LEAD EDITORIAL
Welcome to the first issue of COUNTER TERROR GAZETTE
C
TG aims to bring you an informative, topical overview and analysis of
terrorism and counterterrorism phenomena from around the world today. Defining ‘terrorism’ can never be achieved without courting controversy. The age old adage of one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter may well be an overused cliché, but it doesn’t make it any less
true. The United Nations General Assembly in 1994 adopted the following definition: "Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them." Since 9/11, the world’s focus – as a result of the attacks
and of the US-led ‘War on Terror’ - has been on al-Qaeda in particular, and Islamist extremist groups in general. While attacks linked to these groups have certainly been numerous and significant and pose a serious threat to us all, there are other causes and organisations that continue to unleash their reign of terror onto their targets. One such group is profiled in this issue; Colombia’s left-wing revolutionary FARC. The controversial issue of young people involved in militancy is often underreported and aside from images of boy soldiers toting Kalashnikovs in Africa, the scale of the problem is not widely taken on board. The majority of child militants were or are part of non-Islamist extremist groups and surely they pose as much of a threat to future global security than the radicalised al-Qaeda suicide bomber; if large numbers of a generation grow up knowing nothing but violent conflict and accept it as the norm, what hope is there for stable, peace abiding societies from which they spawn, in the future? Like Islamist extremism, while attacks and militant groups –
both secular and Islamist – in the Middle East are numerous, this region should not be the sole focus of a publication on terrorism and counterterrorism, although it will of course often feature. Although the Arab-Israeli conflict appears to currently have no end in sight, from a purely counterterrorism perspective, we look at the effects the West Bank Separation Barrier has had on improving Israel’s security, ten years on from the outbreak of the Second Intifada. The Iraq insurgency, hijacked in part by al-Qaeda, although
having decreased in intensity and frequency since the US ‘surge’ of troops there in 2007, continues on a daily basis. One encouraging piece of news in June was US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno’s, statement that over the past
AUGUST 2010
three months, 80% of al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq had been captured or killed, including leaders of the al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) affiliate group, Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. General Odierno said that AQI has since lost connection to the al-Qaeda senior leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the latter of which found itself at the centre of a diplomatic row which caught the world’s attention recently. British Prime Minister David Cameron, referring to Pakistan,
said "We cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world." Maybe not the most diplomatic stance to have taken, but nobody can deny the extent to which Pakistan has provided a base for al-Qaeda linked terrorism. In this edition we have produced a case study of the attempted car bomb attack in Times Square in May. The Pakistani-born perpetrator received training in and money from the Pakistani Taliban. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that if a successful attack was ever traced back to Pakistan, “there would be very severe consequences.” Also in May, the sole surviving perpetrator of the 2008 Mumbai attacks was convicted in India; the Pakistani national was a member of the Pakistani Islamist militant Lashkar-e-Taiba group. Further back, the perpetrators of the 2005 London bombings received training in Pakistan. But as I have said, no country or region should be the
sole focus of our counterterrorist efforts, to the neglect of others. As much of the world was engrossed in the World Cup final, held for the first time on African soil, in South Africa, further up the continent in Uganda’s capital Kampala, hundreds of football fans sat around TV screens in a sports club and at a restaurant enjoying the game. Until the Somali Islamist al-Qaeda linked al-Shabab unleashed two bomb attacks, at least one of which was a suspected suicide attack, killing 76 and injuring 70 of them, to punish Uganda for sending peacekeepers to Somalia. Instead of playing into the terrorists’ hands, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni vowed to crush al-Shabab, saying he will send 20,000 troops into Somalia to destroy the group. By not giving terrorists – particularly global ideological extremists like the al-Qaeda network – what they want, we will make them weaker. The difficulty is to not disregard human rights, international law and respect and tolerance for different religions and cultures, and to not radicalise swathes of young people into joining their ranks, in so doing.
Anna Costin Editor
iii CounterTerrorGazette
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