents. They were charged with conspiring to murder government officers and employees with weapons of mass destruction.

Abdul-Latif, the plot mastermind, converted to Islam while serving a two-year sentence in Walla Walla state penitentiary for robbing a 7-Eleven. Abdul-Latif maintained his own "channel" on YouTube, on which he posted videos of himself discussing Islamic etiquette and U.S. foreign policy. His channel also featured lectures by well-known al-Qaida figures, such as Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, and lesser-known al-Qaida sympathizers, such as Omar Brooks (aka Abu Izzadeen), a spokesman for various offshoots of al Muhajiroun in the UK, and Clement Rodney Hampton-El, a Brooklyn man who was injured in Afghanistan in the late 1980s while fighting with the mujahideen against the Soviets and who was later convicted as a conspirator in the 1993 Landmarks Plot. These examples show the wide range of influences that could play a role in radicalizing Muslims in the West.

This report also includes information about an associate of Abdul-Latif's, Michael McCright, who was arrested in September 2011 for allegedly attempting to force two Marines off the interstate highway in Seattle.

The full report can be accessed here: http://www.nefafoundation.org/index.cfm?pageID=30#D3735

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Apparently it is not going to be the second Ron Arad saga as many had believed it would be. Israel and Hamas have finally signed an agreement in which more than 1000 prisoners will be released from Israeli prisons in exchange for Gilad Shalit, 450 prisoners will be released first and then after his release another 577 prisoners will be freed – all 1000 were convicted and charged of committing acts of terrorism against Israel.
The prisoners who are about to be released are members of various organisations, they are not exclusively Hamas affiliates.  Among them are woman and children, including Amna Muna who was involved in the kidnap and murder of the 16 year old boy Ofir Rahum, as well as Ahlam Tamimi who drove a suicide bomber to a restaurant in central Jerusalem were he blew himself up, killing 15 and injuring 132.
However, Israel denies releasing Marwan Barghouti, the former head of the Tanzim in the West Bank who has been sentenced to 5 life terms and is considered by many to be the next Palestinian leader.  In addition other “heavy” prisoner, such as Abdulla Barghouti one of the military heads of Hamas as well as Ahmad Saadat one of the murderers of the Israeli minister Rehavam Zeevi , are not going to be released  either, according to Israeli officials,  despite the Arab and international media reports.
It took more than five years, but only the latest events in the region have now allowed it to happen. Israel and Hamas both realised this window of opportunity had to be used, as there is no longer any certainty of Egypt’s further ability to mediate, how Syria will choose to  influence matters  or even Turkey’s willingness to contribute. Due to these outside aspects and also other internal issues related to Hamas, both sides found themselves in a more flexible position and were able to compromise on details which were previously had been very non-negotiable.  
In Israel the mood is of happiness mixed with sadness and fear. What will the consequences of allowing so many advocates of violence and death to be free again? Are they going to take us back to the days of fear and insecurity in Israel? Or maybe things have changed since then?
Things have changed, everything has changed in the region and I truly hope and believe that this will only take as forward to better and different kind of exchange between both sides.

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As widely expected, China and Russia vetoed a UN resolution condemning the Syrian regime its continuing crackdown on current uprisings. Although the draft proposed by European states removed provisions on sanctions against Syria (although imposed by Turkey) with a more accommodating version referring to ‘targeted measures’, the governments of Beijing and Moscow rejected it for not clearly removing a direct reference against any military action. Following the decision, which effectively neutralised US and European joint efforts to deal with the Syrian crisis, the US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice strongly criticised the veto and walked out. Russian officials defined the resolution as ‘unacceptable’, expressing concerns about a possible military intervention. However, in a press conference held in Istanbul, the fragmented opposition finally united into the Syrian National Council (including both religious and secularist groups. This is a crucial development and allows them to pursue effective changes and the right to  be recognised and supported by foreign countries. In addition to that, more Syrians are opting to arm themselves and together with defectors are now establishing rebel ‘armies’.

The US Defence of Secretary, Leon Panetta, affirmed that Netanyahu’s government is partly responsible for Israel’s current isolation in the Middle East, with particular reference to its relations with Turkey and Egypt. Mr Panetta pointed out that military supremacy cannot be pursued on its own at the expense of diplomatic relations. As shown by the fact that the Israeli ambassador in Ankara was recently expelled after the flotilla-case of 2010; likewise, Israeli diplomats in Egypt had to be evacuated after protests out of the embassy in Cairo. Meanwhile on Monday, a mosque in Northern Israel was attacked and set fire to in a so-called 'Price-Tag’ attack, a term used in a campaign by Jewish settlers aimed at tackling any policy concerning a reduction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Such violent acts have been increasing in number recently, and have been condemned by Prime Minister Netanyahu as ‘against the values of the state of Israel, which places supreme importance on freedom of religion and freedom of worship’.

In Egypt a meeting between the military council and activists ended unsuccessfully. Following mass protests in Tahrir Square, politicians asked the military rulers to cede power shortly, abolishing the 30 year-long state of emergency. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has promised to review the legislation and to take a decision within the next two weeks, including whether or not to ban former National Democratic Party members from running in elections for two years. Six candidates have called today for presidential elections to be held by April 2012.

In Jordan, King Abdullah II approved on Friday a decree concerning important constitutional amendments, following demonstrations. As part of this, the King introduced the establishment of a constitutional court and an independent body tasked to supervise elections. However, the two houses of parliament decided to keep the State Security Court, which is tasked with solving disputes concerning treason and terrorism. The Muslim Brotherhood, called for the abolishment of such institutions, and for there to be a direct election for the upper house of parliament, instead of nominees being appointed by King.

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By ICSR research intern Joana Cook

The Metropolitan police force will have 3,000 extra officers on standby this Saturday in anticipation of an English Defense League (EDL) march, though it has been formally banned. The march was meant to take place in Tower Hamlets but fears of clashes between the EDL and anti-fascist demonstrators caused Home Secretary Theresa May to intervene. Recent riots in London also spread fears that this demonstration could prevent the city from moving back towards ‘normality’.

In a separate announcement by May this week, emergency legislation, which would allow the UK government to forcibly move terrorist suspects around the country, would not be abolished as previously promised. While the terrorism prevention and investigation measures bill in front of Parliament now seeks to rid the Home Secretary of this right, May has appealed for this power under ‘exceptional circumstances’.

More UK links to Norwegian shooter Anders Breivik emerged this week as police continue their investigation. Brevik has admitted to killing 77 people in a bomb blast and shooting at a youth political camp. Blogger Paul Ray, a UK resident, was questioned after it was suggested Ray was the mentor whom Breivik mentioned in his manifesto. Ray, who blogged under the name ‘Lionheart’, has denied any connection to Breivik.

David Cameron was present at the ‘Friends of Libya’ meeting held in Paris on Thursday. The group of sixty world leaders met to decide on how to best transition the country into democracy, and as one author stated, ‘jockey for oil contracts’. While French companies are already planning trade missions to Libya this month, the UK has declared no such intention until the full cessation of hostilities. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton warned that Libya still needs to be wary of Islamists.

University staff in the UK, including lecturers, chaplains and porters, are being asked to report suspicious students to the police. The new guidance meant to counter Islamist radicalisation urges staff to note isolated and depressed Muslim students to the police. Critics of this new move state that these actions infringe upon student’s rights and are discriminatory to Muslim students. This move is occurring as part of the UK’s recently released Prevent strategy, which Home Secretary Theresea May stated is about ‘stopping people drawn into terrorism.’

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Recently, it appears like two separate and contradicting conversations are being carried out in the Israeli mainstream: the first, a social-economic discourse, which aims to divert the set of national priorities from security to social justice, the second, sees the protest movement as an irresponsible and disturbing element that ignores the threatening winds of this upcoming September.

Although these two discourses certainly hold some base of truth, at the same time they reflect a fundamental error. On the one hand, the main error of the supporters engaging in social-economic discourse is the futile attempt to treat Israel as a "normal state"' which obviously ignores some basic truths about its unique security circumstances. On the other hand, the supporters of the security discourse lack the deep understanding that some social-economic change is vital for the fortification of Israel's national security.

The supporters of the security discourse reflect an inability to comprehend that the traditional separation between military issues and social-economic issues is superficial at best, and does not coincide with the dynamic Israeli reality of the 21st century. As for 2011, most of the threats facing Israel from its enemies are directed at its internal national resilience. Israel's enemies have moved from the leading "Destruction" logic –the physical elimination of Israel by military force – to an "Implosion" logic – to bring Israel to implode from within by overstretching its resources and by undermining its citizens spirit.

Continuing terror attacks, constant shooting of Kassam rockets, the main focus on hitting Israel's home front – all of these tactics are aimed at disrupting Israel's internal cohesion, to weaken Israeli society to the point of a collapse, in the words of Hassan Nasrallah, just like a spiders web. Israel's enemies give special emphasis to attempting to hurt Israel's economy. It seems like they have already absorbed what some of Israel's chief security experts have not – that the Israeli economy is a central component in Israel's national resilience.

In the last two years alone it is possible to identify a growing effort by hostile entities against Israeli strategic economic goals: Khaled Mashaal of Hamas has only recently defined the boycott method as one of the main three methods in the struggle against Israel, this included the growing involvement of Hizballah in the Lebanese governments' challenge over the martial Israeli borders aimed at its future gas drilling rights –all of these occurrences exemplify the growing importance of the economic arena in the eyes of our enemies.  

Therefore, creating the right balance between social-economic interests, and political and security matters must become an important component of the Israeli national security concept. Such a balance is exactly one of the declared outcomes of the tent protests. Not one the protests leaders have called for a severe cut of the security budget that might jeopardize Israeli citizen's security. Instead the protest is calling for a new balance that would recognize the need to adjust the current security concept towards the goal of securing not just the basic ability of Israelis to live in Israel but also their quality of life.  

A relevant security concept includes a deep understanding that social-economic principles such as "Inclusive Growth" – a growth that the entire population benefits from, preventing further erosion of the Israeli middle class or the development of the periphery are crucial to national security just as much as known military concepts like deterrence or early warning.

Therefore, the civil protest campaign that we are pushing today – a struggle for ensuring the resilience of the Israeli society and its qualitative advantage, one that derives from the willingness and commitment of its citizens to sacrifice and endure hardships - has an intrinsic value for ensuring Israel's national security.

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Click here to read my Haaretz op-ed. I only have the Hebrew version for now!
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A second truce between militants in Gaza and Israel has been signed after the first one was broken two days after the first treaty was signed. Troubles started late last week when Israeli targets were attacked in the Sinai late which resulted in the deaths of 8 Israeli nationals. Five members of the Egyptian army were killed as Israeli security forces hunted down suspected militants, which has led to an escalation of tensions between the two countries. Egyptians have taken to the streets today to protest outside the Israeli Embassy in Cairo. Meanwhile Israel has given the green light to the deployment of thousands of Egyptian soldiers to the Sinai region to increase security.

Pressure has yet again stepped against President Bashar Al Assad as leaders in the West united to call for his removal at the beginning of the week. Sanctions have also been stepped up as the regime continues to use military means against protesters. Two of the biggest stories to come out in the late this week is the attack on Syria’s famous cartoonist, Ali Ferzat, by state security forces, meanwhile, the UN has reported that over 2,200 people have died since the crackdown began.

Social protests continue across Israel as some activists are now taking to squatting in government owned buildings.  The recent unrest in the Sinai and rockets being fired from Gaza has done little to quell support for the protests.

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By ICSR research intern Joana Cook

As Britain recovers from the violent riots that swept across the country last week, many have questioned how those implicated in the violence should be dealt with. Prime Minister David Cameron has urged judges to send a ‘tough message’ to those involved in the riots, while the Liberal Democrats fear that the sentencing may damage the reputation of the justice system. Their main concern has been that political influence may be affecting judicial decision. Others question whether the harsh sentencing may act as a deterrent in the future and who or what was responsible for the rioting, as buzz words like ‘culture’, ‘family structure’ and ‘criminality’ continue to dominate the media.

Historian David Starkey, in a controversial interview on the BBC, discussed cultural change being responsible for the riots. Starkey stated that the violence occurred because “the whites have become black,” referring to an increase of ‘black’ patois and how this language related to gangster culture is rising in the UK and affecting the youth.

An English Defense League (EDL) protest in Wellington led to the arrest of over forty individuals on Saturday. The charges, which were only applied to ten individuals, were predominantly public order offenses. In attendance were upwards of 350 EDL members, and 250 opposition protestors. A march planned for the same day was banned by the home secretary, Theresa May, who feared it could erupt into violence. There was no damage to property reported. Another large demonstration by the EDL is being planned for September 3 and already there has been a public outcry to prevent the march from taking place in Tower Hamlets, an area home to a large Muslim population. Tommy Robinson, the head of the EDL, has said the march will go on as planned.

An opinion piece this week by the co-director of the European Muslim Research Centre Robert Lambert examines the role of Muslims during the English riots. The author points out that Muslims around the city played an important role tackling the looting and preserving public safety and describes how negative media attention to Muslims has overshadowed this. Lambert also discusses the Muslim community facing the challenge of the EDL across the country and the misused label of ‘extremist’.

Northern Ireland experienced more sectarian violence last Saturday as Protestants continued their march in the Catholic-majority city of Londonderry. Police vehicles were attacked by masked youth who threw a pipe-bomb and a number of petrol bombs. A number of vehicles were also hijacked and set on fire. Catholic-republican nationalist groups, who have been opposed to the Irish peace process, see the Protestant marches as provocative. Protestants insist it is their right to follow this tradition.

 

 

 

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I have just finished watching a film and was so struck by it that I wanted to extend a recommendation.

The film is Miral, it was directed by Julian Schnabel and written by Rula Jebreal. It is the story of the radicalisation of Palestinians and a study of how the events from 1948 onwards have affected the character of the Palestinian people. It is beautiful, haunting and illuminating and I urge you all to try and see it.

Like most art, it presents only one version of the 'truth', but in portraying this singular world view it is honest and uncompromising (and very worthwhile).

Often we get lost in fighting for what is right - and how the other is wrong - and fail to pause, to observe and comprehend the entirety of the other's experience. I found this a moving glimpse into a perspective which I know but am only rarely able to insert myself into. One perspective in the multitude that line the Arab-Israeli conflict.

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This week the Israeli Interior Ministry approved the construction of 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem. The announcement came just a few weeks before the Palestinian Authority is to ask the UN to approve their bid for statehood. A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry stated that the approval was made purely for economic, not political, reasons. The UN stated that the ‘provocative’ action ‘undermines’ any attempt at future peace negotiations.

Popular marches and protests have continued across Israel for the fourth week. The protests are predominantly directed at the increasing cost of living in Israel. The protests spread to Haifa for this first time this week, organised by Israeli-Arabs. Last Saturday saw the largest protest yet as 250,000 took to the streets of Tel Aviv.

A large rally was held in Lebanon on Tuesday in solidarity with neighbouring Syria, it was attended by a number of Lebanese actors, musicians, intellectuals and former militants. A government crackdown on protestors has intensified in recent weeks as the Assad-regime attempts to suppress growing resistance. Last week, Lebanon distanced itself from UN condemnation of Syrian actions stating it did not want to meddle in the internal affairs of Syria. The Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, of which Syria has traditionally been a strong supporter, risks losing an important ally in the region if the Assad regime were to fall.  

Internal support for the Assad regime in Syria has shown more signs of weakening, as former politicians and businessmen distance themselves from their leadership. Externally, the US government has imposed further sanctions on the government, though it has not yet stated that Assad must step down. The government crackdown has now expanded into the cities of Saraqib near the border of Turkey, and Qusair closer to the Lebanese border.  

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...to London.
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By ICSR research intern Joana Cook

The UK news was dominated this week the UK riots, which saw severe public disorder and chaos spread across the country. The riots appeared to be sparked by the fatal shooting of 29-year-old Mark Duggan in London on August 4. The three days of rioting saw London and many other areas of the country gripped in fear as shops were looted, stores and homes set alight and violent assaults take place. Over 1,000 arrests have been made and 600 persons charged for the incidents in London alone. The areas of London which suffered the greatest riots were Tottenham, Croyden and Hackney.

Col Gaddafi, the Libyan president currently facing an uprising in his country, has called on British Prime Minister David Cameron to step down following the “violent repression” of “peaceful protestors.” The UK is currently engaged in Nato-led campaign in Libya to topple the government of Col Gaddafi, engaged because of Gaddafi’s severe crackdown on protestors earlier this year. Iran also urged David Cameron to “exercise restraint” against protestors and asked for independent human rights organizations to investigate the killing of Mark Duggan.

Amid continuous negative media attention, after Norway shooter Anders Breivik was linked to their group, the English Defense League have seemingly tried to improve their reputation. The group stated it had sixty of its members on the ground in Eltham on Tuesday trying to assist police in containing the violence calling their members ‘patriots’, not vigilantes. Anti-gang patrols launched by community groups feared that certain far-right groups would try and take advantage of the tension. The groups, armed with everything from baseball bats to fire extinguishers also attempted to prevent violence in some of the harder hit areas of London.

A feature in The Guardian this week offers a unique insight into the life of a former member of the BNP and National Front. Mattew Collins, who is now an anti-fascist campaigner with the group Searchlight, discusses the violent life-style that was associated with his past and his eventual rejection of the groups and move to reform himself. Collins also analyses the effect that the Norway massacre had on far-right groups within the UK, and also the threat that these groups, such as the English Defense League, pose and the community efforts that should be made to address them.

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The recent events in Norway make me wonder if we are facing a terrorism paradigm shift or if we should simply explain Anders Breivik’s deeds as the acts of an insane loner.

As I see it, his twin attacks and other, similar attacks in recent years are an interesting illustration of two phenomenon: the acceptance of mass killings of civilians and the development of leaderless terrorism.

David C. Rapoport uses the well-known term “the four waves of terrorism” in order to conceptualise terrorism from the 1880s to today. He connects the acceptance of mass killings of civilians with the fourth wave of terrorism (religious terrorism), and I believe he has a point. Religion is a factor and not only in the form of militant Jihadism, as there are other religious movements and cults that operate in a similar manner; in other words, that accept and sometimes strive for mass killings of civilians (e.g., Aum Shinrikyo and the Jewish terrorists who plotted to blow up the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem).

I think one must also take into account attacks such as the Piazza Fontana massacre and the Bologna train station attack when discussing the fourth wave and the acceptance of mass casualties. These attacks were carried out by right-wing elements in 1969 and 1980 (probably within the Italian security service).

Another attack that can be classified both as religious terrorism and right-wing terrorism is, of course, the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. I believe that this is significant for religious terrorism and right-wing terrorism, i.e., it doesn’t really matter who they kill as long as the victims can be perceived as being the enemy (refugees, immigrants, gays, government employees, etc).

The next problem revolves around the question of how to define and conceptualise “terrorism.” We all know that there is no universally accepted definition of the term. However, most, if not all, definitions demand the participation of some type of organisation or the involvement of several people who use violence to promote some political agenda. But what happens if people are inspired or collaborate without being part of an organisation? What happens if only one or two or a handful of people, use violence to promote a political agenda without being members of an organisation or a network in the true meaning of the word? I think the UNA-bomber is a good example of a mentally disturbed person who falls out of the category of people I mean. But what about Timothy McVeigh, the Fort Hood shooter, and the person who recently tried to detonate an IED in Times Square (there have also been a number of attempts to attack artists in Denmark and Sweden who have drawn Muhammad, etc., that could fit into this category)? And what about Anders Breivik?

These perpetrators may or may not have been members of an organisation or a network. The question is are organisations and networks useful as models to describe these developments. The use of alternative means of organisation has been discussed at least since the early 1980s when the extreme right activist Louis Beam started to argue for “leaderless resistance.” According to Beam, it was necessary for activists to use new organisational models in order to avoid being detected by the authorities. In order to do this, the activists operate in small, independent secret cells (sometimes consisting of only one individual). His ideas were put into practice during the 1980s by a wide range of activists, e.g., white supremacists and animal right groups. Initially, his ideas were constrained by the lack of suitable communication technologies. The Internet was not available to the public at the time, and so activists usually relied on Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) in order to communicate and distribute information. In order to log into a BBS, the user had to use a telephone line and a modem, which made it relatively easy for law enforcement agencies to monitor them. This changed during the 1990s when the Internet became available to the public.

Today, it is very easy for activists to communicate with each other and to spread information, disinformation, and propaganda. Scholars like Marc Sageman argue that groups such as al-Qaeda have undergone several re-organisations since their creation and that the Internet now plays a major role in radicalising individuals around the world and for the planning of attacks (the so-called “leaderless Jihad”). Recently, we have also seen how magazines such as Inspire promote “Open Source Jihad” in order to support the development of very small cells and lone-wolf operators.

We should perhaps analyse these ideas more in detail. As I see it, the attacks in Norway and other similar attacks indicate that Louis Beam’s theories have evolved due to the use of Internet and are more relevant than ever. Perhaps it would be useful to see some political movements as “solar systems” where planets and celestial bodies affect each other by gravity rather than direct contact.

People of certain opinions do not necessarily have to meet or be part of an organisation to affect and inspire each other. It is no longer necessary to have a central command, which might be counterproductive since a central leadership is relatively easy to identify. People can influence each other by their writings and actions. Given the use and availability of the Internet, it is very easy for one person, or a very small number of persons, to find inspiration and others who share the same opinions and aspirations. But is this a “terrorist organisation” in the true meaning of the term? Are you a lone wolf if you interact with others over the Internet? It is of course possible to have different opinions on these questions but the development is a problem, regardless of what we call it, especially if one considers that mass casualties are not only accepted but also a goal for several different types of activists and potential terrorists.

I think it would be useful to use the term “leaderless activism” and “leaderless terrorism” in order to conceptualise what I mentioned above and to avoid focusing only on militant Jihadists. There are other religious groups and cults that may be dangerous, and right-wing extremism is not likely to disappear in the near future.

Do we need to redefine terrorism? How should the attacks in Norway and other similar acts be conceptualised? Are they the act of an insane loner or are they a strain of fourth wave terrorism, i.e., conducted by one or very few perpetrators who are not members of a specific organisation but operate with the silent and passive support of a certain community? Finally, do we need to develop new analytical methods to counter this or are the existing ones still useful?


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Hezbollah has threatened retaliation against Israel after it accused Israel of plotting to steal Lebanon’s maritime oil and gas resources. The maritime border has long been a point of contention between the two countries and both have submitted (conflicting) boundary proposals to the UN as they do not maintain diplomatic relations. Israel had also threatened to use force to defend the gas fields, which were only discovered in the past two years. The reserves are thought to contain enough natural gas to keep Israel energy self-sufficient for decades.

As the potential UN vote for Palestinian recognition approaches plans are being made to hold peaceful marches in the West Bank in late September. Already labelled the ‘Palestine 194’ marches, in hopes of becoming the 194th member of the UN, Palestinians hope that international recognition from the UN would give them improved status is future negotiations. The Arab League met on this week to finalise the bid, while Israel fears that this vote will undermine Israel’s standing in the eyes of the world. America has thus far hinted it would veto such a vote in the UN Security Council and President Netanyahu has been making plenty of foreign visits to secure such a veto.

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak pleaded not guilty of the charge of ordering the killing of protestors in January or February or abusing his position as leader during his thirty year rule at his trial in Cairo, which started this week. Mubarak, who spoke from a hospital bed which was wheeled into a defendant’s cage for the court proceedings, reportedly suffered a heart attack when informed of the charges. Protests held outside the courtroom injured a number of people. Mubarak is on trial with seven co-defendants, including his sons, security chief and police officials.

Thursday saw Israel face a number of large-scale protests throughout the country, which have been dismissed by President Netanyahu as ‘a populist wave’. Some grievances of the protestors are the high costs of rent, raising children, fuel as well as problems with the education system. The most significant protests (estimated at 100,000 last Saturday) have thus far focussed on a controversial housing bill which would require the establishment of national committees to approve new housing projects. Opponents of the bill say that that it could take away affordable housing and environmental standards could suffer.

For the first time in five months, there has been international agreement from the UN on President Assad’s violent crackdowns in Syria. The UN condemned Syria’s violations of human rights and extreme use of force against civilians. Lebanon was the only country to distance itself from the statement, while Syria’s Turkish neighbour issued its harshest statement yet calling the events in Hama “an atrocity”. The UN has not yet passed any resolutions or applied international sanctions to Syria.

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By ICSR research intern Joana Cook

New research released claims that the UK is the Western country most at risk from terrorist attacks. This ranking was, in large part, due to the increase in violence in North Ireland where 25 out of the 26 terrorist attacks occurred in the period between April 2010 and March 2011. While Islamic militants remain a threat to the UK, dissident Republican and Loyalist terrorist attacks remain a “strong possibility.”

A Republican Facebook page has been shut down following a bid for users to submit photos and information of officers who work with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Police Federation Chairman Terry Spence stated that the information was “likely to be used by terrorists” and was clearly an attempt to “target police officers for murder.” The administrators of the site claimed it was only to be used to report police harassment and wasn’t meant to endanger any lives. For more on this threat, see ICSR’s report ‘Return of the Militants’.

An internet blogger, who praised Roshonara Choudhry attempted murder of British Labour MP Stephen Timms, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison. Bilal Zaheer Ahmad from Wolverhampton pleaded guilty to encouraging attacks on MPs who had supported the Iraq invasion in 2003. He was also charged with other terrorism related offenses – one count of intent to stir up religious hatred and three counts of collecting information likely to be of use to a terrorist. In the court, it was revealed that Ahmad had become radicalised as a teenage member of al-Muhajiroun and began to contribute to extremist websites.

The Far Right has been heavily examined in the period following the massacre in Norway and the UK has been showing a particular focus on groups accused killer Anders Breivik claimed association with, such as the English Defense League (EDL). A piece by the Guardian this week has offered a “snapshot analysis” of the current status of the Far Right in the UK, particularly what kind of political gains these groups seek, their use of intimidation and violence, as well as communities particularly affected by such groups.

Pressure on the UK government to deal with a growing Far Right concern has led for many to demand a ban on a planned EDL march through Tower Hamlets planned for September 3. Many see the march as a provocation that has the potential to spark violence. A group called United East End, which marched in order to counter the EDL marches in Tower Hamlets, are planning a large counter-demonstration the same day.

The EDL, which has attempted to remove any association of itself with Anders Breivik or political violence, faced further criticism this week as it was revealed that a former senior member of the EDL posted a controversial essay last year. Alan Lake, on his own personal website 4 Freedoms, posted an essay in which he discusses the execution and torture of political and religious leaders in June 2010. Lake also forewarned of “Islamic enclaves” in the UK where he urged his audience to also contribute names to the list of persons to be sent with figures such as the Archbishop of Canterbury and David Cameron.

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When Saddam Hussain stood trial between 2004 and 2006, most of the Arab people, even those who hated him, found his tribunal unfair. They could not accept the scene of an Arab president being charged, jailed and executed while his country was under foreign occupation. We could not mark history either with these actions as it looked unfair and appeared to be an act of violation against Iraqi sovereignty.

On August 3rd 2011 however, we could mark history, the resigned Egyptian President Mohamed Hosny Mubarak showed up in court with his 2 sons, the ex-minister of the interior and six senior interior officials all facing crimes of killing peaceful protesters and corruption. If charged with the first crime, Mubarak could face the death penalty according to Egyptian law.

Many of us didn’t think that he would show up in court. The night before I could not sleep and I stayed up all night. I was thinking about the families of the martyrs who had been waiting outside the court room since midnight and what would they do if he did not show up. What kind of rift would that cause between the people on one side and the military council and the transitory government on the other?

At almost 9:30 am, Mubarak was pushed on a medical bed into the court room. I wrote on my Facebook status: I can’t believe my eyes he’s there.

Now we can ask the questions of who would rule Egypt and think of himself as untouchable? Who would question the sustainability of this revolution or think that we have no more to give?

The great thing about that trial is that it is a civilian, non-military, non-revolutionary and non-exceptional. It is running before a normal civilian judge according to the civilian penal code. Another great thing is that we managed to avoid charging him while he is absent – such as is the case of Ben Ali who is currently enjoying himself in Saudi Arabia.

Many of my friends in other Arab countries currently in revolt, like Syria and Yemen, said that they had great inspiration from Cairo today, an inspiration that told them to hang on in there. The Egyptians can do it. So why can’t they?

I looked at the TV and I remembered the faces of the martyrs. How would we ask for amnesty for those who killed hundreds and injured thousands? How would we have mercy for those old people who killed our peaceful and young protesters? Who could forget the look on the faces of their mothers who are spending their first Ramadan without their beloved ones? Thousands of Egyptian homes are still mourning and that is only a small fraction of what we owe them in return for giving us back our freedom and dignity.

We have to remember that this is not the end. On the contrary what happened today is a great push forward to remind that it is still only the beginning and that protests, sit-ins and strikes will help us clean our country further.

Today we should thank the martyrs, we should thank the Tunisian revolution, and we should thank the brave Arabs who still insist on turning these bloody revolts into an Arab spring.

Today’s lesson: Dear future Egyptian president… the Egyptian people are watching you!

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Summary

In no other country has the political debate about violent radicalization been more contentious than the United States. The latest installment of the so-called “King hearings” – named after Peter King, the Chairman of the House of Representatives’ Homeland Security Committee, who initiated them – has yet again shown why.

In the meantime, the White House has quietly embraced a common sense approach towards tackling radicalization. The administration’s new policy document – “Empowering Local Governments to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States” – is a step in the right direction, but leaves many questions unanswered.

Context

The latest installment of the congressional hearings on “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community”took place on Wednesday last week – just five days after the terrorist attacks in Oslo. In his opening statement,Representative Peter King, the Republican Chairman of the House of Representatives’ Homeland Security Committee, insisted that it was right for his Committee to focus on “Muslim radicalization”, arguing that “there is no equivalency in the threat to our homeland from a deranged gunman and the international terror apparatus of al-Qaeda and its affiliates”. King’s counterpart, Ranking Member Bennie Thompson, repeated the Democrats’ position, saying that the hearings were deeply flawed and would achieve nothing but stigmatize an entire community.

Other than strong language, neither Republicans nor Democrats on the Committee have offered any practical suggestions for how the issue should be handled. King’s comments that “over 80 per cent” of mosques in the United States are controlled by extremists, and that ordinary Muslims do not cooperate with law enforcement, are not only untrue, they are nurturing the idea that Muslim Americans are “enemies within”. In doing so, they are playing into the hands of Al Qaeda recruiters and propagandists, who keep telling their audience that they cannot be good Muslims and loyal Americans at the same time.

The Committee’s Democrats, on the other hand, have ignored their own administration’s assessments according to which Al Qaeda remains the “preeminent counterterrorism challenge we face today”, and that a “ small but increasing number of individuals here in the United States have become captivated by [Al Qaeda], seeking to commit violent acts here at home”. The refusal of Committee Democrats to contemplate any action to prevent and counter radicalization among Muslim Americans is unhelpful and short-sighted – not least because it will be ordinary, law-abiding Muslim Americans who will suffer the “backlash”that is likely to follow a homegrown terrorist attack.

The noise that has been generated by the hearings is inversely proportional to the influence they have exerted over the administration’s policymaking. Far from endorsing any of the committee’s hardline views, White House officials have quietly embraced a pragmatic, common sense position, which attempts to address the threat of homegrown terrorism by introducing new instruments for terrorism prevention, but refuses to divide the country by portraying Muslim Americans as “fifth columnists”.

Strategy

The 8-page document that was released by the White House on Wednesday is titled “Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States”. It sets out a framework for confronting “ideologically motivated violence”, which is thought to include white supremacists, Al Qaeda related or inspired homegrown terrorists, as well as other kinds of “domestic terrorist groups”.

Although the paper says that the framework is meant to be long-term and, therefore, needs to be flexible enough to accommodate threats other than Al Qaeda, it states clearly that – for the time being – “al-Qaeda and its adherents represent the most significant and direct terrorist threat to our country”.

One of the paper’s core messages is that counter-radicalization efforts need to be carried out in partnership with – not against – the communities that are targeted by violent extremists. The federal government, the paper argues, has a role to play – it can convene, facilitate, educate and support – but ultimately, it is the communities themselves who will have to take the lead.

The paper outlines three principal areas of activity: engagement; training; and counter-ideological messaging. It explains the purpose of these activities, and how they relate to the overall aim of countering violent radicalization.

A fourth prong – highlighted throughout the text – is the idea that many counter-radicalization activities will be part of existing government programs aimed at addressing community safety challenges and good governance. This may include programs aimed at educating new immigrants, for example, or lessons about internet safety in public schools.

The paper concludes by setting out a number of key principles that will guide the government’s counter-radicalization efforts and strategy. They emphasize the community and bottom-up driven approach of the strategy, and make it clear that people should not be targeted based on their religious practices or political convictions alone.

Assessment

The White House’s domestic counter-radicalization strategy has been long in the making. Previous governments, including the Bush administration, have worked on similar papers, but never managed to follow through. In that sense, the document is a step in the right direction.

Together with recent speeches by senior administration officials, such as President Obama’s counterterrorism czar John Brennan and Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, the document offers a good insight into the administration’s thinking, and – specifically – its desire to bypass the highly politicized discussions in Congress by opting for a “more holistic approach”.

The document is explicit in naming Al Qaeda as the priority target of future counter-radicalization efforts and making resisting Al Qaeda’s ideology one of the principal prongs in this effort. This should be welcomed by those on the Right who – in the past – have condemned the Obama administration for refusing to name Al Qaeda and counter its ideology out of fear that doing so would be seen as “politically incorrect” or “offensive” to American Muslims.

Equally, though, the paper makes a clear distinction between Al Qaeda and the Muslim American communities which Al Qaeda seeks to radicalize and recruit. Those on the Left who have argued that any effort to counter radicalization would end up victimizing Muslims and play into the hands of “Islamophobes” should be heartened by such language. The paper views Muslims as partners, not as potential terrorists, and it clearly refutes any attempt to “securitize” the government’s relationships with them.

What the document fails to provide are specifics. On one level, this may be understandable – and even intended – given that counter-radicalization is a novel concept that needs to be explained to the American public, policymakers and community leaders before jumping into specifics and details of implementation.   

At the same time, considering how long this document has been in the making, it clearly should have said more about “how” exactly the government hopes to accomplish its many aims and objectives. Arguably, the speeches by senior officials that were meant to “prepare the ground” for the release of this document were richer in detail than the document itself.

No doubt, the paper goes further than previous administrations in heeding the 9/11 Commission’s call for a preventive strategy to counter violent radicalization. It educates policymakers and sets out key principles and objectives. It signals the “direction of travel”, and may help to catalyze action on the ground.

But many questions are left unanswered. For example, given that engagement, training and, to a lesser extent, messaging, have been promoted by this and previous administrations for many years, how will future efforts be different from existing ones? Will we see more of the same, or will future outreach, training and messaging be fundamentally different in nature and scope? How will such efforts be coordinated, and who will be in charge?  

Because it doesn’t say much about “how” the government’s policy aims will be translated into policy practice, the document doesn’t qualify as the “strategy” as which it has been presented. It represents a framework – nothing more, nothing less. What it stands for in practice will hopefully become clearer in the process of implementation.

Implementation

ICSR has played a significant role in helping to define and create momentum behind the administration’s approach. For example,last month’s Bipartisan Policy Center report on Preventing Violent Radicalization in America – authored by ICSR Director Peter Neumann – set out key principles and recommendations that should guide the administration’s emerging policy.

A large number of the report’s recommendations are reflected in yesterday’s policy document. Others, however, still need to be addressed. They include:

•    Who is going to lead federal efforts, and how are they going to be coordinated? What mechanisms will be created for sharing best practices and evaluating the effectiveness of counter-radicalization efforts?
•    How will local and state officials be convinced to adopt the mission? What, if any, incentives can the federal government provide?
•    What are the criteria by which local partners are to be selected? Will the federal government provide any guidance?
•    What changes will be made to the provision of federal training grants? Who will do the training, and what areas and skills will it focus on?
•    How can the excessive focus on policing, and – thereby – securitizing, Muslim communities be avoided? Are there any plans involving local officials, such as Mayors?
•    How will the government promote counter-radicalization in“at risk” environments (e.g., the internet and prisons) and among “at risk” populations (e.g., young males)?

Finding answers to these questions will be critical to ensuring the strategy’s success. Even more important, however, is the need for persistence. According to Neumann:

“Resilience, be it national or communal, does not emerge overnight, and it will not be possible, therefore, to fully assess the effectiveness of any policy for years to come. The key to successful counter-radicalization may not lie in any particular policy prescription but, rather, how consistently the policy is implemented and maintained over a long period of time.”

“As a result, the American public will have an important role to play in holding government to its word. They need to make sure that whatever approach the government adopts, its commitment and attention to challenging and countering radicalization never wavers. As the 9/11 Commission pointed out, making America safe from terrorism is a ‘generational challenge’ and ‘the American people are entitled to expect their government to do its very best’ in meeting it.”

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