The way to tackle radicalisation on the internet is to de-emphasise use of kinetic force and counter the jehadi narrative with viable counter-narratives
Despite the worst lone wolf carnage in the history of the US at Las Vegas, and the continuing counter-terror campaigns against Al Qaeda, ISIS and their affiliates in the Middle East, Africa and South East Asia, neither will there be any gun control legislation in the US nor a universally accepted definition of terrorism. But war against terrorism is a generational issue and the new normal. 2017 is the year of Counter Terrorism at the UN.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is periodically urging the international community to adopt the 1996 India-sponsored Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism at the UN which has 40 legal instruments and 18 universal and 22 regional guidelines to tackle terrorism and is languishing in the UN’s 6th Committee. Every joint and multilateral statement following meetings and summits has a paragraph on countering terrorism. It has generally been accepted that the country from which the act of terrorism has emanated be held responsible and no distinction be made between the state and non-state actors. Despite the distinctions drawn with freedom fighters, it is possible to define the parameters of an act of terrorism. Only after 9/11 and now after Trump’s new policy on Afghanistan and South Asia has Pakistan been put on notice to rein its terrorist strategic assets.
For the first time this year, a Counter Terrorism Office has been opened in the UN with a ‘Prevent’ policy as its beacon. A Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate exists in the Security Council since 2005. Ironically a Pakistani, Dr Jahangir Khan and a Chinese, Weixiong Chen lead these two offices and are bother exceptional in their grasp and advocacy of their interlinked missions. Both are frustrated at the lack of decisive action and cooperation among member states. I interacted with both at last month’s World Counter Terrorism Summit at the International Institute for Counter Terrorism at Israel.
Khan’s presentation – Rhetoric to Reality: Multilateral Cooperation in Tackling Transnational Terrorism – emphatically lamented the lack of information sharing even among closest allies. He said the ISIS which is recruiting from 100 countries may be relocating its Caliphate to the Philippines and called it the UN of terrorism. Instead of Countering Violent Extremism, the UN’s focus is on Prevention of Violent Extremism through good governance and putting human face to CT within rule of law. While he sought a new UN architecture of counter terrorism, he pleaded “No more speeches such as the one I have just made. Action is needed”. I advised him to counsel Pakistan’s ISI: They might listen to you rather than Generals Mattis and McMaster”.
The wise Chen said world leaders assemble at the UN in New York in September and talk and talk. Instead of slogans they should present a plan of action. He said member states had adopted more than two dozen conventions on counter terrorism and 40 recommendations on blocking the financing for terrorists in the last decade but most countries did not even have a CT strategy. It was Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump advisor, who said that the US, despite being a hyper power, was not winning the longest war against terrorism since 1776 because there is unexceptional emphasis on use of kinetic power. The new Mattis policy has shifted from attrition to annihilation. To prevent the next attack, people have to be prevented from becoming terrorists. It is the ideologue who has to be neutralised. The art of CT, more crudely the formula, is in defeating both the motivation and capability of terrorists. Breaking their will is more important than undermining their combat skills.
Brian Fishman, lead Policy Manager of Counter Terrorism, Facebook, US, says Facebook was dealing with terrorist propaganda online by moving beyond simply engagement to fighting propaganda. In 2010, the US NCTC organised an exercise with social media – Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube, etc – as no one had imagined that the bad guys would be able to use social media so effectively. Facebook policy is to remove any potential terrorism-related material but with two billion Facebook users every month it is not easy as terrorists reappear with fake accounts. 150 experts are looking out for terrorism material on the net. The Global Interconnect Network is cross-industry networking with Facebook, Google, Twitter and Youtube for sharing technology to counter new terror propaganda. There are a hundred versions of a bomb making manual in Facebook and one simply has to wait them out.
16 years after 9/11 the US has not witnessed a repeat of catastrophic terrorism. The ISIS has changed the game to lone wolf/stray dog attacks. The US CT chief, Nick Rasmussen, told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that ISIS, after losing its physical territory, would morph into a covert operation able to inspire and conduct attacks around the world especially in Europe where one third of the 5,500 foreign fighters have already returned and another 2,800 are expected to return after the symbolic defeat of ISIS at Raqqa. The IS will not make the mistake that Prabhakaran and Tamil Tigers made of not dispersing with their institutional support intact to live to fight another day.
It is instructive to note that US CT policy which started with President Clinton against Al Qaeda took shape after 9/11 with President Bush declaring Global War on Terrorism. In his second term, he renamed GWOT as Global Commitments Overseas. It was the politically correct Obama who redefined the CT policy as CVE. The Trump Policy is called Countering Violent Islamic Extremism. Political correctness is not his cup of tea. Trump has to find the right balance between CVE and CT to have a chance of winning its longest war.
What lessons can India learn from the experience of other countries? In Europe and elsewhere including the UN’s CT office, the focus has shifted from CVE to Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE). Lone wolf attacks by self-radicalised jihadists make detection and identification difficult. Most cases of self-radicalisation are online jehadism. The trend is to de-emphasise use of kinetic force: rather, concentrate on countering the jehadi narrative with alternative and counter-narratives by telling better stories than they tell. Good governance and inclusiveness will shrink the space for ‘root causes’.
In her paper on CVE, Maya Mirchandani mentions the case of Ashfaq Majeed (Kerala) who was radicalised solely on internet in 2016 and reaching Afghanistan. Like Fishman she calls for control of extremist propaganda online and preventing the misuse of internet. In the battle of ideas, prevention is better than cure.
By Ashok K Mehta
(The writer is a retired Major General of the Indian Army and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the revamped Integrated Defence Staff.)
Courtesy: Daily Pioneer
