CROSS-BORDER TERRORISM
several times. How we engage with individuals in prison, and monitor them afterwards, is a big question to be addressed. One method to identify and deter possible threats at an early stage, are initiatives like France’s ‘Green Line’. This is a hotline where people can seek advice or report possible terrorist activity. When I met with Nathalie Goulet, Chair of the French Senate Committee inquiry into the struggle of jihadi networks in France and Europe, she said this has helped to prevent over 200 people going to fight in Syria and Iraq. Our equivalent in the UK is the ‘anti-terrorism hotline’, but we perhaps do not have the balance quite right. For example, Majida Sarwar, a mother who informed the authorities her son Yusuf had travelled to Syria to “do jihad”, felt betrayed by the police when he was subsequently arrested and given a 12 year, eight month sentence. She and others believe examples like this discourage others from reporting their loved ones to the authorities. If we are clumsy and ham- handed when approaching communities in terrorist prevention, we risk being hoist by our own petard. It is very difficult to get this balance right, but we need to engage, and not alienate people in these difficult situations.
The internet
The internet, and particularly the ‘dark net’, presents a constantly evolving challenge for intelligence services.
Groups like Islamic State have used social media as platforms for recruitment, where those who have already left the West are used as recruiting tools, directly communicating with individuals in the United Kingdom, France, Australia etc, to convince them to join them in the Middle East. There has also been a very public ‘gamification’ of violence,
where very real acts of horror in the Middle East are promoted by mimicking popular video games or television shows. It has been common for hostage- taking or acts of violence to be revealed through slick, high quality videos posted on popular social media sites. This chillingly demonstrates the very deliberate intention of these groups to target and attract young men. The ‘dark web’ presents another new threat. This hidden part of the internet, estimated to be anything up to 500 times the size of the surface web, is used to buy weapons, drugs, fund terrorism, spread training manuals for weapons and bomb making, and many other illicit purposes.
Procysive, a US Cybersecurity and Intelligence Firm, found over 50,000 extremist websites, over 300 terrorist forums and clear sources of financing for terrorist groups on the dark net. Most worryingly, when a site is shut down (and in November 2014 alone, 400 sites were closed), it will often re-appear within weeks. The Institute for National Security Studies states that the dark net operates as “a virtual terror network”.
There is clear evidence that groups like Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, one of the most dangerous organisations in the world, use these services to facilitate their actions. In 2013, US Intelligence intercepted communications between Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri and Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the head of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the contents of which led them to shut 21 US embassies across the Muslim world.
For these groups to co-opt so many people in the West is the greatest threat to our way of life in decades. Increasingly however, this problem also requires us to tackle these groups at their root, in parts of
24 | The Parliamentarian | 2015: Issue One
Africa and the Middle East. Abroad
At this time, parts of Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan have become havens for extreme Islamist organisations, all of which count violence and terrorism as part of their repertoire.
These areas may be hundreds, if not thousands of miles away, but the desire of these organisations to specifically target the West, and recruit people in our towns and cities, makes them a clear and severe threat.
Terrorist attacks across the world are orchestrated by groups operating from these remote areas, through individuals such as the Kouachi brothers. The territory under their control provides an area where potential terrorists can be trained, where propaganda can be projected to the West and regions to which foreign fighters are lured to.
Foreign fighters
Many experts have highlighted the increasing danger posed by foreign fighters. There are now more foreign nationals fighting in the Middle East than in any conflict since World War Two. From the UK at least 600 people, and up to 2,000, have left to fight in Iraq and Syria. According to intelligence estimates, Islamic State alone may have up to 15,000 foreign fighters in their ranks. In addition to those from the UK, this may include up to 900 from France, 550 from Germany, 300 from China, 250 from Australia, 100 from the United States and 1,000 from Turkey. What motivates somebody to leave their life in the West to fight for a group which wishes to establish a medieval, brutal caliphate thousands of miles away, is the question which haunts intelligence officials.
What haunts them more, is what to do with them if they return.
The unimaginable brutality committed by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq is shocking. This group kills indiscriminately and cruelly. If people who have partaken in such violence are able to return to the UK, the threat they pose is staggering. Some of those who leave to fight for these groups have realised their error after arriving and witnessing first-hand what they have gotten themselves into. Just before Christmas in 2014, 100 foreign fighters were reportedly killed when tried to return home.
Once it gets to that point, it is already too late. Removing the passports of these individuals may be necessary. It is more important to prevent them from leaving in the first place.
Regional instability
Just as worrying for our security is the toxic influence groups like Al Qaeda and Islamic State have in their areas of control. In Yemen, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have sown instability and chaos for years, playing a major role in the recent political crisis. Suicide bombings and attacks occur on a daily basis, as the group gets bolder and more aggressive. As Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group in Yemen, I have a particular concern for the people of that country, and its future. I also have no doubts that if Al Qaeda gains in strength there, we will suffer the consequences, and the front line will be the streets of Birmingham, London and Leicester. Recently, a particularly shocking bombing at Yemen’s Police Academy killed just under 50 people, mainly young cadets. There was no consideration of bystanders. As the government in Yemen has struggled and
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80