Terrorism Archives - Page 14 of 17

January 8, 2019January 8, 2019 by John Wilson

Countering Extremism in the Digital Age

Source: Rand Corporation (2016)

The Global War on Terror has challenged Western conceptions of warfare. The days of clearly defined winners and losers amongst nation states, as seen in the world wars, are largely in the past.

Tomorrow’s winners and losers will be defined in much more blurred terms as ongoing battles of information and communication seek to win over the hearts and minds of people around the world.

The State Department has acknowledged that for any legitimate success to occur in the fight against terrorism, countering the propaganda of extremist groups like the Islamic State (IS) is critical. While entering the fight in the war of information is a massive step in furthering counterterrorism efforts, the State Department has not yet taken the steps necessary to match the surging campaigns of extremist networks, particularly IS.

The State Department first officially began this type of counterterror operation with the creation of the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC). The CSCC was active on social media, directly challenging IS profiles with counter-messaging while conducting various media campaigns such as ‘Think Again, Turn Away’.

Conceptually these were reasonable strategic maneuvers that attempted to challenge the cyber prominence of the IS’s media strategy as well as online recruitment efforts. However, what came to be considered tit-for-tat online trolling between low-level jihadists and the United States government likely emboldened and legitimized the IS.

The State Department would go on to restructure the CSCC, creating the Global Engagement Center (GEC), which is also tasked with addressing social media activities of nation states such as Russia. The GEC however is experiencing similar issues in conjunction with reported limited staffing and funding.

The IS media strategy has often been simplified by Westerners in an effort to de-legitimize the IS as a whole. However, this has led to a fundamental separation between our understanding of the IS propaganda campaign and the means by which we counter it. In order to truly combat a propaganda campaign, its purpose, narrative and mission must be understood.

Once these elements are comprehensively understood, a counter-narrative strategy must be implemented rather than a counter-messaging strategy. A successful counter-narrative strategy must address issues to include factors that IS relies on to recruit vulnerable individuals to their ranks: desires for purpose and belonging. A counter-narrative campaign must also be inclusive of the Muslim faith, understand local cultural concerns, and be conducted in a way that does not appear to be dictated by the West.

The CSCC did re-post relevant material from news outlets in the Arabic world in an effort to appear more representative of local cultures, as opposed to speaking purely as an American source. Beyond the limited scope of the CSCC and GEC efforts, several governments now deny terror networks a platform to circulate their propaganda.

This strategy places pressure on social media platforms to promptly delete extremist content and profiles. This strategy does slow the spread of propaganda, but does not provide a counter-narrative to what these groups are using to recruit and draw sympathy.

The State Department’s GEC has implemented one significant upgrade from its predecessor: one of the GEC’s core competency areas, ‘partnerships’, has the GEC develop partnerships with organizations, religious leaders, and community leaders to help engage with those at risk of becoming radicalized or to help those who are already.

One recommendation for a counter-narrative strategy proposes that the narrative must portray the IS as manipulative and as a failure, as opposed to promoting the often-observed idea that the group is tremendously dangerous. Any successful counter-narrative campaigns must be directed towards specific sub-audiences of those vulnerable to radicalization or those radicalized who are vulnerable to being deradicalized.

The IS has been the latest international terror network to capitalize on the ease of using the internet to communicate propaganda. Terror networks have become adept at using the internet to accelerate the radicalization process, share ideals, and develop support networks across the globe, all while remaining largely uncontested by the governments of the world.

The State Department must conduct systematic changes in the near future if there is to be hope for success in this war of ideas.

First, the State Department must see an increase in staffing to properly manage the overwhelming load of work that comes with fighting international terror propaganda on the internet.

Second, incorporating community and religious leaders will be essential to foster an image that this is not a counter-narrative strategy dictated solely by the United States government.

Third, the GEC, in conjunction with these community and religious figures, must jointly develop the counter-narrative strategy.

John Patrick Wilson is a Law Enforcement Professional as well as a Research Fellow at Rise to Peace.

John Wilson

risetopeace.org

January 3, 2019 by Rise to Peace

The Naxalite Insurgency

On October 30, 2018, a journalist and two policemen were killed in an ambush in Eastern Indian state of Chattisgarh. This attack is particularly notable given that it was carried out by the Naxalites, a group who has been responsible for a series of deadly attacks carried out against the Indian government, including one in 2010 which killed 76 police officers.

Unlike many other insurgent groups that are fighting in the 21st century, the Naxalites see themselves as fighting a Maoist struggle for liberation. To understand why a communist insurgent group still exists in India, it is important to understand the story of the Naxalites. The Naxalites emerged in the 1960s, when an aristocrat turned revolutionary named Charu Majumdar lead a branch of the Indian Communist Party. Unlike the rest of the Communist party, which generally supported the Marxist Leninism of the Soviet Union, Majumdar looked toward Mao with an emphasis on organizing the peasantry into a fighting force capable of withstanding oppression. This was best exemplified with one of their major slogans: “China’s Chairman is our Chairman.”

These efforts of rural organization culminated in the Naxalbari uprising of 1967, when groups of sharecroppers rebelled against landholders over harassment in the famed tea growing area of Darjeeling. Majumdar was soon arrested and later died in prison. With his death, the hope of a unified movement was lost as well. With the death of Mao in 1971, the rebels also lost a strong pillar of moral, (and possibly material) support as the People’s Republic of China began the gradual process of economic liberalization. These factors lead to a splintering of the movement, with over 140 groups claiming to be the rightful representatives of Maoist thought in India in the 1980s.

Beginning in the 1980s, however, violent Maoism began seeing a resurgence in Eastern India, especially in the provinces of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. This is largely due to the importance of growth of mining in these areas. This has been driven by a booming demand for coal and iron ore to fuel factories in both India and China. Many of the inhabitants of these areas have failed to see the profits of the industry, and work in dangerous conditions for little pay.

This sense of alienation is furthered by the fact that many of the inhabitants of these areas are Adivasi, a general term for members of indigenous groups in India. The assortment of tribes who inhabited these areas long lived as subsistence farmers and were left relatively disconnected from the rest of India. The mining boom deprived them of their previous livelihoods and thereby forces them to work in the mines for low pay. This makes them especially vulnerable to the pull of organizations such as the Naxalites.

Rise to Peace

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December 31, 2018January 2, 2019 by Caleb Septoff

ISIS Threat

Since ISIS’, or Daesh’s, ascension to power, following the chaos of the Syrian uprisings in 2011, the world has watched as these Islamists used increasingly brutal tactics to secure huge swaths of land in both Syria and Iraq. They targeted fragile, war-torn countries with low state capacity and worked to push their own agenda. The religious fundamentalists quickly gained international fame as they exploited the realm of social media to a new level, posting videos and creating multiple accounts on different platforms to attract followers from across the globe. However, the magnitude of their global attention eventually worked against the organization as the United States and other nations showed support and entered Syria for the sole purpose of extinguishing ISIS.

Over 30,000 airstrikes later and aggressive military policies by the United States, backed by around sixty-eight other countries, ISIS has lost most of its territory it formerly held in Iraq and Syria. Despite this, the group has managed to keep a small piece of land near the Syrian-Iraqi border for more than a year now. The plot of land is tucked around a quaint Syrian town known as Hajin in the Deir al-Zour province. Occasionally, militants still attempt to stage an attack outside of the small parcel of land they control, but even these attacks appear feeble and unorganized, like the last breath before they cease to exist any longer, unlike their prior attacks. Especially the attacks that took Europe by surprise in 2014 and 2015. However, it has been more than four years since Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Daesh, declared the caliphate and those attacks seem to be a distant memory to many. Today it appears to most of the world that ISIS is not only no longer a threat but has been eradicated from existence.

Maxwell B. Markusen, associate fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in D.C., spoke to the New York Timesand stated that this rhetoric commonly being used is destructive as it insinuates that ISIS is no longer a threat. Although the area they control has seriously diminished, this is not the case. ISIS’ lightning fast rise to the forefront of the world’s most feared organizations is mainly the result of the propaganda and recruitment arm that remains active. ISIS is currently broadcasting their videos and messages at a similar pace as they were when at the height of their power. There were more attacks in 2017 than in 2016 and although the numbers of successful attacks have gone down significantly, attempted attacks continue at a pace similar to that in 2015. Although their territory has diminished it is thought that they still retain around 30,000 members in total throughout Syria and Iraq, though these numbers cannot be confirmed. The American led fight to take Hajin, the last place ISIS officially operates from, is proving harder than anticipated, even with the help of the Syrian Democratic Forces. ISIS is pushed back against a corner and has no problem fighting like there is nothing to lose. They have been reported to use the civilians which has only slowed fighting further.

Recently, President Donald Trump tweeted a video statement where he declared, “we have beaten them, and we have beaten them badly. It’s time to bring our troops home…We won.” While many families will be rejoicing as their sons and daughters are sent home, one must wonder if pulling the estimated two thousand American troops out of Syria is the correct move. Not only is ISIS’ presence and influence still widely felt, it leaves only Russia, Iran and Hezbollah as the major players in the geopolitical center of the Middle East. Bordering Syria are five of the U.S. allies: Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, and Lebanon. None of these allies will appreciate the abrupt removal by the U.S. Once the U.S. leaves they give up their position of diplomatic leverage and forfeit it to the aforementioned countries still involved. The announcement came as a surprise, but will no doubt be greeted warmly by both Russia and Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria. Russia has long fought for sole influence over Syria and has long desired it as a military base for their naval and air forces. The Trump administrations own team seems to have been taken by surprise as well. Brett McGurk, the State Department’s Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, said at a briefingon December 11^th, “if we’ve learned one thing over the years, enduring defeat of a group like this means you can’t just defeat their physical space and then leave. You have to make sure the internal security forces are in place to ensure that those gains, security gains, are enduring.”

Haphazardly pulling troops out may seem like a good move after years of being stationed in a war zone, but McGurk is accurate in his assessment. The U.S. has on more than one occasion, think Afghanistan and Iraq, acted against unfit regimes or terrorist organizations and then quickly left soon after the fighting slowed. ISIS is not obliterated; they still exist and are actively recruiting new followers. Leaving a country without infrastructure or institutions to maintain peace will only result in the resurfacing of the movement. The age old saying, ‘history repeats itself’ will ring true if the U.S. chooses not to learn from its past. In this situation, the U.S. should not pull out all troops and leave the region void of its influence. Instead, the U.S. should focus on rebuilding what they have aided in destroying and use their influence to not only keep ISIS at bay but also to work with other nations, including Syria to rebuild the country and its institutions. This in the long run will leave less space for terrorists’ organizations such as ISIS to flourish as many of the capabilities to protect against extremism are found within strong infrastructure and institutions.

Caleb Septoff

www.risetopeace.org/about/mee-our-team/

in MENA / Rise to Peace blog 0 comments

December 8, 2018 by Kyle Chapman

Social Media and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism

Image result for charlottesville va unite the right

Far-right protestors at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, August 2017. Image credit: Anthony Crider.

In the United States, many would argue that one of the greatest threats to national security is terrorism, but its portrayal in media and politics has convinced most Americans that the threat only comes in the form of Islamic extremism. However, the threat of terrorism is diversifying. The number of domestic terrorists in the U.S. exhibiting ideological tendencies associated with right-wing extremism is increasing. Most recently, Robert Bowers killed eleven Jewish worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill, Pennsylvania on October 27, 2018. He faces 29 criminal charges and potentially the death penalty. Some have profiled the incident as the largest attack on the Jewish Community in the history of the United States- but Mr. Bowers is not the only extremist to engage in such activity as of late. Cesar Sayoc Jr., who this autumn mailed explosive devices to Hillary Clinton, George Soros, former president Barack Obama, and other prominent Democratic figures, was arrested in Florida and faces five federal criminal charges, including interstate transportation of an explosive, illegal mailing of explosives, making threats against former presidents, and assaulting federal officers.

Incidents such as these are increasingly common. In 2017, there were a total of 65 domestic terrorism incidents in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of these incidents involved individuals who exhibited anti-Semitic, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-government, or fascist motivations. The remainder of the attacks were driven by left-wing ideologies and Islamic extremism. To give further context, the number of global terrorism incidents saw a decline of almost 40 percent, going from about 17,000 attacks in 2014 to about 11,000 attacks in 2017. Meanwhile, incidents in the United States increased nearly 10% from 2016 to 2017. Even as the total number of global terrorism incidents has seen a great decline, the United States itself has seen a significant increase in domestic terrorism. Given the complex profiles of recent domestic terrorists, it may be difficult to pinpoint the reasoning behind why exactly they carry out the attacks. However, such analysis is critical, as it can help us learn to identify and thwart future attackers.

The rise in domestic terrorism, and specifically right-wing extremism, stems from multivarious motivations. Some attackers exhibited warning signs, such as suspicious social media activity; both Robert Bowers and Cesar Sayoc vented their frustrations on the Internet before carrying out acts of terrorism. For others, such as the Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock, who killed 59 people, the motivation was unclear and has yet to be discovered. The cases of Bowers and Sayoc clearly prove that social media companies are not doing enough to monitor their users’ content and alert authorities to potentially dangerous individuals who may pose a threat to society. Platforms such as Gab, the social media website that Bowers used to post anti-Semitic videos and other content, has a user base of nearly 800,000 people, many of whom politically identify as members of the far-right (Molina, 2018). Many of these individuals have been removed from other social media platforms for posting hate speech and other forms of obscenity in the past. After the incident at the Tree of Life Synagogue, Gab went offline and suspended numerous user accounts. Gab’s service provider, GoDaddy, found that Gab had violated its terms of service by allowing the content that encouraged and promoted the use of violence, and subsequently gave Gab 24 hours to find new service provider to host the website.

The case of Gab reveals many reasons as to why Bowers was not identified as a threat or referred to law enforcement. First, his posts were not identified as “threatening” by platform regulators. Second, his posts were not taken down, despite their clear containment of threatening speech. Third, Gab did not inform or collaborate with law enforcement authorities to alert them that Bowers could be a threat to society. However, Gab is not the only platform guilty of this. Sayoc also had exhibited significant social media usage before carrying out the attempted mail bombings. He had used Twitter months before, sending threatening tweets to George Soros and former Attorney General Eric Holder. Clearly, these cases highlight the need for social media platforms to adapt their current regulation of user content, as well as their collaboration with U.S. law enforcement. There seems to be a pattern with many domestic terrorists in using social media as a platform to vent their grievances. By identifying these grievances in a timely manner, countless lives may be saved.

Kyle Chapman

risetopeace.org

in Rise to Peace blog / United States 0 comments

November 21, 2018November 22, 2018 by Sonia Lay

Toy Soldiers on a Mission: The Training and Indoctrination of Children for Jihad

Image result for child jihadist

On September 26, a children’s show aired on Iran’s Channel 2 to commemorate the Iran-Iraq war. Translated by The Middle East Media Research Institute, it shows children of different ages dressed in conservative Muslim clothing and military uniforms while praising martyrdom and jihad. In the video, the young protagonists wear badges of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on their chests and sing a song about their fathers fighting in the Iranian army, willing to die “in the path of God”[1]– presenting a disturbing example of youth indoctrination.

Another recent example of early indoctrination comes from the Indonesian city of Probolinggo, where a kindergarten has been accused of promoting radicalism for dressing children in ISIL-style costumes during an independence day parade.[2]

It is widely known that training is a fundamental component in the strategy of extremist and terrorist groups. The basis for the conservation of the jihadist ideology is to find new proselytes and to plant the seed of hatred in the next generations of jihadis. However, the data reveals this phenomenon to be an increasingly alarming one.

According to a Secretary-General report on children and armed conflict in Nigeria, since 2009 at least 8,000 young soldiers have been recruited by Boko Haram and, by the end of 2016, their army included many boys between 10 and 18.[3] Disconcerting data also suggests that in 2017, the number of recruited children in Somalia (2,127), South Sudan (1,221), the Syrian Arab Republic (961) and Yemen (842) was still remarkably high.[4]

Image result for child jihadist

We are all well aware that socio-cultural backgrounds play a leading role in shaping peoples’ future attitudes towards violence, especially in the early years of life. The reason is simple: social groups pass values, customs, beliefs, and rules from one generation to another to ensure a degree of uniformity and the survival of dominant ideologies.

What we often forget is that the transmission of cultural heritage can be both conscious and unconscious, because youth both unintentionally absorb the habits of those around them and deliberately follow instructions given to them by family, schools, peers, and media. This is such an effective means of imparting violent ideology that the innocence of children has now become a matter of grave concern for all of us.

Children are undoubtedly more suggestible than adults; their brains are not yet equipped with knowledge consolidated by past learning processes and experiences. As a consequence, they are extremely receptive to any information which could warp their worldview. The condition of children used as spies and suicide attackers[5] clearly exemplifies the above-mentioned concept: during childhood, critical thinking faculties are underdeveloped, making it difficult for youth to evaluate risks and personally assess the information given to them by jihadis.

Furthermore, jihadi strategists are fully aware of the role emotions play in learning. For this reason, they design specific media content to manipulate children, including songs, cartoons, and games which offer children jihadi role models and spread extremist ideas.

In the face of all this, the outlook seems bleak- so what can we do to prevent children from being drawn to terrorism?

De-radicalization strategies should be targeted at children and primarily based upon human variability because there are different types of extremist movements and the motives involved in joining them vary from person to person. Presumably, no single program could cover them all. In the case of children, we have already discussed how the origins of their radicalization process mainly lies in those people that provide them with role models to identify with. In order to keep children away from violent extremism, it is therefore absolutely necessary to stop adults from supporting or becoming terrorists.

In this digital age, new media has also become a powerful tool for spreading terrorist narratives to children. However, reacting to this threat merely by carrying out cyber attacks or playing the blame game will not help us develop the most effective counter-strategies. To be efficient, any approach should include three main operations: providing an in-depth analysis of terrorist narratives, preparing counter-narratives able to foster intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding, and disseminating counter-narratives (especially through social media and learning institutions.) This will help to reduce the effectiveness of the radical messages children and youth are currently being shown.

Cultural changes require time and cooperation to effectively eradicate dangerous norms and beliefs. But growing the seeds of hope and tolerance will provide our society with a positive foundation for future generations, and it all begins with protecting the youth.

[1] Iranian TV Children’s Show: Standing Next to Missiles, Children Sing in Praise of Jihad and Martyrdom, 9-26-2018, https://www.memri.org/tv/iranian-tv-children-show-children-glorify-fathers-jihad-martyrdom.

[2] Kindergarten dresses children as jihadis for parade in Indonesia, 8-20-2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/20/kindergarten-dresses-children-as-jihadists-for-parade-in-indonesia.

[3] Cf. Report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in Nigeria (S/2017/304), 4-6-2017, p.6, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/N1709682.pdf

[4] Cf. Report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict (A/70/836-S/2016/360), 5-16-2018, p.2, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/N1815109.pdf

[5] Cf. UNODC, Handbook on children recruited and exploited by terrorist and violent extremist groups, Wien, 2017, p.11, https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/Child-Victims/Handbook_on_Children_Recruited_and_Exploited_by_Terrorist_and_Violent_Extremist_Groups_the_Role_of_the_Justice_System.E.pdf